This collection of audience research reports covers the period 1937-c.1950, and presents the early research of the BBC’s pioneering Listener Research Department (LRD) into wireless listening in Britain nationwide and at a regional level. From the controversial founding of the Department in 1936, this first part takes in the turbulent years of the Second World War through to the early post-war period leading up to launch of Britain's first national television channel. This part reproduces the entire available collection of weekly Audience Summaries, together with the weekly then daily Listening Barometers. Also included are the Audience Reaction Reports on specific programmes and Special Reports on particular themes or issues for the period, as well as some key policy documents produced by the LRD during these years, tracing the early development of what has come to be known as market research within the BBC.
During the Second World War, listener research took on a new urgency as the BBC became an indispensable part of life on the Home Front. The LRD’s wartime audience research, reproduced here for the first time, provides crucial insights into the listening habits and cultural preferences of the British people at this time, as well as detailed listener responses to some of the key radio programmes and personalities of the era, from ITMA and The Brains Trust to Winston Churchill and William Joyce, the voice of Nazi propaganda better known as Lord Haw-Haw. Through its special reports on topics ranging from news readers’ accents and evening listening habits to listeners’ views about Russia, this first part provides a unique and revealing window onto the behaviour, attitudes and preoccupations of the British people at a key moment in their history.
