John Reith, the first Director-General of the BBC, was intensely high-minded. A Scottish Presbyterian, he imbued the organisation with a sense of seriousness and moral purpose which endured long after he left the role of DG in the 1930s. The adjective “Reithian”, still in occasional use today, was coined to refer to his emphasis on high culture, intellectualism and probity.
It would be a stretch to say that Reith’s vision still animates the Corporation, as it enters its second century. Starting in the 1960s, “Auntie” allied herself with the social and sexual revolution then underway, slowly at first and then faster and faster. Nowadays no-one bats an eyelid at bad language, sexual content, and violence that would have caused a national outcry not very long ago. Such is the salami-slicing process by which societies are transformed.
