Simon J. Potter - This is the BBC: Entertaining the Nation, Speaking for Britain, 1922-2022

I wrote much of this book during the COVID-19 pandemic when, like many other people, I spent a lot of time locked down at home. The everyday routines and social encounters I had taken for granted all suddenly stopped. Radio, television, and the Internet became crucial links with the world outside my home. More than any other broadcaster, it was the BBC that I turned to during those strange days, weeks, and months of social isolation. As a result, I witnessed the BBC move into an operating mode that it is always ready, though seldom required, to adopt: acting as the voice of the nation, and also of the British state. I was not alone in this experience. On 23 March 2020, 28 million people turned to BBC One to watch the prime minister, Boris Johnson, announce the imposition of lockdown. Almost two months later, on 10 May, 18.8 million viewers watched BBC One when Johnson explained plans for the easing of the initial restrictions. Throughout the pandemic, the prime minister, alongside cabinet ministers and civil servants, used the BBC to provide guidance, answer questions, and address the nation.

During the pandemic, many people also turned to the BBC as a source of trusted information, at a time when speculation and fake news were fuelling anxieties. On a national basis, BBC news reports, on radio, television, and online, worked explicitly to illustrate the consequences to individuals, communities, and the National Health Service of non-compliance with lockdown restrictions. On programmes like BBC Ones News at Ten, correspondents showed viewers the crisis developing in hospitals and interviewed doctors and nurses, who warned what would happen if the healthcare system became overwhelmed. BBC foreign correspondents explained how other countries were dealing, or failing to deal, with the pandemic, and detailed the human consequences. Yet journalists and editors also tried to communicate a balanced view of the risks, avoiding scaremongering and quashing rumours. This approach may have helped generate support for the UKs COVID-19 vaccination programme, muting the hesitancy and anti-vaxxer opposition that was expressed much more forcefully in some comparable countries.

As lockdown eased at different rates and in varying ways across the UK, the BBCs formidable regional news operation played an important role in explaining which restrictions were still in force locally. Few other media outlets were able to work at this level, as many commercial operators had already shut down unprofitable local news outlets. And throughout the crisis, BBC newsreaders and journalists exhorted the nation to come together and endure. Every week during lockdown they devoted attention to the Clap for Our Carers, encouraging viewers to participate by standing outside their homes to applaud all those working to care for others. This was a feel-good story, but also a way to help ease the anxiety and isolation that many were experiencing during the pandemic. Crucially, it was also part of an overt drive to build national unity, a role that has always been at the heart of the BBCs operations and remains central to its vision of public service broadcasting.