The BBC is often portrayed by critical commentators as a monolith, inherently biased and strictly regulated from within. This characterisation both denies the agency of its workers, and deserves further investigation.
This talk considers the BBC in the 1970s in Bristol and London, as government intervention in the Corporation increased, particularly over the representation of the conflict in Ireland. At the same time control over programme content was increased by the casualisation of programme makers’ employment, part of a long-term trend towards privatisation of programme-making. These pressures inspired resistance amongst BBC employees in several forms, through trade unions, covert groups producing critical (and humorous) underground publications and ultimately refusals. These activities were all undertaken in an environment of cold war institutional blacklisting and spying on BBC workers.
Lucy Goodison and Colin Thomas were both working for the Corporation at this time.
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