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Introduction In May 1932, the British Broadcasting Corporation moved its headquarters from the cramped, makeshift studios of Savoy Hill to a gleaming new purpose-built fortress on Portland Place: Broadcasting House. Above the entrance, a sculpture by Eric Gill depicted Shakespeare’s Prospero sending the spirit Ariel out into the world. The symbolism was deliberate and profound. Prospero, the magician of intellect and control, represented the BBC’s Director-General, John Reith. Ariel, the invisible spirit of the air, represented the medium of radio itself. This stone facade hid a radical experiment. While historians have exhaustively chronicled the BBC’s political and institutional history, less…