Origins and History
The origins of the service lie in pre-World War II plans to disperse BBC staff to facilities such as Wood Norton to guarantee due functioning of the corporation if cities such as London, Belfast, Glasgow and Edinburgh were attacked by the Luftwaffe.
In the post-war era, plans were revised so that the Wartime Broadcasting Service would have coped with a nuclear strike by installing 54 low powered transmitters and keeping (what remained of) the main transmitter network in reserve, in case Soviet bombers used them to home in on targets. Although vague, plans from the mid-1950s were to provide both a national and regional radio service 24 hours a day (mirroring peacetime BBC operations at the time) with the objective of “to provide instruction, information and encouragement as far as practical by means of guidance, news and diversion to relieve stress and strain”. The word "diversion" may have implied entertainment, which was to be provided by records and pre-recorded programmes. BBC executives drafted a schedule made up of music, drama, comedy, and religious programmes to be broadcast over a period of 100 days after a nuclear attack on the United Kingdom.
By the end of the decade, existing transmitters had been fitted with emergency diesel generators and fallout protection.
From the 1980s until the end of the Cold War, the BBC planned to broadcast for only a few hours a day and for a few minutes each hour, the intention being to save batteries in people's radios. There was to be no entertainment content for this reason and partially so that official messages could get through. With the end of the Cold War, the BBC deactivated the studios and emergency transmitter networks in 1993 as surplus to requirements. Many of these studios have become exhibits in bunkers, like the Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker, which have now been converted into museums.
Under the Broadcasting Act 1980, the government still has the legal right to take over editorial control of both the BBC and what was called the Independent Broadcasting Authority in time of a national emergency.
Read more about this topic: Wartime Broadcasting Service
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