News and Events

Hidden history of TV and Radio at BU

27 October 2008

Hidden archives spanning 50 years of independent TV and Radio History have now arrived at BU.

The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) archive formerly stored at Ofcom, the communications regulator, has now become part of the growing and prominent archive collection within our Centre for Broadcasting History Research.

Thousands of boxes containing files relating to the development and regulation of both independent television (ITV) and independent local radio (ILR) have been transferred to our library.

The contents of the archive provides a witness to the influence and impact of political, social, technological and cultural change upon the UK broadcasting industry, from the 1950s until the early 1990s.

Dr Hugh Chignell, Deputy Director for the Centre for Broadcasting History Research, says: “The IBA archive is a fantastic resource for scholars, especially in the growing field of media and communications studies and history, and may also be of immense interest to today’s broadcasting industry, facing similar issues with regards to deregulation, local programming and media fragmentation.”

Tony Stoller, radio historian, former regulator and BU Visiting Fellow adds: "The ITA and IBA papers will be an essential source for those writing social and political histories of these years, from the breaking of the BBC monopoly of television in 1956 right through to the reshaping of broadcasting by Margaret Thatcher in 1990."

Early papers cover the governance of commercial television, then regulated by the Independent Television Authority (ITA). The arrival of commercial radio in 1973 led to the creation of the Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to regulate both mediums, until the Broadcasting Act 1990 was introduced.