This is a history of broadcasting and its impact on modern life in Britain from its origins in the 1920s to the outbreak of the Second World War. Its concerns are with programmes and their makers and with the audiences for which they were made. It is a pioneering work of cultural and social history.

Paddy Scannell was educated at Ratcliffe and Wadham College, Oxford. He is one of the founding editors of the journal Media Culture and Society.

David Cardiff at Eton and New College, Oxford. Both have worked since the late sixties, at the University of Central London, teaching media studies in the School of Communication, and have written many articles on broadcasting.