Sport, Social Class and the Inter-war BBC 1922-39: A Study of Reithian Employment Policies through the Social Theory of Pierre Bourdieu

This thesis explores the history of BBC radio sport from the founding of the monopoly broadcasting company in 1922 to the end of 1939 from the perspective of social class. The sociological thought of Pierre Bourdieu is applied as a tool of analysis throughout. The work first uncovers a Reithian system of staff recruitment based on the possession by individuals of accumulated social and cultural capital, principally via attendance at public schools and Oxford or Cambridge universities. Then, via a rigorous investigation of personal biographies, archival documents held at the BBC Written and Sound Archive, staff memoirs, Radio Times articles and programme notes, the thesis demonstrates the extended nature of this system in the realm of BBC radio sports output at both national and regional levels. As it traces its path through the 1920s and 1930s in a study of continuity and change, it finds that only minor alterations were made to the system by the outbreak of the Second World War. The inclusion of a case study of the first live sports running commentary in January 1927 points up the definitively elitist social processes at work in constructing BBC sports programming.