Information & Christianity

"The central institution of [British] national culture" last week underwent a significant change. After nearly four years as director general of the BBC, liberal, charming Frederick Ogilvie resigned the job and was succeeded by two men: a hard-driving business executive, Robert Foot, and a Roman Catholic gentleman of long BBC experience, Sir Cecil Graves.

Foot's job: to achieve something like esprit de corps among BBC's 10,000 low-paid employes while at the same time linking BBC more closely to the Ministry of Information--i.e., the Churchill Government. This had been in prospect for months. It was viewed with alarm last November even by the London Times, which pointed out that BBC could be an unequaled instrument for maintaining the authority of the party in power. Last week, after Winston Churchill had triumphed again in the House of Commons, nobody was alarmed.

Graves's job: programs. BBC's traditional propriety and dullness have been broken regularly in the last few years by flashes of brilliant radio work, which Sir Cecil may or may not be the man to make more frequent. Latest and boldest example : a serial entitled The Man Born To Be a King by ardent Church of Englander Dorothy Sayers ("Lord Peter Wimsey"). Because in the Sayers radio dramatization colloquial English is spoken and because her Christ speaks, BBC caught it last month from offended Christians of the Lord's Day Observance Society (whose previous intervention killed Sunday theater performances for the services). Upheld by the clergy of its advisory committee, BBC went ahead with the series.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.