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BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK

communities all over the world as well as for English-speaking listeners in foreign countries. It includes many programmes taken from the BBC’s home services, and is on the air for 21 hours in every 24. (b) Special Services directed to the Commonwealth in English and other languages. (c) Services directed to foreign countries, mainly broadcast in the language of the country addressed. The BBC’s news services have established a great reputation for objectivity and integrity. Every day nearly 100 news broadcasts are directed to oversea listeners in some 45 languages. (d) The Transcription Service provides recorded programmes in English (talks, drama, features, music, etc.) which are distributed principally to radio organizations throughout the Commonwealth and in the United States, and to broadcasting stations of the Armed Forces overseas. It also produces programmes in foreign languages. Oversea Offices. The BBC maintains oversea offices in Berlin, Cairo, New Delhi, New York, Paris, Singapore, Sydney and Toronto. Their purpose is to meet the programme requirements of the Home and External Services, to encourage local stations to rebroadcast BBC transmissions and transcription recordings and to disseminate information about the BBC External Services. Apart from the oversea offices, the BBC maintains a high-power short wave relay station for South-East Asia, at Singapore (Tebrau). Television Experiments in television broadcasting started in Britain in the autumn of 1929, and in November 1936 the BBC began to give from Alexandra Palace the first public service of high definition television in any part of the world. By September 1939 (when the Alexandra Palace station was closed down for military reasons) the programme technique had made considerable progress and the number of receiving sets was approximately 20,000. The Television Service from Alexandra Palace was reopened in June 1946 and a second transmitter at Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham, came into action in December 1949, relaying the Alexandra Palace programmes. By December 1952 five high-power transmitting stations were in operation: Alexandra Palace covering London and the Home Counties; Sutton Coldfield covering the Midlands; Holme Moss covering the North of England; Kirk o’ Shotts covering Central Scotland; and Wenvoe covering South Wales and parts of the West of England. These stations make television accessible to about four-fifths of the population of the United Kingdom and form the main part of the BBC’s plan for a national television coverage. In June 1953 the Director-General of the BBC, Sir Ian Jacob, announced that during the remaining nine years of the current charter the BBC hoped to complete five mediumpower stations; to rebuild the London station with higher power; and to erect a further eight low-power stations in the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, East Anglia, south-east England, west Wales, Cumberland, Inverness, and Londonderry. This would result in effective television coverage for 97 per cent of the population of the United Kingdom. In July 1953 the Government announced its agreement to an immediate start on these projects and to the expansion of very high frequency sound services to ensure better sound reception. By January 1955 it is hoped that new medium-power television stations will have been set up at Aberdeen, Belfast, the Isle of Wight, Plymouth, and Pontop Pike (in the county of Durham), and also low-power stations to serve the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. These developments will make BBC television available to some 90 per cent of the population.