BBC Listener Research Department Reports, 1937-c.1950

This collection contains Audience Research Reports compiled by the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) Listener Research Department (LRD) between 1937 and 1950. The reports analyse wireless listening habits on both a national and regional level, representing the BBC’s earliest foray into market research. Of particular interest are the reports covering the LRD’s wartime audience research. These demonstrate how the BBC became an invaluable source of information and point of influence for the government. This collection therefore provides a unique insight into the cultural preferences of the British public during the mid-20^th century. 

Notes: (1) This collection is accompanied by an online guide, written by Siân Nicholas; (2) To help with searching, optical character recognition (OCR) software has been used on the scanned images of the archived documents, and the resultant uncorrected text has been associated to most images in this collection. The quality of the OCR output varies, depending on the clarity of the typeface, which are often carbon copies of the originals, using relatively low-grade paper and ink available during the austere war and post-war years.