Media Timeline

NEWSPAPERS

-1436: 1^st January, Invention of the printing press

-1665: The first true newspaper published in Britain was the Oxford Gazette.

-1702: March 11^th in London, the very first daily newspaper, the Daily Courant, was published by Edward Mallet.

-1801: The Courier, it was established as the Dundee Courier & Argus, a newspaper published by D. C. Thomson & Co. in Dundee, Scotland.

-1855: 29^th June, The Daily Telegraph was first published on, owned by Arthur Sleigh. The Daily Telegraph became the organ of the middle class and could claim the largest circulation in the world in 1890 and in 1878 when it turned Unionist.

-1860 to 1910: considered a 'golden age' of newspaper publication, with technical advances in printing and communication combined with a professionalisation of journalism and the prominence of new owners.

-1896: The Daily Mail was first published by Lord Northcliffe, it became Britain's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. The Daily Mail was Britain's first daily newspaper aimed at the newly literate "lower-middle class market” and it was the first British paper to sell a million copies a day.  It was, from the outset, a newspaper for women, being the first to provide features especially for them, and is the only British newspaper whose readership is more than 50 % female, at 53 %.

-1930: Over two-thirds of the population read a newspaper every day, with "almost everyone" taking one on Sundays.

-1930: The Morning Star was founded as the Daily Worker, organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB). Is a left-wing British daily tabloid newspaper with a focus on social and trade union issues.

-2000s: The News International phone hacking scandal is an ongoing controversy involving the News of the World and other British newspapers published by News International, a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation. Employees of the newspaper were convicted of engaging in phone hacking, police bribery, and exercising improper influence in the pursuit of publishing stories. Advertiser boycotts contributed to the closure of the News of the World on 10 July, ending 168 years of publication. The Leveson Inquiry was a judicial public inquiry into the British press; a series of public hearings were held throughout 2011 and 2012. The Inquiry published the Leveson Report in November 2012, which reviewed the general culture and ethics of the British media, and made recommendations for a new, independent, body to replace the existing Press Complaints Commission, which would be recognised by the state through new laws.

-21st century: many newspapers saw a rapid decline in circulation. The sector's advertising revenues fell 15% during 2015 alone, with estimates of a further 20% drop over the course of 2016. ESI ceased print of The Independent that year- the newspaper having suffered a 94% drop in sales from its peak in the 1980s. The decline of the newspaper industry has been linked to the rise of internet usage in Britain.

 RADIO

-1897: On July 2nd 1897 Guglielmo Marconi was awarded his first radio communications patent in the UK. Marconi came to the UK from Italy. Here he was introduced to the GPO's (BT's forerunner) chief engineer William Preece, who supported him during his early years.  In 1896 Marconi successfully sent a wireless signal between two buildings owned by the GPO and the following year he was awarded Patent 12,039 for 'Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefor.' Marconi never signed a formal agreement with the GPO and he established a private company in 1897.

-1898: The first Radio Broadcast.

-1899: Marconi establishes first radio link between England and France.

-1922:  The British Broadcasting Company began its first radio broadcast. (18 October) The birth of British radio comes with the formation of the British Broadcasting Company. This includes General Electric and the Marconi Company, which had developed the first experimental radio station, 2MT, in 1920. (14 November) First BBC broadcasts from London.

-1923: The first edition of the Radio Times is printed.

-1927: Following the royal charter, the British Broadcasting Company becomes the British Broadcasting Corporation.

-1929: The Daventry transmitter, the UK’s first long wave transmitter, opens. The location is selected because it covers the maximum land area.

-1932: In September the BBC moves to Broadcasting House in Central London. In December the BBC launches the Empire Service, which is known as the World Service today. To mark the moment, King George V is the first British monarch to make a radio broadcast. 

-1939: On September 1 Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain broadcasts to the nation that Britain is at war with Germany. This is followed by a broadcast from King George VI on September 3rd, the first evening of the war.

-1945: The Light Programme launches for light entertainment programming, followed by the BBC Third Programme in 1946.

-1950: The number of radio licences issued peaks at 11.8 million.

-1955: The BBC begins broadcasting in FM (frequency modulation) for the first time. It is superior to AM (amplitude modulation), which is susceptible to interference in bad weather.

-1954: The Regency TR-1, the world’s first transistor radio, is unveiled. The first truly portable radio is a huge success, changing the way people listen to radio. Other manufacturers included the Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation (later Sony) made them.

-1954: The number of radio receivers in the world exceeds the number of newspapers printed daily.

-1958: Sound effects unit the BBC Radiophonic Workshop is formed, residing at rooms 13 and 14 of Maida Vale studios. Run by Desmond Briscoe, it pioneers the use of electronic music, creating theme tunes such as that of Doctor Who in 1963.

-1964: ‘Pirate radio’ stations Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta begin broadcasting from ships in the North Sea. The pirate radio audience is between 10 and 15 million in 1965.

-1967: The BBC restructures its offering, launching Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. In August the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act makes pirate radio stations illegal.

-1971: Radio-only licences are abolished as the television audience grows.

-1973: Commercial radio stations begin broadcasting for the first time, starting with LBC, then Capital Radio.

-1978: An international agreement on radio frequencies means many BBC radio wavelengths are changed to improve reception.

-1980s: The availability of cheap 50W transmitters means it is a lot easier for people to create their own radio stations, so there is a huge increase in pirate radio stations. At one point these outnumber legal stations.

-1986: In Europe, FM radio stations begin to use the subcarrier signal of FM radio to transmit digital data. This RDS (radio data system) is used to transmit messages on display screens to radios.

-1988: The first Radio Data System (RDS) car radio is installed in the UK.

-1990: Radio 5 launches – the first new network in 23 years.

-1995: The BBC begins the UK’s first digital radio transmissions with Radio 1-5, Parliament and Sports Plus.

-1996: It is the birth of internet radio in the UK, as Virgin Radio becomes Europe’s first radio station to broadcast online.

-1999: Digital One, the UK’s first national commercial digital radio multiplex launches with five channels including Planet Rock, Talk Radio, Classic FM, Virgin Radio and Core. The first DAB tuner goes on sale in the UK.

-2001: VideoLogic (now Pure) launches the Pure DRX-601EX, the world’s first portable digital radio. It costs £499.

-2002: The BBC launches a series of digital-only channels including BBC 1Xtra, 4 Xtra and 6 Music.

-2009: The Digital Britain report recommends the switch from FM to digital should take place in 2015.

-2013: The government delays the FM switch-off, because not enough people own DAB radio sets.

-2015: Figures from Ofcom show more Brits are using digital platforms (TV, internet, DAB) to listen to the radio. 39.6% of total radio hours listened to are through digital platforms. Analogue is 54.3%, but declining. Ofcom’s 2015 Communications Market Report, nine in ten UK adults listen to the radio each week. We listen for an average of 21.4 hours a week, but the way we do this has changed.

-2016: Ofcom's Communications Report, found digital radio use is increasing - accounting for 45.5% of total listening hours in Q3 2016. Digital refers to DAB, internet radio and radio delivered by TV.

FILMS

-1888: The first moving picture was shot in Leeds by Louis Le Prince and the first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by British inventor William Friese Greene, who patented the process in 1890.

-The first people to build and run a working 35 mm camera in Britain were Robert W. Paul and Birt Acres. They made the first British film Incident at Clovelly Cottage in February 1895, shortly before falling out over the camera's patent.

-1895: December 28^th, Motion Pictures created.

-1902 the earliest colour film in the world was made; like other films made at the time, it is of everyday events. In 2012 it was found by the National Media Museum in Bradford after lying forgotten in an old tin for 110 years. The previous title for earliest colour film, using the Kinemacolour process, was thought to date from 1909 and was actually an inferior method. The re-discovered films were made by pioneer Edward Raymond Turner from London who patented his process on 22 March 1899.

-1903: Frank Mottershaw of Sheffield produced the film A Daring Daylight Robbery, which launched the chase genre.

-1911: the Ideal Film Company was founded in Soho, London, distributing almost 400 films by 1934, and producing 80.

-1913: stage director Maurice Elvey began directing British films, becoming Britain's most prolific film director, with almost 200 by 1957.

-1914: Elstree Studios was founded, and acquired in 1928 by German-born Ludwig Blattner, who invented a magnetic steel tape recording system that was adopted by the BBC in 1930.

-1940s : Thought to be the "golden age" of British cinema.

-Although the earliest British films were of everyday events, the early 20th century saw the appearance of narrative shorts, mainly comedies and melodramas. 

-2009: British films grossed around $2 billion worldwide and achieved a market share of around 7% globally and 17% in the United Kingdom. UK box-office takings totalled £1.1 billion in 2012, with 172.5 million admissions

-The ONS figures show that since 2014 the economic value of the UK’s film, TV and music industries has grown 72.4%, compared with just 8.5% across the European Union.

This boom is being fuelled by Hollywood studios increasingly choosing to shoot big-budget films in the UK, attracted by significant government tax breaks, as well as access to top-class on- and off-screen talent and studio facilities. 

-UK film, TV and music activities have grown by 72.4% since 2014, outpacing growth in other EU countries.

ADVERTISEMENTS

-First print ad is published. William Caxton printed ads for a book and tacked them to church doors in England.

-Newspapers increasingly made their profit from selling advertising. In the 1850s and 1860s the ads appealed to the increasingly affluent middle-class that sought out a variety of new products. The advertisements announced new health remedies as well as fresh foods and beverages. The latest London fashions were featured in the regional press. The availability of repeated advertising permitted manufacturers to develop nationally known brand names that had a much stronger appeal than generic products.

MAGAZINES

1476: William Caxton establishes England’s first printing enterprise in Westminster. 1848: First WH Smith railway bookstall. The company had been founded in 1792 by Henry Walton Smith and his wife Anna in Little Grosvenor Street, London - as HW Smith. It reversed the initials in 1846 to become WH Smith & Son because Henry's son was William Henry - and his son had the same name! Illustrated London News publisher Herbert Ingram starts a daily newspaper, The London Telegraph. Illustrated London News depicts the Christmas tree of Albert and Queen Victoria, so popularising an idea that had been seen as a Germanic import 1855: Illustrated London News published Christmas special with colour cover produced using coloured wood blocks. Selling 130,000 copies a week - 10 times the daily sale of The Times. Coloured News is first paper to use colour: closes after a month 1863: Illustrated London News selling 300,000 copies a week.

1875: UK Trade Marks Registration Act

1891: The Strand magazine launched as a monthly in UK and US by George Newnes. Based in Burleigh St, on the north side of the Strand opposite the Savoy. Magazine used super-calendered paper, wood engravings, photographic line blocks and half-tones. Colour covers in the US. Publishes Sherlock Holmes story, 'A Scandal in Bohemia' in July 1891 issue

1906: John Bull launched by Odhams. A penny weekly that was to become the UK's largest-selling magazine, boasting a circulation (very probably exaggerated) of 1,350,000 on its front cover in 1916. Although highly patriotic, it took an anti-establishment stance, championing grievances of troops in the first world war, even though this was illegal, under mercurial editor Horatio Bottomley

1924: Sunday Express is first UK newspaper to publish a crossword

1928: Baird beams TV image from UK to US

1929: The BBC launches The Listener as a weekly review of radio programmes (closed 1991). Harper's Bazaar launched in UK.

1930: The Times carries its first crossword; as does The Listener and Country Life (February 1)

1931: Audit Bureau of Circulations established in UK covering national and regional papers. First colour photo in a British newspaper, The Times.

1934: Radio Times overtakes John Bull as the biggest selling magazine, with sales of 2m a week, a position it would hold until 1993

1936: BBC launches the world's first regular television service from Alexandra Palace in London. The Radio Times runs a "Television Number" in London edition only. Incorporated Society of British Advertisers publishes 'The Readership of Newspapers and Periodicals' based on 80,000 interviews

1990: BBC/Redwood launches Good Food, which takes sector by storm. Similar effect with range of titles such as Gardeners' World and Top Gear. Also some high-profile failures, such as Tomorrow's World. Other publishers, especially IPC, were livid, claiming the magazines had millions of pounds' worth of free TV advertising.

1993: Association of Publishing Agencies founded in UK.

2002: John Brown Citrus wins contract to publish satellite broadcaster Sky’s customer magazine, the UK's highest circulating magazine (5,183,964 copies) from Redwood - and becomes biggest company in the field

2003: Saturday's Daily Mirror scraps female-oriented M and The Look magazine supplements in favour of We Love Telly and Football Confidential. M once marketed itself as the biggest weekly women's magazine.

The Illustrated London News relaunched as a monthly by ILN Group.

2008: News of the World relaunches its supplement as Fabulous, ‘Britain’s biggest weekly glossy’.

TELEVISION

Television in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising.

1920s

26 January 1926: First public demonstration of television to members of the Royal Institution by John Logie Baird in his London Laboratory.

24–27 May 1927: Baird demonstrates long distance transmission of television pictures over telephone lines from London to Glasgow (438 miles).

20 September 1927: Baird makes first electronic image recordings onto ordinary 78 rpm gramophone records. He called this system “Phonovision”.

30 December 1927: Baird demonstrates “Noctovision” (infra-red television) to the Royal Institution.

8 February 1928: Baird successfully transmits television pictures across the Atlantic.

3 July 1928: Baird demonstrates colour television.

10 August 1928: Baird demonstrates stereoscopic (3D) television.

5 March 1929: Baird broadcasts television using the BBC’s London transmitter.

30 September 1929: Baird begins regular experimental 30-line television broadcasts. Because there is only one radio transmitter available, sound and vision are transmitted alternately for 2 minutes each.

1930s

14 July 1930: First British television drama: Pirandello’s The Man with a Flower in his Mouth.

22 August 1932: The BBC takes over programme-making for the 30-line television service.

September 1932: EMI secretly demonstrate their first electronic television camera.

24 January 1934: EMI demonstrates a workable electronic television camera. They name their camera the ‘Emitron’.

2 November 1936: BBC Television begins broadcasting regular high-definition programmes from Alexandra Palace to the London area. The non-compatible Baird and Marconi-EMI systems are used on alternate weeks.

1 September 1939: British television is shut down immediately at the advent of WWII. It is estimated that there are 20,000 TV sets in Britain at this time.

1940s

7 June 1946: BBC television re-opens after the war.

July-August 1948: London hosts the 1948 Summer Olympics, the first Olympic tournament to be broadcast to home television.

1950s

27 August 1950: First live link from the continent (Calais to London) lays the foundation for the later Eurovision network.

12 October 1951: BBC TV North transmitter opens, serving the North of England.

15 January 1952: BBC TV Scotland transmitter opens.

2 June 1953: Biggest outside broadcast to date: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

21 July 1955: BBC TV Northern Ireland transmitter opens. 95% of the UK can now receive BBC television.

October 1958: Videotape recording starts in Britain; prior to this the only way to record programmes has been to use film (telerecording).

1960s

16 April 1964: First live link from Japan via Telstar II.

2 May 1965: First trans-Atlantic satellite television transmission from the USA is made via the geosynchronous satellite Intelsat I, nicknamed “Early Bird”.

3 March 1966: The Phase Alternating Line (PAL) colour television system is officially adopted for the UK.

1 July 1967: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC2.

July–August 1968: New ITV contracts start: new companies include London Weekend Television, Thames Television, and Yorkshire Television.

15 November 1969: Regular colour transmissions begin on BBC1 and ITV.

21 July 1969: First live television pictures of men on the moon.

1970s

January 1971: The Open University begins broadcasting from the old BBC studios at Alexandra Palace.

1980s

29 July 1981: Biggest outside broadcast to date: the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer (750 million viewers in 74 countries).

1 January 1982: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Central Television, TVS, and TSW.

2 November 1982: Channel 4 television begins broadcasting.

17 January 1983: BBC Breakfast Time (breakfast television) starts.

2 November 1983: TV-AM breakfast television starts.

6 February 1989: Launch of Sky television (satellite television provider)

1990s

29 April 1990: Launch of British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) (satellite television broadcaster).

2 November 1990: Sky and BSB merge to form BSkyB.

1 January 1993: New ITV contracts start. New companies include: Carlton Television, Meridian Broadcasting, West Country Television and GMTV. Old companies lost in the franchise change include: TV-AM, TVS, TSW and Thames.

31 March 1997: Channel 5 begins broadcasting.

1 October 1998: BSkyB begins digital TV transmissions from a new generation of satellites as Sky Digital.

2000s

22 October 2002: UK’s Freeview free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service officially begins

2 February 2004: Merger of Granada Television and Carlton Television is completed. The new company is named ITV plc.

27 May 2006: The BBC begins broadcasting in high-definition (HDTV) on their new subscription channel BBC HD.

17 October 2007: The gradual switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts begins in Whitehaven. The last regions will be switched off in 2012.

25 December 2007: The BBC launches iPlayer, an internet service for watching previously aired TV shows.

January 2008: Warner Home Video announces that it will support only Blu-ray Discs, setting off a chain reaction in favour of the format.

6 May 2008: The Freesat satellite service starts, including the first non-subscription HDTV channels.

2010s

30 March 2010: Freeview HD is launched across the UK, featuring the new Channel 4 HD.

1 October 2010: Sky launches Europe’s first stereoscopic (3DTV) television channel.

28 February 2011: Product placement is permitted on UK television for the first time.

2012–2013: The BBC sells Television Centre, and moves most of its operations from Television Centre to other BBC sites, particularly Broadcasting House and MediaCityUK in Salford. ITV plc also relocates many of its studios and operations from the Old Granada Studios to MediaCityUK, including the Coronation Street set.

4 January 2012: Netflix launches its movie and TV streaming service in the UK.

July-August 2012: London hosts the 2012 Olympics, and the BBC wins the UK contract to broadcast all Olympic tournaments up to 2020. Coverage of the Paralympic Games is broadcast on Channel 4 for the first time.

24 October 2012: The switch-off of all analogue terrestrial TV broadcasts completes in Northern Ireland.

2013–2016: Phase one of the Local Digital Television Programme Services (L-DTPS) sees new local television services launch in 21 local areas, licenced by Ofcom.

14 June 2013: The British Audience Research Board (BARB) announces it will include online viewing through catch-up services in its official viewing figures.

1 August 2015: Launch of BT Sports Ultra HD, the first 4K Ultra HD channel in the UK.

16 February 2016: BBC Three becomes online-only.

1 September 2016: A TV Licence becomes a requirement for watching BBC iPlayer online.

1 January 2017: The BBC commences its renewed Charter, and from April Ofcom becomes the first external regulator for the BBC.