The birth of the broadcasting industry in the United Kingdom is intrinsically tied to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Started in the early 1920s by a consortium of equipment manufacturers as little more than a tool to increase the sales of radio receivers, the BBC became to many in Britain and elsewhere a synonym for high-quality programming and excellence in independent news reporting. Furthermore, its institutional arrangement as a public broadcasting corporation funded by a license fee collected on all viewers and the ideological foundations of its public interest mission became the archetype – at least in statute, though often not in practice – for the establishment of broadcasting operators in many other countries. In Britain, however, the BBC was from the start a controversial institution. But for all the public debate and governmental reviews endured, the BBC has shown remarkable resilience as a dominant force in British broadcasting. In many ways, the development of digital TV in Britain has to be understood within the peculiar history of this corporation and the political efforts to redefine its role in face of the societal and technological changes in Britain since the early 1920s.

The BBC originated from the aspiration of equipment manufacturers such as the Marconi Company to exploit the commercial opportunities made possible by technological developments in radio technology. Until the end of World War I, radio was only used in point-to-point applications by the military.