Long-distance radio broadcasting might have become a very important and successful tool of colonial administration had it been invented thirty years before its time. As it was, international short wave broadcasting began only a few years before the onset of the immediate forces that led to dissolution of empire. Ad hoc solutions to problems of colonial broadcasting were thus just beginning to give way to conscious policy when the end of the era came. The subject of this paper, therefore, is limited to the years between 1927 and about 1957, that is from the start of the British Broadcasting Corporation's experiments that led to establishing its Empire Service to the onset of postwar colonial devolution.

The very year that the British Broadcasting Corporation was organized it began experiments with short wave transmissions to the colonies. Such long-distance short wave broadcasts involved an untried technology, new concepts of programming, and innovative financial arrangements. The BBC experimented for five years before it was ready to inaugurate the Empire Service formally in 1932.

During that 1927-1932 gestation period of the Empire Service, the Colonial Office had explored the acceptability in the dominions and the colonies of such broadcasts from home. At the 1930 Colonial Conference, the secretary of state for the colonies spoke of “the possibility of creating a new and intimate bond of connection between the different British communities … and also possibly its utilization for the purposes of the natives” (Great Britain, 1930:9. Emphasis added). The priorities were thus clearly set forth. The Empire Service had as its primary role the maintenance of home ties with British expatriates overseas and with the dominions.