The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991

“The Listener was where the British did their thinking. Literate and engaged, it had the mild irony of all the best of British culture. Unlike most magazines it  combined reflections on politics and what was in the news with the arts: but not from any partisan clique. The only thing you signed up to when you bought The Listener was informed scepticism and wit. The online archive is a seam of pure gold for researchers, politics, writing, theatre and social observation, but it offers many delights for browsers as well.”
– Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and Official Historian of the BBC, The University of Westminster

Now Available in NewsVault!  The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991 features the complete 62-year run of The Listener, the BBC periodical published from 1929-1991.   The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in 1929 under its Director-General Lord Reith. It was the intellectual counterpart to the BBC listings magazine, Radio Times. Developed as the medium for reproducing broadcast talks – initially on radio, but in later years television as well - The Listener  is one of the few records and means of accessing the content of many early broadcasts. As well as commenting on and expanding on the intellectual broadcasts of the week, The Listener also previewed major literary and musical programmes and regularly reviewed new books.

Summary: The Listener was a weekly magazine established by the BBC in 1929 under its Director-General Lord Reith. It was the intellectual counterpart to the BBC listings magazine, Radio Times. Developed as the medium for reproducing broadcast talks – initially on radio, but in later years television as well - The Listener  is one of the few records and means of accessing the content of many early broadcasts. As well as commenting on and expanding on the intellectual broadcasts of the week, The Listener also previewed major literary and musical programmes and regularly reviewed new books.

Significance: Over its 62 year history, it attracted the contributions of E. M. Forster, George Orwell, Bertrand Russell, George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf. It also provided an important platform for new writers and poets, with W. H. Auden, Sylvia Plath and Philip Larkin being notable examples.

Articles were diverse, with features on the death of King George V; a series of essays accompanying Sir Kenneth Clark’s landmark art history programme Civilization, interviews with authors such as Vladimir Nabokov; and the historian Geoffrey Elton writing on the decline of British universities in the 1960s. What united them was the BBC’s cultural mission (as envisaged by Reith) of educating the masses.

The complete facsimile run of The Listener is an important resource for all humanities and social sciences courses, especially:    

• 20th Century Studies and History
• Media Studies/Journalism
• Literature
• Cultural Studies
• Politics
• Sociology

Source: The Listener Historical Archive, 1929-1991 is a product of a partnership with the British Broadcasting Company.

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