In his 1941 book The Power Behind the Microphone, Peter Pendleton Eckersley, the BBC’s former chief engineer, described his “dream” for the future of radio and television:
I see the interior of a living-room … flush against the wall there is a translucent screen with numbered strips of lettering running across it. The lettering spells out titles which read like newspaper headlines. These are the titles describing the many different “broadcasting” programmes which can be heard by just pressing the corresponding button … I can, if I like, see the repeat of an old favourite … I lower myself into a chair and press the proper numbered button on a remote control panel … The voices are suddenly in the room, startling in their naturalness … Wonderful service the Wire Broadcasting Company gives me for half a crown a week; only a shilling if I cut out television and the newspaper.
Eckersley predicted that flat-screen television sets would one day provide audiences with a whole menu of programmes, available on-demand at the touch of a button. Consumers would be able to subscribe to their choice of service, with providers offering television, radio and news at high fidelity. All this would, he believed, be provided by “wire”: a cable network supplying all the content that anyone could desire.
