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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Business
Jessica Murray Midlands correspondent

‘Completely chancy’: the first BBC radio broadcast outside London, 100 years ago

Percy Edgar (left) and the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, with whom he made a broadcast in Birmingham in 1931.
Percy Edgar (left) and the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, with whom he made a broadcast in Birmingham in 1931. Photograph: BBC

When Percy Edgar first considered taking a job in radio, his friends told him broadcasting was clearly nothing more than a passing craze like rollerskating.

It has now been 100 years since he created the first BBC radio broadcast outside London, from a tiny one-microphone studio in Birmingham draped in black cloth, listened to by about 2,000 people.

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