Archaeology and Television

Abstract

Serious and sustained archaeological broadcasting began only after the end of the 1939-45 War. It was the result of the general purpose of the S Third Programme and the particular endeavour of the West Region in the persons of Frank Gillard, Head of Programmes at Bristol, and Gilbert Phelps, one of the talks producers there. There had of course been archaeological broadcasts in the pre-war years, and Sir Leonard Woolley’s best-selling Digging up the Past began as a series of talks ; but it was not until The Archaeologist was created by the West Region, and taken over, first by the Third Programme—it was actually the first series of talks to appear on that programme—and then by the Home Service, that archaeology began to have a recognised and acceptable place in sound broadcasting. There have been plenty of archaeological broadcasts outside this series, and so there should be ; but it was the existence of a regular series providing for the discussion of current discoveries, new techniques and new ideas and demanding thought on the part of producers and editors that, to my mind, really put archaeological broadcasting on the B.B.C. map.