At exactly 10:15
in the evening
on March 15th, 1932,
a new voice spoke to Britain.
Not from a theatre.
Not from a music hall.
Not from a church pulpit.
From a building.
A brand-new building in London.
A building so modern,
so strange,
so utterly unlike anything else in the city
that people stopped in the street just to stare at it.
Because that night
the BBC opened Broadcasting House.
And radio – already powerful – suddenly acquired
a cathedral.
Yes, it’s London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This is London.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
And here we go, here’s your daily London fix.
Today – March 15th, 2026 – we go back to March 15th, 1932.
To the opening night of one of London’s most famous buildings.
Right there at the top of Regent Street.
Now if you stand there today –
just north of Oxford Circus –
you see it immediately.
The curve of pale Portland stone.
The tall central tower.
The famous statue
of Prospero and Ariel
above the entrance.
This is Broadcasting House,
the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
But in 1932
it was something brand new.
Radio had been around for barely a decade.
The BBC itself was only ten years old.
Yet suddenly it had this vast, futuristic headquarters.
Designed by the architect George Val Myer.
Built on a wedge-shaped site
where Regent Street bends into Langham Place.
A building shaped
almost like the bow
of a great ocean liner cutting through London traffic.
Which is fitting.
Because the BBC was broadcasting across an ocean of air.
Inside, the building was astonishingly modern.
Soundproof studios.
Miles of cable.
Studios floating on springs
so vibrations from passing buses wouldn’t spoil the broadcasts.
It was, quite simply,
the most advanced broadcasting building in the world.
And Londoners were fascinated.
People gathered outside just to look at it.
Because broadcasting in those days had a touch of magic about it.
Invisible voices flying through the air.
Music appearing in your sitting room.
Announcements drifting out of polished wooden wireless sets.
It felt almost supernatural.
And now all that magic had a home.
On the night of March 15th, 1932, the BBC held its first broadcast from the new building.
The voice that opened proceedings belonged to John Reith.
Lord Reith.
The towering Scottish founder of the BBC.
Six foot six.
Grave.
Serious.
Utterly convinced that broadcasting should elevate the nation.
His famous mission statement still defines the BBC today.
To inform.
To educate.
To entertain.
In that order.
Reith spoke to the nation.
Then the building sprang into life.
Announcements.
Orchestras.
Speeches.
All flowing out from Regent Street to the entire country.
Millions of listeners.
Wireless sets glowing softly
in living rooms
from Cornwall to the Highlands.
And London, once again,
was the beating heart of it all.
Because this building quickly became one of the great crossroads of British culture.
Composers arrived.
Actors.
Politicians.
Writers.
Scientists.
Every kind of voice
passed through Broadcasting House.
And the programmes that emerged from those studios
became part of everyday life.
Morning news bulletins.
Children’s Hour.
Dance orchestras.
Drama.
Comedy.
And of course the most famous sound in British broadcasting history.
The opening words of the BBC World Service during the Second World War.
Those three words carried enormous weight.
Because during the war
the BBC became something extraordinary.
The most trusted voice in Europe.
People in occupied countries
risked imprisonment – even death – to listen secretly.
Dutch families with curtains drawn.
French resistance fighters huddled round hidden radios.
Polish soldiers in exile.
All listening to London.
Listening to truth.
And it all came from this building.
Broadcasting House.
But the building itself has its own London drama.
In October 1940 a German bomb exploded directly outside.
Windows shattered.
Studios damaged.
Seven people killed.
But the BBC carried on broadcasting.
The famous motto might as well have been:
the show must go on.
Which it did.
Through the Blitz.
Through wartime.
Through the decades.
And Broadcasting House became woven into London life.
Walk past the front door and you might see news presenters rushing in.
Or famous voices heading for the studios.
Actors.
Politicians.
Rock stars.
Sometimes even the occasional bewildered prime minister.
Inside, there are dozens of studios.
Corridors that twist and turn like a small city.
And somewhere, always,
a red light glowing above a door.
ON AIR.
Silence please.
Because a voice is about to go out across Britain.
Or across the world.
It’s rather wonderful to think about.
A building in London.
Sending words and music and laughter and news
into millions of lives.
Every single day.
And if you stand outside Broadcasting House today
you might notice something above the entrance.
A statue.
Prospero.
The magician from Shakespeare’s Tempest.
And beside him the airy spirit Ariel.
Which is perfect symbolism.
Because radio is a kind of magic.
Invisible voices floating through the air.
Exactly like Ariel himself.
And that magic began in earnest right there on this very day in 1932.
March 15th, 1932.
When Broadcasting House first spoke to the nation.
Now as for tomorrow…
Tomorrow we move from voices to images.
From radio waves to black ink and white paper.
Because March 16th marks the death of one of the most dazzling and outrageous artists London ever embraced.
Aubrey Beardsley.
Illustrator.
Decadent.
Master of elegant wickedness.
A man who scandalised
Victorian London before dying tragically young.
Twenty-five.
And that story – oh, that story – takes us to Pimlico,
the Café Royal,
the Yellow Book scandal and the Oscar Wilde catastrophe.
All very London.
London Calling.
Until then, here’s to a feast of great Londoning. See you tomorrow.