On 18 October 1922, the British Broadcasting Company was set up by British and American electrical companies in the UK.
The BBC was a commercial operation under license issued by the General Post Office. Its original office was located on the second floor of Magnet House, a GEC building in London, and consisted of a room and a small antechamber.
The British Broadcasting Company Ltd. was incorporated under the Companies Acts 1908 to 1917 with a share capital of £60,006, with cumulative ordinary shares valued at £1 each. No further capital could be issued without the Postmaster-General’s consent:
The shares were equally held by six companies:
- Marconi Company
- Metropolitan-Vickers
- Radio Communication Company
- British Thomson-Houston
- General Electric Company
- Western Electric
It didn’t broadcast adverts but its few programmes were sponsored by British newspapers. On 14 December 1922, John Reith was hired as the managing director. The main source of its income was from the sale of radio receiving sets and transmitters manufactured by its shareholding member companies as well as from a portion of the government (GPO) licence fee that had to be purchased by BBC listeners.
On 31 December 1926, the company was dissolved and its assets were transferred to the non-commercial and crown-chartered British Broadcasting Corporation.
