An excellent and very well written account of how the BBC has grown and evolved over the last 100 years. I especially liked the early chapters about its foundation in the early 20’s following WWI and how it firmly established its reputation as the gold standard in news and reporting during WWII. A constant thread are the battles to stay independent of government and retain balance in news reporting, when it’s the government that sets the licence fee and thus the BBC’s budget. Also good on the constant push and pull between entertainment and popularity verses it’s mission to educate and improve. It ended on a rather depressing note with the horrible scandal of Jimmy Savile, and the controversy over the Blair government’s dodgy dossier - I don’t think either Blair or Alistair Cambell have every correctly atoned for that appalling chapter. I feel a bit guilty now about my own anti-BBC prejudices that I held for a long while.