Great Britain: Auntie Adjusts Her Skirts

For generations the BBC, known affectionately to all Britons as "Auntie BBC," has been — first via radio, then television — the sonorous, serious, slightly stuffy voice of England's Oxbridge-accented Establishment. Until, that is, the siren of commercial television sauntered on the scene nine years ago swinging her pocketbook in the guise of the ITV network and luring away the BBC's viewers. Auntie retaliated by taking on in 1960 a new leading man to spruce up her image: Hugh Carleton Greene, now 54, brother of Novelist Graham Greene, as director general. Greene brought in fresh—and often brash—young men,...

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