On 14 November 1922, the British Broadcasting Company launched Britain’s first national radio broadcasting service from Marconi House in the Strand, London. The transmission at 18.00 with the, now iconic, words:

"This is 2LO, Marconi House, London calling."

Two years before the BBC's first programme, the Marconi Company began to broadcast from a high-powered transmitter at its research station in Chelmsford, Essex It became a challenge to see how far from the transmitter you could receive the signal. To make life more interesting, the Marconi engineers began to broadcast music and entertainment rather than simple, dull test messages. this practice culminated on the 15th June 1920, when Dame Nellie Melba sang into Chelmsford’s microphone, sponsored by the Daily Mail.

This venture into live entertainment proved too much for the General Post Office (GPO), which withdrew Marconi’s licence for broadcasting from Chelmsford. Over 3300 amateur enthusiasts, many who were former military radio operators tinkering with their home-made sets to pick up transmissions, signed a petition calling for broadcasting to return.

The GPO conceded, and in 1922 Marconi began to broadcast popular entertainment, often devised and presented by its own engineers, from its transmitter 2MT at Writtle, near Chelmsford. As a result Several companies, including Marconi, combined to form the British Broadcasting Committee. The GPO granted the Committee a monopoly on national broadcasting in early November, and soon afterwards a new company, the British Broadcasting Company, was established.