Plus ça change...?

A mini-nugget from Volume Three of Asa Briggs' History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom.

Briggs notes that at the beginning of the 1940s the BBC's 9’O clock News reached between 43% and 50% of the population.

In the World's Press News, H.G. Wells, (who according to Briggs "loved generalisations"), spoke out boldly saying "the day of the newspaper was done".

In the same publication, Hannen Swaffer said:

"the defeat of journalism by the BBC continues – and will still go on unless newspaper proprietors take intelligent action".

Worth a footnote on new mediums, the end of journalism, and all that sort of stuff.