What I mean to demonstrate in this essay is the way in which early public service broadcastingdeveloped as an extension of Christian pastoral guidance. Understood thus, early broadcastingcan be seen to function as a socio-religious technology whose rationale was to give direction topractical conduct and attempt to hold individuals to it. The significance of this is that Christianutterance was a broadcasting activity to which the BBC, and its first Director-General particularly,John Reith, ascribed special importance. The BBC was determined to provide what it thoughtwas for the moral good of the greater majority. In spite of overwhelming criticism from thelistening public and secular public opinion, the BBC was unswerving in its commitment to thecentrality of Christianity in the national culture. By the end of the 1930s the ‘Reithian Sunday’ wasamong the most enduring and controversial of the BBCs inter-war practices./1.0