'As the bells in the tower of Sydney's General Post Office chimed eight o'clock on the evening of Friday 1 July 1932, the peals were picked up by a microphone and carried to every State of the Federation. 'This is the Australian Broadcasting Commission,' said the announcer, Conrad Charlton.

'So begins K.S. Inglis's compelling history of the first fifty years of the ABC. In a sparkling tour de force Inglis shows us the ABC's triumphs and failures, its great medley of personalities and the effects it has had on Australian public life. Based on the Commission's own archives, on newspapers and journals, on a rich assortment of interviews and on the author's own listening and viewing, this is a social history of the highest order.' (Publication summary)