BBC was followed by the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee (1925–26) that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation: the British Broadcasting Corporation. The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General. To represent its purpose and (stated) values, the new corporation adopted the coat of arms, including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation". British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full
Nation so far as to say historical error, is a crucial factor in the creation of a nation". "A nation is therefore a large-scale solidarity", which Renan says is reaffirmed in a "daily plebiscite". Benedict Anderson has characterised a nation as an "imagined community" and Paul James sees it as an "abstract community". A nation is an imagined community in the sense that the material conditions exist for imagining extended and shared connections. It is an abstract community in the sense that it is objectively impersonal, even if each individual in the nation experiences him or herself as subjectively part of