|
BBC Controversies
This article outlines, in chronological order, the various controversies surrounding or involving the BBC. Early years 1926 general strike In 1926, the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) called a General Strike to prevent wage reductions and worsening conditions for 1.2 million locked-out coal miners. Labour Party politicians such as party leader Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden criticised the BBC for being "biased" and "misleading the public" during the strike. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin was coached by John Reith during a national broadcast about the strike which he made from Reith's house. When Ramsay MacDonald asked to make a broadcast in reply, Reith supported the request. However, Baldwin was "quite against MacDonald broadcasting" and Reith refused the request. Baldwin's government blocked the BBC from broadcasting statements about the strike by the Labour Party and TUC leaders. When Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Marista Leishman
Marista Muriel Leishman (née Reith; 10 April 1932 – 3 November 2019) was an author and educator. She was the daughter and biographer of John Reith, the first Director-General of the BBC. Early life Leishman was born in 1932 in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, the second of two children of Reith and his wife Muriel. Her older brother Christopher declined to inherit the title of Lord Reith from his father. She attended St George's School, Ascot, and the University of St Andrews, Fife, Scotland. Career Leishman worked as a fundraiser for the Church of Scotland, supporting efforts to build new churches, writing personally to every minister in the Church of Scotland. She subsequently worked as a project administrator for the National Trust for Scotland, notably for the trust's Georgian House, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh. As manager of the education department, she published booklets and educational material for the National Trust for Scotland and other organisations. From ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The War Game
''The War Game'' is a 1966 British pseudo-documentary film that depicts a nuclear war and its aftermath. Written, directed and produced by Peter Watkins for the BBC, it caused dismay within the BBC and within government, and was withdrawn before the provisional screening date of 6 October 1965. The corporation said that "the effect of the film has been judged by the BBC to be too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting. It will, however, be shown to invited audiences..." The film premiered at the National Film Theatre in London, on 13 April 1966, where it ran until 3 May. It was then shown abroad at several film festivals, including Venice where it won the Special Prize. It won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 1967. The film was eventually televised in Great Britain on 31 July 1985, during the week before the fortieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, the day before a repeat screening of '' Threads''. Synopsis The film begins by describing Britain' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
National Viewers' And Listeners' Association
Mediawatch-UK, formerly known as the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association (National VALA or NVLA), was an advocacy group in the United Kingdom, which campaigned against the publication and broadcast of media content that it viewed as harmful, blasphemous and offensive, such as sex, violence, and profanity. History NVLA was founded in 1965 by Mary Whitehouse to succeed the earlier Clean-Up TV Campaign, which Whitehouse co-founded with her husband Ernest and the Reverend Basil and Norah Buckland early in the previous year. NVLA Vice President was Christian activist and educationalist, Charles Oxley. Whitehouse remained the group's leader until 1994, when she was succeeded by John Beyer. NVLA changed its name to Mediawatch-UK in 2001. Mediawatch-UK monitored traditional broadcast channels, as well as social and digital media, published reports about programme content, and responded to Government and other consultations on broadcasting and digital policy. It argued for grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Greene
Sir Hugh Carleton Greene (15 November 1910 – 19 February 1987) was a British television executive and journalist. He was director-general of the BBC from 1960 to 1969. After working for newspapers in the 1930s, Greene spent most of his later career with the BBC, rising through the managerial ranks of overseas broadcasting and then news for the main domestic channels. He encountered opposition from some politicians and activists opposed to his modernising agenda, but under his leadership the BBC was recognised to be outperforming its commercial rival, ITV, and was awarded a second television channel (BBC 2) by the British government and authorised to introduce colour television to Britain. After retiring from the BBC, Greene published several books, including a collaboration with his brother, the novelist Graham Greene, and made television programmes both for the BBC and ITV. Background Greene was born on 15 November 1910 in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, the youngest of four ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Whitehouse
Constance Mary Whitehouse (; 13 June 1910 – 23 November 2001) was a British teacher and conservative activist. She campaigned against social liberalism and the mainstream British media, both of which she accused of encouraging a more permissive society. She was the founder and first president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, through which she led a longstanding campaign against the BBC. A hard-line social conservative, she was termed a reactionary by her socially liberal opponents. Her motivation derived from her Christian beliefs, her aversion to the rapid social and political changes in British society of the 1960s, and her work as a teacher of sex education. Whitehouse became an art teacher, at the same time becoming involved in evangelical Christian groups such as the Student Christian Movement (which became increasingly more liberal leading up to, and after, a 1928 split with the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship) and Moral Re-Arma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Wilson, 1st Baron Moran
Charles McMoran Wilson, 1st Baron Moran, MC, PRCP (10 November 1882 – 12 April 1977) was personal doctor to Winston Churchill from 1940 until the latter's death in 1965. His book ''The Struggle for Survival'' revealed much about Churchill's physical and psychological state, possibly including clinical depression, while coping with the strain of high office. Background Moran was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, younger son and youngest of three children of John Forsythe Wilson, a physician and general practitioner from Northern Ireland, and his wife Mary Jane, daughter of the Reverend John Julius Hannah, a Presbyterian minister of Clogher. He was educated at Pocklington Grammar School then studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, now the Imperial College School of Medicine, graduating with a MBBS in 1908. He took his MD degree in 1913 at the same medical school. As a student he played in the college rugby fifteen as well as at county level for Middlesex. He enlist ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ITV (TV Network)
ITV, legally known as Channel 3, is a British free-to-air public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television network. It is branded as ITV1 in most of the UK except for central and northern Scotland, where it is branded as STV (TV channel), STV. It was launched in 1955 as Independent Television to provide competition to BBC Television (established in 1936). ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it has been Legal name, legally known as Channel 3 to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time: BBC1, BBC2 and Channel 4. ITV was, for decades, a network of separate companies that provided regional television services and also shared programmes among themselves to be shown on the entire network. Each franchise was originally owned by a different company. After several mergers, the fifteen regional franchises are now held by two companies: ITV plc, which runs ITV1, the ITV1 cha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Television Act 1954
The Television Act 1954 ( 2 & 3 Eliz. 2. c. 55) was a British law which permitted the creation of the first commercial television network in the United Kingdom, ITV. Until the early 1950s, the only television service in Britain was operated as a monopoly by the British Broadcasting Corporation, and financed by the annual television licence fee payable by each household which contained one or more television sets. The new Conservative government elected in 1951 wanted to create a commercial television channel, but this was a controversial subject—the only other examples of commercial television were to be found in the United States, and it was widely considered that the commercial television found there was "vulgar". The solution to the problem was to create the Independent Television Authority which would closely regulate the new commercial channel in the interests of good taste, and award franchises to commercial companies for fixed terms. The first commercial franchi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. Since 2019, the station controller has been Mohit Bakaya. He replaced Gwyneth Williams, who had been the station controller since 2010. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM broadcast band, FM, Longwave, LW and Digital Audio Broadcasting, DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview (UK), Freeview, Freesat, Sky (UK & Ireland), Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it List of most-listened-to radio programs#Top stations in the United Kingdom, the UK's second most-popular radio station after BBC Radio 2. BBC ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1953 Iranian Coup D'état
The 1953 Iranian coup d'état, known in Iran as the 28 Mordad coup d'état (), was the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh on 19 August 1953. Led by the Iranian army and supported by the United States and the United Kingdom, the coup aimed at strengthening the autocratic rule of the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. A key motive was to protect British oil interests in Iran after its government refused to concede to western oil demands. It was instigated by the United States (under the name TP-AJAX Project or Operation Ajax) and the United Kingdom (under the name Operation Boot). This began a period of dissolution for Iranian democracy and society. Mosaddegh had sought to audit the documents of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC), a British corporation (now part of BP), to verify that AIOC was paying the contracted royalties to Iran, and to limit the company's control over Iranian oil reserves. Upon the AIOC's refusal to cooperate with the Iranian government, the parl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shah
Shāh (; ) is a royal title meaning "king" in the Persian language.Yarshater, Ehsa, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII, no. 1 (1989) Though chiefly associated with the monarchs of Iran, it was also used to refer to the leaders of numerous Persianate societies, such as the Ottoman Empire, the Khanate of Bukhara and the Emirate of Bukhara, the Mughal Empire, the Bengal Sultanate, and various Afghan dynasties, as well as among Gurkhas. With regard to Iranian history, in particular, each ruling monarch was not seen simply as the head of the concurrent dynasty and state, but as the successor to a long line of royalty beginning with the original Persian Empire of Cyrus the Great. To this end, he was more emphatically known as the Shāhanshāh ( ), meaning " King of Kings" since the Achaemenid dynasty. A roughly equivalent title is Pādishāh (; ), which was most widespread during the Muslim period in the Indian subcontinent. Etymology The word descends from Old Persian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
