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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the
national broadcaster Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...
of the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, based at
Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The m ...
in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, England. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public-sector broadcasting. The BBC is established under a
royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...
and operates under its agreement with the
Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport The secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport, also referred to as the culture secretary, is a secretary of state in the Government of the United Kingdom, with overall responsibility for strategy and policy across the Department f ...
. Its work is funded principally by an annual
television licence fee A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence f ...
which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts or watch using
iPlayer BBC iPlayer (stylised as iPLAYER or BBC iPLAYER) is a video on demand service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers and smart televisions. iPlayer services del ...
. The fee is set by the
British Government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_est ...
, agreed by
Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...
, and is used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
(launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic and Persian. Around a quarter of the BBC's revenue comes from its commercial subsidiary
BBC Studios BBC Studios is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Worldwide. ...
(formerly
BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...
), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. In 2009, the company was awarded the
Queen's Award for Enterprise The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation, sustainable development or promoting opportunity (through social mobility). They are the highest ...
in recognition of its international achievements. Since its formation in 1922 the BBC has played a prominent role in British life and culture. It is colloquially known as the Beeb, Auntie, or a combination of both (Auntie Beeb).


History


The birth of British broadcasting, 1920 to 1922

Britain's first live public broadcast was made from the factory of
Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company The Marconi Company was a British telecommunications and engineering company that did business under that name from 1963 to 1987. Its roots were in the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company founded by Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi in 1897 ...
in
Chelmsford Chelmsford () is a city in the City of Chelmsford district in the county of Essex, England. It is the county town of Essex and one of three cities in the county, along with Southend-on-Sea and Colchester. It is located north-east of Lond ...
in June 1920. It was sponsored by the ''
Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper and news websitePeter Wilb"Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail: The man who hates liberal Britain", ''New Statesman'', 19 December 2013 (online version: 2 January 2014) publish ...
''s
Lord Northcliffe Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (15 July 1865 – 14 August 1922), was a British newspaper and publishing magnate. As owner of the ''Daily Mail'' and the ''Daily Mirror'', he was an early developer of popular journal ...
and featured the famous Australian soprano
Dame Nellie Melba Dame Nellie Melba (born Helen Porter Mitchell; 19 May 186123 February 1931) was an Australian operatic dramatic coloratura soprano (three octaves). She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early 20th century ...
. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the
General Post Office The General Post Office (GPO) was the state mail, postal system and telecommunications carrier of the United Kingdom until 1969. Before the Acts of Union 1707, it was the postal system of the Kingdom of England, established by Charles II of En ...
(GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members. Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufacturers, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, which was formed on 18 October 1922. John Reith, a Scottish
Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...
, was appointed its general manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. L. Stanton Jefferies was its first director of music. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform, educate and entertain".


From private company towards public service corporation, 1923 to 1926

The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee. The committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, and an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee to fund broadcasts. The BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. To avoid competition with newspapers,
Fleet Street Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was n ...
persuaded the government to ban news bulletins before 7 pm and the BBC was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss-making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the
1926 general strike The 1926 general strike in the United Kingdom was a general strike that lasted nine days, from 4 to 12 May 1926. It was called by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in an unsuccessful attempt to force the British governmen ...
broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, and with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC suddenly became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis.supra Curran and Seaton, p. 117 The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On the one hand Reith was acutely aware that the government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently. The
government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government ...
was divided on how to handle the BBC, but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Although Winston Churchill in particular wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingd ...
's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer
he BBC He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...
but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial". Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. The resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment, or that the BBC had banned broadcasts from the Labour Party and delayed a peace appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC for British Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's "
Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...
" signifying that England had been saved. While the BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising the positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers,
Jean Seaton Jean Seaton (born 6 March 1947) is Professor of Media History at the University of Westminster and the Official Historian of the BBC. She is the Director of the Orwell Prize and on the editorial board of '' Political Quarterly''. She is the ...
, Professor of Media History and the Official BBC Historian, has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form". Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself. The BBC did well out of the crisis, which cemented a national audience for its broadcasting, and it 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.


1927 to 1939

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 A coat of arms is a heraldic visual design on an escutcheon (i.e., shield), surcoat, or tabard (the latter two being outer garments). The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the full heraldic achievement, which in it ...
, 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 charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity. John Reith and the BBC, with support from
the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has differen ...
, determined the universal needs of the people of Britain and broadcast content according to these perceived standards. Reith effectively censored anything that he felt would be harmful, directly or indirectly. While recounting his time with the BBC in 1935,
Raymond Postgate Raymond William Postgate (6 November 1896 – 29 March 1971) was an English socialist, writer, journalist and editor, social historian, mystery novelist, and gourmet who founded the '' Good Food Guide''. He was a member of the Postgate f ...
claims that BBC broadcasters were made to submit a draft of their potential broadcast for approval. It was expected that they tailored their content to accommodate the modest, church-going elderly or a member of the
Clergy Clergy are formal leaders within established religions. Their roles and functions vary in different religious traditions, but usually involve presiding over specific rituals and teaching their religion's doctrines and practices. Some of the t ...
. Until 1928, entertainers broadcasting on the BBC, both singers and "talkers" were expected to avoid biblical quotations, Clerical impersonations and references, references to drink or
Prohibition in America In the United States from 1920 to 1933, a nationwide constitutional law prohibited the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages. The alcohol industry was curtailed by a succession of state legislatures, and ...
, vulgar and doubtful matter and political allusions. The BBC excluded popular foreign music and musicians from its broadcasts, while promoting British alternatives. On 5 March 1928,
Stanley Baldwin Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, (3 August 186714 December 1947) was a British Conservative Party politician who dominated the government of the United Kingdom between the world wars, serving as Prime Minister of the United Kingd ...
, the Prime Minister, maintained the censorship of editorial opinions on public policy, but allowed the BBC to address matters of religious, political or industrial controversy. The resulting political "talk series", designed to inform England on political issues, were criticised by members of parliament, including Winston Churchill,
David Lloyd George David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for leading the United Kingdom during ...
and
Sir Austen Chamberlain Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer (twice) and was briefly ...
. Those who opposed these chats claimed that they silence the opinions of those in Parliament who are not nominated by Party Leaders or Party Whips, thus stifling independent, non-official views. In October 1932, the policemen of the
Metropolitan Police Federation The Metropolitan Police Federation is a staff association that represents the interests of all police in the Metropolitan Police Service up to the rank of Chief Inspector in England and Wales. It seeks to ensure that the Metropolitan Police Serv ...
marched in protest at a proposed pay cut. Fearing dissent within the police force and public support for the movement, the BBC censored its coverage of the events, only broadcasting official statements from the government. Throughout the 1930s, political broadcasts had been closely monitored by the BBC. In 1935, the BBC censored the broadcasts of
Oswald Mosley Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet (16 November 1896 – 3 December 1980) was a British politician during the 1920s and 1930s who rose to fame when, having become disillusioned with mainstream politics, he turned to fascism. He was a member ...
and
Harry Pollitt Harry Pollitt (22 November 1890 – 27 June 1960) was a British communist who served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) from 1929 to September 1939 and again from 1941 until his death in 1960. Pollitt spen ...
. Mosley was a leader of the
British Union of Fascists The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, ...
, and Pollitt a leader of the
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
. They had been contracted to provide a series of five broadcasts on their parties' politics. The BBC, in conjunction with The Foreign Office of Britain, first suspended this series and ultimately cancelled it without the notice of the public. Less radical politicians faced similar censorship. In 1938, Winston Churchill proposed a series of talks regarding British domestic and foreign politics and affairs but was similarly censored. The censorship of political discourse by the BBC was a precursor to the total shutdown of political debate that manifested over the BBC's wartime airwaves. The Foreign Office maintained that the public should not be aware of their role in the censorship. From 1935 to 1939, the BBC also attempted to unite the British Empire's radio waves, sending staff to Egypt,
Palestine __NOTOC__ Palestine may refer to: * State of Palestine, a state in Western Asia * Palestine (region), a geographic region in Western Asia * Palestinian territories, territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely the West Bank (including East J ...
,
Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...
, Jamaica, India, Canada and South Africa. Reith personally visited South Africa, lobbying for state-run radio programmes which was accepted by
South African Parliament The Parliament of the Republic of South Africa is South Africa's legislature; under the present Constitution of South Africa, the bicameral Parliament comprises a National Assembly and a National Council of Provinces. The current twenty-seve ...
in 1936. A similar programme was adopted in Canada. Through collaboration with these state-run broadcasting centres, Reith left a legacy of cultural influence across the empire of Great Britain with his departure from the corporation in 1938. Experimental television broadcasts were started in 1929, using an electromechanical 30-line system developed by
John Logie Baird John Logie Baird Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, FRSE (; 13 August 188814 June 1946) was a Scottish inventor, electrical engineer, and innovator who demonstrated the world's first live working Mechanical television, television system ...
. Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1934, and an expanded service (now named the
BBC Television Service BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced t ...
) started from
Alexandra Palace Alexandra Palace is a Grade II listed entertainment and sports venue in London, situated between Wood Green and Muswell Hill in the London Borough of Haringey. It is built on the site of Tottenham Wood and the later Tottenham Wood Farm. Orig ...
in November 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240-line system and the all-electronic
405-line The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. The number of television lines influences the image resolution, or quality of the picture. It ...
Marconi-EMI system which had been developed by an
EMI EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 2012, ...
research team led by Sir
Isaac Shoenberg Sir Isaac Shoenberg (1 March 1880 – 25 January 1963) was a British electronic engineer born in Belarus who was best known for his role in the history of television. He was the head of the EMI research team that developed the 405-line (Marconi-E ...
. The superiority of the electronic system saw the mechanical system dropped early the following year, with the Marconi-EMI system the first fully electronic television system in the world to be used in regular broadcasting.


BBC versus other media

The success of broadcasting provoked animosities between the BBC and well-established media such as theatres, concert halls and the recording industry. By 1929, the BBC complained that the agents of many comedians refused to sign contracts for broadcasting, because they feared it harmed the artist "by making his material stale" and that it "reduces the value of the artist as a visible music-hall performer". On the other hand, the BBC was "keenly interested" in a cooperation with the recording companies who "in recent years ... have not been slow to make records of singers, orchestras, dance bands, etc. who have already proved their power to achieve popularity by wireless." Radio plays were so popular that the BBC had received 6,000 manuscripts by 1929, most of them written for stage and of little value for broadcasting: "Day in and day out, manuscripts come in, and nearly all go out again through the post, with a note saying 'We regret, etc.'" In the 1930s music broadcasts also enjoyed great popularity, for example the friendly and wide-ranging organ broadcasts at St George's Hall, London by
Reginald Foort Reginald John Foort (23 January 1893 – 22 May 1980), FRCO, ARCM, was a cinema organist and theatre organist. He was the first official BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938, during which time he made 405 broadcasts on the organ at S ...
, who held the official role of BBC Staff Theatre Organist from 1936 to 1938.


Second World War

Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, and it was left to
BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering ...
broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. The BBC moved most of its radio operations out of London, initially to
Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city i ...
, and then to
Bedford Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...
. Concerts were broadcast from the
Bedford Corn Exchange Bedford Corn Exchange is an events and concert venue located on St Paul's Square in the Castle area of Bedford, Bedfordshire, England. History of the Corn Exchange The building (constructed in 1874) was designed to be a concert venue and meetin ...
; the Trinity Chapel in
St Paul's Church, Bedford St Paul's Church is a Church of England parish church located on St Paul's Square in Bedford, Bedfordshire, England. Formerly a medieval collegiate church, the large building of cathedral proportions with its later additions and iconic spire domin ...
was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941, the
Archbishops of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
and
York York is a cathedral city with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many hist ...
came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included
George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalita ...
who spent two years with the broadcaster. During his role as prime minister during the war, Winston Churchill delivered 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis. In October 1940, Princesses
Elizabeth Elizabeth or Elisabeth may refer to: People * Elizabeth (given name), a female given name (including people with that name) * Elizabeth (biblical figure), mother of John the Baptist Ships * HMS ''Elizabeth'', several ships * ''Elisabeth'' (sch ...
and
Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular through ...
made their first radio broadcast for the BBC's ''
Children's Hour ''Children's Hour'', initially ''The Children's Hour'', was the BBC's principal recreational service for children (as distinct from "Broadcasts to Schools") which began during the period when radio was the only medium of broadcasting. ''Childr ...
'', addressing other children who had been evacuated from cities. In 1938, John Reith and the
British government ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd , image = HM Government logo.svg , image_size = 220px , image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg , image_size2 = 180px , caption = Royal Arms , date_est ...
, specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war. Due to the BBC's advancements in
shortwave radio Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 m ...
technology, the corporation could broadcast across the world during the Second World War. Within Europe, the BBC European Service would gather intelligence and information regarding the current events of the war in English. Regional BBC workers, based on their regional geo-political climate, would then further censor the material their broadcasts would cover. Nothing was to be added outside the preordained news items. For example, the BBC Polish Service was heavily censored due to fears of jeopardising relations with the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
. Controversial topics, i.e. the contested Polish and Soviet border, the deportation of Polish citizens, the arrests of
Polish Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) es ...
members and the
Katyn massacre The Katyn massacre, "Katyń crime"; russian: link=yes, Катынская резня ''Katynskaya reznya'', "Katyn massacre", or russian: link=no, Катынский расстрел, ''Katynsky rasstrel'', "Katyn execution" was a series of m ...
, were not included in Polish broadcasts. American radio broadcasts were broadcast across Europe on BBC channels. This material also passed through the BBC's censorship office, which surveilled and edited American coverage of British affairs. By 1940, across all BBC broadcasts, music by composers from enemy nations was censored. In total, 99 German, 38 Austrian and 38 Italian composers were censored. The BBC argued that like the Italian or German languages, listeners would be irritated by the inclusion of enemy composers. Any potential broadcasters said to have pacifist, communist or
fascist Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...
ideologies were not allowed on the BBC's airwaves. In 1937, a
MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...
security officer was given a permanent office within the organisation. This officer would examine the files of potential political subversives and mark the files of those deemed a security risk to the organisation,
blacklisting Blacklisting is the action of a group or authority compiling a blacklist (or black list) of people, countries or other entities to be avoided or distrusted as being deemed unacceptable to those making the list. If someone is on a blacklist, ...
them. This was often done on spurious grounds; even so, the practice would continue and expand during the years of the Cold War.Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor ''Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting'', London: Hogarth, 1988, p. 103. The relevant extract from the book i
here
/ref>


Later 20th century

There was a widely reported urban myth that, upon resumption of the BBC television service after the war, announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, "As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted ..." In fact, the first person to appear when transmission resumed was
Jasmine Bligh Jasmine Lydia Bligh (20 May 1913 – 21 July 1991) was one of the first three BBC Television Service presenters in the 1930s. Along with Leslie Mitchell and Elizabeth Cowell, she provided continuity announcements introducing programmes in-vi ...
and the words said were "Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh ... ?" The
European Broadcasting Union The European Broadcasting Union (EBU; french: Union européenne de radio-télévision, links=no, UER) is an alliance of public service media organisations whose countries are within the European Broadcasting Area or who are members of the Co ...
was formed on 12 February 1950, in
Torquay Torquay ( ) is a seaside town in Devon, England, part of the unitary authority area of Torbay. It lies south of the county town of Exeter and east-north-east of Plymouth, on the north of Tor Bay, adjoining the neighbouring town of Paignt ...
with the BBC among the 23 founding broadcasting organisations. Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955, with the commercial and independently operated television network of ITV. However, the BBC monopoly on radio services would persist until 8 October 1973 when under the control of the newly renamed
Independent Broadcasting Authority The Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA) was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television ( ITV and Channel 4 and limited satellite television regulation – cable television was the responsibility of the Cable A ...
(IBA), the UK's first Independent local radio station,
LBC LBC (originally the London Broadcasting Company) is a British phone-in and talk radio station owned and operated by Global and based in its headquarters in London. It was the UK's first licensed commercial radio station, and began to broadcast ...
came on-air in the London area. As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was praised for the quality and range of its output, and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming, the decision was taken to award the BBC a second television channel,
BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
, in 1964, renaming the existing service
BBC1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins ...
. BBC2 used the higher resolution 625-line standard which had been standardised across Europe. BBC2 was broadcast in colour from 1 July 1967 and was joined by BBC1 and ITV on 15 November 1969. The 405-line
VHF Very high frequency (VHF) is the ITU designation for the range of radio frequency electromagnetic waves (radio waves) from 30 to 300 megahertz (MHz), with corresponding wavelengths of ten meters to one meter. Frequencies immediately below VH ...
transmissions of BBC1 (and ITV) were continued for compatibility with older television receivers until 1985. Starting in 1964, a series of
pirate radio Pirate radio or a pirate radio station is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are received—especially ...
stations (starting with
Radio Caroline Radio Caroline is a British radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly and Alan Crawford initially to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly. ...
) came on the air and forced the British government finally to regulate radio services to permit nationally based advertising-financed services. In response, the BBC reorganised and renamed their radio channels. On 30 September 1967, the Light Programme was split into
Radio 1 Radio 1 or Radio One most commonly refers to: *BBC Radio 1, a music radio station from the BBC **BBC Radio 1Xtra, a digital radio station broadcasting black music *CBC Radio One, a talk radio station operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ...
offering continuous "Popular" music and Radio 2 more "Easy Listening". The "Third" programme became Radio 3 offering classical music and cultural programming. The Home Service became Radio 4 offering news, and non-musical content such as quiz shows, readings, dramas and plays. As well as the four national channels, a series of local BBC radio stations were established in 1967, including Radio London. In 1969, the BBC Enterprises department was formed to exploit BBC brands and programmes for commercial
spin-off Spin-off may refer to: *Spin-off (media), a media work derived from an existing work *Corporate spin-off, a type of corporate action that forms a new company or entity * Government spin-off, civilian goods which are the result of military or gove ...
products. In 1979, it became a wholly owned limited company, BBC Enterprises Ltd. In 1974, the BBC's
teletext A British Ceefax football index page from October 2009, showing the three-digit page numbers for a variety of football news stories Teletext, or broadcast teletext, is a standard for displaying text and rudimentary graphics on suitably equipp ...
service,
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BS ...
, was introduced, created initially to provide subtitling, but developed into a news and information service. In 1978, BBC staff went on strike just before the Christmas, thus blocking out the transmission of both channels and amalgamating all four radio stations into one. Since the deregulation of the UK television and radio market in the 1980s, the BBC has faced increased competition from the commercial sector (and from the advertiser-funded public service broadcaster
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
), especially on satellite television, cable television, and
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
services. In the late 1980s, the BBC began a process of
divestment In finance and economics, divestment or divestiture is the reduction of some kind of asset for financial, ethical, or political objectives or sale of an existing business by a firm. A divestment is the opposite of an investment. Divestiture is ...
by spinning off and selling parts of its organisation. In 1988, it sold off the
Hulton Press Library ''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. ...
, a photographic archive which had been acquired from the ''
Picture Post ''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. ...
'' magazine by the BBC in 1957. The archive was sold to Brian Deutsch and is now owned by
Getty Images Getty Images Holdings, Inc. is an American visual media company and is a supplier of stock images, editorial photography, video and music for business and consumers, with a library of over 477 million assets. It targets three markets— creati ...
. In 1987, BBC decided to centralize its operations by the management team with the radio and television divisions joining forces together for the first time, the activities of the news and currents departments and coordinated jointly under the new directorate. During the 1990s, this process continued with the separation of certain operational arms of the corporation into autonomous but
wholly owned subsidiaries A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a sa ...
, with the aim of generating additional revenue for programme-making. BBC Enterprises was reorganised and relaunched in 1995, as BBC Worldwide Ltd. In 1998, BBC studios, outside broadcasts, post production, design, costumes and wigs were spun off into BBC Resources Ltd. The
BBC Research Department BBC Research & Development is the technical research department of the BBC. Function It has responsibility for researching and developing advanced and emerging media technologies for the benefit of the corporation, and wider UK and European m ...
has played a major part in the development of broadcasting and recording techniques. The BBC was also responsible for the development of the
NICAM Near Instantaneous Companded Audio Multiplex (NICAM) is an early form of lossy compression for digital audio. It was originally developed in the early 1970s for point-to-point links within broadcasting networks.Croll, M.G., Osborne, D.W. and Sp ...
stereo standard. In recent decades, a number of additional channels and radio stations have been launched: Radio 5 was launched in 1990, as a sports and educational station, but was replaced in 1994, with
Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...
to become a live radio station, following the success of the Radio 4 service to cover the 1991
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
. The new station would be a news and sport station. In 1997,
BBC News 24 BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...
, a rolling news channel, launched on
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
services, and the following year,
BBC Choice BBC Choice was a British digital television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 23 September 1998. It was the first United Kingdom, British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in Digital television, digital format, as well as t ...
was launched as the third general entertainment channel from the BBC. The BBC also purchased The Parliamentary Channel, which was renamed
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel from the BBC that broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the House of Commons, House of Lords and Select Committees of the British Parliament, the Scottish Parliame ...
. In 1999,
BBC Knowledge BBC Knowledge was a British television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 1 June 1999, broadcasting documentary, cultural and educational programmes. It was shut down on 2 March 2002, and was replaced by BBC Four. History L ...
launched as a multimedia channel, with services available on the newly launched BBC Text digital teletext service, and on
BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...
. The channel had an educational aim, which was modified later on in its life to offer documentaries.


2000 to 2011

In 2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. BBC Knowledge was replaced by
BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002
and became the BBC's arts and documentaries channel.
CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...
, which had been a programming strand as Children's BBC since 1985, was split into CBBC and
CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older chil ...
, for younger children, with both new services getting a digital channel: the CBBC Channel and CBeebies Channel. In addition to the television channels, new digital radio stations were created:
1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been cod ...
,
6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available only ...
and
BBC7 BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the pr ...
.
BBC 1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been ...
was a sister station to
Radio 1 Radio 1 or Radio One most commonly refers to: *BBC Radio 1, a music radio station from the BBC **BBC Radio 1Xtra, a digital radio station broadcasting black music *CBC Radio One, a talk radio station operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ...
and specialised in modern black music,
BBC 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available on ...
specialised in alternative music genres and
BBC7 BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the pr ...
specialised in archive, speech and children's programming. The following few years resulted in repositioning of some channels to conform to a larger brand: in 2003,
BBC Choice BBC Choice was a British digital television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 23 September 1998. It was the first United Kingdom, British TV channel to broadcast exclusively in Digital television, digital format, as well as t ...
was replaced by
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...
, with programming for younger adults and shocking real-life documentaries, BBC News 24 became the
BBC News Channel BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...
in 2008, and BBC Radio 7 became
BBC Radio 4 Extra BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British Digital radio in the United Kingdom, digital radio broadcasting, radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a ...
in 2011, with new programmes to supplement those broadcast on Radio 4. In 2008, another channel was launched,
BBC Alba BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day with BBC Radio nan Gàidheal ...
, a
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well a ...
service. During this decade, the corporation began to sell off a number of its operational divisions to private owners; BBC Broadcast was spun off as a separate company in 2002, and in 2005, it was sold off to Australian-based Macquarie Capital Alliance Group and
Macquarie Bank Macquarie Group Limited () is an Australian global financial services group. Headquartered and listed in Australia (), Macquarie employs more than 17,000 staff in 33 markets, is the world's largest infrastructure asset manager and Australia's ...
Limited and rebranded
Red Bee Media Red Bee Media, formerly Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services (EBMS), is an international broadcasting and media services company and the largest access provider in Europe. Red Bee has its headquarters in London, England, with branch offices in ...
. The BBC's IT,
telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...
and
broadcast technology Broadcast engineering is the field of electrical engineering, and now to some extent computer engineering and information technology, which deals with radio and television broadcasting. Audio engineering and RF engineering are also essential p ...
were brought together as BBC Technology Ltd in 2001, and the division was later sold to the German company
Siemens IT Solutions and Services Atos Information Technology Incorporated is a service provider which is owned by Atos. Atos Information Technology Incorporated provides a wide range of information technology services such as consulting, systems integration, and IT management. Ato ...
(SIS). SIS was subsequently acquired from Siemens by the French company
Atos Atos is a European Multinational corporation, multinational information technology (IT) service (economics), service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services ...
. Further divestments included
BBC Books BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadca ...
(sold to
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Ger ...
in 2006); BBC Outside Broadcasts Ltd (sold in 2008 to
Satellite Information Services Sports Information Services (SIS) is a company which provides content and production services to the betting industry; such as horse racing and greyhound racing, to betting shops in the United Kingdom and Ireland and other worldwide destina ...
); Costumes and Wigs (stock sold in 2008 to Angels The Costumiers); and
BBC Magazines Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a British multinational publishing house that currently publishes a significant range of titles, including ''Radio Times, Top Gear (magazine), BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food'' and a ...
(sold to
Immediate Media Company Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a British multinational publishing house that currently publishes a significant range of titles, including ''Radio Times, BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food'' and a host of others. In ...
in 2011). After the sales of OBs and costumes, the remainder of BBC Resources was reorganised as
BBC Studios and Post Production BBC Studioworks Limited (formerly BBC Studios and Post Production Ltd and BBC Resources) is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC, providing television studios, post production and related services to the market. It works with broadcasters and pro ...
, which continues today as a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC. The 2004
Hutton Inquiry The Hutton Inquiry was a 2003 judicial inquiry in the UK chaired by Lord Hutton, who was appointed by the Labour government to investigate the controversial circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, a biological warfare expert an ...
and the subsequent report raised questions about the BBC's journalistic standards and its impartiality. This led to resignations of senior management members at the time including the then Director General,
Greg Dyke Gregory Dyke (born 20 May 1947) is a British media executive, football administrator, journalist, and broadcaster. Since the 1960s, Dyke has had a long career in the UK in print and then broadcast journalism. He is credited with introducing 't ...
. In January 2007, the BBC released minutes of the board meeting which led to Greg Dyke's resignation. Unlike the other departments of the BBC, the BBC World Service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, more commonly known as the Foreign Office or the FCO, is the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad. A strike in 2005 by more than 11,000 BBC workers, over a proposal to cut 4,000 jobs, and to privatise parts of the BBC, disrupted much of the BBC's regular programming. In 2006,
BBC HD BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...
launched as an experimental service and became official in December 2007. The channel broadcast HD simulcasts of programmes on
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's Flagship (broadcasting), flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News ...
,
BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
,
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...
and
BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002
as well as repeats of some older programmes in HD. In 2010, an HD simulcast of BBC One launched:
BBC One HD BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
. The channel uses HD versions of BBC One's schedule and uses upscaled versions of programmes not currently produced in HD. The BBC HD channel closed in March 2013 and was replaced by BBC Two HD in the same month. On 18 October 2007, BBC Director General Mark Thompson announced a controversial plan to make major cuts and reduce the size of the BBC as an organisation. The plans included a reduction in posts of 2,500; including 1,800 redundancies, consolidating news operations, reducing programming output by 10% and selling off the flagship Television Centre building in London. These plans were fiercely opposed by unions, who threatened a series of strikes; however, the BBC stated that the cuts were essential to move the organisation forward and concentrate on increasing the quality of programming. On 20 October 2010, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
George Osborne George Gideon Oliver Osborne (born Gideon Oliver Osborne; 23 May 1971) is a former British politician and newspaper editor who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2010 to 2016 and as First Secretary of State from 2015 to 2016 in the ...
announced that the television licence fee would be frozen at its current level until the end of the current charter in 2016. The same announcement revealed that the BBC would take on the full cost of running the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
and the
BBC Monitoring BBC Monitoring (BBCM) is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide using open-source intelligence. Based at New Broadcasting House, the BBC's headquarters in central London, it has ...
service from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and partially finance the Welsh broadcaster
S4C S4C (, ''Sianel Pedwar Cymru'', meaning ''Channel Four Wales'') is a Welsh language free-to-air public broadcast television channel. Launched on 1 November 1982, it was the first television channel to be aimed specifically at a Welsh-speaking ...
.


2011 to present

Further cuts were announced on 6 October 2011, so the BBC could reach a total reduction in their budget of 20%, following the licence fee freeze in October 2010, which included cutting staff by 2,000 and sending a further 1,000 to the
MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...
development in
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, with BBC Three moving online only in 2016, the sharing of more programmes between stations and channels, sharing of radio news bulletins, more repeats in schedules, including the whole of BBC Two daytime and for some original programming to be reduced. BBC HD was closed on 26 March 2013, and replaced with an HD simulcast of BBC Two; however, flagship programmes, other channels and full funding for CBBC and CBeebies would be retained. Numerous BBC facilities have been sold off, including New Broadcasting House on Oxford Road in Manchester. Many major departments have been relocated to
Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The m ...
in central London and
MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...
in Salford, particularly since the closure of BBC Television Centre in March 2013. On 16 February 2016, the
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...
television service was discontinued and replaced by a digital outlet under the same name, targeting its young adult audience with web series and other content. Under the new royal charter instituted in 2017, the corporation must publish an annual report to Ofcom, outlining its plans and public service obligations for the next year. In its 2017–18 report, released July 2017, the BBC announced plans to "re-invent" its output to better compete against commercial streaming services such as
Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a ...
. These plans included increasing the diversity of its content on television and radio, a major increase in investments towards digital children's content, and plans to make larger investments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to "rise to the challenge of better reflecting and representing a changing UK". Since 2017, the BBC has also funded the
Local Democracy Reporting Service The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) is an initiative in the United Kingdom funded by the BBC. The scheme pays for the employment of journalists by local independent news outlets, in order to improve the coverage of issues relating to lo ...
, with up to 165 journalists employed by independent news organisations to report on local democracy issues on a pooled basis. In 2016, the BBC Director General Tony Hall announced a savings target of £800 million per year by 2021, which is about 23% of annual licence fee revenue. Having to take on the £700 million cost for free TV licences for the over-75 pensioners, and rapid inflation in drama and sport coverage costs, was given as the reason. Duplication of management and content spending would be reduced, and there would be a review of
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
. In 2020, the BBC announced a BBC News savings target of £80 million per year by 2022, involving about 520 staff reductions. The BBC's director of news and current affairs
Fran Unsworth Francesca Mary Unsworth (born 29 December 1957) is a British journalist and media executive. Since January 2018 she has been Director, News & Current Affairs for BBC News. She was appointed in succession to James Harding. Before then she serv ...
said there would be further moves toward digital broadcasting, in part to attract back a youth audience, and more pooling of reporters to stop separate teams covering the same news. In 2020, the BBC reported a £119 million deficit because of delays to cost reduction plans, and the forthcoming ending of the remaining £253 million funding towards pensioner licence fees would increase financial pressures. In January 2021, it was reported that former banker Richard Sharp would succeed
David Clementi Sir David Cecil Clementi (born 25 February 1949) is a British business executive and a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England. He was formerly the Chairman of the BBC. Clementi holds a number of board positions including chairman of int ...
, as chairman, when he stepped down in February. In 2023, BBC's offices in New Delhi were searched by officials from the Income Tax Department. The move comes after BBC released a documentary on Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...
. The documentary investigated Modi's role in the
2002 Gujarat riots The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence, was a three-day period of inter-communal violence in the western Indian state of Gujarat. The burning of a train in Godhra on 27 February 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hin ...
, which resulted in more than 1,000 casualties. The Indian Government banned viewing of the documentary in India and restricted clips of the documentary on social media. In March the BBC was at the centre of a political row with football pundit
Gary Lineker Gary Winston Lineker (; born 30 November 1960) is an English former professional footballer and current sports broadcaster. He is regarded as having been one of the greatest English strikers. His media career began with the BBC, where he ha ...
, after Lineker made comments on social media comparing the British Governments proposed policy to that of the Nazis. After the comments, Lineker was suspended from his position on Match of the Day before being re-instated after receiving overwhelming support from his colleagues. The scandal was made worse due to the connections between BBC's chairman, Richarp Sharp, and the Conservative Party.


Governance and corporate structure

The BBC is a statutory corporation, independent from direct government intervention, with its activities being overseen from April 2017 by the
BBC Board The BBC Board is the governing board of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Board replaced the BBC Trust The BBC Trust was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) between 2007 and 2017. It was operationally ind ...
and regulated by
Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
. The chairman is Richard Sharp.


Charter

The BBC operates under a
royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, but ...
. The current charter came into effect on 1 January 2017 and runs until 31 December 2027. The 2017 charter abolished the BBC Trust and replaced it with external regulation by
Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
, with governance by the BBC Board. Under the royal charter, the BBC must obtain a licence from the
home secretary The secretary of state for the Home Department, otherwise known as the home secretary, is a senior minister of the Crown in the Government of the United Kingdom. The home secretary leads the Home Office, and is responsible for all national ...
. This licence is accompanied by an agreement which sets the terms and conditions under which the BBC is allowed to broadcast.


BBC Board

The BBC Board was formed in April 2017. It replaced the previous governing body, the
BBC Trust The BBC Trust was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) between 2007 and 2017. It was operationally independent of BBC management and external bodies, and its stated aim was to make decisions in the best interests of ...
, which in itself had replaced the
board of governors A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...
in 2007. The board sets the strategy for the corporation, assesses the performance of the BBC's executive board in delivering the BBC's services, and appoints the director-general. Regulation of the BBC is now the responsibility of Ofcom. The board consists of the following members.


Executive committee

The executive committee is responsible for the day-to-day operations of the broadcaster. Consisting of senior managers of the BBC, the committee meets once per month and is responsible for operational management and delivery of services within a framework set by the board, and is chaired by the
director-general A director general or director-general (plural: ''directors general'', ''directors-general'', ''director generals'' or ''director-generals'' ) or general director is a senior executive officer, often the chief executive officer, within a governmen ...
, currently
Tim Davie Timothy Douglas Davie (born 25 April 1967 in Croydon, London) is the current and seventeenth Director-General of the BBC. He succeeded Tony Hall in the role on 1 September 2020. Davie was formerly the chief executive officer of BBC Studios. ...
, who is chief executive and (from 1994) editor-in-chief.


Operational divisions

The corporation has the following in-house divisions covering the BBC's output and operations: * Content, headed by Charlotte Moore is in charge of the corporation's
television channel A television channel is a terrestrial frequency or virtual number over which a television station or television network is distributed. For example, in North America, "channel 2" refers to the terrestrial or cable band of 54 to 60 MHz, wit ...
s including the commissioning of programming. * Nations and Regions, headed by Rhodri Talfan Davies is responsible for the corporation's divisions in
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
,
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...
,
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, the
English Regions The regions, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division in England, established in 1994. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within government. While they no ...
.


Commercial divisions

The BBC also operates a number of wholly owned commercial divisions: *
BBC Studios BBC Studios is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Worldwide. ...
is the former in-house television production; Entertainment, Music & Events, Factual and Scripted (drama and comedy). Following a merger with
BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...
in April 2018, it also operates international channels and sells programmes and merchandise in the UK and abroad to gain additional income that is returned to BBC programmes. It is kept separate from the corporation due to its commercial nature. *
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
department is in charge of the production and distribution of its commercial global television channel. It works closely with the BBC News group, but is not governed by it, and shares the corporation's facilities and staff. It also works with BBC Studios, the channel's distributor. *
BBC Studioworks BBC Studioworks Limited (formerly BBC Studios and Post Production Ltd and BBC Resources) is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC, providing television studios, post production and related services to the market. It works with broadcasters and pr ...
is also separate and officially owns and operates some of the BBC's studio facilities, such as the
BBC Elstree Centre The BBC Elstree Centre, sometimes referred to as the BBC Elstree Studios, is a television production facility, currently owned by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The complex is located between Eldon Avenue and Clarendon Road in Boreh ...
, leasing them out to productions from within and outside of the corporation.bbc.co.uk About The BBC section
. Retrieved 9 July 2011


MI5 vetting policy

From as early as the 1930s until the 1990s,
MI5 The Security Service, also known as MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Go ...
, the British domestic intelligence service, engaged in vetting of applicants for BBC positions, a policy designed to keep out persons deemed subversive. In 1933, BBC executive Colonel Alan Dawnay began to meet the head of MI5, Sir
Vernon Kell Major General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, (21 November 1873 – 27 March 1942) was a British Army general and the founder and first Director of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5. Known as K, he was described in '' ...
, to informally trade information; from 1935, a formal arrangement was made wherein job applicants would be secretly vetted by MI5 for their political views (without their knowledge). The BBC took up a policy of denying any suggestion of such a relationship by the press (the existence of MI5 itself was not officially acknowledged until the
Security Service Act 1989 The Security Service Act 1989 (c 5) is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the supreme legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It me ...
). This relationship garnered wider public attention after an article by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar appeared in ''
The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper Sunday editions, published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group, Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. ...
'' in August 1985, revealing that MI5 had been vetting appointments, running operations out of Room 105 in
Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The m ...
. At the time of the exposé, the operation was being run by
Ronnie Stonham Ronald Leonard Stonham (9 July 1927 – 5 August 2014) was the Special Assistant to the Director of Personnel at the BBC until 1985, later caught up in the scandal over MI5 monitoring of potential staff. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar ...
. A memo from 1984 revealed that blacklisted organisations included the far-left
Communist Party of Great Britain The Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) was the largest communist organisation in Britain and was founded in 1920 through a merger of several smaller Marxist groups. Many miners joined the CPGB in the 1926 general strike. In 1930, the CPGB ...
, the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Revolutionary Party and the
Militant Tendency The Militant tendency, or Militant, was a Trotskyism, Trotskyist group in the British Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, organised around the ''Militant'' newspaper, which launched in 1964. According to Michael Crick, its politics were based on the t ...
, as well as the far-right National Front and the
British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a far-right, fascist political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and its leader is Adam Walker. A minor party, it has no elected representatives at any level of UK go ...
. An association with one of these groups could result in a denial of a job application. In October 1985, the BBC announced that it would stop the vetting process, except for a few people in top roles, as well as those in charge of
Wartime Broadcasting Service The Wartime Broadcasting Service is a service of the BBC that is intended to broadcast in the United Kingdom either after a nuclear attack or if conventional bombing destroyed regular BBC facilities in a conventional war. It is unclear if the ...
emergency broadcasting (in event of a nuclear war) and staff in the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
. In 1990, following the Security Service Act 1989, vetting was further restricted to only those responsible for wartime broadcasting and those with access to secret government information. Michael Hodder, who succeeded Stonham, had the MI5 vetting files sent to the BBC Information and Archives in
Reading, Berkshire Reading ( ) is a town and borough in Berkshire, southeast England. Located in the Thames Valley at the confluence of the rivers Thames and Kennet, the Great Western Main Line railway and the M4 motorway serve the town. Reading is east o ...
.


Finances

The BBC has the second largest budget of any UK-based broadcaster with an operating expenditure of £4.722 billion in 2013/14 compared with £6.471 billion for
British Sky Broadcasting Sky UK Limited is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of ...
in 2013/14 and £1.843 billion for ITV in the calendar year 2013.


Revenue

The principal means of funding the BBC is through the television licence, costing £154.50 per year per household since April 2019. Such a licence is required to legally receive broadcast television across the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. No licence is required to own a television used for other means, or for sound only radio sets (though a separate licence for these was also required for non-TV households until 1971). The cost of a television licence is set by the government and enforced by the criminal law. A discount is available for households with only black-and-white television sets. A 50% discount is also offered to people who are registered blind or severely visually impaired, and the licence is completely free for any household containing anyone aged 75 or over. However, from August 2020, the licence fee will only be waived if over 75 and receiving pension credit. The BBC pursues its licence fee collection and enforcement under the trading name "TV Licensing". The revenue is collected privately by Capita, an outside agency, and is paid into the central government
Consolidated Fund In many states with political systems derived from the Westminster system, a consolidated fund or consolidated revenue fund is the main bank account of the government. General taxation is taxation paid into the consolidated fund (as opposed ...
, a process defined in the
Communications Act 2003 The Communications Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The act, which came into force on 25 July 2003, superseded the Telecommunications Act 1984. The new act was the responsibility of Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell. It ...
. Funds are then allocated by the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport , type = Department , logo = Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport logo.svg , logo_width = , logo_caption = , seal = , seal_width = , seal_caption = , picture = Gove ...
(DCMS) and the Treasury and approved by Parliament via legislation. Additional revenues are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to compensate for subsidised licences for eligible over-75-year-olds. The licence fee is classified as a tax, and its evasion is a criminal offence. Since 1991, collection and enforcement of the licence fee has been the responsibility of the BBC in its role as TV Licensing Authority. The BBC carries out surveillance (mostly using subcontractors) on properties (under the auspices of the
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 ( c.23) (RIP or RIPA) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, regulating the powers of public bodies to carry out surveillance and investigation, and covering the interception of comm ...
) and may conduct searches of a property using a search warrant. According to TV Licensing, 216,900 people in the UK were caught watching TV without a licence in 2018/19. Licence fee evasion makes up around one-tenth of all cases prosecuted in magistrates' courts, representing 0.3% of court time. Income from commercial enterprises and from overseas sales of its catalogue of programmes has substantially increased over recent years, with
BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...
contributing some £243 million to the BBC's core public service business. According to the BBC's 2018/19 Annual Report, its total income was £4.889 billion a decrease from £5.062 billion in 2017/18 – partly owing to a 3.7% phased reduction in government funding for free over-75s TV licences, which can be broken down as follows: * £3.690 billion in licence fees collected from householders; * £1.199 billion from the BBC's commercial businesses and government grants some of which will cease in 2020 The licence fee has, however, attracted criticism. It has been argued that in an age of multi-stream, multi-channel availability, an obligation to pay a licence fee is no longer appropriate. The BBC's use of private sector company
Capita Group Capita plc, commonly known as Capita, is an international business process outsourcing and professional services company headquartered in London. It is the largest business process outsourcing and professional services company in the United K ...
to send letters to premises not paying the licence fee has been criticised, especially as there have been cases where such letters have been sent to premises which are up to date with their payments, or do not require a TV licence. The BBC uses advertising campaigns to inform customers of the requirement to pay the licence fee. Past campaigns have been criticised by
Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
MP
Boris Johnson Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as F ...
and former MP
Ann Widdecombe Ann Noreen Widdecombe (born 4 October 1947) is a British politician, author and television personality. She was Member of Parliament (MP) for Maidstone and The Weald, and the former Maidstone constituency, from 1987 to 2010 and Member of t ...
for having a threatening nature and language used to scare evaders into paying. Audio clips and television broadcasts are used to inform listeners of the BBC's comprehensive database. There are a number of pressure groups campaigning on the issue of the licence fee. The majority of the BBC's commercial output comes from its commercial arm
BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...
who sell programmes abroad and exploit key brands for merchandise. Of their 2012/13 sales, 27% were centred on the five key "superbrands" of '' Doctor Who'', '' Top Gear'', ''
Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (informally known as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored by a panel of usually 4 ...
'' (known as ''
Dancing with the Stars ''Dancing with the Stars'' is the name of various international television series based on the format of the British TV series ''Strictly Come Dancing'', which is distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the form ...
'' internationally), the BBC's archive of natural history programming (collected under the umbrella of
BBC Earth BBC Earth is a brand used by BBC Studios since 2009 to market and distribute the BBC's natural history content to countries other than the United Kingdom. BBC Studios is the commercial arm of the public service broadcaster. BBC Earth commerc ...
) and the (now sold) travel guide brand
Lonely Planet Lonely Planet is a travel guide book publisher. Founded in Australia in 1973, the company has printed over 150 million books. History Early years Lonely Planet was founded by married couple Maureen Wheeler, Maureen and Tony Wheeler. In 19 ...
.


Headquarters and regional offices

Broadcasting House Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast from the building was made on 15 March 1932, and the building was officially opened two months later, on 15 May. The m ...
in
Portland Place Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London. Named after the Third Duke of Portland, the unusually wide street is home to BBC Broadcasting House, the Chinese and Polish embassies, the Royal Institute of Britis ...
, central London, is the official headquarters of the BBC. It is home to six of the ten BBC national radio networks, BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 1xtra, BBC Asian Network,
BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The st ...
,
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...
, and
BBC Radio 4 Extra BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British Digital radio in the United Kingdom, digital radio broadcasting, radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a ...
. It is also the home of
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
, which relocated to the building from BBC Television Centre in 2013. On the front of the building are statues of
Prospero Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's play '' The Tempest''. Prospero is the rightful Duke of Milan, whose usurping brother, Antonio, had put him (with his three-year-old daughter, Miranda) to sea ...
and
Ariel Ariel may refer to: Film and television *Ariel Award, a Mexican Academy of Film award * ''Ariel'' (film), a 1988 Finnish film by Aki Kaurismäki * ''ARIEL Visual'' and ''ARIEL Deluxe'', 1989 and 1991 anime video series based on the novel series ...
, characters from
William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's natio ...
's play '' The Tempest'', sculpted by
Eric Gill Arthur Eric Rowton Gill, (22 February 1882 – 17 November 1940) was an English sculptor, letter cutter, typeface designer, and printmaker. Although the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' describes Gill as ″the greatest artist-cra ...
. Renovation of Broadcasting House began in 2002, and was completed in 2012. Until it closed at the end of March 2013,
BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced t ...
was based at
BBC Television Centre Television Centre (TVC) is a building complex in White City, West London, that was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. After a refurbishment, the complex reopened in 2017 with three studios in use for TV production, oper ...
, a purpose built television facility opened in 1960 located in
White City White City may refer to: Places Australia * White City, Perth, an amusement park on the Perth foreshore * White City railway station, a former railway station * White City Stadium (Sydney), a tennis centre in Sydney * White City FC, a football c ...
, west of central London. This facility was host to a number of famous guests and programmes through the years, and its name and image is familiar with many British citizens. Nearby, the
BBC White City White City Place is the name given to the collection of buildings formerly known as BBC Media Village (more commonly simply as White City or W12 within the BBC). White City Place is a collection of six buildings occupying a 17-acre site off W ...
complex contains numerous programme offices, housed in Centre House, the Media Centre and Broadcast Centre. It is in this area around
Shepherd's Bush Shepherd's Bush is a district of West London, England, within the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham west of Charing Cross, and identified as a major metropolitan centre in the London Plan. Although primarily residential in character, i ...
that the majority of BBC employees worked. As part of a major reorganisation of BBC property, the entire BBC News operation relocated from the News Centre at BBC Television Centre to the refurbished Broadcasting House to create what is being described as "one of the world's largest live broadcast centres". The
BBC News Channel BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television news channel for BBC News. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30 pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic telev ...
and
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
relocated to the premises in early 2013. Broadcasting House is now also home to most of the BBC's national radio stations, and the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
. The major part of this plan involved the demolition of the two post-war extensions to the building and construction of an extension designed by Sir Richard MacCormac of
MJP Architects MJP Architects is an employee-owned British architectural practice established in 1972 by Sir Richard MacCormac, and based in Spitalfields, London. The practice officially changed its name from MacCormac Jamieson Prichard to MJP Architects in June ...
. This move concentrated the BBC's London operations, allowing them to sell Television Centre. In addition to the scheme above, the BBC is in the process of making and producing more programmes outside London, involving production centres such as
Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingd ...
,
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...
,
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated pop ...
, Newcastle and, most notably, in
Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tamesid ...
as part of the "BBC North Project" scheme where several major departments, including
BBC North West BBC North West is the BBC English Region serving Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Merseyside, North Yorkshire (western Craven), West Yorkshire (western Calderdale), Derbyshire (western High Peak), Cumbria (Barrow-in-Furness and Sou ...
,
BBC Manchester BBC Manchester (often known as BBC Salford) is the British Broadcasting Corporation regional headquarters for the North West, the largest BBC region in the UK. BBC Manchester is a department of the BBC North Group division. The BBC considers th ...
,
BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC television, radio and online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadcasting the sport live or alongside ...
,
BBC Children's #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
,
CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older chil ...
,
Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that broadcasts mainly news, sport, discussion, interviews and phone-ins. It is the principal BBC radio station covering sport in the United Kingdom, broadcast ...
,
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra (formerly BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra) is a national digital radio station in the United Kingdom, operated by the BBC, and specialising in extended live sports coverage. It is a sister station to BBC Radio 5 Live a ...
, ''
BBC Breakfast ''BBC Breakfast'' is the BBC television breakfast news programme. Produced by BBC News, the programme is broadcast on BBC One and the BBC News channel. The simulcast is presented live, originally from the BBC Television Centre, London before ...
'',
BBC Learning {{Use dmy dates, date=April 2022 BBC Learning can refer to the following: * A department of the BBC North Group division (formerly part of Interactive Factual and Learning), part of BBC Television * The portal website created by BBC Learning * A w ...
and the
BBC Philharmonic The BBC Philharmonic is a national British broadcasting symphony orchestra and is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Philharmonic is a department of the BBC North Group division based at MediaC ...
have all moved from their previous locations in either London or New Broadcasting House, Manchester to the new 200-acre (80ha)
MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...
production facilities in
Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...
, that form part of the large BBC North Group division and will therefore become the biggest staffing operation outside London. As well as the two main sites in London (Broadcasting House and White City), there are seven other important BBC production centres in the UK, mainly specialising in different productions.
Cardiff Cardiff (; cy, Caerdydd ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. It forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area, officially known as the City and County of Cardiff ( cy, Dinas a ...
is home to
BBC Cymru Wales BBC Cymru Wales is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Wales. It is one of the four BBC national regions, alongside the BBC English Regions, BBC Northern Ireland and BBC Scotland. Established in 1964, BBC Cymru Wales i ...
, which specialises in drama production. Open since 2012, and containing 7 new studios, Roath Lock is notable as the home of productions such as '' Doctor Who'' and ''
Casualty Casualty may refer to: *Casualty (person), a person who is killed or rendered unfit for service in a war or natural disaster **Civilian casualty, a non-combatant killed or injured in warfare * The emergency department of a hospital, also known a ...
''. Broadcasting House Belfast, home to
BBC Northern Ireland BBC Northern Ireland ( ga, BBC Thuaisceart Éireann; Ulster-Scots: ''BBC Norlin Airlan'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Northern Ireland. It is widely available across both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ire ...
, specialises in original drama and comedy, and has taken part in many co-productions with independent companies and notably with
RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the national broadcaster of Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, while ...
in the Republic of Ireland.
BBC Scotland BBC Scotland (Scottish Gaelic: ''BBC Alba'') is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. It is one of the four BBC national regions, together with the BBC English Regions, BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Irelan ...
, based in Pacific Quay, Glasgow is a large producer of programmes for the network, including several quiz shows. In England, the larger regions also produce some programming. Previously, the largest hub of BBC programming from the
regions In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as zones, lands or territories, are areas that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and the interaction of humanity and t ...
is BBC North West. At present they produce all religious and ethical programmes on the BBC, as well as other programmes such as ''
A Question of Sport ''Question of Sport'' (previously ''A Question of Sport'') is a British television sports quiz show produced and broadcast by the BBC. It is the "world's longest running TV sports quiz". Following a pilot episode in December 1968, broadcast on ...
''. However, this is to be merged and expanded under the
BBC North BBC North (Group) is an operational business division of the BBC. It is also a brand that has been used by the BBC to mean: *The large ''BBC North'' region, centred on Manchester, that was active from the late 1920s until 1968 and was based ...
project, which involved the region moving from New Broadcasting House, Manchester, to
MediaCityUK MediaCityUK is a mixed-use property development on the banks of the Manchester Ship Canal in Salford, Greater Manchester, England. The project was developed by Peel Media; its principal tenants are media organisations and the Quayside MediaCi ...
.
BBC Midlands BBC Midlands may refer to: * BBC East Midlands, the BBC English Region covering Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland, headquartered in Nottingham *BBC West Midlands BBC Midlands (known as the Midland Region from 1927 until c. ...
, based at
The Mailbox Mailbox Birmingham (also known as The Mailbox) is a mixed-use development located within the city centre of Birmingham, England. It houses British luxury department store chain Harvey Nichols, and the BBC Birmingham studios. The scheme compr ...
in Birmingham, also produces drama and contains the headquarters for the
English regions The regions, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division in England, established in 1994. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within government. While they no ...
and the BBC's daytime output. Other production centres include Broadcasting House Bristol, home of
BBC West BBC West is one of BBC's English Regions serving Bristol, the majority of Wiltshire and Gloucestershire; northern and eastern Somerset and northeastern Dorset. Services Television BBC West's television service (broadcast on BBC One) consists o ...
and famously the
BBC Natural History Unit The BBC Studios Natural History Unit (NHU) is a department of BBC Studios that produces television, radio and online content with a natural history or wildlife theme. It is best known for its highly regarded nature documentaries, including '' ...
and to a lesser extent, Quarry Hill in Leeds, home of
BBC Yorkshire BBC Yorkshire is one of the English regions of the BBC. It was formed from the division of the former BBC North region into BBC Yorkshire and BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, based in Kingston upon Hull. Serving West, North and South Yorksh ...
. There are also many smaller local and regional studios throughout the UK, operating the BBC regional television services and the
BBC Local Radio BBC Local Radio (also referred to as Local BBC Radio) is the BBC's local and regional radio division for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of forty stations. History The popularity of pirate radio was to challenge a change within ...
stations. The BBC also operates several news gathering centres in various locations around the world, which provide news coverage of that region to the national and international news operations.


Technology (Atos service)

In 2004, the BBC contracted out its former BBC Technology division to the German engineering and electronics company
Siemens IT Solutions and Services Atos Information Technology Incorporated is a service provider which is owned by Atos. Atos Information Technology Incorporated provides a wide range of information technology services such as consulting, systems integration, and IT management. Ato ...
(SIS), outsourcing its IT,
telephony Telephony ( ) is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is i ...
and
broadcast technology Broadcast engineering is the field of electrical engineering, and now to some extent computer engineering and information technology, which deals with radio and television broadcasting. Audio engineering and RF engineering are also essential p ...
systems. When Atos Origin acquired the SIS division from Siemens in December 2010 for €850 million (£720m), the BBC support contract also passed to
Atos Atos is a European Multinational corporation, multinational information technology (IT) service (economics), service and consulting company headquartered in Bezons, France and offices worldwide. It specialises in hi-tech transactional services ...
, and in July 2011, the BBC announced to staff that its technology support would become an Atos service. Siemens staff working on the BBC contract were transferred to Atos; the BBC's
Information Technology systems Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system ( ...
are now managed by Atos. In 2011, the BBC's chief financial officer
Zarin Patel Zarin Patel is a British accountant and company executive who was the BBC's Chief Financial Officer from 2004, following the promotion of John Smith (BBC), John Smith to chief operating officer, until 2013. Since 2014, Patel has been CFO of Gras ...
stated to the
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
Public Accounts Committee that, following criticism of the BBC's management of major IT projects with Siemens (such as the
Digital Media Initiative The Digital Media Initiative (DMI) was a British broadcast engineering project launched by the BBC in 2008. It aimed to modernise the Corporation's production and archiving methods by using connected digital production and media asset managemen ...
), the BBC partnership with Atos would be instrumental in achieving cost savings of around £64 million as part of the BBC's "Delivering Quality First" programme. In 2012, the BBC's then- Chief Technology Officer John Linwood, expressed confidence in service improvements to the BBC's technology provision brought about by Atos. He also stated that supplier accountability had been strengthened following some high-profile technology failures which had taken place during the partnership with Siemens.


Services


Television

The BBC operates several television channels nationally and internationally.
BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's Flagship (broadcasting), flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News ...
and
BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
are the flagship television channels. Others include the youth channel
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...
, which originally ceased broadcasting as a linear television channel in February 2016 and returned to television in February 2022, cultural and documentary channel
BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002
, news channels
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
and the
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
, parliamentary channel
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel from the BBC that broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the House of Commons, House of Lords and Select Committees of the British Parliament, the Scottish Parliame ...
, and two children's channels,
CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...
and
CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older chil ...
.
Digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
is now entrenched in the UK, with analogue transmission completely phased out . BBC One is a regionalised TV service which provides opt-outs throughout the day for local news and other local programming. These variations are more pronounced in the BBC "Nations", i.e.
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...
,
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
and
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
, where the presentation is mostly carried out locally on BBC One and Two, and where programme schedules can vary greatly from that of the network. BBC Two variations exist in the Nations; however,
English regions The regions, formerly known as the government office regions, are the highest tier of sub-national division in England, established in 1994. Between 1994 and 2011, nine regions had officially devolved functions within government. While they no ...
today rarely have the option to opt out as regional programming now only exists on BBC One. In 2019, the Scottish variation of BBC Two ceased operation and was replaced with the networked version in favour of the BBC Scotland channel. BBC Two was also the first channel to be transmitted on 625 lines in 1964, then carry a small-scale regular colour service from 1967. BBC One would follow in November 1969. A new
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well a ...
television channel,
BBC Alba BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic-language free-to-air public broadcast television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day with BBC Radio nan Gàidheal ...
, was launched in September 2008. It is also the first multi-genre channel to come entirely from Scotland with almost all of its programmes made in Scotland. The service was initially only available via
satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...
but since June 2011 has been available to viewers in Scotland on
Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...
and cable television. The BBC currently operates HD simulcasts of all its nationwide channels with the exception of
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel from the BBC that broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the House of Commons, House of Lords and Select Committees of the British Parliament, the Scottish Parliame ...
. Until 26 March 2013, a separate channel called
BBC HD BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...
was available, in place of
BBC Two HD BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
. It launched on 15 May 2006, following a 12-month trial of the broadcasts. It became a proper channel in 2007, and screened HD programmes as simulcasts of the main network, or as repeats. The corporation has been producing programmes in the format for many years, and stated that it hoped to produce 100% of new programmes in HDTV by 2010. On 3 November 2010, a high-definition simulcast of BBC One was launched, entitled
BBC One HD BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
, and BBC Two HD launched on 26 March 2013, replacing BBC HD. Scotland's new television channel, BBC Scotland, launched in February 2019. In the Republic of Ireland, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland, the BBC channels are available in a number of ways. In these countries digital and cable operators carry a range of BBC channels. These include BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four and BBC World News, although viewers in the Republic of Ireland may receive BBC services via overspill from transmitters in Northern Ireland or Wales, or via "deflectors"—transmitters in the Republic which rebroadcast broadcasts from the UK, received off-air, or from digital satellite. Since 1975, the BBC has also provided its TV programmes to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), allowing members of
UK military The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, ...
serving abroad to watch them on four dedicated TV channels. From 27 March 2013, BFBS will carry versions of BBC One and BBC Two, which will include children's programming from
CBBC CBBC (initialised as Children's BBC and also known as the CBBC Channel) is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the bran ...
, as well as carrying programming from
BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, cov ...
on a new channel called BFBS Extra. Since 2008, all the BBC channels are available to watch online through the BBC iPlayer service. This online streaming ability came about following experiments with live streaming, involving streaming certain channels in the UK. In February 2014, Director-General Tony Hall announced that the corporation needed to save £100 million. In March 2014, the BBC confirmed plans for BBC Three to become an internet-only channel.


BBC Genome Project

In December 2012, the BBC completed a digitisation exercise, scanning the listings of all BBC programmes from an entire run of about 4,500 copies of the ''
Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' magazine from the first, 1923, issue to 2009 (later listings already being held electronically), the "BBC Genome project", with a view to creating an online database of its programme output. An earlier ten months of listings are to be obtained from other sources. They identified around five million programmes, involving 8.5 million actors, presenters, writers and technical staff. The Genome project was opened to public access on 15 October 2014, with corrections to OCR errors and changes to advertised schedules being
crowdsourced Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
.


Radio

The BBC has ten radio stations serving the whole of the UK, a further seven stations in the "national regions" (
Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...
,
Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to th ...
, and
Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. North ...
), and 39 other local stations serving defined areas of England. Of the ten national stations, five are major stations and are available on FM and/or AM as well as on
DAB DAB, dab, dabs, or dabbing may refer to: Dictionaries * ''Dictionary of American Biography'', published under the auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies * ''Dictionary of Australian Biography'', published since 1949 Places * Dąb ...
and online. These are
BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
, offering new music and popular styles and being notable for its chart show;
BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content ...
, playing
Adult contemporary Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet ...
, country and soul music amongst many other genres;
BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also featuring. The st ...
, presenting classical and jazz music together with some spoken-word programming of a cultural nature in the evenings;
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...
, focusing on current affairs, factual and other speech-based programming, including drama and comedy; and BBC Radio 5 Live, broadcasting 24-hour news, sport and talk programmes. In addition to these five stations, the BBC runs a further five stations that broadcast on DAB and online only. These stations supplement and expand on the big five stations, and were launched in 2002.
BBC Radio 1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It broadcasts black music and urban music, including hip hop and R&B and is a sister station to Radio 1. Launching at 18:00 on 16 August 2002, it had been ...
sisters Radio 1, and broadcasts new black music and urban tracks.
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra (formerly BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra) is a national digital radio station in the United Kingdom, operated by the BBC, and specialising in extended live sports coverage. It is a sister station to BBC Radio 5 Live a ...
sisters 5 Live and offers extra sport analysis, including broadcasting sports that previously were not covered.
BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC, specialising primarily in alternative music. BBC 6 Music was the first national music radio station to be launched by the BBC in 32 years. It is available on ...
offers alternative music genres and is notable as a platform for new artists.
BBC Radio 7 BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British digital radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a day. It is the sister station of BBC Radio 4 and the pr ...
, later renamed
BBC Radio 4 Extra BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British Digital radio in the United Kingdom, digital radio broadcasting, radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a ...
, provided archive drama, comedy and children's programming. Following the change to Radio 4 Extra, the service has dropped a defined children's strand in favour of family-friendly drama and comedy. In addition, new programmes to complement Radio 4 programmes were introduced such as ''
Ambridge Extra ''Ambridge Extra'' is an extension of the long-running radio drama ''The Archers''. It began broadcasting sporadically on the digital radio station BBC Radio 4 Extra from 5 April 2011. The programme ran for five series, before it was "rested". O ...
'', and ''Desert Island Discs revisited''. The final station is the
BBC Asian Network BBC Asian Network is a British Asian radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially British Asians between the ages of 18 and 34. The station ha ...
, providing music, talk and news to this section of the community. This station evolved out of Local radio stations serving certain areas, and as such this station is available on
Medium Wave Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayt ...
frequency in some areas of the Midlands. As well as the national stations, the BBC also provides 40
BBC Local Radio BBC Local Radio (also referred to as Local BBC Radio) is the BBC's local and regional radio division for England and the Channel Islands, consisting of forty stations. History The popularity of pirate radio was to challenge a change within ...
stations in England and the Channel Islands, each named for and covering a particular city and its surrounding area (e.g.
BBC Radio Bristol BBC Radio Bristol is the BBC's local radio station serving Bristol, Bath and North & North East Somerset. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Broadcasting House in Bristol. According to RAJAR, the stat ...
), county or region (e.g.
BBC Three Counties Radio BBC Three Counties Radio is the BBC's local radio station serving the counties of Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios at Grove Park in Dunstable. According ...
), or geographical area (e.g.
BBC Radio Solent BBC Radio Solent is the BBC's local radio station serving Hampshire, Dorset and the Isle of Wight. It broadcasts on FM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Havelock Road in Southampton. According to RAJAR, the station has a ...
covering the central south coast). A further six stations broadcast in what the BBC terms "the national regions": Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These are
BBC Radio Wales BBC Radio Wales is a Welsh radio station owned and operated by BBC Cymru Wales, a division of the BBC. It began broadcasting on 13 November 1978, replacing the 'Radio 4 Wales' opt-out service (previously the Welsh Home Service). Radio Wales ...
(in English),
BBC Radio Cymru BBC Radio Cymru is a Welsh language radio network owned and operated by BBC Cymru Wales, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts on two stations across Wales on FM, DAB, digital TV and online. The main network broadcasts for hours a day from ...
(in
Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...
),
BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scotland, Scottish radio station, radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same na ...
(in English),
BBC Radio nan Gaidheal #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
(in
Scottish Gaelic Scottish Gaelic ( gd, Gàidhlig ), also known as Scots Gaelic and Gaelic, is a Goidelic language (in the Celtic branch of the Indo-European language family) native to the Gaels of Scotland. As a Goidelic language, Scottish Gaelic, as well a ...
),
BBC Radio Ulster BBC Radio Ulster ( ga, BBC Raidió Uladh) is a Northern Irish radio station owned and operated by BBC Northern Ireland, a division of the BBC. It was established on New Year's Day 1975, replacing what had been an opt-out of BBC Radio 4. It is ...
, and
BBC Radio Foyle BBC Radio Foyle ( ga, BBC Raidió Feabhail) is a BBC Northern Ireland local radio station, serving County Londonderry in Northern Ireland. It is named after the River Foyle which flows through Derry, the city where the station is based. The ...
, the latter being an opt-out station from Radio Ulster for the north-west of Northern Ireland. The BBC's UK national channels are also broadcast in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man (although these Crown Dependencies are outside the UK), and in the former there are two local stations –
BBC Guernsey BBC Radio Guernsey is the BBC's local radio station serving the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It broadcasts on FM, AM, DAB, digital TV and via BBC Sounds from studios on Bulwer Avenue in St Sampson. According to RAJAR, the station has a weekly au ...
and
BBC Radio Jersey BBC Radio Jersey (Jèrriais: ''BBC Radio Jèrri'') is the BBC's local radio station serving the Bailiwick of Jersey. It broadcasts on FM, AM, DAB+, Freeview and via BBC Sounds from studios on Parade Road in Saint Helier. Like other BBC en ...
. There is no BBC local radio station, however, in the Isle of Man, partly because the island has long been served by the popular independent commercial station,
Manx Radio Manx Radio (legally Radio Manx Ltd.) ( gv, Radio Vannin) is the national commercial radio station for the Isle of Man. It began broadcasting on 29 June 1964, almost ten years before commercial radio was licensed in the United Kingdom. The Isle of ...
, which predates the existence of BBC Local Radio. BBC services in the dependencies are financed from
television licence A television licence or broadcast receiving licence is a payment required in many countries for the reception of television broadcasts, or the possession of a television set where some broadcasts are funded in full or in part by the licence ...
fees which are set at the same level as those payable in the UK, although collected locally. This is the subject of some controversy in the Isle of Man since, as well as having no BBC Local Radio service, the island also lacks a local television news service analogous to that provided by BBC Channel Islands. For a worldwide audience, the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
provides news, current affairs and information in 28 languages, including English, around the world and is available in over 150 capital cities. It is broadcast worldwide on
shortwave Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 m ...
radio, DAB and online and has an estimated weekly audience of 192 million, and its websites have an audience of 38 million people per week. Since 2005, it is also available on DAB in the UK, a step not taken before, due to the way it is funded. The service is funded by a Parliamentary Grant-in-Aid, administered by the
Foreign Office Foreign may refer to: Government * Foreign policy, how a country interacts with other countries * Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in many countries ** Foreign Office, a department of the UK government ** Foreign office and foreign minister * United S ...
; however, following the Government's spending review in 2011, this funding will cease, and it will be funded for the first time through the Licence fee. In recent years, some services of the World Service have been reduced: the Thai service ended in 2006, as did the Eastern European languages. Resources were diverted instead into the new
BBC Arabic Television BBC News Arabic ( ar, بي بي سي نيوز عربي), formerly BBC Arabic Television, is a television news channel broadcast to the Arab World by the BBC. It was launched on 11 March 2008. It is run by the BBC World Service and funded from t ...
. Historically, the BBC was the only legal radio broadcaster based in the UK mainland until 1967, when University Radio York (URY), then under the name ''Radio York'', was launched as the first, and now oldest, legal independent radio station in the country. However, the BBC did not enjoy a complete monopoly before this, as several Continental stations, such as
Radio Luxembourg Radio Luxembourg was a multilingual commercial broadcaster in Luxembourg. It is known in most non-English languages as RTL (for Radio Television Luxembourg). The English-language service of Radio Luxembourg began in 1933 as one of the earlies ...
, had broadcast programmes in English to Britain since the 1930s and the Isle of Man-based
Manx Radio Manx Radio (legally Radio Manx Ltd.) ( gv, Radio Vannin) is the national commercial radio station for the Isle of Man. It began broadcasting on 29 June 1964, almost ten years before commercial radio was licensed in the United Kingdom. The Isle of ...
began in 1964. Today, despite the advent of
commercial radio Commercial broadcasting (also called private broadcasting) is the broadcasting of television programs and radio programming by privately owned corporate media, as opposed to state sponsorship. It was the United States′ first model of radio (a ...
, BBC radio stations remain among the most listened-to in the country. Radio 2 has the largest audience share (up to 16.8% in 2011–12) and Radios 1 and 4 ranked second and third in terms of weekly
reach Reach or REACH may refer to: Companies and organizations * Reach plc, formerly Trinity Mirror, large British newspaper, magazine, and digital publisher * Reach Canada, an NGO in Canada * Reach Limited, an Asia Pacific cable network company ...
. BBC programming is also available to other services and in other countries. Since 1943, the BBC has provided radio programming to the
British Forces Broadcasting Service The British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) provides radio and television programmes for His Majesty's Armed Forces, and their dependents worldwide. Editorial control is independent of the Ministry of Defence and the armed forces themsel ...
, which broadcasts in countries where British troops are stationed.
BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...
is also carried in Canada on
Sirius XM Radio Sirius XM Holdings Inc. is an American broadcasting company headquartered in Midtown Manhattan, New York City that provides satellite radio and online radio services operating in the United States. It was formed by the 2008 merger of Sirius Sa ...
(online streaming only). The BBC is a patron of The
Radio Academy The Radio Academy is a registered charity dedicated to "the encouragement, recognition and promotion of excellence in UK broadcasting and audio production". It was formed in 1983 and is run via a board of trustees, with a chair and a deputy chair ...
.


News

BBC News is the largest broadcast news gathering operation in the world, providing services to BBC domestic radio as well as television networks such as the
BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...
,
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel from the BBC that broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the House of Commons, House of Lords and Select Committees of the British Parliament, the Scottish Parliame ...
and
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
. In addition to this, news stories are available on the
BBC Red Button BBC Red Button is a brand used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. BBC Red Button's text services were due to ...
service and
BBC News Online BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the ...
. In addition to this, the BBC has been developing new ways to access BBC News and as a result, has launched the service on BBC Mobile, making it accessible to mobile phones and PDAs, as well as developing alerts by email, on digital television, and on computers through a desktop alert. Ratings figures suggest that during major incidents such as the
7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorism, Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on Transport in London, the city's ...
or royal events, the UK audience overwhelmingly turns to the BBC's coverage as opposed to its commercial rivals. On 7 July 2005, the day that there were a series of coordinated bomb blasts on London's public transport system, the
BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...
website recorded an all time
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
peak of 11  Gb/s at 12.00 on 7 July. BBC News received some 1 billion total hits on the day of the event (including all images, text, and
HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
), serving some 5.5
terabyte The byte is a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits. Historically, the byte was the number of bits used to encode a single character of text in a computer and for this reason it is the smallest addressable unit ...
s of data. At peak times during the day, there were 40,000-page requests per second for the BBC News website. The previous day's announcement of the
2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012) was an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...
being awarded to London caused a peak of around 5 Gbit/s. The previous all-time high at
BBC Online BBC Online, formerly known as BBCi, is the BBC's online service. It is a large network of websites including such high-profile sites as BBC News and Sport, the on-demand video and radio services branded BBC iPlayer and BBC Sounds, the childr ...
was caused by the announcement of the
Michael Jackson Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, and philanthropist. Dubbed the "King of Pop", he is regarded as one of the most significant cultural figures of the 20th century. Over a ...
verdict, which used 7.2 Gbit/s.


Internet

The BBC's online presence includes a comprehensive
news website An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical. Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...
and archive. The BBC's first official online service was the BBC Networking Club, which was launched on 11 May 1994. The service was subsequently relaunched as BBC Online in 1997, before being renamed BBCi, then bbc.co.uk, before it was rebranded back as BBC Online. The website is funded by the Licence fee, but uses
GeoIP In computing, Internet geolocation is software capable of deducing the geographic position of a device connected to the Internet. For example, the device's IP address can be used to determine the country, city, or ZIP code, determining its geogra ...
technology, allowing advertisements to be carried on the site when viewed outside of the UK. The BBC claims the site to be "Europe's most popular content-based site" and states that 13.2 million people in the UK visit the site's more than two million pages each day. The centre of the website is the Homepage, which features a modular layout. Users can choose which modules, and which information, is displayed on their homepage, allowing the user to customise it. This system was first launched in December 2007, becoming permanent in February 2008, and has undergone a few aesthetical changes since then. The home page then has links to other micro-sites, such as
BBC News Online BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. It is one of the most popular news websites, with 1.2 billion website visits in April 2021, as well as being used by 60% of the ...
,
Sport Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, ...
,
Weather Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...
, TV, and Radio. As part of the site, every programme on BBC Television or Radio is given its own page, with bigger programmes getting their own micro-site, and as a result it is often common for viewers and listeners to be told website addresses (URLs) for the programme website. Another large part of the site also allows users to watch and listen to most Television and Radio output live and for seven days after broadcast using the BBC iPlayer platform, which launched on 27 July 2007, and initially used
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
and
DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement militai ...
technology to deliver both radio and TV content of the last seven days for offline use for up to 30 days, since then video is now streamed directly. Also, through participation in the
Creative Archive Licence BBC Archives are collections documenting the BBC's broadcasting history, including copies of television and radio broadcasts, internal documents, photographs, online content, sheet music, commercially available music, BBC products (including ...
group, bbc.co.uk allowed legal downloads of selected archive material via the internet. The BBC has often included learning as part of its online service, running services such as
BBC Jam BBC Jam (formerly known as BBC Digital Curriculum) was an online educational service operated by the BBC from January 2006 to 20 March 2007. The service was available free across the United Kingdom offering multi-media educational resources. Ja ...
, Learning Zone Class Clips and also runs services such as
BBC WebWise BBC WebWise is both the BBC's archived guide to the internet for computer novices as well as some videos. Created in 1998, it consisted and on the archive, consists of a series of articles and videos. It also incorporates elements of another ...
and First Click which are designed to teach people how to use the internet.
BBC Jam BBC Jam (formerly known as BBC Digital Curriculum) was an online educational service operated by the BBC from January 2006 to 20 March 2007. The service was available free across the United Kingdom offering multi-media educational resources. Ja ...
was a free online service, delivered through broadband and narrowband connections, providing high-quality interactive resources designed to stimulate learning at home and at school. Initial content was made available in January 2006; however, BBC Jam was suspended on 20 March 2007 due to allegations made to the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
that it was damaging the interests of the commercial sector of the industry. In recent years, some major on-line companies and politicians have complained that BBC Online receives too much funding from the television licence, meaning that other websites are unable to compete with the vast amount of advertising-free on-line content available on BBC Online. Some have proposed that the amount of licence fee money spent on BBC Online should be reduced—either being replaced with funding from advertisements or subscriptions, or a reduction in the amount of content available on the site. In response to this the BBC carried out an investigation, and has now set in motion a plan to change the way it provides its online services. BBC Online will now attempt to fill in gaps in the market, and will guide users to other websites for currently existing market provision. (For example, instead of providing local events information and timetables, users will be guided to outside websites already providing that information.) Part of this plan included the BBC closing some of its websites, and rediverting money to redevelop other parts. On 26 February 2010, ''
The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ...
'' claimed that
Mark Thompson Mark Thompson may refer to: Sports * Mark Thompson (American football) (born 1994), American football player * Mark Thompson (baseball) (born 1971), baseball player * Mark Thompson (footballer) (born 1963), former Australian rules football premie ...
, Director General of the BBC, proposed that the BBC's web output should be cut by 50%, with online staff numbers and budgets reduced by 25% in a bid to scale back BBC operations and allow commercial rivals more room. On 2 March 2010, the BBC reported that it would cut its website spending by 25% and close BBC 6 Music and Asian Network, as part of Mark Thompson's plans to make "a smaller, fitter BBC for the digital age".


Interactive television

BBC Red Button is the brand name for the BBC's
interactive Across the many fields concerned with interactivity, including information science, computer science, human-computer interaction, communication, and industrial design, there is little agreement over the meaning of the term "interactivity", but m ...
digital television Digital television (DTV) is the transmission of television signals using digital encoding, in contrast to the earlier analog television technology which used analog signals. At the time of its development it was considered an innovative advanc ...
services, which are available through
Freeview Freeview may refer to: *Freeview (Australia), the marketing name for the digital terrestrial television platform in Australia *Freeview (New Zealand), a digital satellite and digital terrestrial television platform in New Zealand *Freeview (UK), a ...
(digital terrestrial), as well as
Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Digital UK. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008. F ...
,
Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...
(satellite), and
Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ven ...
(cable). Unlike
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BS ...
, the service's analogue counterpart, BBC Red Button is able to display full-colour graphics, photographs, and video, as well as programmes and can be accessed from any BBC channel. The service carries News, Weather and Sport 24 hours a day, but also provides extra features related to programmes specific at that time. Examples include viewers to play along at home to gameshows, to give, voice and vote on opinions to issues, as used alongside programmes such as ''
Question Time A question time in a parliament occurs when members of the parliament ask questions of government ministers (including the prime minister), which they are obliged to answer. It usually occurs daily while parliament is sitting, though it can be ca ...
''. At some points in the year, when multiple sporting events occur, some coverage of less mainstream sports or games are frequently placed on the Red Button for viewers to watch. Frequently, other features are added unrelated to programmes being broadcast at that time, such as the broadcast of the '' Doctor Who'' animated episode '' Dreamland'' in November 2009.


Music

The BBC employs 5 staff orchestras, a professional choir, and supports two amateur choruses, based in BBC venues across the UK; the
BBC Symphony Orchestra The BBC Symphony Orchestra (BBC SO) is a British orchestra based in London. Founded in 1930, it was the first permanent salaried orchestra in London, and is the only one of the city's five major symphony orchestras not to be self-governing. T ...
, the
BBC Singers The BBC Singers are a British chamber choir, and the professional chamber choir of the BBC. One of the six BBC Performing Groups, the BBC Singers are based at the BBC's Maida Vale Studios in London. The only full-time professional British c ...
and
BBC Symphony Chorus The BBC Symphony Chorus is a British amateur chorus based in London. It is the dedicated chorus for the BBC Symphony Orchestra, though it performs with other national and international orchestras. Brief history Background In its early years, t ...
based in London, the
BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (BBC SSO) is a Scottish broadcasting symphony orchestra based in Glasgow. One of five full-time orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), it is the oldest full-time professional ra ...
in Glasgow, the
BBC Philharmonic The BBC Philharmonic is a national British broadcasting symphony orchestra and is one of five radio orchestras maintained by the British Broadcasting Corporation. The Philharmonic is a department of the BBC North Group division based at MediaC ...
in Salford, the
BBC Concert Orchestra The BBC Concert Orchestra is a British concert orchestra based in London, one of the British Broadcasting Corporation's five radio orchestras. With around fifty players, it is the only one of the five BBC orchestras which is not a full-scale symp ...
based in Watford, and the
BBC National Orchestra of Wales The BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW) ( cy, Cerddorfa Genedlaethol Gymreig y BBC) is a Welsh symphony orchestra and one of the BBC's five professional radio orchestras. The BBC NOW is the only professional symphony orchestra organisation ...
and BBC National Chorus of Wales in Cardiff. It also buys a selected number of broadcasts from the
Ulster Orchestra The Ulster Orchestra, based in Belfast, is the only full-time professional orchestra in Northern Ireland. The orchestra plays the majority of its concerts in Belfast's Ulster Hall and Waterfront Hall. It also gives concerts across the United Ki ...
in Belfast and the
BBC Big Band The BBC Big Band, originally known as the BBC Radio Big Band is a British big band, previously run under the auspices of the British Broadcasting Corporation ( BBC). The band broadcasts exclusively on BBC Radio, particularly on BBC Radio 2's long ...
. The
BBC Proms The BBC Proms or Proms, formally named the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts Presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Ha ...
have been produced by the BBC every year since 1927, stepping in to fund the popular classical music festival when music publishers Chappell and Co withdrew their support. In 1930, the newly formed BBC Symphony Orchestra gave all 49 Proms, and have performed at every Last Night of the Proms since then. Nowadays, the BBC's orchestras and choirs are the backbone of the Proms, giving around 40%–50% of all performances each season. Many famous musicians of every genre have played at the BBC, such as
The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developm ...
(''
Live at the BBC {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) Live at the BBC or BBC Recordings are recordings originally made for or by BBC Radio 1. Many recordings were released under several name variants. Live at the BBC * ''Live at the BBC'' (The Be ...
'' is one of their many albums). The BBC is also responsible for the broadcast of
Glastonbury Festival Glastonbury Festival (formally Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts that takes place in Pilton, Somerset, England. In addition to contempo ...
,
Reading Festival The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. The Reading Fest ...
and
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
coverage of the Eurovision Song Contest, a show with which the broadcaster has been associated for over 60 years. The BBC also operates the division of BBC Audiobooks sometimes found in association with Chivers Audiobooks.


Other

The BBC operates other ventures in addition to their broadcasting arm. In addition to broadcasting output on television and radio, some programmes are also displayed on the
BBC Big Screen The BBC Big Screens are LED screens with sound systems situated in prominent locations in city centres in the United Kingdom. The project setting up these screens involved the BBC, LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Par ...
s located in several central-city locations. The BBC and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office also jointly run
BBC Monitoring BBC Monitoring (BBCM) is a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation which monitors, and reports on, mass media worldwide using open-source intelligence. Based at New Broadcasting House, the BBC's headquarters in central London, it has ...
, which monitors radio, television, the press and the internet worldwide. The BBC also developed several computers throughout the 1980s, most notably the
BBC Micro The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an empha ...
, which ran alongside the corporation's educational aims and programming. In 1951, in conjunction with
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
the BBC published ''The BBC Hymn Book'' which was intended to be used by radio listeners to follow hymns being broadcast. The book was published both with and without music, the music edition being entitled ''The BBC Hymn Book with Music''. The book contained 542 popular hymns.


Ceefax

The BBC provided the world's first teletext service called
Ceefax Ceefax (, punning on "seeing facts") was the world's first teletext information service and a forerunner to the current BBC Red Button service. Ceefax was started by the BBC in 1974 and ended, after 38 years of broadcasting, at 23:32:19 BS ...
(near-homophonous with "See Facts") on 23 September 1974 until 23 October 2012 on the
BBC 1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...
analogue channel then later on
BBC 2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
. It showed informational pages, such as News, Sport, and the Weather. From New Year's Eve in 1974, ITV's
Oracle An oracle is a person or agency considered to provide wise and insightful counsel or prophetic predictions, most notably including precognition of the future, inspired by deities. As such, it is a form of divination. Description The wor ...
tried to compete with Ceefax. Oracle closed on New Year's Eve, 1992. During its lifetime, Ceefax attracted millions of viewers, right up to 2012, prior to the digital switchover in the United Kingdom. Since then, the BBC's Red Button Service has provided a digital information system that replaced Ceefax.


BritBox

In 2016, the BBC, in partnership with fellow UK Broadcasters ITV and Channel 4 (who later withdrew from the project), set up 'project kangaroo' to develop an international online streaming service to rival services such as Netflix and Hulu. During the development stages 'Britflix' was touted as a potential name. However, the service eventually launched as
BritBox BritBox is an online digital video subscription service, founded by BBC Studios and ITV plc, operating in nine countries across North America, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
in March 2017. The online platform shows a catalogue of classic BBC and ITV shows, as well as making a number of programmes available shortly after their UK broadcast. , BritBox is available in the UK, the US, Canada, Australia, and, more recently, South Africa, with the potential availability for new markets in the future.


Commercial activities

BBC Studios (formerly
BBC Worldwide BBC Worldwide Ltd. was the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in January 1995. The company monetises BBC brands, selling BBC and other British programming for broadca ...
) is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC, responsible for the commercial exploitation of BBC programmes and other properties, including a number of television stations throughout the world. It was formed following the restructuring of its predecessor, BBC Enterprises, in 1995. The company owns and administers a number of commercial stations around the world operating in a number of territories and on a number of different platforms. The channel
BBC Entertainment BBC Entertainment is an international television channel broadcasting comedy, drama, light entertainment, reality and children's programming (some regions only) from the BBC, Channel 4 and other UK production houses. The channel broadcasts reg ...
shows current and archive entertainment programming to viewers in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East, with the BBC Studios channels
BBC America BBC America is an American basic cable network that is jointly owned by BBC Studios and AMC Networks. The channel primarily airs sci-fi and action series and films, as well as selected programs from the BBC (such as its nature documentary ...
and
BBC Canada BBC Canada was a Canadian English language specialty channel that mostly broadcast television series originally produced by the BBC, the public-service broadcaster of the United Kingdom. The channel was owned by Corus Entertainment (80% & manag ...
(Joint venture with
Corus Entertainment Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian mass media company. Formed in 1999 as a spin-off from Shaw Communications, it has prominent holdings in the radio, publishing, and television industries. It is headquartered at Corus Quay in Toronto, Onta ...
) showing similar programming in the North America region and
BBC UKTV BBC UKTV is an Australian pay television channel in Australia and New Zealand, screening British entertainment programming, sourced mainly from the archives of the BBC, RTL Group (mainly Talkback Thames material) and ITV plc. The channel was or ...
in the Australasia region. The company also airs two channels aimed at children, an international
CBeebies CBeebies is a British free-to-air public broadcast children's television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is also the brand used for all BBC content for children aged 6 years and under. Its sister channel CBBC is aimed at older chil ...
channel and
BBC Kids BBC Kids is the international children's brand of BBC Studios, and has been applied to a number of TV services. It draws from the long history of children's programming on the BBC, and is strongly related to the CBBC channel in the United King ...
, a joint venture with
Knowledge Network Corporation Knowledge Network, also branded as British Columbia's Knowledge Network, is a Canadian publicly funded educational cable television network serving the province of British Columbia. It is owned by the Knowledge Network Corporation, a Crown corp ...
, which airs programmes under the CBeebies and BBC K brands. The company also runs the channels
BBC Knowledge BBC Knowledge was a British television channel which was owned by the BBC and was launched on 1 June 1999, broadcasting documentary, cultural and educational programmes. It was shut down on 2 March 2002, and was replaced by BBC Four. History L ...
, broadcasting factual and learning programmes, and
BBC Lifestyle BBC Lifestyle is an international television channel wholly owned by BBC Studios. The channel provides six programming strands: Food, Home & Design, Fashion & Style, Health, Parenting, and Personal Development. On 1 August 2019, BBC Lifestyle a ...
, broadcasting programmes based on themes of Food, Style and Wellbeing. In addition to this, BBC Studios runs an international version of the channel
BBC HD BBC HD was a 24-hour high-definition television channel provided by the BBC. The service was initially run as a trial from 15 May 2006 until becoming a full service on 1 December 2007 before its discontinuation on 26 March 2013. It broadcast ...
, and provides HD simulcasts of the channels BBC Knowledge and BBC America. BBC Studios also distributes the 24-hour international news channel
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
. The station is separate from BBC Studios to maintain the station's neutral point of view, but is distributed by BBC Studios. The channel itself is the oldest surviving entity of its kind, and has 50 foreign news bureaus and correspondents in nearly all countries in the world. As officially surveyed, it is available to more than 294 million households, significantly more than CNN's estimated 200 million. In addition to these international channels, BBC Studios also owns the
UKTV UKTV Media Limited, simply known as UKTV, is a British multi-channel broadcaster, which, since 2019, has been wholly owned by BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), a commercial subsidiary of the BBC. It was formed on 1 November 1992 through ...
network of seven channels. These channels contain BBC archive programming to be rebroadcast on their respective channels:
Alibi An alibi (from the Latin, '' alibī'', meaning "somewhere else") is a statement by a person, who is a possible perpetrator of a crime, of where they were at the time a particular offence was committed, which is somewhere other than where the crim ...
, crime dramas;
Dave Dave may refer to: Film, television, and theater * ''Dave'' (film), a 1993 film starring Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver * ''Dave'' (musical), a 2018 stage musical adaptation of the film * Dave (TV channel), a digital television channel in the ...
(slogan: "The Home of Witty Banter");
Drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...
, drama, launched in 2013;
Eden Eden may refer to: * Garden of Eden, the "garden of God" described in the Book of Genesis Places and jurisdictions Canada * Eden, Ontario * Eden High School Middle East * Eden, Lebanon, a city and former bishopric * Camp Eden, Iraq O ...
, nature;
Gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile ...
, comedy; W, Entertainment; and Yesterday, history programming. In addition to these channels, many BBC programmes are sold via BBC Studios to foreign television stations with comedy, documentaries, crime dramas (such as ''
Luther Luther may refer to: People * Martin Luther (1483–1546), German monk credited with initiating the Protestant Reformation * Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), American minister and leader in the American civil rights movement * Luther (give ...
'' and ''
Peaky Blinders The Peaky Blinders were a street gang based in Birmingham, England, which operated from the 1880s until the 1910s. The group consisted largely of young criminals from lower- to middle-class backgrounds. They engaged in robbery, violence, racket ...
'') and
historical drama A historical drama (also period drama, costume drama, and period piece) is a work set in a past time period, usually used in the context of film and television. Historical drama includes historical fiction and romance film, romances, adventure f ...
productions being the most popular. The BBC's most successful reality television show format, ''
Strictly Come Dancing ''Strictly Come Dancing'' (informally known as ''Strictly'') is a British dance contest show in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored by a panel of usually 4 ...
''—under the title ''Dancing with the Stars''—has been exported to 60 other countries. In addition, BBC television news appears nightly on many
Public Broadcasting Service The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educa ...
stations in the United States, as do reruns of BBC programmes such as '' EastEnders'', and in New Zealand on
TVNZ 1 TVNZ 1 ( mi, Te Reo Tātaki Tahi) is the first national television channel owned and operated by the state-owned broadcaster Television New Zealand (TVNZ). It is the oldest television broadcaster in New Zealand, starting out from 1960 as indep ...
. In addition to programming, BBC Studios produces material to accompany programmes. The company maintained the publishing arm of the BBC,
BBC Magazines Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a British multinational publishing house that currently publishes a significant range of titles, including ''Radio Times, Top Gear (magazine), BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food'' and a ...
, which published the ''
Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...
'' as well as a number of magazines that support BBC programming such as '' BBC Top Gear'', ''
BBC Good Food ''BBC Good Food'' is a global food media brand, with a monthly magazine, website, app, live events and series of books. It has had four editors since its launch: Mitzie Wilson (1987–1997), Orlando Murrin (1997–2004), Gillian Carter (2004– ...
'', '' BBC Sky at Night'', ''
BBC History ''BBC History Magazine'' is a British publication devoted to both British and world history and aimed at all levels of knowledge and interest. The publication releases thirteen editions a year, one per month and a Christmas special edition, an ...
'', ''
BBC Wildlife ''BBC Wildlife'' is a British glossy, all-colour magazine about wildlife, operated and published by Immediate Media Company. It produces 13 issues a year. ''BBC Wildlife'' was launched in January 1963 as ''Animals Magazine'', edited by filmmaker ...
'' and ''
BBC Music BBC Music is responsible for the music played across the BBC. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music, and the BBC Asian Network. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio ...
''. BBC Magazines was sold to Exponent Private Equity in 2011, which merged it with Origin Publishing (previously owned by BBC Worldwide between 2004 and 2006) to form
Immediate Media Company Immediate Media Company Limited (styled as Immediate Media Co) is a British multinational publishing house that currently publishes a significant range of titles, including ''Radio Times, BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food'' and a host of others. In ...
. BBC Studios also publishes books, to accompany programmes such as '' Doctor Who'' under the
BBC Books BBC Books (also formerly known as BBC Publishing) is an imprint majority-owned and managed by Penguin Random House through its Ebury Publishing division. The minority shareholder is BBC Studios, the commercial subsidiary of the British Broadca ...
brand, a publishing imprint majority owned by
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Ger ...
. Soundtrack albums, talking books and sections of radio broadcasts are also sold under the brand
BBC Records BBC Records was a division of the BBC founded in 1967 to commercially exploit the corporation's output for radio and television for both educational and domestic use. The division was known as BBC Radio Enterprises (1967–1970), BBC Records (1 ...
, with DVDs also being sold and licensed in large quantities to consumers both in the UK and abroad under the
2 Entertain 2 Entertain (stylized as 2 , entertain) is a British video and music publisher founded in September 2004 by the merger of BBC Video and Video Collection International in 2004. Under CEO Richard Green, the company operated as a joint venture b ...
brand. Archive programming and classical music recordings are sold under the brand BBC Legends.


Cultural significance

Until the development, popularisation, and domination of television, radio was the broadcast medium upon which people in the United Kingdom relied. It "reached into every home in the land, and simultaneously united the nation, an important factor during the Second World War". The BBC introduced the world's first "high-definition"
405-line television The 405-line monochrome analogue television broadcasting system was the first fully electronic television system to be used in regular broadcasting. The number of television lines influences the image resolution, or quality of the picture. It ...
service in 1936. It suspended its television service during the Second World War and until 1946, but remained the only television broadcaster in the UK until 1955, when Independent Television ( ITV) began operating.Perry (1999) p16 This heralded the transformation of television into a popular and dominant medium. Nevertheless, "throughout the 1950s radio still remained the dominant source of broadcast comedy". Further, the BBC was the only legal radio broadcaster until 1968 (when
URY Ury or URY may refer to: Places * River Ury, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland * Ury House, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire, Scotland, an historic mansion * Ury, Seine-et-Marne, a commune in the Seine-et-Marne département of France * Ury, West Virginia, Un ...
obtained its first licence). Despite the advent of commercial television and radio, with competition from ITV,
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...
and
Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...
, the BBC has remained one of the main elements in British popular culture through its obligation to produce TV and radio programmes for mass audiences. However, the arrival of
BBC2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...
allowed the BBC also to make programmes for minority interests in drama, documentaries, current affairs, entertainment, and sport. Examples cited include the television series ''
Civilisation A civilization (or civilisation) is any complex society characterized by the development of a state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond natural spoken language (namely, a writing system). Civ ...
'', '' Doctor Who'', ''
I, Claudius ''I, Claudius'' is a historical novel by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934. Written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius, it tells the history of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and the early years of the R ...
'', ''
Monty Python's Flying Circus ''Monty Python's Flying Circus'' (also known as simply ''Monty Python'') is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin and Terry Gilliam, who became know ...
'', ''
Pot Black ''Pot Black'' was a snooker tournament in the United Kingdom broadcast on the BBC. Each match was contested over a single , where other tournaments were significantly longer. The event carried no ranking points, but played a large part in t ...
'', and ''
Tonight Tonight may refer to: Television * ''Tonight'' (1957 TV programme), a 1957–1965 British current events television programme hosted by Cliff Michelmore that was broadcast on BBC * ''Tonight'' (1975 TV programme), a 1975–1979 British current ...
'', but other examples can be given in each of these fields as shown by the BBC's entries in the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
's 2000 list of the
100 Greatest British Television Programmes The BFI TV 100 is a list of 100 television programmes or series that was compiled in 2000 by the British Film Institute (BFI), as chosen by a poll of industry professionals, with the aim to determine the best British television programmes of any ...
, with the BBC's 1970s sitcom ''
Fawlty Towers ''Fawlty Towers'' is a British television sitcom written by John Cleese and Connie Booth, broadcast on BBC2 in 1975 and 1979. Two series of six episodes each were made. The show was ranked first on a list of the 100 Greatest British Television ...
'' (featuring
John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...
as
Basil Fawlty Basil Fawlty is the main character of the 1970s British sitcom '' Fawlty Towers'', played by John Cleese. The proprietor of the hotel Fawlty Towers, he is a cynical and misanthropic Misanthropy is the general hatred, dislike, distrust or c ...
) topping the list. ''
Top of the Pops ''Top of the Pops'' (''TOTP'') is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly between 1January 1964 and 30 July 2006. The programme was the world's longest-running weekly music show. For most o ...
'', the world's longest-running weekly music show, first aired in January 1964, The Rolling Stones being the first performers on it. On air since 22 August 1964, ''
Match of the Day ''Match of the Day'' (abbreviated to ''MOTD'') is a football highlights programme, typically broadcast on BBC One on Saturday nights, during the Premier League season. The show's current presenter is former England international striker Gary ...
'' is broadcast on Saturday nights during the
Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...
season. Some BBC shows have had a direct impact on society. For example, ''
The Great British Bake Off ''The Great British Bake Off'' (often abbreviated to ''Bake Off'' or ''GBBO'') is a British television baking competition, produced by Love Productions, in which a group of amateur bakers compete against each other in a series of rounds, att ...
'' is credited with reinvigorating interest in baking throughout the UK, with stores reporting sharp rises in sales of baking ingredients and accessories. The export of BBC programmes through services like the
BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...
and
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media an ...
, as well as through the channels operated by
BBC Studios BBC Studios is a British content company. It is a commercial subsidiary of the BBC that was formed in April 2018 through the merger of the BBC's commercial production arm and the BBC's commercial international distribution arm, BBC Worldwide. ...
, means that audiences can consume BBC productions worldwide. Long-running BBC shows include: ''
Desert Island Discs ''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (us ...
'', broadcast on radio since 1942; ''
Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...
'', broadcast on BBC television since 1953 it is the world's longest-running news television programme. The British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) was first broadcast on the BBC in 1956, with
Vivien Leigh Vivien Leigh ( ; 5 November 1913 – 8 July 1967; born Vivian Mary Hartley), styled as Lady Olivier after 1947, was a British actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress twice, for her definitive performances as Scarlett O'Hara in ''Gon ...
as the host. The television equivalent, the
British Academy Television Awards The BAFTA TV Awards, or British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the BAFTA. They have been awarded annually since 1955. Background The first-ever Awards, given in 1955, consisted of six categories. Until ...
, has been screened exclusively on the BBC since a 2007 awards ceremony that included wins for
Jim Broadbent James Broadbent (born 24 May 1949) is an English actor. He won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his supporting role as John Bayley in the feature film '' Iris'' (2001), as well as winning a BAFTA TV Award and a Golden Globe for ...
(Best actor) and
Ricky Gervais Ricky Dene Gervais ( ; born 25 June 1961) is an English comedian, actor, writer, and director. He co-created, co-wrote, and acted in the British television sitcoms '' The Office'' (2001–2003), '' Extras'' (2005–2007), and '' An Idiot Abroad ...
(Best comedy performance). The term "BBC English" was used as an alternative name for
Received Pronunciation Received Pronunciation (RP) is the accent traditionally regarded as the standard and most prestigious form of spoken British English. For over a century, there has been argument over such questions as the definition of RP, whether it is geog ...
, and the ''English Pronouncing Dictionary'' uses the term "BBC Pronunciation" to label its recommendations. However, the BBC itself now makes more use of
regional accents In sociolinguistics, an accent is a way of pronouncing a language that is distinctive to a country, area, social class, or individual. An accent may be identified with the locality in which its speakers reside (a regional or geographical a ...
in order to reflect the diversity of the UK, while continuing to expect clarity and fluency of its presenters. From its "starchy" beginnings, the BBC has also become more inclusive, and now attempts to accommodate the interests of all strata of society and all minorities, because they all pay the licence fee.


Colloquial terms

Older domestic UK audiences often refer to the BBC as "the Beeb", a nickname originally coined by
Peter Sellers Peter Sellers (born Richard Henry Sellers; 8 September 1925 – 24 July 1980) was an English actor and comedian. He first came to prominence performing in the BBC Radio comedy series ''The Goon Show'', featured on a number of hit comic songs ...
on ''
The Goon Show ''The Goon Show'' is a British radio comedy programme, originally produced and broadcast by the BBC Home Service from 1951 to 1960, with occasional repeats on the BBC Light Programme. The first series, broadcast from 28 May to 20 September ...
'' in the 1950s, when he referred to the "Beeb Beeb Ceeb". It was then borrowed, shortened and popularised by radio DJ
Kenny Everett Kenny Everett (born Maurice James Christopher Cole; 25 December 1944 – 4 April 1995) was an English comedian, radio disc jockey and television presenter. After spells on pirate radio and Radio Luxembourg in the mid-1960s, he was one of the fi ...
.
David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
's recording sessions at the BBC were released as ''
Bowie at the Beeb ''Bowie at the Beeb'' is a compilation album by English singer-songwriter David Bowie, first released in 2000. Originally, it came in a three-CD set, the third, bonus CD being a live recording made on at the Portland BBC Radio Theatre. Late ...
'', while
Queen Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...
's recording sessions with the BBC were released as ''
At the Beeb ''At the Beeb'' is a live album by the British rock band Queen, released on vinyl, cassette tape, and CD in 1989. It was released by Hollywood Records in 1995 in the United States and Canada under the title ''At the BBC'' on CD and as lim ...
''. Another nickname, now less commonly used, is "Auntie", said to originate from the old-fashioned "Auntie knows best" attitude, or the idea of aunties and uncles who are present in the background of one's life (but possibly a reference to the "aunties" and "uncles" who presented children's programmes in the early days) in the days when John Reith, the BBC's first director general, was in charge. The term "Auntie" for the BBC is often credited to radio disc-jockey Jack Jackson. To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the BBC the song " Auntie" was released in 1972. The two nicknames have also been used together as "Auntie Beeb".


Controversies

Throughout its existence, the BBC has faced numerous accusations regarding many topics: the
Iraq war {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Iraq War {{Nobold, {{lang, ar, حرب العراق (Arabic) {{Nobold, {{lang, ku, شەڕی عێراق ( Kurdish) , partof = the Iraq conflict and the War on terror , image ...
, politics, ethics and religion, as well as funding and staffing. It also has been involved in numerous controversies because of its coverage of specific news stories and programming. In October 2014, the BBC Trust issued the "BBC complaints framework", outlining complaints and appeals procedures. However, the regulatory oversight of the BBC may be transferred to
Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers acros ...
. The British "
House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport" recommended in its report "The Future of the BBC", that OFCOM should become the final arbiter of complaints made about the BBC. The BBC has long faced accusations of
liberal Liberal or liberalism may refer to: Politics * a supporter of liberalism ** Liberalism by country * an adherent of a Liberal Party * Liberalism (international relations) * Sexually liberal feminism * Social liberalism Arts, entertainment and m ...
and
left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...
bias. Accusations of a bias against the
Premiership of Margaret Thatcher Margaret Thatcher's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 4 May 1979 when she accepted an invitation of Queen Elizabeth II to form a government, and ended on 28 November 1990 upon her resignation. She was elected to the pos ...
and the
Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...
were often made against the BBC by members of that government, with
Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...
herself considering the broadcaster's news coverage to be biased and irresponsible. In 2011,
Peter Sissons Peter George Sissons (17 July 1942 – 1 October 2019) was an English journalist and broadcaster. He was a newscaster for ITN, providing bulletins on ITV and Channel 4, before becoming the presenter of the BBC's ''Question Time'' between 1989 ...
, a main news presenter at the BBC from 1989 to 2009, said that "at the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left". Another BBC presenter,
Andrew Marr Andrew William Stevenson Marr (born 31 July 1959) is a British journalist and broadcaster. Beginning his career as a political commentator, he subsequently edited '' The Independent'' newspaper from 1996 to 1998 and was political editor of BBC ...
, commented that "the BBC is not impartial or neutral. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias." Former BBC director
Roger Mosey Roger Mosey (born 4 January 1958)"Rose ...
classified it as "liberal defensive." In 2022, the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, acknowledged that "the BBC does have a liberal bias", and added that "the institution is fighting against it". Conversely, writing for ''
The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...
'', the left-wing columnist
Owen Jones Owen Jones (born 8 August 1984) is a British newspaper columnist, Pundit, political commentator, journalist, author, and Left-wing politics, left-wing activist. He writes a column for ''The Guardian'' and contributes to the ''New Statesman'' a ...
stated "the truth is the BBC is stacked full of rightwingers," and cited as an example of bias its employment of "ultra-
Thatcherite Thatcherism is a form of British conservative ideology named after Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher that relates to not just her political platform and particular policies but also her personal character and general style of manag ...
"
Andrew Neil Andrew Ferguson Neil (born 21 May 1949) is a Scottish former journalist and broadcaster who is chairman of ''The Spectator'' and presenter of '' The Andrew Neil Show'' on Channel 4. He was editor of ''The Sunday Times'' from 1983 to 1994. He f ...
as a politics presenter. A 2018 opinion poll by BMG Research found that 40% of the British public think that the BBC is politically partisan, with a nearly even split between those that believe it leans to the left or right. Paul Mason, a former Economics Editor of the BBC's ''
Newsnight ''Newsnight'' (or ''BBC Newsnight'') is BBC Two's news and current affairs programme, providing in-depth investigation and analysis of the stories behind the day's headlines. The programme is broadcast on weekdays at 22:30. and is also avail ...
'' programme, criticised the BBC as "unionist" in relation to its coverage of the
Scottish independence referendum A referendum on Scottish independence from the United Kingdom was held in Scotland on 18 September 2014. The referendum question was, "Should Scotland be an independent country?", which voters answered with "Yes" or "No". The "No" side wo ...
campaign and said its senior employees tended to be of a "
neo-liberal Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
" point of view. The BBC has also been characterised as a pro-
monarchist Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
institution. The BBC was accused of
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loa ...
by conservative journalist and author
Toby Young Toby Daniel Moorsom Young (born 17 October 1963) is a British social commentator. He is the founder and director of the Free Speech Union, an associate editor of '' The Spectator'', and a former associate editor at '' Quillette.'' A graduate ...
due to what he believed to be an anti-
Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 CET).The UK also left the European Atomic Energy Community (EAE ...
approach, which included a day of live programming on migration.
Conspiracy theorists A conspiracy theory is an explanation for an event or situation that invokes a conspiracy by sinister and powerful groups, often political in motivation, when other explanations are more probable.Additional sources: * * * * The term has a nega ...
in Iran, led by Supreme Leader
Ali Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president ...
, have regarded the BBC as an instrument of British political machinations. The Minister of Culture Hossein Saffar Harandi declared
BBC Persian TV BBC Persian Television ( fa, تلویزیون فارسی بی‌بی‌سی Televizion-e Fârsi-ye BBC) is the BBC's Persian language news channel that was launched on 14 January 2009. The service is broadcast by satellite and is also available ...
illegal in 2009, citing "the BBC's history of creating chaos in Iran, and its efforts to set the various strata of Iranian society against each other". In 2011, Intelligence Minister
Heydar Moslehi Heydar Moslehi (born 1957 in Isfahan) is an Iranian cleric and politician who served as the minister of intelligence from 2009 to 2013. Early life and education Moslehi was born in Shahreza in the Isfahan province, Iran, in 1957. He was a stud ...
said the BBC's real identity was " Baha’i and Zionist" and he accused it of helping direct the
2009 Iranian presidential election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests co ...
.
BBC Persian BBC Persian ( fa, بی‌بی‌سی فارسی) is the Persian language broadcast station and subsidiary of BBC World Service which conveys the latest political, social, economical and sport news relevant to Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan, and ...
journalists have faced online attacks allegedly linked to Iran's government, which has led the BBC to file 4 complaints to the UN addressing the issue. A 2021 poll from the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland had less respondents in Iran rating news from the BBC as accurate compared to news from domestic TV and social media. In 2008, the BBC was criticised by some for referring to the men who carried out the
November 2008 Mumbai attacks The 2008 Mumbai attacks (also referred to as 26/11, pronounced "twenty six eleven") were a series of terrorist attacks that took place in November 2008, when 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamist terrorist organisation from Pakistan, c ...
as "gunmen" rather than "terrorists". In protest against the use of the word "gunmen" by the BBC, journalist Mobashar Jawed "M.J." Akbar refused to take part in an interview following the Mumbai terror attacks, and criticised the BBC's reportage of the incident. British parliamentarian
Stephen Pound Stephen Pelham Pound (born 3 July 1948) is a British former Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ealing North from 1997 to 2019. Background His father, Pelham Pendennis Pound (1922–1999) was a BBC sub-editor and ...
supported these claims, referring to the BBC's whitewashing of the terror attacks as "the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing. It is desperation to avoid causing offence which ultimately causes more offence to everyone." A BBC World Service newsreader who presented a daily show produced for
Kyrgyzstan Kyrgyzstan,, pronounced or the Kyrgyz Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Asia. Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the south, and the People's Republic of China to the ea ...
was claimed to have participated in an opposition movement with the goal of overthrowing the government led by president
Kurmanbek Bakiyev Kurmanbek Saliyevich Bakiyev (, ''Kurmanbek Saliyevich (Sali Uulu) Bakiyev''; born 1 August 1949) is a Kyrgyz politician who served as the second President of Kyrgyzstan, from 2005 to 2010. Large opposition protests in April 2010 led to the tak ...
. The BBC presenter resigned from his post in 2010 once the allegations of his participation in the
revolution In political science, a revolution (Latin: ''revolutio'', "a turn around") is a fundamental and relatively sudden change in political power and political organization which occurs when the population revolts against the government, typically due ...
became public. In February 2021, following Ofcom's decision to cancel the licence of
China Global Television Network China Global Television Network (CGTN) is the international division of state media outlet China Central Television (CCTV), headquartered in Beijing, China. CGTN broadcasts six news and general interest channels in five languages. CGTN is re ...
(CGTN) and the BBC's coverage of the persecution of ethnic minority Uighurs in China, the Chinese authorities banned BBC World News from broadcasting in the country. According to a statement from China's National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), BBC World News reports on China "infringed the principles of truthfulness and impartiality in journalism" and also "harmed China's national interests".
Radio Television Hong Kong Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) is the public broadcasting service in Hong Kong. GOW, the predecessor to RTHK, was established in 1928 as the first broadcasting service in Hong Kong. As a government department under the Commerce and Econom ...
(RTHK) suspended BBC World News the day after the ban took effect on the mainland.


Logo and symbols


Logos

File:BBC logo (50s-60s).svg, BBC's first three-box logo used from 1958 until 1963. File:BBC logo (70s).svg, BBC's inverted variant of the second three-box logo used from 1963 until 1971.Hayden Walker
History of BBC corporate logos
.
TV ARK TVARK is an online archival website of images, sound and video clips illustrating British television presentation history. Content includes idents, programme promotions, title sequences, public information films, commercials, daily start-ups an ...
. Retrieved 20 November 2010.
File:BBC logo (80s).svg, BBC's third three-box logo used from 1971 until 1988. File:BBC logo (pre97).svg, BBC's fourth three-box logo used from 1988 until 1997. File:BBC.svg, BBC's fifth three-box logo used from 1997 to 2023. File:BBC Logo 2021.svg, BBC's sixth and current three-box logo used since 2021.


Coat of Arms


See also

*
Gaelic broadcasting in Scotland Gaelic broadcasting in Scotland is a developing area of the media in Scotland which deals with broadcasts given in Scottish Gaelic and has important links with the efforts of Gaelic revival in Scotland. As well as being informative, Gaelic broad ...
*
The Green Book (BBC) The BBC Variety Programmes Policy Guide For Writers and Producers, commonly referred to as The Green Book, is a booklet of guidelines, issued by the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1949, to the producers and writers of its comedy programme ...
* List of BBC television channels and radio stations *
List of companies based in London This is a list of companies in London, England. London is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. With an estimated 8,308,369 residents in 2012, London is the most populous region, urban zone and metropolitan area in the Unit ...
*
List of television programmes broadcast by the BBC This is a list of television programmes broadcast by the BBC either currently or previously broadcast on the BBC in the United Kingdom. * Children's television programmes can be found at List of BBC children's television programmes. Curre ...
*
Prewar television stations This is a list of pre-World War 2 television stations of the 1920s and 1930s. Most of these experimental stations were located in Europe (notably in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, and Russia), Australia, Ca ...
*
Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom In the United Kingdom, the term public service broadcasting (PSB) refers to broadcasting intended for public benefit rather than to serve purely commercial interests. The communications regulator Ofcom requires that certain television and radio b ...
*
Quango A quango or QUANGO (less often QuANGO or QANGO) is an organisation to which a government has devolved power, but which is still partly controlled and/or financed by government bodies. The term was originally a shortening of "quasi-NGO", where N ...
*
Television in the United Kingdom Regular television broadcasts in the United Kingdom started in 1936 as a public service which was free of advertising, which followed the first demonstration of a transmitted moving image in 1926. Currently, the United Kingdom has a collection ...
*


References


Sources

* Baade, Christina L. ''Victory through Harmony: The BBC and Popular Music in World War II'' (Oxford University Press, 2012). * Briggs, Asa. – ''The BBC – the First Fifty Years'' – Condensed version of the five-volume history by the same author. –
Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1985. * Coulton, Barbara. – ''Louis MacNeice in the BBC'' – Writer and producer from 1941 to 1961 in the Features Department of BBC radio. –
Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel B ...
, 1980. * Gilder, Eric. – ''Mass Media Moments in the United Kingdom, the USSR and the USA'' (2003). – Historical background relating to the British Broadcasting Company, Ltd, its founding companies; their transatlantic connections; General Post Office licensing system; commercial competitors from Europe before the Second World War and offshore during the 1960s
online
* Hajkowski, Thomas. ''The BBC and National Identity in Britain, 1922–53'' (Manchester University Press, 2010), 252 pages; explores ideas of Britishness conveyed in BBC radio programmes, including notions of the empire and monarchy as symbols of unity; also considers regional broadcasting in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. * Hendy, David. ''Life on air: a history of Radio Four'' (Oxford University Press, 2007) covers 1967 to 1997. * James, A. Lloyd. ''The Broadcast Word''. (Kegan Paul, 1935), * Mills, Brett. "'Shoved Online': BBC Three, British Television and the Marginalisation of Young Adult Audiences." in ''Media, Margins and Popular Culture'' (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2015) pp. 219–231. * Parker, Derek. – ''Radio: the Great Years'' – History of BBC radio programmes from the beginning until the date of publication. Newton Abbot:
David & Charles David & Charles Ltd is an English publishing company. It is the owner of the David & Charles imprint, which specialises in craft and lifestyle publishing. David and Charles Ltd acts as distributor for all David and Charles Ltd books and cont ...
, 1977. * Potter, Simon J. ''Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922–1970'' (2012) online * Smart, Billy. "The BBC Television Audience Research Reports, 1957–1979: Recorded Opinions and Invisible Expectations." ''Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television'' 34#3 (2014): 452–462. * Spangenberg, Jochen. – ''The BBC in Transition. Reasons, Results and Consequences'' – Encompassing account of the BBC and influencing external factors until 1996. – Deutscher Universitaetsverlag. 1997. * West, W. J. – ''Truth Betrayed'' a critical assessment of the BBC, London, 1987, * Wilson, H. H. – ''Pressure Group'' – History of the political fight to introduce commercial television into the United Kingdom. – Rutgers University Press, 1961. * Wyver, John. – ''The Moving Image: An International History of Film, Television & Radio'' –
Basil Blackwell Sir Basil Henry Blackwell (29 May 18899 April 1984) was born in Oxford, England. He was the son of Benjamin Henry Blackwell (18491924), founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwell family's publishing and books ...
Ltd in Association with the
British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves film-making and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...
, 1989.


Primary sources

* * * – Copies of all of the BBC's annual reports since the millennium. * Milne, Alasdair. – ''The Memoirs of a British Broadcaster'' – History of the Zircon spy satellite affair, written by a former Director-General of the BBC. A series of BBC radio programmes called "''The Secret Society''" led to a raid by police in both England and Scotland to seize documents as part of a government censorship campaign. – Coronet, 1989.


External links

* *
Third Programme Radio Scripts Collection
a
Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, & Rare Book Library, Emory University
{{Authority control Radio in the United Kingdom Publicly funded broadcasters Mass media companies based in London British companies established in 1922 1922 establishments in England European Broadcasting Union members Multilingual broadcasters British brands Public corporations of the United Kingdom with a Royal Charter Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Peabody Award winners Radio stations established in 1922 Radio broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom Television broadcasting companies of the United Kingdom Mass media companies established in 1922