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The British Broadcasting Corporation, invariably known as the BBC (and also informally known as the Beeb or Auntie) is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world, employing 26,000 staff in the UK alone and with a budget of £4 billion.• Founded in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, it was subsequently incorporated and made a state-owned but independent corporation in 1927. The corporation produces programmes and information services, broadcasting on television, radio, and the Internet. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain",• and the motto of the BBC is Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation. The BBC is a quasi-autonomous Public Corporation operating as a public service broadcaster. The Corporation is currently run by a board of governors appointed by The Queen on the advice of government ministers; however, the BBC is, per its charter, to be "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners".• Its domestic programming and broadcasts are primarily funded by levying television licence fees (under the Wireless & Telegraphy Act 1947), although there is also money raised through commercial activities such as sale of merchandise and programming. The BBC World Service, however, is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In order to justify the licence fee the BBC is expected to produce a number of high-rating shows in addition to programmes that commercial broadcasters would not normally broadcast.• Quite often domestic audiences have affectionately referred to the BBC as the Beeb, (coined by Kenny Everett) or as Auntie; the latter said to originate in the somewhat old fashioned Auntie knows best• attitude dating back to the early days when John Reith was in charge. Occasionally the terms are used together as Auntie Beeb.
History The original British Broadcasting Company was founded in 1922 by a group of telecommunications companies (including subsidiaries of General Electric and AT&T) to broadcast experimental radio services. The first transmission was on 14 November of that year, from station 2LO, located at Marconi House, London.• The Company, with John Reith as general manager, became the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927 when it was granted a Royal Charter of incorporation and ceased to be privately owned. It started experimental television broadcasting in 1932, becoming a regular service (known as the BBC Television Service) in 1936. Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September, 1939 to 7 June, 1946 during the Second World War. A widely reported urban legend is that, upon resumption of service, 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, who had also been the last person on air when transmission was interrupted, and the words said were “Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh...?”• Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955 with the commercially and independently operated ITV. As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC were lauded and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming,• the BBC were awarded a second TV channel, (BBC 2), in 1964, renaming the existing channel BBC 1. BBC 2 was broadcast in colour from 1 July, 1967, and was joined by BBC 1 and ITV on 15 November, 1969. In 1974 the BBC's teletext service, CEEFAX, was introduced but was not finally transmitted in-vision as such until as early as in April 1980. In 1978 the BBC went on strike just before the Christmas of that year, 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), especially on satellite television, cable television, and digital television services. The BBC Research Department has played a major part in the development of broadcasting and recording techniques. In the early days it carried out essential research into acoustics and programme level and noise measurement. The 2004 Hutton Inquiry, and the subsequent report raised questions about the BBC journalistic standards and its impartiality. This lead to resignations of senior management members at the time. Royal Charter The BBC is a quasi-autonomous Public Corporation operating as a public service broadcaster incorporated under a Royal Charter reviewed on a 10 yearly basis. The Corporation is currently run by a board of governors appointed by The Queen on the advice of the government for a term of four years, though this is soon to be replaced with a BBC Trust.• The BBC is required by its charter to be free from both political and commercial influence and to answer only to its viewers and listeners.• Charter review The BBC's Royal Charter is currently under review. Although the Charter is widely expected to be renewed in 2006, some proposals have suggested dramatic changes. The BBC itself suggested radical changes in its "Building Public Value" proposals published in June 2004.• Green paper On 2 March 2005 the Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell published a green paper setting out her proposals for the future of the BBC.• The main points of this were: White paper In March 2006 the Culture Secretary published a white paper on the future of the BBC.• This charged the Corporation with: The BBC must display at least one of the following characteristics in all content: high quality, originality, innovation, to be challenging and to be engaging. The White Paper also confirms the intention stated in the Green Paper to maintain the licence fee system and set up a BBC Trust. Corporate structure Management The BBC is a nominally autonomous corporation, independent from direct government intervention. It is run by an appointed Board of Governors. General management of the organisation is in the hands of a Director-General appointed by the governors. The governors as of 19 January 2005 were: The current Director-General is Mark Thompson. On July 19 2006 he announced a new Executive Board of ten directors. Finance The BBC has the largest budget of any UK broadcaster with an operating expenditure of £4 billion in 2005• compared to £3.2 billion for British Sky Broadcasting,• £1.7 billion for ITV• and £79 million (in 2006) for GCap Media (the largest commercial radio broadcaster).• Revenue The principal means of funding the BBC is through the television licence, costing around £11 a month if paid by direct debit (as of July 2006). Such a licence is required to operate a broadcast television receiver within the UK. The cost of a television licence is set by the government and enforced by the criminal law. The revenue is collected privately and is paid into the central government Consolidated fund, a process defined in the Communications Act 2003. Funds are then allocated by the DCMS and Treasury and approved by Parliament via the Appropriation Act(s). Additional revenues are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to compensate for subsidised licences for over-75's. For this reason the BBC is sometimes referred as a "state" broadcaster as the state controls the BBC's funding. Income from commercial enterprises and from overseas sales of its catalogue of programmes has substantially increased over recent years.• with BBC Worldwide contributing some £145million in cash to the BBC's core public service business. According to the BBC's 2005 Annual Report,• its income can be broken down as follows: Expenditure The BBC gives two forms of expenditure statement for the financial year 2005-2006. The amount of each licence fee spent monthly• breaks down as follows: The total broadcasting spend for 2005-2006• is given as: Headquarters and regional offices Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London is the official headquarters of the BBC. It is home to the national radio networks BBC Radio 2, 3, 4, 6 Music, and BBC 7. On the front of the building are statues of Prospero and Ariel (from Shakespeare's The Tempest) sculpted by Eric Gill. Renovation of Broadcasting House began in 2002 and is scheduled for completion in 2010. As part of a major reorganisation of BBC property, Broadcasting House is to become home to BBC News (both television and radio), national radio, and the BBC World Service. The major part of this plan involves the demolition of the two post-war extensions to the building and construction of a new building• beside the existing structure. During the rebuilding process many of the BBC Radio networks have been relocated to other buildings in the vicinity of Portland Place. In 2007/2008 BBC News is expected to relocate from the News Centre at BBC Television Centre to the refurbished Broadcasting House in what is being described as "one of the world's largest live broadcast centres".• By far the largest concentration of BBC staff in the UK exists in White City. Well known buildings in this area include the BBC Television Centre, White City, Media Centre, Broadcast Centre and Centre House. As well as the various BBC buildings in London, there are major BBC production centres located in Cardiff, Belfast, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, Southampton and Newcastle upon Tyne. Some of these local centres (for example Belfast) are also known as "Broadcasting House" (see Broadcasting House (disambiguation)). There are also many smaller local and regional studios scattered throughout the UK. Services 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 BBC News 24, BBC Parliament and BBC World, as well as BBCi, Ceefax and BBC News Online. New BBC News services that are also proving popular are mobile services to mobile phones and PDAs. Desktop news alerts, e-mail alerts, and digital TV alerts are also available. Radio The BBC has five major national stations, Radio 1 ("the best in new music"), Radio 2 (the UK's most listened to radio station, with 12.9 million weekly listeners•), Radio 3 (specialist-interest music such as classical, world, arts, drama and jazz), Radio 4 (current affairs, drama and comedy), and Radio 5 Live (24 hour news, sports and talk). In recent years some further national stations have been introduced on Digital audio broadcasting including Five Live Sports Extra (a companion to Five Live for additional events coverage), 1Xtra (for black, urban and gospel music), 6 Music (less mainstream genres of music), BBC 7 (Comedy, Drama & Kids shows) and BBC Asian Network (British South Asian talk, music and news in English and in many South Asian languages), a station which had evolved from BBC Local Radio origins in the 1970's and still is broadcast on Medium Wave frequencies in some parts of England. In addition the BBC World Service is now also broadcast nationally in the UK on DAB. There is also a network of local stations with a mixture of talk, news and music in England and the Channel Islands as well as national stations of BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru (in Welsh), BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal (in Scots Gaelic), BBC Radio Ulster, and BBC Radio Foyle. For a world-wide audience, the BBC produces the Foreign Office funded BBC World Service, which is broadcast worldwide on shortwave radio, and on DAB Digital Radio in the UK. The World Service can be received in 139 capital cities worldwide and is a major source of news and information programming for over 140 million listeners worldwide. The Service currently broadcasts in 43 languages and dialects (including English), though not all languages are broadcast in all areas.• In 2005, the BBC announced that it would substantially reduce its radio broadcasting in Eastern European languages and divert resources instead to a new Arabic language satellite TV broadcasting station (including radio and online content) in the Middle East to be launched in 2007.• Since 1943, the BBC has also provided radio programming to the British Forces Broadcasting Service, which broadcasts in countries where British troops are stationed. All of the national BBC radio stations, as well as the BBC World Service, are available over the Internet in the RealAudio streaming format. In April 2005 the BBC began trials offering a limited number of radio programmes as podcasts.• Historically, the BBC was the only radio broadcaster in the UK 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. Television BBC One and BBC Two are the BBC's flagship television channels. The BBC is also promoting the new channels BBC Three and BBC Four, which are only available via digital television equipment (now in widespread use in the UK, with analogue transmission expected to be phased out from 2008). The BBC also runs BBC News 24, BBC Parliament, and two children's channels, CBBC and CBeebies, also on digital. BBC One is a regionalised TV service which provides opt-outs throughout the day for local news and other local programming. In the Republic of Ireland the Northern Ireland regionalised BBC One & BBC Two are available via analogue transmissions deflecting signals from the North and also carried out on Sky Digital, NTL Ireland and Chorus From June 9, 2006 the BBC will begin a 6-12 month trial of High-definition television broadcasts under the name BBC HD. The corporation has been producing programmes in the format for many years, and states that it hopes to produce 100% of new programmes in HDTV by 2010.• Since 1975, the BBC has also provided its TV programmes to the British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS), allowing members of HM Forces serving all over the world to watch and listen to their favourite programmes from home on two dedicated TV channels. Internet The bbc.co.uk * website, formerly BBCi and before that BBC Online, includes a comprehensive, advertisement-free news website and archive. The BBC claims the site to be "Europe's most popular content-based site"• and boasts that 13.2 million people in the UK visit the site's more than 2 million pages.• According to Alexa's TrafficRank system, in July 2006 bbc.co.uk was the 13th most popular English Language website in the world,• and the 23rd most popular overall.• The website allows the BBC to produce sections which complement the various programmes on television and radio, and it is common for viewers and listeners to be told website addresses for the bbc.co.uk sections relating to that programme. The site also allows users to listen to most Radio output live and for seven days after broadcast using its RealPlayer-based "Radio Player"; some TV content is also distributed in RealVideo format. A new system known as iPlayer is under development, which uses peer-to-peer and DRM technology to deliver both radio and TV content for offline use for up to 7 days. Also, through participation in the Creative Archive Licence group, bbc.co.uk allowed legal downloads of selected archive material via the internet.• In recent years some major on-line companies and politicians have complained that the bbc.co.uk website 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.co.uk.• Some have proposed that the amount of licence fee money spent on bbc.co.uk 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.co.uk will now attempt to fill in gaps in the market, but 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.• More recent information on web plans at * Interactive television BBCi is the brand name for the BBC's interactive digital television services, which are available through Freeview (digital terrestrial), as well as Sky Digital (satellite), NTL and Telewest (cable). Unlike Ceefax, BBCi is able to display full-colour graphics, photographs, and video, as well as programmes. Recent examples include the interactive sports coverage for football and rugby football matches, BBC Soundbites which starred young actress Jennifer Lynn and an interactive national IQ test, Test the Nation. All of the BBC's digital television stations, (and radio stations on Freeview), allow access to the BBCi service. BBCi provides viewers with over 100 interactive TV programmes every year, as well as the 24/7 service.• It also offers video news and weather. Commercial services BBC Worldwide Limited 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. The cable and satellite stations BBC Prime (in Europe, Africa the Middle East, and Asia), BBC America, BBC Canada (alongside BBC Kids), broadcast popular BBC programmes to people outside the UK, as does UK.TV (co-run with Foxtel and Fremantle Media) in Australasia. A similar service, BBC Japan, ceased broadcasts in April 2006 after its Japanese distributor folded.• BBC Worldwide also runs a 24-hour news channel, BBC World and co-runs, with Flextech, the UKTV network of stations in the UK, producers of amongst others UKTV Gold. In addition, BBC television news appears nightly on many Public Broadcasting Service stations in the United States, as do reruns of BBC programmes such as EastEnders, and in New Zealand on TV One. Many BBC programmes (especially documentaries) are sold via BBC Worldwide to foreign television stations, and comedy, documentaries and historical drama productions are popular on the international DVD market.• BBC Worldwide also maintains the publishing arm of the BBC and it is the third-largest publisher of consumer magazines in the United Kingdom.• BBC Magazines, formerly known as BBC Publications, publishes the Radio Times and a number of magazines that support BBC programming such as BBC Top Gear, BBC Good Food, BBC Sky at Night, BBC History, BBC Wildlife and BBC Music. In addition, in 2004 BBC Worldwide acquired the independent magazine publisher Origin Publishing.• BBC Worldwide also licences and directly sells DVD and audio recordings of popular programmes to the public. Miscellaneous The BBC and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office jointly run BBC Monitoring, which monitors radio, television, the press and the internet worldwide. Unions Union membership is a private matter between staff and their chosen union: staff are not automatically covered by a union, but since the BBC is a large employer (in the media sector), membership numbers are considerable. Staff at the BBC are normally represented by BECTU, along with journalistic staff by the NUJ and electrical staff by Amicus. Union membership is optional, and paid for by staff members and not by the BBC. See also Bibliography | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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