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The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. The oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number of employees, the BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 17,900 are in public-sector broadcasting.
The BBC was established under a royal charter, and operates under an agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts or to use the BBC's streaming service, iPlayer. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, 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 (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.
Some of the BBC's revenue comes from its commercial subsidiary BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC News, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. In 2009, the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Enterprise in recognition of its international achievements in business. (Full article...)
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BBC journalist, presenter and newsreader Huw Edwards during an outside broadcast for BBC News. He joined the BBC in 1984, and since 2003 he has been the main presenter of the BBC Ten O'Clock News.
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Blue Peter is a British children's television programme created by John Hunter Blair. The first programme was broadcast on 16 October 1958. It is the longest-running children's television programme in the world, and also one of the longest-running television programmes in the world.
Blue Peter currently airs weekly on Fridays in the United Kingdom on CBBC, a digital television channel. The show is produced in a magazine format, often transmitting live, and features a combination of studio presentation, interviews and outside broadcasting items. There have been forty-three official presenters of Blue Peter. (Full article...)Related portals
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Kanak Asha "Konnie" Huq (/ˈhʌk/; born 17 July 1975) is a British television and radio presenter, screenwriter and children's author. She became the longest-serving female presenter of the British children's television programme Blue Peter, presenting it from 1997 to 2008. She has been a presenter and guest of shows including the 2010 series of The Xtra Factor on ITV2.
She co-wrote the Black Mirror episode "Fifteen Million Merits" with her husband, Charlie Brooker. Her children's book Cookie and the Most Annoying Boy in the World was published in 2019. She published the follow-up, Cookie and the Most Annoying Girl in the World, in 2020 along with her third children's book, Fearless Fairy Tales: The Perfect Book for Homeschooling Fun and Inspiration. (Full article...)Selected building
The transmission mast above the BBC wing of Alexandra Palace in North London. Alexandra Palace was home to the BBC Television Service (now BBC One) from 1936 until the early 1950s, and was the site of the world's first public broadcasts of analogue high-definition television in 1936.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?
- ... that Blackadder Goes Forth, the final series of the BBC situation comedy Blackadder, is noted for its sensitive depiction of World War I trench warfare and was placed 16th in the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes by the British Film Institute?
- ... that the BBC coat of arms was adopted in 1927 and uses heraldic symbols to depict the various qualities of broadcasting?
- ... that the composer Zbigniew Preisner wrote the title music for the monumental BBC documentary People's Century, which spans 26 parts?
- ... that Up the Women was the last sitcom to be filmed before an audience at BBC Television Centre?
- ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
- ... that the programming language Acorn System BASIC was so non-standard that one commenter suggested that using it on the BBC Micro would be a disaster?
- ... that throughout the Cold War, "subversive" persons at the BBC had their files marked with a "Christmas tree"?
- ... that BBC radio broadcaster Venu Chitale taught listeners how to cook without meat when it was rationed during the Second World War?
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