BBC

The BBC is a quasi-autonomous Public Corporation operating as a public service broadcaster. 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.

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.

Corporation

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.

Charter review

The BBC's Royal Charter is currently under review.

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:

The White Paper also confirms the intention stated in the Green Paper to maintain the licence fee system and set up a BBC Trust. Development Commercial Groups BBC Resources Ltd BBC Worldwide Ltd

Management

The BBC is a nominally autonomous corporation, independent from direct government intervention.

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). For this reason the BBC is sometimes referred as a "state" broadcaster as the state controls the BBC's funding. 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:

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. 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.

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.

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.

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.

BBC News services are widely regarded as being amongst the best in the world, and evidence suggests that during a major national or international event such as the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, the 7/7 bombings in London or a Royal Funeral people will tune into the BBC's coverage as opposed to its commercial rivals.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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 began a 6-12 month trial of High-definition television broadcasts under the name BBC HD.

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 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. 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). All of the BBC's digital television stations, (and radio stations on Freeview), allow access to the BBCi service.

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. 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.

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.

Criticism

Historically, the BBC has been subject to continuing criticism for various policies or perceived biases since its inception and more recently over its coverage of events in the Middle East and the controversy over what it described as the "sexing up" of the case for war in Iraq by the government, for which the BBC was heavily criticised by the Hutton Inquiry, although the latter charge was much disputed by the British press.