Portal:BBC
The BBC Portal
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 17,200 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...)
Selected article
The Boys from Baghdad High, also known as Baghdad High, is a British-American-French television documentary film. It was first shown in the United Kingdom at the 2007 Sheffield Doc/Fest, before airing on BBC Two on 8 January 2008. It also aired in many other countries including France, Australia, the United States, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands. It documents the lives of four Iraqi schoolboys of different religious or ethnic backgrounds over the course of one year in the form of a video diary. The documentary was filmed by the boys themselves, who were given video cameras for the project.
Directed and produced by Ivan O'Mahoney and Laura Winter of Renegade Pictures and StoryLabTV, for the United Kingdom's BBC, HBO in the United States, and the Franco-German network Arte, The Boys from Baghdad High was produced by Alan Hayling and Karen O'Connor for the BBC, Hans Robert Eisenhauer for Arte, and Sheila Nevins for HBO. (Full article...)
Selected image
Protesters gathered outside BBC Television Centre in London during the Question Time British National Party controversy in October 2009. The first appearance of British National Party leader Nick Griffin on the BBC series Question Time sparked public and political debate in the United Kingdom.
Selected list article
BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010.
The competition, a former member of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY), is open to UK-resident percussion, keyboard, string, brass and woodwind players, who are eighteen years of age or under on 1 January in the relevant year. (Full article...)
Related portals
Selected biography
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Sydney Cecil Newman (né Nudelman; April 1, 1917 – October 30, 1997) was a Canadian producer and screenwriter who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s. After his return to Canada in 1970, he was appointed acting director of the Broadcast Programs Branch for the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) and then head of the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). He also occupied senior positions at the Canadian Film Development Corporation and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and acted as an advisor to the Secretary of State.
During his time in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s, Newman worked first with ABC Weekend TV before moving across to the BBC in 1962, holding the role of Head of Drama with both organisations. During this phase of his career, he created the spy-fi series The Avengers and co-created the science-fiction series Doctor Who, as well as overseeing the production of groundbreaking social realist drama series such as Armchair Theatre and The Wednesday Play. (Full article...)
Selected building
Broadcasting House in Belfast is the headquarters of BBC Northern Ireland and was opened in 1941.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that Anita West, one of the presenters of Blue Peter, was on the show for such a short period that no footage of her exists in the BBC archives?
- ... that the BBC coat of arms was adopted in 1927 and uses heraldic symbols to depict the various qualities of broadcasting?
- ... that Private Passions, a weekly classical music programme on BBC Radio 3, has occasionally featured interviews with hoax characters played by comedian John Sessions?
- ... that crime novelist P. D. James listed the 2007 series Help Me Anthea, I'm Infested as one of the most embarrassing television programmes the BBC has ever produced?
- ... that working broadcast journalists were used as extras for the portions of the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards" that were filmed at the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House?
- ... that the pilot episode for a BBC series on a suicide prevention charity made some critics laugh?
- ... 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 technical issues in the minute before their November 2024 BBC Radio 1 performance meant that South Arcade had to set up while the presenter was announcing them?
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