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 17,900 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...)
Selected article
Selected image
BBC journalist Nick Robinson (right) interviewing then-MP Michael Portillo close to the Palace of Westminster for BBC News in 2001.
Selected list article
Series | Episodes | Originally aired | |||
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First aired | Last aired | Network | |||
1 | 6 | 9 July 2001 | 20 August 2001 | BBC Two | |
2 | 6 | 30 September 2002 | 4 November 2002 | ||
Christmas | 2 | 26 December 2003 | 27 December 2003 | BBC One | |
Revisited | 15 March 2013 |
List of selected list articles
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Selected biography
Jonathan Philip Agnew, MBE, DL (born 4 April 1960) is an English cricket broadcaster and a former professional cricketer. He was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, and educated at Uppingham School. He is nicknamed "Aggers", and, less commonly, "Spiro" – the latter, according to Debrett's Cricketers' Who's Who, after former US Vice-President Spiro Agnew.
Agnew had a successful first-class career as a fast bowler for Leicestershire from 1979 to 1990, returning briefly in 1992. In first-class cricket he took 666 wickets at an average of 29.25. Agnew won three Test caps for England, as well as playing three One Day Internationals in the mid-1980s, although his entire international career lasted just under a year. In county cricket, Agnew's most successful seasons came toward the end of his career, after his last international match, when he had learned to swing the ball. He was second- and third-leading wicket-taker in 1987 and 1988 respectively, including the achievement of 100 wickets in a season in 1987. He was named as one of the five Cricketers of the Year by Wisden Cricketers' Almanack in 1988. (Full article...)Selected building
Specially built for the BBC and opened in 1960, BBC Television Centre in London was home to much of the BBC's television output until 2013. Studio TC1, at 995 square metres, is the second largest television studio in Britain.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that despite attracting the highest ratings ever for a comedy show debut on BBC Three, Horne & Corden was described by one critic as, "about as funny as credit default swaps"?
- ... 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 a 1927 Wolseley motor car used in the 2008 BBC television adaptation The 39 Steps was previously used in the 1960s BBC television series Dr. Finlay's Casebook?
- ... 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 the BBC Sound Archive was founded in 1936 by Marie Slocombe while she was working as a temporary secretary disposing of sound recordings?
- ... 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 after criticising horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules" live on air, the British DJ Arielle Free was suspended from BBC Radio 1 for a week?
- ... that throughout the Cold War, "subversive" persons at the BBC had their files marked with a "Christmas tree"?
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