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
Mock the Week is a topical satirical celebrity panel show, created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson. It was produced by Angst Productions for BBC Two, and was broadcast from 5 June 2005 to 4 November 2022. Presented by Dara Ó Briain, he and Hugh Dennis appeared in every episode, with a variety of other stand-up comedians being regular or guest panellists during the show's history.
The format of the programme saw six comedians divided into two teams and performing on a faux game show, in which the quiz aspect of answering questions relating to major and regional news items, all taken from the week before each episode's filming, is sidelined to focus on satirical, topical discussions on news items, stand-up routines, and the use of improvisational comedy. Every series also included a compilation episode featuring notable scenes, out-takes and additional footage cut out after filming, with repeats of episodes being frequently shown on the channel Dave, with high viewing figures. (Full article...)Selected image
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.
Selected list article
Series | Episodes | Originally aired | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
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
|
---|
Related portals
Selected biography
Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – 7 April 2008) was an English television presenter and host of children's art programme SMart. Speight was born in Seisdon, Staffordshire, and left school at 16 to become a cartoonist. He took a degree in commercial and graphic art and, while working in television set construction, heard of auditions for a new children's art programme. Speight was successful in his audition and became one of the first presenters of SMart, working on it for 14 years.
Speight was also a presenter on See It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée, actress and model Natasha Collins. He took part in live events, such as Rolf on Art and his own Speight of the Art workshops for children. He was involved in charity work; he became the president of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, and was a spokesperson for ChildLine. (Full article...)Selected building
The Egton Wing of Broadcasting House was completed in 2005 on the site of Egton House. A memorial sculpture, Breathing, for those killed whilst reporting on wars is situated on the roof.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that author Jacqueline Wilson described Dustbin Baby, the BBC dramatisation of her novel of the same name, as the best ever film adaptation of her work?
- ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?
- ... that Newman and Baddiel in Pieces was the final show on which the comic partnership of Robert Newman and David Baddiel worked together before going their separate ways?
- ... that the BBC journalist Barbara Plett's admission of having cried at the sight of the terminally ill Yasser Arafat led to a controversy?
- ... that Up the Women was the last sitcom to be filmed before an audience at BBC Television Centre?
- ... that the BBC commissioned a painting of a 1987 Bullingdon Club photograph featuring David Cameron and Boris Johnson to circumvent copyright protection?
- ... that François Glorieux was a Belgian pianist and improvisor, conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra and Stan Kenton's band, and arranger for Michael Jackson?
- ... that the first song played on That's 60s was the same song Tony Blackburn had played on BBC Radio 1 more than 55 years earlier?
- ... 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?
BBC topics
Categories
WikiProjects
This portal is maintained by members of WikiProject BBC, in particular those listed on the Portal Maintenance page.
To join the project, please add your username to the list of members.
WikiProject BBC Navigation |
---|
Main page | WikiProject talk | Assessment | Requests | Templates BBC Portal (Maintenance) | Radio task force | Sitcoms task force |
Associated Wikimedia
The following Wikimedia Foundation sister projects provide more on this subject:
-
Commons
Free media repository -
Wikibooks
Free textbooks and manuals -
Wikidata
Free knowledge base -
Wikinews
Free-content news -
Wikiquote
Collection of quotations -
Wikisource
Free-content library -
Wikiversity
Free learning tools -
Wiktionary
Dictionary and thesaurus