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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...)
Selected article
Bargain Hunt is a British television programme in which two pairs of contestants are challenged to buy antiques from shops or a fair and then sell them in an auction for a profit. It has aired on BBC One since 13 March 2000 in a daytime version, and from 22 August 2002 to 13 November 2004 in a primetime version.
Bargain Hunt was originally presented by David Dickinson. From 2003 to January 2016 it was presented by Tim Wonnacott. In 2016 the format changed to a rota of hosts from a "team of experts" fronting the series. (Full article...)Selected image
![Bernard Cribbins and Freema Agyeman filming for Old Jack's Boat in 2012](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Staithes_MMB_24_Old_Jack%27s_Boat.jpg/300px-Staithes_MMB_24_Old_Jack%27s_Boat.jpg)
Bernard Cribbins and Freema Agyeman feature as Old Jack and Shelly Periwinkle in the CBeebies series Old Jack's Boat.
Selected list article
![A close-up photograph of Alex Day singing into a microphone, taken from below.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ab/Alex_Day_ChartJackers_gig_for_Children_in_Need.jpg/220px-Alex_Day_ChartJackers_gig_for_Children_in_Need.jpg)
The British documentary series Chartjackers ran for a single season of eleven weekly episodes during the autumn of 2009. The series documents the lives of four teenage video bloggers—Alex Day, Johnny Haggart, Jimmy Hill, and Charlie McDonnell—from the video-sharing website YouTube as they attempt to write, record and release a pop song by crowdsourcing through social media in ten weeks. When initially aired, the first ten episodes of Chartjackers, each five minutes in length, detailed the events of the previous seven days. The final episode, broadcast on 21 November 2009, compiled highlights from the previous ten weeks into one 30-minute episode, which was narrated by British DJ MistaJam. All eleven episodes were produced by Adam King and Jonathan Davenport of the production company Hat Trick Productions.
Chartjackers was devised in 2009 by Davenport and Andy Mettam of Hat Trick Productions, and was commissioned for development by Geoffrey Goodwin and Jo Twist of BBC Switch. Alongside the programmes Off the Hook and The Cut, it was featured as part of a season of multi-platform content designed to appeal to teenagers. The show was also directly linked to the 2009 annual appeal for the British charity Children in Need – profits from sales of the completed pop song were donated to the charity. Chartjackers aired weekly at approximately 1:10 p.m. on Saturday afternoons on BBC Two, with the first episode premiering on 12 September 2009 during the channel's two-hour long BBC Switch segment. The series garnered a viewing figures peak of almost half a million with its final episode and was critically panned by reviewers. Each episode was streamed online through BBC iPlayer to UK residents for seven days after its initial airing. The series was not broadcast outside the UK and, , is not available to buy on DVD. (Full article...)Related portals
Selected biography
Alan Graham Johnston (born 17 May 1962) is a British journalist working for the BBC. He has been the BBC's correspondent in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and Italy. He is based in London.
Johnston was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip on 12 March 2007 by the militant group Army of Islam. He was unconditionally released on 4 July, nearly four months later, after much pressure was put on the group by the now-dominant Hamas. (Full article...)Selected building
![BBC Broadcasting House](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a1/Bbc_broadcasting_house_front.jpg/300px-Bbc_broadcasting_house_front.jpg)
Broadcasting House on Portland Place in London is the headquarters of the BBC. Opened in 1932, the building is also the home to Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra. For the past decade, the building has seen massive change, with sections demolished and a large extension added.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/Updated_DYK_query.svg/50px-Updated_DYK_query.svg.png)
- ... 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 the episodes of the BBC 7 sitcom Knocker have titles such as "Privinvasionacy", "Obselejectivitysence" and "Confidentialitydence"?
- ... 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 Clothes-Line, aired in 1937, was the first television programme on fashion history and also probably the first to feature a heavily pregnant female presenter?
- ... that in May 2015 BBC Four aired "the most boring TV show ever" – an un-narrated, two-hour narrowboat journey on the Kennet and Avon Canal?
- ... that BBC radio broadcaster Venu Chitale taught listeners how to cook without meat when it was rationed during the Second World War?
- ... 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 BBC Breakfast's resident doctor Nighat Arif has advocated for more women to be given vibrators for medical reasons?
- ... that South African physician Tlaleng Mofokeng is the United Nations special rapporteur on the right to health, and was named one of the BBC's 100 Women?
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