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
Yes Minister is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran for 16 episodes from 1986 to 1988. All but one of the episodes lasted half an hour, and almost all ended with a variation of the title of the series spoken as the answer to a question posed by Minister (later, Prime Minister) Jim Hacker. Several episodes were adapted for BBC Radio; the series also spawned a 2010 stage play that led to a new television series on Gold in 2013.
Set principally in the private office of a British cabinet minister in the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in Whitehall, Yes Minister follows the ministerial career of Jim Hacker, played by Paul Eddington. His various struggles to formulate and enact policy or effect departmental changes are opposed by the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne. His Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, played by Derek Fowlds, is usually caught between the two. The sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, continued with the same cast and followed Hacker after his unexpected elevation to prime ministerial office. (Full article...)Selected image
Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Alison Steadman (left-to-right) during a recording of the BBC Radio 4 programme You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.
Selected list article
| Series | Episodes | Originally aired | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | |||
| Pilot | 12 July 1991 | |||
| 1 | 6 | 7 January 1993 | 11 February 1993 | |
| 2 | 6 | 3 January 1995 | 7 February 1995 | |
Related portals
Selected biography
Sir Michael Thomas Lyons (born 15 September 1949) is the non-executive chairman of the English Cities Fund and Participle Ltd, and a former Chairman of the BBC Trust.
A former Labour Party councillor and council chief executive in the United Kingdom, he was also involved in some of the key central government commissions and reports into local government finance from 2000 to 2007. (Full article...)List of selected biographies
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Selected building
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The MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, became a BBC production centre in 2011 with a number of BBC departments relocating there from London and other sites in the Manchester area. BBC Breakfast began broadcasting from the site in 2012.
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 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 Adam and Joe on BBC 6 Music won the Broadcasting Press Guild award for Radio Programme of the Year in its first six months of broadcast?
- ... that most of "Cold Comfort", an episode of British dark comedy Inside No. 9, is made up of footage from a fixed camera in a call centre booth?
- ... that after being wiped by the BBC, all four episodes of the Doctor Who serial The Time Meddler were discovered in Nigeria in 1984?
- ... 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 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 the BBC commissioned a painting of a 1987 Bullingdon Club photograph featuring David Cameron and Boris Johnson to circumvent copyright protection?
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