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
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series primarily written by Douglas Adams. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the US and CBC Radio in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.
The series follows the adventures of hapless Englishman Arthur Dent and his friend Ford Prefect, an alien who writes for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a pan-galactic encyclopaedia and travel guide. After Earth is destroyed in the first episode, Arthur and Ford find themselves aboard a stolen spaceship piloted by Zaphod Beeblebrox (Ford's semi-cousin and Galactic President), depressed robot Marvin, and Trillian, the only other human survivor of Earth's destruction. (Full article...)Selected image
![Mark II TARDIS from Doctor Who](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c3/TARDIS2.jpg/240px-TARDIS2.jpg)
The Mark II fibreglass TARDIS, a time machine and spacecraft from the BBC television series Doctor Who — this one was used in shows recorded during the 1980s and was designed by Tom Yardley-Jones.
Selected list article
Blue Peter is a British children's television programme created by John Hunter Blair. The first programme was broadcast on 16 October 1958. It is the longest-running children's television programme in the world, and also one of the longest-running television programmes in the world.
Blue Peter currently airs weekly on Fridays in the United Kingdom on CBBC, a digital television channel. The show is produced in a magazine format, often transmitting live, and features a combination of studio presentation, interviews and outside broadcasting items. There have been forty-three official presenters of Blue Peter. (Full article...)Related portals
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
![BBC Broadcasting House](https://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
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a0/Updated_DYK_query.svg/50px-Updated_DYK_query.svg.png)
- ... 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 BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?
- ... 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 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 BBC Breakfast's resident doctor Nighat Arif has advocated for more women to be given vibrators for medical reasons?
- ... 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 Dahiru Musdapher, the 12th chief justice of Nigeria, was once a BBC World Service contributor for West Africa and Hausa?
BBC topics
Categories
WikiProjects
![WikiProject BBC logo](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/WikiProject_BBC_logo.svg/150px-WikiProject_BBC_logo.svg.png)
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
Recent Comments