Portal:BBC

Introduction

Logo used since 4 October 1997

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom. Headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, it is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom more than 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting. The total number of BBC staff amounts to 35,402 including part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff.

The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, 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 and iPlayer catch-up. 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.

Around a quarter of 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 World 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. (Full article...)

Selected article -

"The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. First broadcast on BBC One on 25 December 2011, it is the seventh Doctor Who Christmas special since the show's revival in 2005. It was written by Steven Moffat and directed by Farren Blackburn. Internationally, the special was shown on BBC America in the United States and on Space in Canada the same day as the British broadcast, with ABC1 in Australia showing it one day later.

In the special, alien time traveller the Doctor (Matt Smith) is the caretaker of recently widowed Madge Arwell (Claire Skinner) and her children Lily (Holly Earl) and Cyril (Maurice Cole) during their holiday vacation in 1941 England. The Doctor plans to take them on a treat to a snowy planet through a portal in a present he has placed under the Christmas tree, but Cyril opens it before Christmas and wanders through. While looking for him, the others learn that the trees of the planet are about to be melted down with acid rain for energy. (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.

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 Olivia Colman bonded the cast of Beautiful People by arranging a visit from a mobile blood donor unit?

• ... 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 the BBC journalist Barbara Plett's admission of having cried at the sight of the terminally ill Yasser Arafat led to a controversy?

• ... 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?

Quotes

• "I got the first page with about three minutes to go. Then, the red light came on and it was up to me. It was an intensely dramatic script and most of the pages were fed to me at the microphone, so I had to get it right first time. God knows I put my heart into it." — Newsreader Robert Dougall, recalling his message as the 'anonymous Englishman', calling for Germany to withdraw its forces.

• "... confronted with problems of which I had no experience: Copyright and performing rights; Marconi patents; associations of concert artists, authors, playwrights, composers, music publishers, theatre managers, wireless manufacturers." – John Reith (later Lord Reith)'s description of launching the BBC.

• "Now, if you'll pardon me, I've a little bit of news of my own. If the mail is anything to go by, most of the listening population have spotted a report that next year I'm going to turn into Chris Evans.

And I hate to tell you, but it's true." - Sir Terry Wogan announcing he is to step down as presenter of the breakfast show on Radio 2.

Selected biography -

Hall in 2019

Anthony William Hall, Baron Hall of Birkenhead, CBE (born 3 March 1951) is a British life peer. He was Director-General of the BBC between April 2013 and August 2020, and chaired the Board of Trustees of the National Gallery until May 2021.

Hall was Director of News at the BBC between 1993 and 2001, and Chief Executive of the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London from 2001 until March 2013. He was made a life peer and took his seat in the House of Lords as a crossbench member on 22 March 2010. He took up the post of Director-General of the BBC on 2 April 2013, and stepped down as Director-General on 31 August 2020, replaced by Tim Davie. (Full article...)

Selected building

The MediaCityUK development at Salford Quays, Greater Manchester, will become the home of the BBC in Manchester from 2011. Five departments will be relocating to the site from London in addition to the teams already in the city.

Selected categories

• BBC
• BBC history
• BBC Television
• BBC Radio

• BBC people
• Offices, studios and buildings
• Nations and regions
• BBC Television shows

Related portals

• 
  Television
• 
  Radio
• 
  Doctor Who

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.

General images

The following are images from various BBC-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  BBC News helicopter in use over London (from BBC News)

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  BBC UK viewing figures 2010–2020: BBC1 in red, S4C in light-blue, BBC2 in teal (from BBC Television)

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  Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman being interviewed on BBC Radio in October 1954 (from BBC)

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  The new newsroom in Broadcasting House, central London, officially opened by the Queen in 2013 (from BBC)

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  BBC's fifth and current three-box logo used since 1997. (from BBC)

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  Filming an episode of BBC One's Sherlock (with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes pictured) in July 2011 (from BBC)

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  The BBC Big Band (from BBC)

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  George V giving the 1934 Royal Christmas Message on BBC Radio (from BBC Radio)

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  Angela Rippon, pictured in 1983, became the first female news presenter in 1975. (from BBC News)

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  BBC Television Centre at White City, West London, which opened in 1960 and closed in 2013 (from BBC)

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  BBC's inverted variant of the second three-box logo used from 1963 until 1971. (from BBC)

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  BBC Pacific Quay in Glasgow, which was opened in 2007 (from BBC)

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  Statue of George Orwell outside Broadcasting House, headquarters of the BBC. A defence of free speech in an open society, the wall behind the statue is inscribed with the words "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear", words from George Orwell's proposed preface to Animal Farm. (from BBC)

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  Weekly reach of the BBC's domestic services from 2011 to 2012 Reach is the number of people who use the service at any point for more than 15 minutes in a week. (from BBC)

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  BBC's first three-box logo used from 1958 until 1963. (from BBC)

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  The combined newsroom for domestic television and radio was opened at Television Centre in West London in 1998. (from BBC News)

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  The new newsroom in Broadcasting House (from BBC News)

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  The BBC Radio logo as of September 2020 (from BBC Radio)

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  King George V giving the 1934 Royal Christmas Message on BBC Radio. The annual message typically chronicles the year's major events. (from BBC)

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  Blue plaque at Alexandra Palace, commemorating the launch of the world's first high-definition television service, BBC Television, in 1936 (from BBC)

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  The nature documentaries of David Attenborough, such as The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Life on Earth, are produced by the BBC Natural History Unit, the largest wildlife documentary production house in the world. (from BBC)

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  Weekly reach of the BBC's national radio stations, both on analogue and digital. (from BBC)

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  Produced between 1934 and 1959, the BBC-Marconi Type A microphone has been described as an iconic symbol of the BBC alongside the channel's most famous emblem, the rotating globe, which was introduced in 1963. (from BBC)

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  Weekly reach of the BBC's domestic television channels 2011–12 (from BBC)

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  BBC UK viewing share, 2002–2013: BBC3, pink; BBC4, dark-green; BBC News, red; CBBC, light-green ; CBeebies, yellow; BBC HD, purple ; BBC Wales & West, blue (from BBC Television)

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  The headquarters of the BBC at Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London. This section of the building is called Old Broadcasting House. (from BBC)

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  BBC's third three-box logo used from 1971 until 1988. (from BBC)

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  Logo used since 4 October 1997 (from BBC)

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  BBC World Service, with Jonathan Dimbleby broadcasting from Budapest (from BBC)

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  The BBC's radio studio in Birmingham, from the BBC Hand Book 1928, which described it as "Europe's largest studio". (from BBC)

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  Television News moved to BBC Television Centre in September 1969. (from BBC News)

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  England fans in Manchester during a 2006 FIFA World Cup game shown on the BBC Big Screen (from BBC)

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  2012–2013 BBC Radio expenditures of each service it is required to provide (from BBC Radio)

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  Masthead from the edition of 25 December 1931 of the Radio Times, including the BBC motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation" (from BBC)

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  BBC's fourth three-box logo used from 1988 until 1997. (from BBC)

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  The new extension to the BBC's Broadcasting House, completed in 2012 (from BBC)

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  Television pioneer John Logie Baird (seen here in 1917) televised the BBC's first drama, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, on 14 July 1930, and the first live outside broadcast, The Derby, on 2 June 1931. (from BBC)

BBC topics

Things you can do

Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : Improve BBC, BBC News (TV channel) and BBC News to Good Article status following previous reviews, create BBC Computer Literacy Project (in light of forthcoming 30th anniversary) Cleanup : Chucklevision - references and general clean-up, Pebble Mill Studios - over-detailed and long, BBC World Service Television - unreferenced and confusing Copyedit : BBC News, Broadcasting House Expand : Top 20 start-class BBC articles with most importance: BBC Japan, BBC World Service Television, BBC Lifestyle, BBC Two Northern Ireland NPOV : Criticism of the BBC (See comments) Stubs : Stub-Class BBC articles Other : *Restructure the category Add infoboxes to the BBC articles without infoboxes Add free-use images to biographical articles where possible Add references to Goa Mix (see assessment) and Coat of arms of the BBC Return Dad's Army to a Good article. (See comments) Reassess BBC following improvements to article.

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