Portal:BBC Television
Portal maintenance status: (October 2018)
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Introduction
BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936.
The BBC's domestic television channels have no commercial advertising and collectively they account for more than 30% of all UK viewing. The services are funded by a television licence.
Selected general articles
BBC World News is the BBC's international news and current affairs television channel. It has the largest audience of any channel, with an estimated 99 million viewers weekly in 2015/16, part of the estimated 265 million users of the BBC's four main international news services. Launched on 11 March 1991 as BBC World Service Television outside Europe, its name was changed to BBC World on 16 January 1995 and to BBC World News on 21 April 2008. It broadcasts news bulletins, documentaries, lifestyle programmes and interview shows. Unlike the BBC's domestic channels, BBC World News is owned and operated by BBC Global News Ltd., part of the BBC's commercial group of companies, and is funded by subscription and advertising revenues, and not by the United Kingdom television licence. It is not owned by BBC Studios. Read more...- UKTV is a British multi-channel broadcaster, jointly owned by BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide) and Discovery, Inc. It was formed on 26 March 1992 through a joint venture between the BBC and Thames Television. It is one of the United Kingdom's largest television companies.
UKTV's channels are available via a digital satellite subscription in the UK and Ireland. The Dave, Drama, Home, Really and Yesterday channels are also available in the UK on Freeview, the free-to-air digital terrestrial television (DTT) service. Read more... - BBC Prime was the BBC's general entertainment TV channel in Europe and the Middle East from 30 January 1995 until 11 November 2009, when it was replaced by BBC Entertainment. Read more...
BBC America is an American pay television network that is jointly owned by BBC Studios and AMC Networks.
Unlike the BBC's domestic channels in the United Kingdom, BBC America does not receive funding from the British licence fee (which is the principal funding for the BBC's channels within the United Kingdom), as the BBC cannot fund any of its channels that are available outside the United Kingdom. Consequently, BBC America operates as a commercial-supported channel and accepts traditional advertising. It is also funded by television subscription fees. Read more...
BBC South West is the BBC English Region serving Cornwall, Devon, Isles of Scilly, southern and western Somerset, western Dorset and Channel Islands. Read more...
BBC South is the BBC English Region serving southern Northamptonshire,
Oxfordshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, the majority of West Sussex, eastern and central Dorset, a small part of eastern Gloucestershire, western Berkshire and parts of Buckinghamshire, Surrey and Wiltshire. Read more...
BBC East is the BBC English Region serving Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire, most of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and northern Buckinghamshire. Read more...
BBC South East is the BBC English region serving Kent, East Sussex, part of West Sussex and a small part of Surrey.
The BBC region was created in September 2001 by the joining of the Heathfield transmitter (formerly part of the BBC South region) with the Bluebell Hill and Dover transmitters (from the then BBC London and South East region) to form a new regional TV service. Unlike ITV Meridian (East), it does not serve southern Essex (received from a Bluebell Hill overlap), this area being part of the BBC London region instead. Read more...- The BBC Learning Zone was an educational strand run by the BBC as an overnight service on BBC Two. It shows programming aimed at students in Primary, Secondary and Higher Education and to adult learners. Viewers are encouraged to watch programmes after the original broadcast via the use of, originally VHS, currently DVD. In 2015, the BBC confirmed that due to budget cuts, the service would no longer be running. Read more...
- BBC Three was a British television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Launched on 9 February 2003 as a replacement for BBC Choice, the service's remit was to provide "innovative" programming to a target audience of viewers between 16 and 34 years old, leveraging technology as well as new talent.
Unlike its commercial rivals, 90% of BBC Three's output originated from the United Kingdom. 70% was original, covering all genres, including animation, comedy, current affairs, and drama. BBC Three had a unique 60 Seconds format for its news bulletins, adopted so that operation of the channel could be completely automated, without the complication of dealing with variable-length live news broadcasts. The former controller of the station, Zai Bennett, left to join Sky Atlantic in July 2014, at which point BBC Three commissioner Sam Bickley became acting controller. Read more...
BBC Arabic Television (Arabic: بي بي سي عربي)is a television news channel broadcast to the Arab World by the BBC. It was launched on 11 March 2008. It is run by the BBC World Service and funded from the British television licence fee. Read more...- CBeebies is a British free-to-air television channel owned and operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is focused on broadcast programs aimed at a young audience, and was launched on 11 February 2002. It manages an international network supported by subscription services. Read more...
- BBC Knowledge is a television channel available in various countries outside the United Kingdom, showcasing factual and non-fiction entertainment programming from the BBC and independent UK production houses. Wholly owned by BBC Studios, it is not related to the previous channel known as BBC Knowledge, an early digital channel available within the UK, which closed down in 2002 in favour of BBC Four and CBeebies. On 15 November 2009, BBC Knowledge in Australia changed their channel location from Channel 619 to Channel 612.
The channel provides five key programming strands enabling simple appointment viewing:- The World delves and explores new cultures around the world
- Science & Technology explores new frontiers, from space to motoring
- People explores aspects of the human body and mind
- The Past brings historical events, places and people back to life
- Business offers invaluable advice to help stay on top of today’s challenging business world.
- BBC iPlayer is an internet streaming, catchup, television and radio service from the BBC. The service is available on a wide range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers, and smart televisions. iPlayer services delivered to UK based viewers feature no commercial advertising. The terms BBC iPlayer, iPlayer, and BBC Media Player refer to various methods for viewing or listening to the same content. Viewing live television broadcasts from any UK broadcaster, or BBC TV catch-up or BBC TV on demand programmes, in the UK without a TV licence is a criminal offence.
In 2015, the BBC reported that it was moving towards playing audio and video content via open HTML5 standards in web browsers rather than via Flash or their Media Player mobile app. Read more... - CBBC (short for Children's BBC) is a British free-to-air children's television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. Launching on 11 February 2002 as a spin-off from the BBC's children's strand of the same name, CBBC broadcasts for fourteen hours per-day from 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. CBBC is primarily aimed at viewers 6 to 12 years old; a sister channel known as CBeebies serves a younger audience. CBBC was named Channel of the Year at the Children's BAFTA awards in November 2008 and 2015. The channel averages 300,000 viewers daily.
The channel originally shared bandwidth on the digital terrestrial television platform with BBC Knowledge, and later BBC Three, necessitating that CBBC sign off at 7:00 p.m. daily. Beginning on 11 April 2016, following the closure of the linear BBC Three television service, CBBC extended its broadcast day by two hours. Read more... - BBC TV Europe was a BBC subscription-funded television service established in 1987, serving continental Europe, initially Scandinavia. It was available on satellite and cable.
The channel was branded as "BBC 1/2 Mix" when it launched on 4 June 1987, but was rebranded as "BBC TV Europe" on 1 April 1989. Read more... - BBC Alba is a Scottish Gaelic language digital television channel jointly owned by the BBC and MG Alba. The channel was launched on 19 September 2008 and is on-air for up to seven hours a day. The name Alba is the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland. The station is unique in that it is the first channel to be delivered under a BBC licence by a partnership and is also the first multi-genre channel to come entirely from Scotland with almost all of its programmes made in Scotland.
The channel is available in Scotland via Freeview, and throughout the UK on Sky, Freesat, Virgin Media, BBC iPlayer, and TVPlayer. BBC Alba has an average viewership of 637,000 adults over the age of 16 in Scotland each week. BBC Alba got 4.1 million views on BBC iPlayer between 2012–2013. Read more... - BBC Brit is an entertainment subscription television channel featuring factual entertainment programming. The channel is wholly owned and operated by BBC Studios. Originally set to roll out internationally in 2014, it was later announced it would launch in 2015, starting in Poland. Read more...
BBC Knowledge was an early BBC digital television channel, available by cable, satellite, or terrestrial digital broadcasting, providing a programme of documentary, cultural and educational television. Read more...
BBC South Asia (also referred to as BBC News South Asia or BBC World News South Asia) is an English-language South Asian based television news channel, featuring South Asian news and aimed at viewers in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Read more...- BBC Three (stylized as BBC II!) is a British over-the-top Internet television service operated by the BBC. It was launched on 16 February 2016 as a replacement for the linear BBC Three television channel, which was discontinued the same day. The service produces and streams television and web series aimed at the demographic of 16– to 34-year-olds, with a particular focus on comedy and documentary programming.
The replacement of BBC Three's television service with a digital platform came as the result of budget cuts at the broadcaster, stemming from Director-General Tony Hall's goal to not perform general cuts across the BBC that would compromise the quality of its programme output, and an acknowledgement of a shift in viewing habits among the service's demographic towards online video services as opposed to linear television channels. Likewise, BBC Three staff argued that the service would no longer be bound to the limitations of linear television, enabling producers to have a larger degree of flexibility in the programme content they can create for BBC Three. Read more...
BBC Red Button is a branding used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBC's analogue teletext service. The service can be accessed via Digital terrestrial television (DTT) (DVB-T), satellite television (DVB-S) and cable television (DVB-C). Read more...
BBC North East and Cumbria is the BBC English Region covering County Durham, Northumberland, Teesside, Tyne and Wear, northern Cumbria and parts of North Yorkshire. Read more...- BBC Select was an overnight television service run by the BBC during the hours when BBC1 or BBC2 had closed down, usually between 2am and 6am. The channel showed programming intended for specialist audiences, such as businessmen, lawyers, nurses and teachers, and was designed to be viewed after broadcast via a video recording. It was funded by a subscription, and most programming was scrambled. Read more...
BBC Four is a British free-to-air television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation. It was launched on 2 March 2002, with a schedule running from 7:00pm to 4:00am. The channel shows "a wide variety of programmes including comedy, documentaries, music, international film, original programmes, drama and current affairs ... an alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels". It is required by its licence to air at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes, 110 hours of new factual programmes and to premiere 20 foreign films each year. Read more...- CBBC (short for Children's BBC) is a British children's television brand owned by the BBC and aimed for children aged from 6 to 12. BBC programming aimed at under six year old children is broadcast on the CBeebies channel. CBBC broadcasts from 7 am to 9 pm on CBBC Channel.
The CBBC brand was used for the broadcast of children's programmes on BBC One on weekday afternoons and on BBC Two mornings until these strands were phased out in 2012 and 2013 respectively, as part of the BBC's "Delivering Quality First" cost-cutting initiative. CBBC programmes were also broadcast in high definition alongside other BBC content on BBC HD, generally at afternoons on weekends, unless the channel was covering other events. This ended when BBC HD closed on 26 March 2013, but CBBC HD launched on 10 December 2013. BBC-produced children's programming, in native languages of Scotland and Wales, also airs on BBC Alba and S4C respectively. Read more...
BBC First is an entertainment subscription television channel featuring comedy, crime and drama programming. The channel is wholly owned and operated by BBC Studios. The channel began rolling out internationally in 2014, launching first in Australia. Read more...
BBC Yorkshire is one of the English regions of the BBC. It was formed from the division of the former BBC North region into BBC Yorkshire and BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, based in Hull. Read more...
BBC First is a Dutch pay television channel dedicated to British television drama and crime series. It launched in the Netherlands on 16 May 2015 and in Belgium on 4 June 2015. The channel is distributed by BBC Benelux, a subsidiary of BBC Studios. It is the localised version of the internationally available BBC First, with Dutch subtitles, Dutch voice-overs between programmes and during commercial breaks, and localised advertisement. The programming consists not only of BBC productions, but also of productions of, among others, ITV. Read more...
BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland.
It is one of the three BBC national regions, together with BBC Cymru Wales and BBC Northern Ireland. Headquartered in Glasgow, it employs approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. Some £320 million of licence fee revenue is raised in Scotland, with expenditure on purely local content set to stand at £86 million by 2016-17. The remainder of licence fee revenue raised in the country is spent on networked programmes shown throughout the UK. Read more...- BBC Weather is the BBC's department for the preparation and broadcasting of their weather forecasts. The information is provided by MeteoGroup.
Previously, the Met Office had been the BBC's provider of weather services for 94 years up to 2017. Read more... - BBC Schools, also known as BBC for Schools and Colleges, is the educational programming strand set up by the BBC in 1957, broadcasting a range of educational programmes for children aged 5–16. From launch until June 1983, programming was based on BBC1 during the daytime, apart from coverage of major news events which saw the programmes shifted to BBC2. In September 1983 programming was transferred permanently to BBC2 freeing BBC1 to develop its own daytime schedule. The strand, named Daytime on Two, remained on BBC Two until March 2010, later supplemented by the 'Class TV' strand on the CBBC Channel.
Today, the division presents educational material through occasional television broadcasts as part of the BBC Learning Zone overnight service, through the online service 'Broadband Class Clips' and through the BBC School Radio programme. Read more...
BBC East Midlands is the BBC English Region covering Derbyshire (except High Peak, North East Derbyshire and the northern areas of the Derbyshire Dales), Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire (except Bassetlaw), Rutland, South Kesteven in Lincolnshire and some northern parts of Northamptonshire. Read more...
BBC First is an entertainment subscription television channel broadcasting in Australia. It is the localised version of the internationally available BBC First. The channel is wholly owned and operated by BBC Studios. Read more...
BBC Midlands is the BBC English Region producing local television, radio, web and teletext content for Herefordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Warwickshire, the West Midlands, Worcestershire and northern Gloucestershire.
Although the region has been unofficially called BBC West Midlands since BBC East Midlands became a separate region in 1991, it retains the BBC Midlands name and brand, with its history dating from 1927, for public use. Read more...
BBC Two is the second flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tends to broadcast more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, and is therefore free of commercial advertising. It is a comparatively well-funded public-service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide.
Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched (starting on 21 April 1964), and from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast regularly in colour. It was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, and while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind previously broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, now tend to appear on BBC Four instead. Read more...- BBC Parliament is a British free-to-air television channel which broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the House of Commons, House of Lords and Select Committees of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Scottish Parliament, the London Assembly, the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Welsh Assembly. The channel also broadcasts reports from the European Parliament and the annual conferences of the main political parties and the Trades Union Congress. On average, 1.2% of the UK's total population watch the channel for more than three minutes at least once per week; these viewers watch for an average of just over two hours each over the course of the week.
In July 2018, the BBC announced that the output on the channel was to be cut back, discontinuing all programming produced for the channel other than parliamentary coverage, and closing the channel entirely during summer months when Parliament and the devolved Assemblies are not sitting. The move has been criticised by many including the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow. In October 2018, the BBC announced that it had shelved these plans. Read more...
BBC Entertainment is an international television channel broadcasting comedy, drama, light entertainment, reality and children's programming (some regions only) from the BBC, Channel 4 and other UK production houses. The channel broadcasts regional versions to suit local demands and replaced BBC Prime. It is wholly owned by BBC Studios. Read more...
BBC Music is an umbrella title used by the BBC to collect together its music output. Officially it is a part of the BBC's Radio operational division and is directly responsible to Helen Boaden (director of Radio); however, its remit also includes music used in television and online services. It was established in its current form in 2014; however, the BBC had already been using the BBC Music brand to refer to its online music content and some live events beforehand, including a now defunct record label. The current director of music is Bob Shennan, who is also the controller of BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 6 Music and the BBC Asian Network. Read more...- BBC Canada is a Canadian pay television channel that mostly broadcasts television series originally produced by the BBC, the public-service broadcaster of the United Kingdom. The channel is owned by Corus Entertainment, with a minority stake held by BBC Studios. Read more...
BBC West is the BBC English Region serving Bristol, the majority of Wiltshire, northern and eastern Somerset, the majority of
Gloucestershire and northern Dorset. Read more...- BBC News (also known as the BBC News Channel) is a British free-to-air television news network. It was launched as BBC News 24 on 9 November 1997 at 5:30pm as part of the BBC's foray into digital domestic television channels, becoming the first competitor to Sky News, which had been running since 1989. For a time, looped news, sport and weather bulletins were available to view via BBC Red Button.
On 22 February 2006, the channel was named News Channel of the Year at the Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards for the first time in its history. The judges remarked that this was the year that the channel had "really come into its own." Read more... - CBeebies is a British free-to-air television channel owned and operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). It is focused on broadcast programs aimed at a young audience, and was launched on 11 February 2002. It manages an international network supported by subscription services. Read more...
- BBC World Service Television, often abbreviated to WSTV (World Service Television), was the name of two BBC international satellite television channels between 1991 and 1995. It was the BBC's first foray into worldwide television broadcasting. In Europe, it was the successor to BBC TV Europe, which it replaced on 11 March 1991. The service was also launched in Asia as a 24-hour news and information service with minor differences, a precursor to BBC World News, launched on 14 October 1991.
Unlike the BBC World Service at the time, it was not funded by the British government with a grant-in-aid. Instead, it was funded either by subscription or by commercial advertising, with advertisements that were inserted locally by the cable or satellite providers. In the years that followed, where not broadcast via a particular local provider, the BBC would insert news headlines, trailers for their own programming, and other updates to fill the gaps, these being known as "break fillers". Read more...
BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, sometimes abbreviated to BBC Yorks & Lincs, is the name for the BBC's twelfth English Region, based in Kingston upon Hull and created from the division of the former BBC North region, based in Leeds (now known as BBC Yorkshire). The primary transmitter is located at Belmont and covers East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and north west Norfolk. Read more...
Did you know...
- ... that the final episode of the six-part BBC Television adaptation of John Masefield's The Box of Delights was broadcast on Christmas Eve 1984?
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