1922
to 1939
A blue plaque at Alexandra Palace commemorating the world's first public broadcast of high-definition
television
The
privately owned BBC was the world's first national broadcasting organisation.[13] It was founded on 18 October 1922 as
the British Broadcasting
Company Ltd[14] by the British General Post Office (GPO) and a group of six telecommunications companies—Marconi, Radio Communication Company, Metropolitan-Vickers (MetroVick), General Electric, Western Electric, and British
Thomson-Houston (BTH)[15]—to broadcast experimental radio
services. The first transmission was on 14 November of that year, from station 2LO, located at Marconi House, London. That year its founder John Reith[16] became its first general manager.[17]
In
1923, the Sykes Committee rejected advertising for the service as it would lower standards,
and recommended that a 10 shillings licence fee fund broadcasts. To avoid competition with newspapers, Fleet Street persuaded the government to ban news programmes until 7 pm,
and the BBC could only use news from wire services instead of reporting its own. By 1925, the BBC reached about 80% of
Britons through a network of regional and relay stations. While regional
stations at first offered many local programmes, by 1930 the National Programme from London, and a Regional Programme from London and several regional cities, replaced local radio.[18]
The
GPO was reluctant to collect the license fee for a commercial entity, and the
BBC's financial losses caused wireless manufacturers to wish to exit the
consortium. In 1925, Reith persuaded another committee led by the Earl of Crawford to recommend that a new entity, independent of both the government and
corporations, administer broadcasting. The 1926 general strike interrupted newspaper publishing so temporarily ended the ban on
news reporting, and its balanced representation of strikers' and government
viewpoints during the national crisis impressed millions of listeners. By the
end of 1926, the government accepted the Crawford Committee's recommendations,
and Reith was knighted. On 1 January 1927, the British Broadcasting
Corporation, established under a Royal Charter, and with Reith as Director-General, became successor in interest.[18] To represent its purpose and (stated) values, the Corporation
adopted the coat of arms, including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto
Nation". The motto is generally attributed to Montague John Rendall,
former headmaster of Winchester College, and member of the first BBC Board of Governors.[19] The motto is said to be a
"felicitous adaptation" of Micah 4: 3 "nation shall not lift up a sword against nation".[20]
Experimental
television broadcasts were started in 1932 using an electromechanical 30-line
system developed by John Logie Baird. Limited regular broadcasts using this system began in 1934, and an
expanded service (now named the BBC Television
Service) started from Alexandra Palace in 1936, alternating between an improved Baird mechanical 240 line
system and the all electronic 405 line Marconi-EMI system. The superiority of the electronic system saw
the mechanical system dropped early the following year.[21]
1939
to 2000
Television
broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946 during the Second World War. A widely reported urban myth is that, upon resumption of service,
announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, "As I was saying before we were so rudely
interrupted ..." In fact, the first person to appear when transmission
resumed was Jasmine Bligh and the words said were "Good afternoon, everybody. How are
you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh ...?"[22]
The
European
Broadcasting Union was formed on 12
February 1950, in Torquay with the BBC among the 23 founding broadcasting
organisations.
Competition
to the BBC was introduced in 1955 with the commercial and independently
operated television network of ITV. However, the BBC monopoly on radio services would persist into the
1970s. As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was praised for the quality and
range of its output, and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing
enough quality programming,[23] the decision was taken to award the BBC a second television
channel, BBC2, in 1964, renaming the existing service BBC1. BBC2 used the higher resolution 625 line standard which had been
standardised across Europe. BBC2 was broadcast in colour from 1 July 1967, and
was joined by BBC 1 and ITV on 15 November 1969. The 405 line VHF transmissions of BBC1 (and ITV) were continued for compatibility
with older television receivers until 1985.
Starting
in 1964, a series of pirate radio stations (starting with Radio Caroline) came on the air and forced the British government finally to
regulate radio services to permit nationally based advertising-financed
services. In response, the BBC reorganised and renamed their radio channels.
The Light Programme was split into Radio 1 offering continuous "Popular" music and Radio 2 more "Easy Listening".[24] The "Third" programme became Radio 3 offering classical music and cultural programming. The Home Service
became Radio 4 offering news, and non-musical content such as quiz shows,
readings, dramas and plays. As well as the four national channels, a series of
local BBC radio stations were established in 1967, including Radio London.[25]
In
1974, the BBC's teletext service, Ceefax, was introduced, created initially to provide subtitling, but
developed into a news and information service. In 1978, BBC staff went on
strike just before the Christmas of that year, thus blocking out the
transmission of both channels and amalgamating all four radio stations into
one.[26][27]
Since
the deregulation of the UK television and radio market in the 1980s, the BBC
has faced increased competition from the commercial sector (and from the
advertiser-funded public service broadcaster Channel 4), especially on satellite television, cable television, and digital television services.[citation needed]
The
BBC Research Department has played a major part in the development of broadcasting and
recording techniques. In the early days, it carried out essential research into
acoustics and programme level and noise measurement.[citation needed]
The BBC was also responsible for the development of the NICAM stereo standard.
In
recent decades, a number of additional channels and radio stations have been
launched: Radio 5 was launched in 1990 as a sports and educational station, but was
replaced in 1994 with Radio 5 Live, following the success of the Radio 4 service to cover the 1991 Gulf War. The new station would be a news and
sport station. In 1997, BBC News 24, a rolling news channel, launched on digital television services and the following year, BBC Choice launched as the third general entertainment channel from the BBC.
The BBC also purchased The Parliamentary Channel, which was renamed BBC Parliament. In 1999, BBC Knowledge launched as a multi media channel, with services available on the
newly launched BBC Text digital teletext service, and on BBC Online. The channel had an educational aim, which was modified later on in
its life to offer documentaries.
2000
to 2011
In
2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. BBC Knowledge was renamed BBC Four and became the BBC's arts and documentaries channel. CBBC, which had been a programming strand as Children's BBC since 1985,
was split into CBBC and CBeebies, for younger children, with both new services getting a digital
channel: the CBBC Channel and CBeebies Channel. In addition to the television channels, new digital radio
stations were created: 1Xtra, 6 Music and BBC7. BBC 1Xtra was a sister station to Radio 1 and specialised in modern black music, BBC 6 Music specialised in alternative music genres and BBC7 specialised in archive, speech and children's programming.
The
following few years resulted in repositioning of some of the channels to
conform to a larger brand: in 2003, BBC Choice became BBC Three, with programming for younger generations and shocking real life
documentaries, BBC News 24 became the BBC News Channel in 2008, and BBC Radio 7 became BBC Radio 4 Extra in 2011, with new programmes to supplement those broadcast on Radio 4. In 2008, another channel was launched, BBC Alba, a Scottish Gaelic service.
The
2004 Hutton Inquiry and the subsequent Report raised questions about the BBC's
journalistic standards and its impartiality. This led to resignations of senior
management members at the time including the then Director General, Greg Dyke. In January 2007, the BBC released minutes of the Board meeting
which led to Greg Dyke's resignation.[28]
Unlike
the other departments of the BBC, the BBC World Service is funded by the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office. The Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, more commonly known as the Foreign Office or the FCO, is
the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of
the United Kingdom abroad.
In
the past few years, the BBC has experimented in high-definition
television. In 2006, BBC HD launched as an experimental service, and became official in
December 2007. The channel broadcasts HD simulcasts of programmes on BBC One, Two, Three and Four as well as repeats of some older programmes in HD. In 2010, a HD
simulcast of BBC One launched: BBC One HD. The new channel uses HD versions of BBC One's schedule and uses upscaled
versions of programmes not currently produced in HD.
On
18 October 2007, BBC Director General Mark Thompson announced a controversial
plan to make major cuts and reduce the size of the BBC as an organisation. The
plans included a reduction in posts of 2,500; including 1,800 redundancies,
consolidating news operations, reducing programming output by 10% and selling
off the flagship Television Centre building in London.[29] These plans have been fiercely opposed by unions, who have
threatened a series of strikes, however the BBC have stated that the cuts are
essential to move the organisation forward and concentrate on increasing the
quality of programming.
On
20 October 2010, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer George Osborne announced that the television licence fee would be frozen at its
current level until the end of the current charter in 2016. The same
announcement revealed that the BBC would take on the full cost of running the BBC World Service and the BBC Monitoring service from the Foreign and
Commonwealth Office, and will part finance
the Welsh broadcaster S4C.[30]
2011
to present
Further
cuts were announced on 6 October 2011, so the BBC could reach a total reduction
in their budget of 20%, following the licence fee freeze in October 2010.
Details include cutting staff by 2000 and sending a further 1000 to the MediaCityUK development, with BBC Three moving in 2016, the sharing of more
programmes between stations and channels, sharing of radio news bulletins, more
repeats in schedules, including the whole of BBC Two daytime and for some
original programming to be reduced. Also, the BBC HD channel would be closed and replaced with an HD simulcast of BBC
Two, however flagship programmes, other channels and full funding for CBBC and CBeebies would be retained.[31][32][33] Numerous BBC facilities are to be sold off, including New Broadcasting
House on Oxford Road in Manchester. Departments are being split between Broadcasting House and MediaCityUK, as well as many services remaining at BBC Television Centre in
London until at least 2016.
Finances
The
BBC has the second largest budget of any UK-based broadcaster with an operating
expenditure of £4.808 billion in 2011/12[44] compared to £5.9 billion for British Sky Broadcasting,[45] £1.9 billion
for ITV[46] and £214 million in 2007 for GCap Media (the largest commercial radio broadcaster).[47]
Revenue
The
principal means of funding the BBC is through the television licence, costing
£145.50 per year per household since April 2010. Such a licence is required to
receive broadcast television across Britain, however no licence is required to
own a television used for other means, or for sound only radio sets (though a
separate licence for these was also required for non-TV households until 1971).
The cost of a television licence is set by the government and enforced by the
criminal law. A discount is available for households with only black-and-white
television sets. A 50% discount is also offered to registered blind.[48] As a result of the UK Government's
recent spending review, an agreement has been reached between the government
and the corporation in which the current licence fee will remain frozen at the
current level until the Royal Charter is renewed at the beginning of 2017.[49]
The
revenue is collected privately and is paid into the central government Consolidated Fund, a process defined in the Communications Act 2003. This TV Licensing collection is currently carried out by
Capita, an outside agency. Funds are then allocated by the Department of
Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Treasury and approved by Parliament via
legislation. Additional revenues are paid by the Department for Work and
Pensions to compensate for subsidised licences for eligible over-75-year-olds.
Income
from commercial enterprises and from overseas sales of its catalogue of programmes
has substantially increased over recent years,[50] with BBC Worldwide contributing some £145 million to the BBC's core public
service business.
According
to the BBC's 2011/12 Annual Report[44] its income can be broken down, as follows:
•
£3,606.3 million in licence
fees collected from householders;
•
£222 million from
BBC Commercial Businesses;
•
£279.4 million from
government grants;
•
£271.9 million from
other income, such as providing content to overseas broadcasters and concert
ticket sales;
The
licence fee has, however, attracted criticism. It has been argued that in an
age of multi stream, multi-channel availability, an obligation to pay a licence
fee is no longer appropriate. The BBC's use of private sector company Capita Group to send letters to premises not paying the licence fee has been
criticised, especially as there have been cases where such letters have been
sent to premises which are up to date with their payments, or do not require a
TV licence.[51]
The
BBC uses an advertising campaign to inform customers of the requirement to pay
the licence fee. These letters and adverts have been criticised by Conservative MPs Boris Johnson and Ann Widdecombe, for having a threatening nature and language used to scare evaders
into paying.[52][53]
Audio clips and television broadcasts are used to inform listeners of the BBC's
comprehensive database.[54] There are a number of pressure groups campaigning on the issue of
the licence fee.[55]
Expenditure
The
following expenditure figures are from 2011/2012 and show expenditure per
service, and major department.[56]
|
Service
|
Comparison to
previous year
(£million)
|
|
|
BBC One Including Regions
|
1,337.6
|
-63.2
|
|
537.1
|
9.7
|
|
|
112.9
|
110.1
|
|
|
67.8
|
0.8
|
|
|
149.7
|
10.7
|
|
|
BBC News and
|
66.7
|
-2.3
|
|
17.8
|
6
|
|
|
8
|
0.4
|
|
|
61.7
|
2.6
|
|
|
60.5
|
1.3
|
|
|
52.5
|
1.8
|
|
|
BBC Radio 4 and
|
124.1
|
-3.9
|
|
BBC Radio 5 Live and
|
74.6
|
-3.2
|
|
11.7
|
0.9
|
|
|
13
|
0.4
|
|
|
146.5
|
-0.8
|
|
|
Nations Radio
|
95.5
|
2.5
|
|
186.8
|
-7.1
|
|
|
37.2
|
-2.3
|
|
|
Total
|
3,161.8
|
-42.2
|
|
Department
|
|
|
2,364.1
|
|
|
640.1
|
|
|
224
|
|
|
29
|
|
|
52.5
|
|
|
130.5
|
|
|
Licence fee collection
|
126.1
|
|
Restructuring
|
100.6
|
|
Property
|
186.9
|
|
Total
|
3,853.8
|
(Quoted from
Wikipedia)
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