Portal:BBC
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 17,200 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
Tom Quinn is a fictional character in the BBC espionage television series Spooks (called MI-5 in the United States), which follows the exploits of Section D, a counter-terrorism division of MI5. He is portrayed by British actor Matthew Macfadyen. In the first two series, Tom is the chief of Section D. The character was in the first and second episode of the third series but was decommissioned as a result of sabotaging an operation.
Series creator David Wolstencroft believed that writing Tom was the most fun, yet hardest to work on. During the second series, the producers were unsure whether Macfadyen would return for the third; because of this, Tom was originally killed in the second series finale. However, when Macfadyen decided to appear in the first two episodes of the third series, series writer Howard Brenton had to "unkill him." Reaction towards the character by fans were positive, though critics were mixed about Macfadyen's portrayal. Tom Quinn would later appear again as a cameo on the final episode of Spooks; his brief return was met with generally positive reactions. (Full article...)
Selected image
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
The BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award is the main award of the BBC Sports Personality of the Year ceremony, which takes place each December. The winner is the sportsperson, judged by a public vote, to have achieved the most that year. The recipient must either be British or reside and play a significant amount of their sport in the United Kingdom. The winner is selected from a predetermined shortlist. The most recent award-winner is footballer Mary Earps, who won the 2023 award. (Full article...)
List of selected list articles
|
|---|
Related portals
Selected biography
Jonathan Philip Agnew, MBE, DL (born 4 April 1960) is an English cricket broadcaster and a former 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 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 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
Specially built for the BBC and opened in 1960, BBC Television Centre in London was home to much of the BBC's television output until 2013. Studio TC1, at 995 square metres, is the second largest television studio in Britain.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that the first series of British radio stand-up comedy show Mark Steel's in Town was recorded in Skipton, Boston, Lewes, Walsall, Merthyr Tydfil and the Isle of Portland?
- ... that the episodes of the BBC 7 sitcom Knocker have titles such as "Privinvasionacy", "Obselejectivitysence" and "Confidentialitydence"?
- ... that Newman and Baddiel in Pieces was the final show on which the comic partnership of Robert Newman and David Baddiel worked together before going their separate ways?
- ... 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 in May 2015 BBC Four aired "the most boring TV show ever" – an un-narrated, two-hour narrowboat journey on the Kennet and Avon Canal?
- ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
- ... that BBC radio broadcaster Venu Chitale taught listeners how to cook without meat when it was rationed during the Second World War?
- ... 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 the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question, which examines the career of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, was banned in India?
BBC topics
| Services | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Management | |||||||||
| Departments | |||||||||
| Nations and regions |
| ||||||||
| Commercial subsidiaries | |||||||||
| History | |||||||||
| Key properties (full list) |
| ||||||||
| Finance | |||||||||
| Projects | |||||||||
| Technical | |||||||||
| UK channels | |
|---|---|
| UK nations and regions | |
| Services and programming blocks | |
| UKTV channels | |
| International channels and joint ventures | |
| Defunct channels | |
| UK stations | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| International stations | |||||||
Defunct stations and services |
| ||||||
| Related topics | |||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| Programmes |
| ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other | |||||||||||||||
.svg) |
| ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Categories
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.
| 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
