Jump to content

Portal:BBC

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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

"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 Britain. 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

Protesters outside BBC Television Centre during the Question Time British National Party controversy
Protesters outside BBC Television Centre during the Question Time British National Party controversy

Protesters gathered outside BBC Television Centre in London during the Question Time British National Party controversy in October 2009. The first appearance of British National Party leader Nick Griffin on the BBC series Question Time sparked public and political debate in the United Kingdom.

Selected list article

A close-up photograph of Alex Day singing into a microphone, taken from below.
Video blogger Alex Day performing during the ninth episode of Chartjackers.

The British documentary series Chartjackers ran for a single season of eleven weekly episodes during the autumn of 2009. The series documents the lives of four teenage video bloggersAlex Day, Johnny Haggart, Jimmy Hill, and Charlotte McDonnell (formerly Charlie McDonnell)—from the video-sharing website YouTube as they attempt to write, record and release a pop song by crowdsourcing through social media in ten weeks. When initially aired, the first ten episodes of Chartjackers, each five minutes in length, detailed the events of the previous seven days. The final episode, broadcast on 21 November 2009, compiled highlights from the previous ten weeks into one 30-minute episode, which was narrated by British DJ MistaJam. All eleven episodes were produced by Adam King and Jonathan Davenport of the production company Hat Trick Productions.

Chartjackers was devised in 2009 by Davenport and Andy Mettam of Hat Trick Productions, and was commissioned for development by Geoffrey Goodwin and Jo Twist of BBC Switch. Alongside the programmes Off the Hook and The Cut, it was featured as part of a season of multi-platform content designed to appeal to teenagers. The show was also directly linked to the 2009 annual appeal for the British charity Children in Need – profits from sales of the completed pop song were donated to the charity. Chartjackers aired weekly at approximately 1:10 p.m. on Saturday afternoons on BBC Two, with the first episode premiering on 12 September 2009 during the channel's two-hour long BBC Switch segment. The series garnered a viewing figures peak of almost half a million with its final episode and was critically panned by reviewers. Each episode was streamed online through BBC iPlayer to UK residents for seven days after its initial airing. The series was not broadcast outside the UK and, as of 14 December 2011, is not available to buy on DVD. (Full article...)

Selected biography

Alan Graham Johnston (born 17 May 1962) is a British journalist working for the BBC. He has been the BBC's correspondent in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, the Gaza Strip and Italy. He is based in London.

Johnston was kidnapped in the Gaza Strip on 12 March 2007 by the militant group Army of Islam. He was unconditionally released on 4 July, nearly four months later, after much pressure was put on the group by the now-dominant Hamas. (Full article...)

Selected building

The new Egton Wing of Broadcasting House
The new Egton Wing of Broadcasting House

The Egton Wing of Broadcasting House was completed in 2005 on the site of Egton House. A memorial sculpture, Breathing, for those killed whilst reporting on wars is situated on the roof.

Did you know

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

BBC topics

Categories

Select [►] to view subcategories

WikiProjects

WikiProject BBC logo
WikiProject BBC logo

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:

Discover Wikipedia using portals