British Broadcasting Corporation

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British Broadcasting Corporation
Station logo
BBC logo
General information
Reception: Analog: Cable , satellite , FM , MW , LW , KW
Digital: DVB-T , DVB-C , DVB-S , DAB , DRM , IPTV
Seat: London , UKUnited KingdomUnited Kingdom 
Broadcasting company: BBC
Start of broadcast: October 18, 1922
Legal form: public law
Website: www.bbc.com
www.bbcnewsv2vjtpsuy.onionOnion service , only through the Tor network reach.Tor-logo-2011-flat.svg
List of TV channels
The Broadcasting House in London has been the new headquarters of the BBC since 2013

The British Broadcasting Corporation , or BBC [ biːbiːˈsiː ] for short , is a public service broadcaster in the United Kingdom that operates several radio and television programs and an Internet news service.

history

Logo before 1997

The beginnings

The BBC's annual almanac
The BBC Year Book 1931
The BBC's broadcasting licenses in 1929 and 1930

The private company

The British Broadcasting Company Ltd. was founded on October 18, 1922 in London by British and American electrical appliance manufacturers to jointly increase sales of radio equipment by offering a radio program as a corporation with starting capital of 60,006 pounds.

The six companies that formed a consortium were:

  • Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company
  • Vickers Electrical Company
  • Radio Communication Company
  • The British Thomson-Houston Company
  • The General Electric Company
  • The Western Electric Company

John Reith applied to Sir William Noble, chairman of the consortium's committee, for the advertised position of director general .

The license was given to the new company on November 1, 1922 from the British postal authorities, which also had to decide on capital increases and dividends. On December 14th Reith was appointed Managing Director and on December 15th the company was entered in the commercial register.

The British Post had resisted the beginnings of broadcasting out of security concerns and rejected a large number of applications. In 1922, due to the increasing number of suppliers and interested parties, it changed its policy and made the decision to only issue a single license. This should avoid a seemingly chaotic situation like in the USA.

In addition, the BBC was already developing in these years, and in 1930 a Research Department was created.

The BBC had achieved an unrivaled monopoly as the only provider of radio and television programs. This prompted entrepreneur Leonard Plugge to found the International Broadcasting Company in 1931 , which rented airtime at various European stations and offered British advertisers. The television monopoly was broken in 1955 with the introduction of Independent Television , the radio monopoly in 1973 with Independent Local Radio .

John Reith's vision for his work was a broadcaster that would offer not only education and information, but also entertainment, while being independent of government and advertising .

The company's income came from the sale of radios and the broadcast of programs sponsored by newspapers such as the Daily Mail. In return, the company received part of the usage fee payable to the post office by radio device owners.

The development of turnover and the number of employees was rapid: on December 31, 1922, there were 35,774 reception permits. The BBC's staff consisted of 4 employees; In 1923 there were 177; By the end of 1924 there were over a million fee payers, 20 broadcasting stations, and 465 employees; In late 1926, prior to the company's transformation, there were 2.5 million fee payers and 773 employees.

The technical development proceeded in the same way: The first broadcast of a program took place on November 14, 1922 from a London studio. A few days later it was broadcast from Birmingham and Manchester . By 1925, the operation of the Daventry transmitter on longwave enabled the coverage area to be extended to almost the entire British island.

The reasons for the abandonment of the private corporation were the low profits from the sale of radio sets, since many customers manufactured their own sets, and the high investment costs due to the rapid expansion, which were not covered by the fee shares. The financing gap made financing through fees and thus a stronger connection to the Postmaster General and thus the government appear attractive to the shareholders .

In addition, the general strike of 1926 blocked all media except radio, so that for the first time its crucial political importance became unmistakably clear. During the general strike, Reith also managed to gain the public's trust and act as a neutral reporter on both sides, which was to determine the reputation of the BBC in the long term.

However, the audience failed to see that the Reith government only trusted him and also gave him broadcasting contracts because he shared their negative opinion of the strike. In addition, in the absence of alternative news sources, the audience could not have known that, for example, Reith had not given Labor Party representatives an opportunity to comment and had delayed sending an appeal for peace from the Archbishop of Canterbury. James Curran and Jean Seaton therefore conclude that it was during this phase of the strike that the BBC invented "modern propaganda in its British form".

Conversion into a corporation under public law

On December 31, 1926, the employment contracts of the 773 employees were terminated. Upon the dissolution of the company, all shareholders were paid out at the nominal value of their investments. All assets, facilities and copyrights have been transferred to the Postmaster General. On January 1st, the British Broadcasting Corporation was established and all assets transferred to it. John Reith was knighted and named the first general manager of the new BBC. The previous employees were given new employment contracts.

The basis of the conversion was the Royal Charter of December 20th, which had been requested by the Crawford Commission of Parliament on March 5th, 1926: The BBC Ltd. should be taken over by a government-owned non-commercial commission.

The BBC played a pioneering role worldwide in terms of the topicality and neutrality of the reporting as well as the transparency of the sources. As early as the early 1930s, the editors of the “News Bulletin” received their news from four agencies.

By 1929 the BBC was so popular that animosity arose with the mainstream media. The owners of theaters and orchestras complained that the BBC, with its large number of listeners, was preventing people from going out in the evening. The agents of "Music Hall" artists, ie cabaret artists, forbade their artists to appear on the radio because they believed that the "bland" radio presentation would damage their reputation. The record industry, on the other hand, began to sign musicians who had become famous through the BBC as early as 1928. And the new genre of radio play was so popular that the station received 6,000 manuscripts in the few years of its existence - most of them written for the stage and unusable for the radio.

In 1932 the BBC launched the first regular shortwave broadcasts across the Borough Hill .

The BBC's first regular television broadcast took place on November 2, 1936, through the BBC Television Service , and experimental television programs had been broadcast since 1929. The BBC produced the programs in two different processes, on the one hand the intermediate film process, on the other hand the Marconi-Emi system with 405 lines, while the system introduced in Germany in 1935 only had 180 lines. However, television paused for the period of World War II from September 1, 1939; there was, among other things, the fear that enemy aircraft could use the beams of the ultra-short wave transmitter as a guide beam . John Reith was raised to the nobility in 1940 .

During the Second World War , the BBC (with 11,500 employees in London) was, alongside Radio Beromünster, the most important foreign source of information for millions of German radio listeners. Among the contributors to the program here speak German prisoners of war belonged to the home u. a. Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler .

The television broadcasts resumed in 1946. In 1955 the television program received its first competition with ITV . In 1958 the first broadcast of what is now the longest running children's program in the world, Blue Peter . In 1964, the second television program began broadcasting, whereupon the name of the first program was changed to BBC One . On July 1, 1967, however, BBC Two became the first station in Europe to be received in color in the new PAL system. BBC One followed with color broadcasts only in 1969 and at the same time remained receivable in black and white on television standard A from 1936 until 1985 .

Younger story

In 1997, the BBC's terrestrial network was sold to Castle Transmission Services (Crown Castle) for £ 244 million. Since then, the BBC has been renting the transmission systems for broadcasting its programs there, among other places. In 2004 and 2005 the radio technology and parts of the production were also sold to investors.

Today the BBC World Service broadcasts in 33 languages ​​via shortwave and satellite. Since around 2000 the BBC has also switched its programs to digital formats ( DAB , DVB-C , DVB-S and DVB-T ) that can be received via cable, satellite and antenna . This enabled a number of new channels ( BBC Three , BBC Four , CBeebies , CBBC Channel, BBC Parliament and BBC News ) to be launched, as well as numerous international offers such as BBC World News and BBC Prime . Since 2009 it has been broadcast digitally.

In July 2003, BBC coverage came under pressure due to the death of British bioweapons expert David Kelly . The Commission of Inquiry into Kelly's suicide had criticized a BBC report as untenable, which alleged that the government had inflated intelligence on weapons of mass destruction prior to the war in Iraq. The BBC failed to check important facts and did not later admit this error. Kelly should have provided the information for the report. After the results were published in the Hutton Report in January 2004 , the BBC apologized several times to Prime Minister Tony Blair . As a result, a violent dispute broke out within the BBC. Staff accused management of accepting Lord Hutton's report, despite the fact that BBC lawyers discovered numerous errors in it. The BBC attorneys complained that twelve key areas in Lord Hutton's report had been ignored. The results of the presented report are therefore wrong. BBC insiders told The Independent that the attorneys' report provided a broad base for the company to challenge Lord Hutton's results - perhaps even through legal channels. According to the newspaper report, this was only briefly discussed within the BBC leadership and then rejected. Instead, Director General Greg Dyke and Chairman of the Supervisory Board Gavyn Davies resigned as a consequence.

In the fall of 2004, the BBC began making its archives available to the public. Over 1 million program contributions from the entire history of the BBC are now available. The archive material can be used indefinitely, only commercial use is prohibited.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the BBC was considered cumbersome and expensive despite its pioneering role in the introduction of modern technologies ( e.g. Ceefax (BBC teletext ), Internet , digital broadcasting ) with its centralized and bureaucratic structures and oversized administrative apparatus. In view of the BBC's need for reform and streamlining, BBC Director General Mark Thompson announced in December 2004 that by 2007, 2900 jobs would be cut from a total of over 27,000 jobs, 2500 of which were in administration. He also announced savings of £ 320 million a year. Around 1,800 employees, up to 50 percent of all, should move to a new broadcasting facility near Manchester by 2013 at the latest .

In early March 2005, the British government decided to extend the Royal Charter, which expired at the end of 2006, by ten years. The principle of fee financing should remain in place for the time being. The BBC's management and board of directors should also be reformed. So far, the BBC Board of Governors has monitored the institution. In 2007 the BBC Trust took its place .

For new services such as iPlayer (since the end of 2007, the media library ), an often cited public value test checks the social added value compared to commercial offers. A quality concept of the audience can only be measured more imprecisely than the audience ratings .

Under political pressure, plans were made in spring 2010 to cut expenses, close two radio stations and cut web content by half. In October 2010, as part of its extensive public austerity measures, the new British government ( Cameron I cabinet ) managed to freeze the license fee for British television viewers at £ 145.50 per year for the next six years. Overall, the BBC lost 16 percent of its public funding by 2016. The British state saved £ 340 million annually. The television union Betcu expected job cuts, since it said that otherwise no savings of this amount would be possible. Initial considerations that the BBC should in future take over the fee exemption for seniors over 75 years of age were rejected. Instead, a major change was that the costs for the World Service (the world program in 33 languages) are no longer borne by the State Department , but have to be borne by the BBC itself. Until then, the World Service was of great importance for Great Britain as a former colonial power (see British Empire ) for its own external image.

On February 16, 2016, the broadcast on BBC three was stopped. The rights to some series have been given up and everything else has been moved to the iPlayer.

The BBC's business model is expected to be reviewed in 2022 and renegotiated with the government in 2027. After critical reports by the BBC regarding Brexit and statements by Prime Minister Boris Johnson , a downsizing of the institution by the Boris Johnson II cabinet is discussed. Accordingly, with the exception of stations such as Radio 3 and Radio 4, numerous radio offers are to be sold. Funding is to be provided through subscriptions instead of broadcasting taxes.

budget

The BBC is mainly financed through license fees, but the composition of the budget is somewhat different from that of the public service broadcasters in Germany.

The BBC has the second highest budget of any English broadcaster with a budget of £ 4.7bn in 2013/14 , behind £ 6,471bn from British Sky Broadcasting in 2013/14 and before £ 1,843 billion from ITV .

The main source of funding for the BBC is TV licenses, which cost each UK household £ 145.50 per year (as of April 2010). The license is required for television reception in the UK, while no license is required to operate a television for any other purpose. The price of the license is set by the government and enforced through criminal law.

The income from commercial, international licensing deals via BBC Worldwide has increased significantly in recent years. B. 2004/2005 £ 145 million (EUR 129 million) contributed to the core business.

Background to the status of the BBC

Initially, the BBC was also heavily focused on providing information to the British colonies and the Commonwealth of Nations. From 1932, what was then Empire Service supplied these areas. The later international service BBC World Service also earned a reputation through the independent supply of information to crisis and war zones around the world. This is a fundamental difference to the German international program, Deutsche Welle , which, in addition to providing news to German listeners abroad, has the task of representing Germany. These include, above all, cultural reports and an understanding of the German language.

The BBC's German program, which broadcast from the world-famous Bush House in London, was particularly important in the war years between 1939 and 1945. The prohibited interception of BBC London was usually the only way in Germany to obtain secure information about the war situation and the To get to the front. There were heavy penalties for it. For example, the young person Helmuth Hübener was sentenced to death by the People's Court for eavesdropping on enemy broadcasters . He had printed the radio broadcasts with carbon copies on leaflets and distributed them in Hamburg . The four deep drum tones "domm domm domm dommm" (the implemented head motif from Beethoven's 5th Symphony) were used by the BBC as a jingle during the Second World War because of their meaning as the letter "V" for Victory in the Morse alphabet (· · · -) used. This BBC London identification mark became a legend. The BBC's German program was discontinued in March 1999 after more than sixty years for cost reasons.

In post-war Germany, the BBC was a model for setting up a radio system that was independent of the state. This was intended to prevent abuse of the media by the state as it did during the Nazi era . Following the example of the BBC, the NWDR was created in the British zone , which initially had a British artistic director, Hugh Greene .

The BBC's home service, which wanted to report truthfully about the course of the war, found itself confronted with attempts at restriction by ministries "to protect the country". Nevertheless, it usually got through and established itself in the words of Felix Simon in the NZZ as an "organization in the service of the population, yes as a public good".

A major focus of the BBC is education. The educational programs are also available on DVD and VHS . In the meantime, some of the BBC reports can also be seen synchronized on German television, for example on the private broadcaster VOX under the name BBC Exklusiv.

The BBC sells its television programs worldwide (especially documentaries, television films, comedy series) and licenses its own entertainment formats.

Domestically, the BBC, the world's largest license-funded public broadcaster, still has media power that should not be underestimated. Despite the introduction of a dual broadcasting system in 1955, the BBC still occupies the majority of the broadcast frequencies . Compared to Germany, only relatively few private radio and television programs (in particular ITV , Channel 4 , Five and the pay-TV broadcaster BSkyB ) are licensed. The situation in Great Britain rather corresponds to that in Austria, where the public broadcaster ORF exerts great influence.

BBC Worldwide , the commercial subsidiary of the BBC, uses u. a. in joint ventures rights and content of the BBC increasing. In the 2006/2007 financial year, its sales outside the UK were approximately 810 million pounds sterling (GBP) and profits were approximately GBP 111 million.

organization structure

Trust / Supervisory Board
As the supreme supervisory body, whose members are appointed by the Queen on the proposal of the government, the BBC Trust appoints the members of the Executive Board and controls its performance. The trust sets the strategic goals. It is also the job of the BBC Trust to represent the interests of the fee-paying population. The Executive Board is accountable to the BBC Trust.
State Oversight and Office of Communications
External supervision is on the part of the state and the OFCOM supervisory authority. The government has extensive control powers up to and including the withdrawal of the state license. However, the state has so far held back on interventions. "In practice, the ministry has largely waived its supervision."
Royal Charter
The legal foundation of the organization is the so-called Royal Charter of the BBC. The current charter was adopted in 2016 and is valid until the end of 2027.
Executive board
The Executive Board is responsible for the broadcaster's operational business. The body has seven directors. Mark Thompson was General Manager until autumn 2012 . He was succeeded by George Entwistle , who had previously directed BBC television for 15 months (resigned November 10, 2012). In addition to the General Director, the following areas of responsibility are covered:
  • the current reporting under the logo BBC News,
  • the television division BBC Vision,
  • Audio and music,
  • Future Media,
  • Finance, and
  • internal management.

Criticism of the organizational structure

The organizational structure, especially the selection of the trustees by the government and the composition of the members of the Trust and Executive Committee, was sometimes criticized as the cause of an undemocratic imbalance.

State broadcaster debate

The BBC is sometimes misunderstood by its critics in its organizational structure and referred to as a "state broadcaster" or as a "government broadcaster". For example, the BBC is described in an article on Deutschlandfunk as a “state broadcaster”. This criticism is countered by the fact that the BBC is largely self-governing and, through the Royal Charter, is committed to independence, neutrality and balance in its free editorial work. The BBC is a state-owned corporation with its assets. Financing from 2014 through contributions to the World Service (previously Foreign Ministry) makes the broadcaster independent of government subsidies or cuts. The necessary funds are set by parliament through fee adjustments.

This makes it clear that the BBC is not a broadcasting body that is directly assigned to a government as a mouthpiece or is part of the state administration. When assessing proximity to the state, the time reference must also be clarified. While influences can be more indirect and informal today, there were clear propaganda instructions during the Second World War and guidelines and boundaries drawn by governments during the Cold War . For all politically sensitive topics, there were regular conflicts between the freedom of editing and the wishes of the government, in which the government usually prevailed. In the wake of Brexit , the BBC's claim to objectivity and balance was put to a hard test when government opinion was divided and every statement was followed by an irreconcilable counter-statement.

reception

The encryption of the programs was already lifted in 2003, so the reception of all BBC TV channels is basically possible.

Due to the market dominance of British Sky Broadcasting , the Freesat association was set up with a number of British broadcasters , including the ITV broadcasters , Channel 4 and, in the course of 2008, Channel Five . The aim is better marketing of these channels as an alternative to pay TV . Freesat will continue to be broadcast unencrypted.

Since the beginning of 2014, however, the broadcast has been via Astra 2E and 2F at 28.2 degrees east, whose “spot beam” broadcast is heavily focused on the British Isles. As a result, reception in Germany is only possible without problems in the western part. In 2015, Astra 2E and 2F were supplemented by 2G. The signal strength of the spot beam from these satellites drops sharply approximately east of the Bremen - Munich line . Thus, east of this line, if at all, only continuous reception with antenna diameters of 150 cm or more is possible. Here the reception fluctuates very strongly over the course of the day and year. The necessary antenna size continues to increase sharply to the east. The reception-related zero line is roughly in the area between the new and old federal states. Here, even with very large mirror diameters (> 300 cm), reception is only possible temporarily. In the Rostock / Berlin area, the signal level rises again slightly due to a side lobe effect. Since the exact transmission characteristics (footprint) outside the intended footprint are not published, there are no official information for these areas in Germany. The transmission characteristics of the Astra 2E, 2F and 2G differ slightly. On the western side of Europe, in the area of ​​Spain, the signal drops similarly.

BBC1 and BBC2 have several regional programs. BBC4 will broadcast from 8 p.m. (CET). Before that, the frequencies of CBBC and CBeeBies are used for the children's program. The programs BBC News, BBC Alba (Gaelic programs often with English subtitles) and BBC Parliament are also broadcast via spot beams. The same applies to a total of seven so-called BBC streams (red button channels) that are used for interactive programs. The British red button function requires a receiver with the corresponding English factory setting. The BBC's HD programs broadcast with a resolution of 1080i lines.

BBC3 has only been operated as an online broadcaster since 2015.

At the beginning of 2019 the TV broadcaster BB2 Scotland was renamed BBC Scotland and has been broadcasting an independent, regionally oriented program since then. The reason for this change were requests from Scotland for the BBC to invest more money from Scottish fee payers for regional broadcasts.

In the Netherlands , BBC One and BBC Two can be received via cable. In Switzerland , all BBC programs are also available digitally in the cable networks of UPC Switzerland .

BBC World News is also on the satellite Astra broadcast on 19.2 ° E (since April 1, 2015 in HD) and since June 30, 2015 in both SD and HD in the cable television network of Unitymedia fed unencrypted.

BBC World Service is broadcast on FM in major cities such as Berlin .

The British " Electronic Program Guide " (EPG) is not supported by most receivers with German factory settings.

Broadcast formats:

Radio AM ( LW / MW / KW )
poor quality with usual receiver; for example BBC World Service on MW 648 kHz or Radio Five Live on 693 and 909 kHz; Long wave on 198 kHz (BBC Radio 4).
Radio DRM test broadcasts ( Digital Radio Mondiale ) on MW 1296 kHz
good sound quality, the programs take place mainly in the evening
Radio FM ( VHF )
unsuitable for remote reception
Radio DAB (digital radio)
unsuitable for remote reception
Radio digital satellite ( DVB-S )
via Astra 2E and 2F. BBC World Service also on Astra 19.2 ° East.
Radio DVB-T
unsuitable for remote reception
Radio Worldspace
Reception only with a special Worldspace Receiver
Analogue terrestrial television ( PAL / AM SSBSC )
unsuitable for remote reception
Digital terrestrial television (DVB-T)
unsuitable for remote reception
TV digital satellite ( DVB-S )
via Astra 2E and 2F
Web
Under the brand name bbc.co.uk (formerly: BBC Online), the broadcaster offers an extensive range of information with over two million pages; many programs and individual programs can be accessed via streaming processes and audio-on-demand services. Most of the BBC's online TV offering (BBC iPlayer) cannot be accessed by users outside the UK due to geoblocking.
With the BBC Radio Player , a pop-up browser, 18 BBC radio programs and 40 BBC local stations can be called live worldwide. In addition, all programs from all radio stations (including regional broadcasters) can be listened to free of charge for a week at any time in the player ( audio-on-demand ).
According to Alexa , bbc.com is ranked the 79th most popular website on the internet.

Please also note for analog television that the reception standard differs somewhat from the PAL B / G used in Germany. The UK uses PAL-I (different sound carrier spacing) and NICAM for stereo sound .

Channel assignment

Radio

Radio station main emphasis
BBC Radio 1 BBC Radio 1 Pop, rock, DJ shows for young target groups
BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 Light entertainment for adult target groups
BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 Classical music and modern acoustic music styles
BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 News, culture, science, society, radio plays
BBC Radio 5 Live BBC Radio 5 Live Newstalk format with short messages every 30 minutes and sports
BBC Radio Asian Network BBC Asian Network Channel from / for Asian minorities
BBC Radio World Service BBC World Service International program: world news and documentary programs
BBC Local Radio Regional programs for 46 areas of Great Britain
BBC Radio 1Xtra BBC Radio 1Xtra * Soul, hip-hop, R&B, garage
BBC Radio 4 Extra * Humor, children's radio and radio plays from the BBC archive (around the clock), replaces BBC Radio 7
BBC Radio 5 BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra * other sporting events
BBC Radio 6 Music BBC Radio 6 Music * Alternative styles of music, as a counterpoint to the more mainstream-oriented Radio 1

Most channels can be received digitally and analogue, channels marked with * only digital.

watch TV

At home

TV channel main emphasis
BBC One BBC One Focus on mass entertainment
BBC Two BBC Two Focus on more demanding programs
BBC Three BBC Three Culture, drama, humor
Since February 2016 pure VoD offer
BBC Four BBC Four Culture, education
BBC News BBC News 24 hour news
CBBC Youth program
CBeebies CBeebies Toddler program
BBC One HD BBC One HD BBC One simulcast in HD
BBC TWO HD BBC Two HD BBC Two simulcast in HD
BBC Four HD BBC Four simulcast in HD
BBC News BBC News HD BBC News simulcast in HD
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament Broadcast live from Westminster
BBC Alba TV channel in Scottish Gaelic
BBC Red Button BBC Red Button + interactive television

All channels are broadcast digitally, BBC One and BBC Two also in analogue.

Abroad

TV channel main emphasis
BBC America BBC America American cable television offshoot
BBC Canada BBC Canada BBC Canadian subsidiary
BBC Food
BBC Lifestyle BBC Lifestyle
BBC Kids (Canada)
BBC Persian BBC Persian Persian-language (Farsi) station
BBC World News BBC World News (HD) 24 hour news (outside the UK)
BBC Prime BBC Prime Entertainment program (outside the UK)
BBC Entertainment BBC Entertainment (outside the UK)
BBC Knowledge BBC Knowledge (outside the UK)
CBBC (outside the UK)
CBeebies CBeebies (outside the UK)
BBC Parliament BBC Parliament Broadcast live from Westminster
BBC HD BBC HD (outside the UK)
Animal Plant Animal Planet
Liv Liv
UK.TV
UKTV (Australia and New Zealand)

criticism

In October 2014, the BBC Trust published the BBC Complaints Framework . The British House of Commons of the United Kingdom issued in its report The Future of the BBC ( The future of the BBC proof) that OFCOM should be the last appeals body.

The BBC has long been accused by conservatives of being too left-liberal. Margaret Thatcher's administration accused the BBC of bias. In 2011, Peter Sissons, the BBC's chief news presenter from 1989–2009, said the BBC was essentially firmly in the hands of the left. Another presenter, Andrew Marr, noted that “the BBC is not impartial or neutral. It has a liberal orientation, less a party-political orientation. It is better described as a culturally liberal orientation. ”Former BBC director Roger Mosey classified the BBC as“ liberal defensive ”. Conversely, left columnist Owen Jones wrote for Owen Jones: "The truth is, the BBC is full of rights."

As of October 2012, hundreds of allegations of child abuse against BBC presenter Jimmy Savile , who died in 2011, became known. For decades, Saville is said to have abused his victims often on the BBC premises when filming television shows. Many BBC employees apparently knew about the incidents, but remained silent with regard to Saville's great influence on the station. In an internal investigation in 2016, the BBC agreed that it was jointly responsible for Saville's abuse cases.

Whistleblower David Kelly was the main source for a report by the BBC alleging that the British government had inflated intelligence reports on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan described his source so precisely during his own appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament on June 19, 2003 that government experts realized that it was the bioweapons expert Kelly. According to witnesses, the disclosure of the source was the official strategy of the station, right up to the boardroom. The journalist Watts made serious allegations against the station. Pressure was exerted on them to disclose their sources.

MI5 verification policy

As early as the 1930s to 1990s, the UK domestic secret service MI5 was busy screening applicants for BBC positions in order to keep out people who were considered subversive. In 1933, BBC chief Alan Dawnay began meeting with MI5 chief Sir Vernon Kell to trade information unofficially. Starting in 1935, a formal agreement was made whereby applicants were to be screened by MI5 (without their knowledge) for their political views (the existence of MI5 itself was not officially recognized until after the Security Service Act 1989).

This relationship gained wider public attention after an article by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar appeared in the Observer in August 1985 , revealing that MI5 was checking appointments and operations were in progress from Room 105 at the Broadcasting House. A 1984 note shows that blacklisted organizations included the far-left British Communist Party , the Socialist Workers Party and other parties. Assignment to one of these groups could result in an application being rejected.

In October 1985, the BBC announced that it would stop the review process, with the exception of a few senior executives and those in charge of emergency broadcasting (in the event of a nuclear war) and BBC World Service staff. In 1990, under the Security Service Act of 1989, vetting was restricted to those responsible for broadcasting during the war and to those who had access to classified government information. Michael Hodder, who succeeded Stonham, had the MI5 exam files submitted to the BBC archives in Reading, Berkshire.

Awards received

Awards given by the BBC

The BBC gives different awards to athletes every year:

Other facilities

Trivia

In the UK, the BBC is also known as “Auntie” (auntie) and “Beeb”.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. BBC News launches 'dark web' mirror. In: bbc.com. October 23, 2019, accessed November 24, 2019 .
  2. ^ A b Asa Briggs: The BBC - the First Fifty Years - Condensed version of the five-volume history by the same author. Oxford University Press, 1985, ISBN 0-19-212971-6 .
  3. https://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/about/history#1937-01-01 , accessed on March 21, 2020.
  4. BBC. In: politics.co.uk. Accessed December 30, 2015 .
  5. ^ Baron John Charles Walsham Reith Reith: Broadcast over Britain . Hodder and Stoughton Limited, 1924.
  6. James Curran, Jean Seaton: Power Without Responsibility. Press, Broadcasting and the Internet in Britain. Routledge, 2009, ISBN 978-1-135-24858-1 , pp. 663 ff. ( Books.google.com , chapter: The BBC and the General Strike. )
  7. According to the BBC Year Book 1931, the agencies Reuter’s , Press Association , Central News and Exchange Telegraph Company supplied the newsroom with news.
  8. BBC Hand Book. 1929, pp. 164, 182, 186.
  9. ^ Marconi-EMI Television Company Limited , Science Museum Group
  10. ^ Karl-Eduard von Schnitzler - class fighter and bon vivant MDR September 29, 2016.
  11. bbc.co.uk/archive
  12. BBC News - Entertainment - Printable version BBC shake-up: At-a-glance
  13. The end of the quota hunt. on: time online. March 2, 2005.
  14. Mark Sweney, Steve Busfield: BBC to close two radio stations and halve web output after Tory pressure. In: The Guardian . February 26, 2010.
  15. tagesschau.de ( Memento from October 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  16. BBC - BBC announces plans to close BBC Three as a TV channel in 2015 - Media Center. In: www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved May 2, 2016 .
  17. Tim Shipman: No 10 tells BBC license fee will be scrapped. In: The Times . February 16, 2020, accessed February 18, 2020 .
  18. Bettina Schulz: BBC: jammers undesirable. In: ZEIT ONLINE . February 17, 2020, accessed February 18, 2020 .
  19. BBC Full Financial Statements 2013/14 . In: BBC Annual Report and Accounts 2013/14 . BBC. July 2014. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
  20. Annual Report 2014 . British Sky Broadcasting. July 2014. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
  21. ITV plc Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended December 31, 2013 . ITV. 2014. Archived from the original on June 26, 2014. Retrieved March 1, 2015.
  22. BBC: Annual Report and Accounts 2004–2005 (PDF). Retrieved May 16, 2011.
  23. Felix Simon: The BBC is a legend that was shaped by the war - How "Auntie Beep" became the beacon of serious broadcasting, NZZ , January 6, 2018, page 42
  24. Learning on BBC.uk.
  25. BBC Worldwide reports record profit. (PDF; 45 kB) BBC Worldwide presents record profit. BBC Worldwide, June 28, 2007; accessed October 4, 2012 .
  26. a b Caroline Hahn: The supervision of public broadcasting. Inventory and future prospects. Peter Lang, 2010, ISBN 978-3-631-59808-5 , pp. 136 ff. ( Books.google.com )
  27. BBC Royal Charter archive (1927, 1937, 1947, 1952, 1964, 1981, 1997, 2007)
  28. BBC Charter and Agreement (2016)
  29. Gerlinde Frey-Vor: BBC: Public-legal order secured. The new Royal Charter until 2027. (PDF) Media Perspektiven 2/2018, accessed on August 15, 2018 .
  30. BBC Director Quits in Furor Over Coverage of Sexual Abuse. on nytimes.com, November 10, 2012.
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literature

Web links

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