The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster, headquartered at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public service broadcaster, headquartered at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London. It is the world's oldest national broadcaster,[3] and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees,[4] employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom more than 16,000 are in public sector broadcasting.[5][6][7][8] The total number of BBC staff amounts to 35,402 including part-time, flexible, and fixed-contract staff.[9] The BBC is established under a Royal Charter[10] and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.[11] Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee[12] which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up.[13] The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament,[14] and 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. Around a quarter of 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 World 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.[15] From its inception, through the Second World War (where its broadcasts helped to unite the nation), to the popularisation of television in the post-WW2 era and the internet in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the BBC has played a prominent role in British life and culture.[16] It is also known colloquially as "The Beeb", "Auntie", or a combination of both (as "Auntie Beeb").[17][18] Contents 1    History 1.1    The birth of British broadcasting, 1920 to 1922 1.2    From private company towards public service corporation, 1923 to 1926 1.3    1927 to 1939 1.3.1    BBC versus other media 1.4    Second World War 1.5    Later 20th century 1.6    2000 to 2011 1.7    2011 to present 2    Governance and corporate structure 2.1    Charter 2.2    BBC Board 2.3    Executive Committee 2.4    Operational divisions 2.5    Commercial divisions 2.6    MI5 vetting policy 3    Finances 3.1    Revenue 3.2    Expenditure 4    Headquarters and regional offices 5    Technology (Atos service) 6    Services 6.1    Television 6.1.1    Genome Project 6.2    Radio 6.3    News 6.4    Internet 6.5    Interactive television 6.6    Music 6.7    Other 6.8    Ceefax 6.9    BritBox 7    Commercial activities 8    Cultural significance 8.1    Colloquial terms 9    Controversy and criticism 10    Logo and symbols of the BBC 11    See also 12    References 12.1    Sources 12.2    Primary sources 13    External links History Further information: Timeline of the BBC The birth of British broadcasting, 1920 to 1922 Britain's first live public broadcast was made from the factory of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in Chelmsford in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba. The Melba broadcast caught the people's imagination and marked a turning point in the British public's attitude to radio.[19] However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.[20] But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests[21] and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members.[22] Anxious to avoid the same chaotic expansion experienced in the United States, the GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufacturers, to be known as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd. John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its general manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast.[23] L. Stanton Jefferies was its first Director of Music.[24] The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved domestic manufacturers.[25] To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to "inform, educate and entertain".[26] From private company towards public service corporation, 1923 to 1926 The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate. Set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets.[27] By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee. The Committee recommended a short term reorganisation of licence fees with improved enforcement in order to address the BBC's immediate financial distress, and an increased share of the licence revenue split between it and the GPO. This was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufacturers' protection expired. The BBC's broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, as was the prohibition on advertising. The BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19:00 and was required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee. By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss-making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a public service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production, and with restrictions on news bulletins waived, the BBC suddenly became the primary source of news for the duration of the crisis.[28] The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position. On the one hand Reith was acutely aware that the government might exercise its right to commandeer the BBC at any time as a mouthpiece of the government if the BBC were to step out of line, but on the other he was anxious to maintain public trust by appearing to be acting independently. The government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PM's own. Although Winston Churchill in particular wanted to commandeer the BBC to use it "to the best possible advantage", Reith wrote that Stanley Baldwin's government wanted to be able to say "that they did not commandeer [the BBC], but they know that they can trust us not to be really impartial".[29] Thus the BBC was granted sufficient leeway to pursue the government's objectives largely in a manner of its own choosing. The resulting coverage of both striker and government viewpoints impressed millions of listeners who were unaware that the PM had broadcast to the nation from Reith's home, using one of Reith's sound bites inserted at the last moment, or that the BBC had banned broadcasts from the Labour Party and delayed a peace appeal by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Supporters of the strike nicknamed the BBC the BFC for British Falsehood Company. Reith personally announced the end of the strike which he marked by reciting from Blake's "Jerusalem" signifying that England had been saved.[30] While the BBC tends to characterise its coverage of the general strike by emphasising the positive impression created by its balanced coverage of the views of government and strikers, Jean Seaton, Professor of Media History and the Official BBC Historian, has characterised the episode as the invention of "modern propaganda in its British form".[28] Reith argued that trust gained by 'authentic impartial news' could then be used. Impartial news was not necessarily an end in itself.[31] The BBC did well out of the crisis, which cemented a national audience for its broadcasting, and it was followed by the Government's acceptance of the recommendation made by the Crawford Committee (1925–26) that the British Broadcasting Company be replaced by a non-commercial, Crown-chartered organisation: the British Broadcasting Corporation. 1927 to 1939 Masthead from the edition of 25 December 1931 of the Radio Times, including the BBC motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation" Television pioneer John Logie Baird (seen here in 1917) televised the BBC's first drama, The Man with the Flower in His Mouth, on 14 July 1930, and the first live outside broadcast, The Derby, on 2 June 1931.[32][33] The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General. To represent its purpose and (stated) values, the new corporation adopted the coat of arms, including the motto "Nation shall speak peace unto Nation".[34] British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance."[35] Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it.[36] At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity.[37] The BBC's radio studio in Birmingham, from the BBC Hand Book 1928, which described it as "Europe's largest studio". John Reith and the BBC, with support from the Crown, determined the universal needs of the people of Britain and broadcast content according to these perceived standards.[38] Reith effectively censored anything that he felt would be harmful, directly or indirectly.[39] While recounting his time with the BBC in 1935, Raymond Postgate claims that BBC broadcasters were made to submit a draft of their potential broadcast for approval. It was expected that they tailored their content to accommodate the modest, church-going elderly or a member of the Clergy.[40] Until 1928, entertainers broadcasting on the BBC, both singers and "talkers" were expected to avoi