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 17,900 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 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 in business. (Full article...)
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Last of the Summer Wine is a British sitcom set in Yorkshire created and written by Roy Clarke and originally broadcast by the BBC from 1973 to 2010. It premiered as an episode of Comedy Playhouse on 4 January 1973, and the first series of episodes followed on 12 November 1973. Alan J. W. Bell produced and directed all episodes of the show from late 1981 to 2010. The BBC confirmed on 2 June 2010 that Last of the Summer Wine would no longer be produced and the 31st series would be its last. Subsequently, the final episode was broadcast on 29 August 2010. Since its original release, all 295 episodes, comprising thirty-one series—including the pilot and all films and specials—have been released on DVD. Repeats of the show are broadcast in the UK on BBC One (until 18 July 2010 when the 31st and final series started on 25 July of that year), Gold, Yesterday, and Drama. It is also seen in more than 25 countries, including various PBS stations in the United States and on VisionTV in Canada. With the exception of programmes 'rebooted' after long hiatuses, Last of the Summer Wine is the longest-running TV comedy programme in Britain and the longest-running TV sitcom in the world.
Last of the Summer Wine was set and filmed in and around Holmfirth, West Yorkshire, England, and centred on a trio of elderly men and their youthful misadventures; the members of the trio changed many times over the years. The original trio consisted of Bill Owen as the mischievous and impulsive Compo Simmonite, Peter Sallis as easy-going everyman Norman Clegg, and Michael Bates as uptight and arrogant Cyril Blamire. When Bates dropped out due to illness in 1976 after two series, the role of the third man of the trio was filled in various years up to the 30th series by the quirky war veteran Walter C "Foggy" Dewhurst (Brian Wilde) (who had two lengthy stints), the eccentric inventor and ex-headmaster Seymour Utterthwaite (Michael Aldridge), and former police officer Herbert "Truly of The Yard" Truelove (Frank Thornton). The men never seem to grow up, and they develop a unique perspective on their equally eccentric fellow townspeople through their stunts. Although in its early years the series generally revolved around the exploits of the main trio, with occasional interaction with a few recurring characters, over time the cast grew to include a variety of supporting characters and by later years the series was very much an ensemble piece. Each of these recurring characters contributed their own running jokes and subplots to the show, often becoming reluctantly involved in the schemes of the trio, or on occasion having their own, separate storylines. (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.
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QI (Quite Interesting) is a BBC comedy panel game television show that began in 2003. It was created by John Lloyd, and was hosted by Stephen Fry until the end of Series 13 [M] after which Sandi Toksvig took over, and features permanent panellist Alan Davies. Each series covers topics that begin with a different letter of the alphabet; for example, the first series covered topics whose word began with "A". Thus it is referred to as "Series A" instead of "Series One".
QI was given a full series after BBC executives responded well to a nonbroadcast pilot and the first episode, "Adam" premiered on BBC Two on 11 September 2003. From the second to the fifth series, episodes aired each week on BBC Two; the second and subsequent episodes were shown first on BBC Four in the time-slot after the previous episode's BBC Two broadcast. When the sixth series of QI began in 2008, the show moved to BBC One and the broadcasting of episodes on BBC Four was replaced in favour of an extended repeat broadcast on BBC Two the following day, titled QI XL. From the ninth series, QI returned to BBC Two on Friday at 10 pm with the XL edition on Saturdays. Lloyd acted as the producer for the first five series. Piers Fletcher became producer starting from Series F. New episodes for "Series U" began airing on 18 December 2023.
As of 17 February 2023, 293 episodes of QI have aired. This count does not include the unbroadcast pilot, three special episodes, 28 compilation episodes (from "Series G" onwards), and one episode containing outtakes from "Series E". (Full article...)Related portals
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The BBC Birmingham national network production centre is based in The Mailbox in Birmingham. The Mailbox also serves as the headquarters for BBC English Regions and is the home of BBC West Midlands.
Did you know
Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know
- ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?
- ... 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 after being wiped by the BBC, all four episodes of the Doctor Who serial The Time Meddler were discovered in Nigeria in 1984?
- ... that Jauchzet dem Herren, alle Welt by Heinrich Schütz, a 1619 setting of Psalm 100 for double choir, was performed at the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in 1972?
- ... that BBC radio broadcaster Venu Chitale taught listeners how to cook without meat when it was rationed during the Second World War?
- ... that the BBC commissioned a painting of a 1987 Bullingdon Club photograph featuring David Cameron and Boris Johnson to circumvent copyright protection?
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