The BBC

Résumé du document

Everybody, even one who has never seen or listened to an Anglophone broadcast, has alteast once, heard of the British Broadcasting Corporation, the famous ‘BBC', or the nicknames ‘Beeb' or ‘Auntie'. In fact, the BBC is the biggest broadcasting company in the world, with 26,000 employees in the United-Kingdom and nearly a £4 billion budget.

Created in 1922, the company has one motto (=short sentence or phrase that expresses the aims or beliefs, and is used as a rule of behavior, according to the Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary): “Nation Shall Speak Peace unto Nation”. It broadcasts on radio, television and the Internet.

First, let's talk about its history and the new challenges the BBC has had to face; then, we will see how the Corporation is run and what services it proposes.

Extraits

[...] Thus, it broadcasts on radio, television and Internet. First, let's talk about its history, and the new challenges the BBC has to face ; then, we will see how the Corporation is run and what services it proposes. I. A brief history of the BBC, and the current situation The beginnings of telecommunications The invention of the radio broadcasting is attributed to Guglielmo Marconi, who realised the first transmission in 1922. It was the foundation of the British Broadcast Company ; it became the BB Corporation in 1927 with a Royal Charter. [...]

[...] Their term lasts four years and they choose a Director-General who is both chief-executive and editor-in-chief. The current Director-General is Mark Thompson. There is also a ten persons executive board, led by the Director-General ; for example, the Director of Journalism Group, the Director of Finance, or the Director of BBC Worldwide and Resources. They have to answer to the governors. What you can watch or listen on the BBC We have already said that the BBC represents several radios, TV channels and online resources. [...]

[...] The guiding line remained taste and decency. The main novelty is television, that started in November of 1936. The success of the BBC after the WW II Nevertheless, the BBC Television Service have been stopped for nearly seven years because of the Second World War. During that period, the BBC radio played a very important part, particularly with its journalists of the War Reporting Unit : they have taken a great number of risks in order to give to the population a honest and serious information. [...]

[...] There are also TV channels all over the world, such as BBC Prime (in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia); there are also a BBC America, Canada and even a BBC Japan. It sells several magazines in the UK, especially supporting BBC programming. What's more, the former BBC Online, which is currently the bbc.(dot)co.uk is said to be the 23rd most popular website in the world. You can find there archives of radio or TV programmes from the past seven days. [...]

[...] Within that same year, colour appeared on BBC channels. The difficulties of the media nowadays The eighties have been marked with a difficult and tense context, whether in the Northern Ireland, or in the international relationships, a real challenge for the BBC journalists. Thus, when the Board (the governors of the Corporation) was asked by the government to make changes in a program about extremists in Northern Ireland, a strike broke to defend the editorial independence. A scandal broke with the Hutton Enquiry in 2004, referring to the conflict that opposed, during the previous year, the BBC to the government; it started in May 2003 when Andrew Gilligan, a Radio 4 journalist, like other journalists on BBC One and Two, reported the words of an anonymous government official who would have said that the dossier on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been ‘sexed up' made seem more exciting and interesting (OALD)) by the government, especially by the Prime Minister. [...]