ENGLISH & THE BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION

The first British Broadcasting Corporation Logo

The BBC broadcasts its first television news bulletin in July, 5 1954. The BBC is a symbol of good journalism but it's also an excellent tool to learn English.

More information: BBC

The Grandma starts today a new online course to learn English using 2.0 tools. Her last families got A2 and B1 Cambridge Exams. The Grandma has decided to start reviewing B1 level in an attempt to help A2 relatives to improve their English to reach B1 level, and B1 relatives to consolidate their level to continue studying to reach the next B2 level.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters are at Broadcasting House in Westminster, London and it is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees.

BBC Outside Broadcast Equipment, 1951

The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its 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 and iPlayer catch-up. 

The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, 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.

More information: BBC

Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Studios Ltd, 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.

BBC Mobile Unit

From its inception, through the Second World War, where its broadcasts helped to unite the nation, to the 21st century, the BBC has played a prominent role in British culture. It has also been known as The Beeb, and Auntie.

Britain's first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place 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. 

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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.

But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests and moved to rescind its ban in the wake of a petition by 63 wireless societies with over 3,000 members.

George Orwell

The GPO proposed that it would issue a single broadcasting licence to a company jointly owned by a consortium of leading wireless receiver manufactures, 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. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers. To this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain.

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.

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Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946, during the Second World War, and it was left to BBC Radio broadcasters such as Reginald Foort to keep the nation's spirits up. 

Charles de Gaulle in BBC editorial

The BBC moved much of its radio operations out of London, initially to Bristol, and then to Bedford. Concerts were broadcast from the Corn Exchange; the Trinity Chapel in St Paul's Church, Bedford was the studio for the daily service from 1941 to 1945, and, in the darkest days of the war in 1941, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York came to St Paul's to broadcast to the UK and all parts of the world on the National Day of Prayer. BBC employees during the war included George Orwell who spent two years with the broadcaster.

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During his role as Prime Minister during the Second World War, Winston Churchill would deliver 33 major wartime speeches by radio, all of which were carried by the BBC within the UK. 

On 18 June 1940, French general Charles de Gaulle, in exile in London as the leader of the Free French, made a speech, broadcast by the BBC, urging the French people not to capitulate to the Nazis.

More information: The Guardian

There was a widely reported urban myth that, upon resumption of the BBC television service after the war, announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted...

In fact, the first person to appear when transmission resumed was Jasmine Bligh and the words said were Good afternoon, everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh...? 

Jasmine Bligh

The European Broadcasting Union was formed on 12 February 1950, in Torquay with the BBC among the 23 founding broadcasting organisations.

Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955, with the commercial and independently operated television network of ITV. However, the BBC monopoly on radio services would persist until 8 October 1973 when under the control of the newly renamed Independent Broadcasting Authority (IBA), the UK's first Independent local radio station, LBC came on-air in the London area. 

As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was praised for the quality and range of its output, and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming, the decision was taken to award the BBC a second television channel, BBC2.

In 2002, several television and radio channels were reorganised. In 2008, another channel was launched, BBC Alba, a Scottish Gaelic service. Unlike the other departments of the BBC, the BBC World Service was funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom abroad.

More information: History Extra

I believe that the BBC, in spite of the stupidity of its foreign propaganda and the unbearable voices of its announcers, is very truthful. 

It is generally regarded here as more reliable than the press.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. 

George Orwell