10 Facts about BBC


10 Facts about BBC:

1. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, and is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with over 20,950 staff in total, of whom 16,672 are in public sector broadcasting; including part-time, flexible as well as fixed contract staff, the total number is 35,402.


2. BBC staff openly smoked marijuana at the corporation’s headquarters during the 1960s and 70s and Play School presenters even went on-air stoned.


3. Britons have to pay $230 for a “television license” every year as a tax to support the BBC


4. British nuclear submarines have orders to launch nuclear missiles if they cannot tune into BBC Radio 4’s ‘Today’ program for a number of consecutive days. 


5. Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Worldwide Ltd which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English language news services BBC World News and BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd.


6. The BBC has the second largest budget of any UK-based broadcaster with an operating expenditure of £4.722 billion in 2013/14 compared to £6.471 billion for British Sky Broadcasting in 2013/14 and £1.843 billion for ITV in the calendar year 2013.


7. The BBC has faced various accusations regarding many topics: the Iraq war, politics, ethics and religion, as well as funding and staffing. It also has been involved in numerous controversies because of it's different, sometimes very controversial coverage of specific news stories and programming. In October 2014, the BBC Trust issued the "BBC complaints framework", outlining complaints and appeals procedures.


8. 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.The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBC's extensive radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. From 1 April 2014, it also funds the BBC World Service, launched in 1932, which provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic, and Persian, and broadcasts in 28 languages.


9. On 18 October 2007, BBC Director General Mark Thompson announced a controversial plan to make major cuts and reduce the size of the BBC as an organisation. The plans included a reduction in posts of 2,500; including 1,800 redundancies, consolidating news operations, reducing programming output by 10% and selling off the flagship Television Centre building in London.These plans have been fiercely opposed by unions, who have threatened a series of strikes; however, the BBC have stated that the cuts are essential to move the organisation forward and concentrate on increasing the quality of programming.


10. The BBC offers free online language courses.

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