1. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcasting statutory corporation. Its
main responsibility is to provide impartial public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, the Channel
Islands, and the Isle of Man. It is the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, with about
23,000 staff. The BBC is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London and has major production centres
in Salford Quays, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow, and smaller production centres throughout
the UK.
The BBC is a semi-autonomous public service broadcaster that operates under a Royal Charter and a Licence
and Agreement from the Home Secretary. Within the United Kingdom 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 live television broadcasts; the level of the fee is set annually by the British
Government and agreed by Parliament.

2. BBC channels
The BBC run 10 ‘free-to-air’ channels in the UK, these
are:
 BBC one
 BBC two
 BBC three
 BBC four
 BBC one HD
 BBC two HD
 BBC news
 BBC parliament
 CBBC
 Cbeebies

3. Other public services the BBC run
 S4C
Although this Welsh language channel is not operated by the Corporation, the BBC
contributes programmes funded by the licence fee as part of its public service obligation.
The BBC used to broadcast Welsh-language programmes on its own channels in Wales, but
these were transferred to S4C when it started broadcasting in 1982.
 BBC alba
A part-time Scottish Gaelic digital-only channel. Although it carries the BBC name, it is a
partnership between the BBC and MG Alba, with the majority of funding coming from the
Scottish Government via MG Alba. Scottish Gaelic programmes are also shown on BBC Two
in Scotland – subject to approval from the BBC Trust, they will move to BBC Alba after
digital switchover.

4. BBC worldwide TV stations
 The BBC run 10 worldwide TV stations these are:
 BBC America
 BBC Canada
 BBC HD
 BBC Kids
 BBC Entertainment
 BBC Lifestyle
 BBC Knowledge
 BBC UKTV
 UKTV
 BBC Persian

5. Funding the BBC
 The BBC domestic television channels do not
broadcast advertisements; they are instead funded by a
television licence fee which TV viewers are required to
pay annually. This includes viewers who watch real-
time streams of the BBC's channels online or via their
mobile phone. BBC TV international channels are
funded by advertisements and subscription.

6. TV license
 In the United Kingdom and the Crown Dependencies, any household watching or
recording live television transmissions as they are being broadcast
(terrestrial, satellite, cable, or internet) is required to hold a television licence. Since 1
April 2010 the annual licence fee has been £145.50 for colour and £49.00 for black and
white. Income from the licence is primarily used to fund the television, radio and online
services of the BBC. The total income from licence fees was £3.6562 billion in 2012–13 of
which £597.3 million or 16.3% was provided by the Government through concessions for
those over the age of 75. Thus, the licence fee made up the bulk of the BBC's total income
of £5.102 billion in 2012-2013.
 The BBC is authorised by the Communications Act 2003 to collect the licence fees. The
money received is first paid into the Government's Consolidated Fund. It is subsequently
included in the 'vote' for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport in that year's
Appropriation Act, and passed on to the BBC for the running of the BBC's own services
(free from commercial advertisements), and for the BBC to produce programming for
S4C.