1. Ownership
The BBC have to follow a royal charter which mentions the purpose of the the BBC which is
to allow the audience to be informed, educated, entertained and drive creativity. The British
public own the the BBC as they have to pay a license fee which covers for the productions
(programmes) on any television channel especially for downloading or watching any BBC
programmes on BBC iPlayer.
The government operate BBC Trust which is one of the bodies that the government had put
in place in order for the BBC to operate responsibly and professionally. The licence fees are
given to the government in order to run the BBC. The Trust is made up of 12 Trustees with a
wide breadth of experience. The role of the BBC Trust is to come to a decision of how and
on what do they want to spend the Licence fees on. There are four National Trustees who
represent England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, and there is also an International
Trustee who has specific oversight of the BBC's international public services, including the
World Service. All Trustees are appointed by the Queen on advice from Ministers after an
open selection process.
There are 6 different purposes for the public by the BBC:
First purpose: Sustaining citizenship and civil society. This is when the BBC provide the
public with high quality news on current and international affairs.
There are 5 different priorities:
1. They would provide independent, quality journalism.
2. 2. Based on different news, political and topical issues, this would encourage debates
and conversations.
3. To engage a mass audience in these topics.
4. To have great understanding on the parliamentary process and political governing
within the UK
5. Allow the audience to understand, access and interact with different media.
Second purpose: To promote education and learning as the BBC try to help people in the UK
to learn due to their educational programmes especially for kids.
There are 3 priorities which are:
1. Stimulate informal learning across various subjects and issues for all audiences.
2. In order to achieve specific outcome that benefits society, they engage audiences in
different activities.
3. Relating to essential skills, the BBC promote and support formal education goals for
all audiences (children, teens and adults).
The third purpose: To stimulate creative and cultural excellence, which the BBC offer
example of creative work that delight and engage the audience as well as breaking new
ground. However, the BBC encourages interest and participation in cultural and sporting
activities.
There are 5 priorities which are the following:
1. Provide a range of entertainment.
2. Encourage participation.
3. Establish a leading reputation for creative and innovative programming.
4. Support UK talent across various genres.
5. Enrichment for all audiences by covering wide range of cultural activities.
Fourth purpose: Reflecting UK audiences meaning where the audience can rely on the BBC
to reflect many and different communities within the UK.
There are 6 priorities which are:
1. Portray/represent different races of communities to the rest of the UK.
2. To cater for the different races/nations.
3. Bring people of different races together.
4. Encourage an interest amongst different communities and conversation with local
communities.
5. Reflect different beliefs of different religions in the UK
6. Provide an output in minority languages.
The fifth purpose: A global output, the audience of the BBC can expect the BBC to kee the
up to date with what is going around in the world.
There are 3 priorities:
1. Gain an international understanding and their issues.
2. Portray awareness of these issues clearly as well as understanding to the UK
audiences.
3. 3. For the audience to gain and expand their knowledge on international affairs and are
exposed to different worldly cultures.
Finally the sixth purpose: Delivering to the public the benefit of emerging communications
technologies and service which the audience expect to get help from the BBC in getting the
best emerging media technologies in the present and near future.
There are six priorities:
1. Increase digital audio broadcasting (DAB)
2. To deliver a UK wide network of television.
3. Support the UK’s communication activity in order for the audience to be aware.
4. To support the vulnerable by supporting the Government’s target help scheme.
5. To work with other organisations to help all audiences to understand and adopt
emerging communication technologies and services.
6. To undertake digital content and services available on a range of digital platforms
and devices.
The chairman of the BBC Trust is Rona Fairhead, which means that she will be the person
to finalise any decision that are made for the BBC Trust. She is the first woman to get ahold
of this position in the BBC Trust. The director general of the BBC Trust is Tony Hall who was
a trainee before in the BBC back in 1973. In his 28 year career his roles in the BBC have
varied from senior producer, assistant editor, and Chief Executive. Hall had accomplished a
lot in the BBC such as launching Radio 5 live, BBC news 24, BBC news online, and BBC
parliament. He is the 16th director general and was appointed on the 22nd of November,
2012.
The role and responsibilities of Hall is the Chief Executive Officer of the BBC, its Editor-in-
Chief. He is also the president of the executive and its team. He also has the responsibility of
a global workforce running services across television, radio and online. The BBc have a role
to be a UK based international public service broadcaster and is one of the world’s oldest
national broadcasting organisation.
Funding
Selling merchandise such as Doctor Who action figures, other toys, games and even clothes
are one of the many different ways the BBC are able to collect fundings. The BBC will sell
items that are made inspired from a BBC programme (TV show). This is as the merch are
BBC inspired, they will make the most profits rather than than the companies who design
them or the shops that sell the merchandises that will only make little profit.
4. TV license is another way the BBC get their funds as the public have to pay a standard
colour television license which costs about £145.50 per annum. This will help the BBC
provide a wide range of entertainment by television, radio and online content (BBC iPlayer)
for the public. Due to the 2010 license fee settlement agreed with the government, to fund
the BBC’s programmes and services, an amount of the cost is rolled out broadband to the
UK public.
The licence fee permits the BBC’s UK service to stay free from advertisements and
independent shareholders. The aim of the licence is to collect the fees fairly in order to
provide value of money for the licence fee payers. The government had decided to freeze
the licence fee at 2010’s payment till 31st of March 2017 (Charge of £145.50 per year). This
was done three months after the BBC’s current charter ends.
Another way that the BBC collects their fundings is by Royalties which allow the BBC
channel to sell the licences of a show or a movie to another company so that the company
will be able to air the show/film on other channels or their own.
The BBC also tend to make money by selling formats which means in simple words how the
BBC would sell their own shows to companies in foreign countries. For example of BBC
selling formats is he show ‘The Great British Bake Off’ which was a format sold in Poland.
Another example is the show ‘The night Of’ which is aired on HBO, an American premium
cable and satellite television network.
Synergy is another technique in which the BBC get their funding. This is when the BBC
product is distributed over different media platforms which means, a spin-off of a television
show can be part of synergy. An example of funding through synergy is Doctor Who. The
BBC store is another way the BBC make their money. This shop is located in different areas
such as Brighton, Liverpool, Leicester, Tunbridge Wells and Eastbourne. Visitors can visit
and purchase gifts and souvenirs. There is also an online BBC website where you can
purchase digital copies of television series and merchandises such as books, toys, games,
postcards, mugs and clothing.
5. Lastly, the BBC are funded by product placement. This is where a programme is allowed to
show a product off or make a reference about the product which is a form of
advertisement/publicity. For example, a company like Coca Cola would pay the BBC to show
off their products within their programmes. In 2011 Ofcom had changed guidelines so that
they are allowed to show product placement within their programmes. Under Ofcom
regulations, the channel will have to inform the audience that there is a product placement in
the programme. This was done by adding the product placement symbol which is the letter
‘P’ which is shown for about 3 seconds.
On the other hand, the BBC are not allowed to produce, co-produce or even commission on
any product placement. However, they are allowed to be funded in parts such as advertising
and sponsorships that are outside the UK. This means that the BBC are allowed to show
product placement only with a condition that that they Must join another another company
outside the UK so that they will able to show product placement too on their channel. So if
6. the BBC are going to show a foreign product within the UK, that programme has to be free of
product placement. An example of this is Family Guy which is an American adult cartoon.
Synergy
Synergy is when a brand is released across different media platforms. Synergy is a powerful
marketing technique as it allows fans (the audience) of different television shows/films to
want to buy products based on them. This means that these fans will buy any product
relating to their favourite show without thinking twice. This is the advantage of synergy as the
audience are interested in buying synergy products, meaning the company that produces
these products get high revenue.
An example of synergy is the popular children’s show ‘Postman Pat’ that air on the popular
children’s channel CBeebies. Postman Pat is a big brand amongst little kids as they would
watch the show having parents (secondary audience) to buy them products relating to the
show. In this case the BBC created different merchandises like DVD’s, toys, lunch boxes,
bags and clothing.
Another example of Synergy is the popular show on CBBC, Shaun The Sheep. This was a
children’s cartoon, television series that ranged for audiences between aged four to seven,
though in reality, the age range is four to 87. There have been synergy for Shaun The
Sheep such as popular toys (stuffed animals, action figures), movies (DVDs) due to a mass
audience and even their own website where fans can purchase goodies. Also, in 2015,
7. Shaun the Sheep starred in Shaun in the City, two charity arts trails across Bristol and
London, organised by Wallace & Gromit’s Children’s Foundation. 120 colourful, creative
sculptures of Aardman’s award-winning character, designed by artists and household names
from the worlds of film, art, animation and fashion, adorned iconic locations and green
spaces across the cities in spring and summer. This attracted fans and even people who
have never seen the series to go and search for these sheep as either a hobby or just for fun
as people would go take pictures posting them online.
Examples of Products
1. Bear behaving badly was children’s sitcom which was popular as I watched it
growing up as a child. The programme is centred around the daily adventures of
Barney Harwood, his pet bear Nev, his koala friend Crazy Keith and the caretaker of
the trio's flat, Andy Prank. It had four hilarious and successful seasons which first
broadcasted on the 3rd of September 2007 till the 21st of December on BBC one and
CBBC. However, the show reruns regularly on the CBBC channel up until 2016. The
first season finally aired on the 8th of October 2007 with season 2 starting on the 1st
of December 2008. The second season ended on the 16th of January 2009,
broadcasting the start of season 3 on the 7th of December 2009. The final episode
ended on the 23rd of December during the same year, starting season 4 on the 6th
of October 2010, ending the finally on the 21st of December within the same year. No
further episodes have been filmed or broadcast, with the exception of repeats.
2. Eastenders is a very popular, British favourite soap opera which is broadcasted till
today. Eastenders was created by Julia Smith and Tony Holland which has been
broadcast on BBC One since the 19th of February, 1985. The soap opera is set in
Albert Square in the East End of London in the fictional Borough of Walford. The
programme is based upon the stories of local residents and their families as they go
about their daily lives filled with intense drama with a mix of good and bad times
relating to residents across Britain. As of the 25th of May 2018, Eastenders have
aired 5,713 episodes. Around 13 minutes of Eastenders are filmed on a daily basis
which is double than any other British Soap opera with three colour coded drafted
scripts before they have the final. This soap opera includes elderly, middle aged and
young characters in order to relate to a mass audience (personal
identity/relationship) encouraging them to watch the soap. Eastenders is the only
show across Britain that targets audiences from ages 13-60+.
8. Example of Services
The BBC have many different services that range from: BBC iPlayer, BBC store, radio,
magazines, websites and channel.
1. BBC iPlayer is an internet streaming website and app. This enables the audience to
be able to catch up on their BBC television shows that they can access anywhere,
anytime with the help of the internet unless downloaded. This service is available on
different media platforms (devices) such as smartphones, tablets, game consoles,
laptops and more. The BBC iPlayer service was released on the 25th of December,
2007 and does not need a TV licence in order to access or watch the shows.
2. The BBC store was released to the public online after the BBC shop closed down and
launched later in November 2015. The BBC store is an online on demand store that sells a
variety of things such as BBC programmes and DVDs which anyone can buy and keep for
eternity until deletion. The reason for the launch of the online website is because the shop
was crashing due to everything being digitised today due to the use of smartphones and
technology such as the internet. Regards to such decision, the BBC closed their shops and
launched the store online. In relations, the BBC worldwide have helped fund the BBC store
and proving money and programmes.
9. 3. The BBC radio offers a case of service that aims to give their listeners inflated quality
programmes that the audience want to listen to depending on their mood. Every week
beyond 36 million people tune in to the radio and listen. There are a variety of BBC radio
stations which are: Radio 1, Radio 1Xtra, Radio 2, 6 music, asian Network and Radio 4.
Radio 4 are for listeners who are interested in speech, drama, analysis and the arts. Radio 3
consists of classical music as well as Jazz. Radio 5 is mainly for sports and Radio 4 Extra is
for comedy, drama and children’s programmes. In England there are a total of 40 stations,
however, in the UK nation there are six dedicated radio services. In the UK the BBC radio is
broadcasted on analogue, DAB digital radio, digital TV and online (BBC iPlayer).
4. The BBC music magazine was originally owned by BBC worldwide who were also joint
publishers with Warner Music Enterprises from the beginning up until 2012. From there, the
Immediate Media Company became the publisher of the magazine. It is a monthly magazine
which was first issued in June 1992. Yet the first issue of the BBC music magazine was
published in North America in 1993. The magazine’s publication is 37,530 with the profit
returning to the BBC.
10. 5. The BBC have provided an online study resource support, launched in 1998 called BBC
Bitesize. This website mainly targets children and teens in full-time education and especially
those who are doing their GCSEs. There are 4 different sections which are England, Wales,
Northern Ireland and Scotland.
The England section covers 18 subjects for Key stage 1 and 2 whereas Key stage 3 covers
33 subjects while GCSE covers 37 subjects.
In the Wales section there are CS 3 and TGAU sections on the website which also links with
the English Language.
The Northern Ireland section, however, was part of the sites course from 2014. It also
consists of some links with the English Language of KS 1, 2, 3, and GCSE.
The Scotland section has the standard grade that covers 12 subjects, however, back in 2014
the site was updates to replace the standard grade sections with the national 4 and 5
section.
6. The BBC don’t just tend to broadcast televisions shows but they will also produce some of
their own programmes. BBC Television is able to produce their own programmes for all age
groups for their audiences as each BBC channel usually targets a specific audience group.
11. For example, BBC One tends to target all ages from young children till the elderly. BBC two
targets an audience group of 25 year olds onwards, whereas BBC three has a target
audience of 18-24 year olds. BBC 4 on the other hand shows documentaries which any can
watch if they are interested.
BBC worldwide is their own own subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation as well
as being the main commercial arm. This exists as they can support the BBC public service
mission and their whole profit on its behalf. Overseas, BBC worldwide have built the
reputation of the BBC brand overseas and champion British creativity. The BBC worldwide
invests from the BBC around the world through commercialising and showcasing content
from them. This is also compatible with the BBC standards and services.
Regulatory Bodies
1. Watershed is a specific time in which the television programmes that consists of
unsuitable content for children to be broadcasted. It also protects children from
harmful material (violence, swearing, distressing images, etc) that will be telecasted
on TV and radio which is one of Ofcom’s important duties. Ofcom have a
broadcasting code that sets the standards for TV and radio shows which the
broadcasters must follow. In order to keep the children safe from programmes which
consists of such materials, these programmes are broadcasted after 9pm, ending at
5:30am. This is a children are usually ‘tucked into bed’ by 9pm due to full time
education (school), having to wake up early (6am). However, before 9pm from 7am,
there is a transition from unsuitable content to suitable content which is broadcasted
on TV and radio. Yet Ofcom are still able to control what adults watch too.
2. Ofcom regulates the BBC’s licence fees that funds the TV and radio services that is
aimed for the the UK audience as Ofcom is a regulatory body for the BBC. However, Ofcom
is not allowed to regulate for the BBC worldwide.
The Ofcom’s broadcasting code are stated in the following:
1. Protection of Under-18s.
2. Harm and Offence.
3. Avoidance of crime or disorder.
4. Fairness.
5. Privacy.
6. Prohibit the use of images of brief duration.
7. Responsible approach to religious content.
These are known as the Ofcom Broadcasting code which command the BBC’s commercial
service which is broadcasted within the UK or the their International audience which have to
follow the whole of Ofcom Broadcasting code. In addition, if Ofcom find a breach of the
privacy or fairness section, the BBC would have to broadcast a statement of its discovery.
Yet, Ofcom will have to consider the fact that the code has been breached seriously and
deliberately, which can be punishable for the person that can range from a requirement to
broadcast a correction or to have a statement of finding, to be fined no more that £250,000.
12. 3. The BBC Trust has a purpose of the BBC to inform the audience by BBC news,
education (by educating the young audience on CBBC), also to entertain the audience by
BBC 1. The BBC Trust has set standard requirements for the people to make programmes
and other contents for the BBC that guide content producers in making considered editorial
decision that balance the freedom of expression with their responsibilities to the audience,
contributors and other.
The guideline cover the responsibilities with great details which are:
1. The need to be duly accurate and impartial and to avoid causing audience
unnecessary offence.
2. The importance of treating people fairly and respecting their privacy when making the
broadcasting programmes.
3. How programme makers should deal with children and young people who contribute
to programmes.
4. How the BBC should cover politics and public policy.
5. Ensuring votes and competitions are run fairly.
6. Programme makers should be mindful of potential conflicts of interest.
Ofcom sets appropriate requirements the guideline take into account, under the Ofcom
broadcasting code which applies to the BBC. The BBC executive and the BBC Trust use the
guideline when they have to consider complaints about the BBC content. The BBC Trust ran
a consultation on the BBC’s guideline back in 2009. They have also commission Kantar
Media to conduct qualitative research on the guideline related to harm and offence.
The BBC trust has to consider all the evidence such as range to other data. The Trust have
the approved changes to the guidelines having taken into account the interest of content
producers and audience.