The BBC - Matt work

The BBC - British Broadcasting Corporation.

 The BBC was founded by John Reith and George Villiers. Reith was a Scottish broadcaster who replicated the tradition of independent public service broadcasting. As for Villiers, he was a British conservative politician. The pair made the BBC what it is today, with its fashion for serving a educational and informative service for Britain and around the world.

 The BBC is the first major broadcaster in the world. It is an impartial public broadcasting service – it’s impartial due to the fact that it has no ‘boss’ (unlike other broadcasters such as Sky and ITV) to influence the way they broadcast news or certain shows, that’s what makes the BBC different to other broadcasting companies – it is owned by the consumers and is funded by the government (foreign office) as it is used as a tool of information across the world.

 The BBC is an influence for radio as well as television. The BBC took over radio with having national radio based in London from during the war time, to taking over a number of regional stations and transforming them into BBC quality listening. Again the government used the BBC radio as a tool for information as the television side of things where put on hold for seven years from 1939 to 1946.

As well as the Television side to the BBC the radio side has and is continuously adapting to the times and audiences it’s growing with. The BBC introduced Radio 1 with introducing people to new pop music and changing the way we experience radio. In later years the BBC came up with new ideas for radio stations for a variety of diverse audiences such as BBC 4, Sport etc.

 The BBC has a vast and influential abundance of television history, for example during the world war two the BBC aired many of Winston Churchill’s iconic speeches, and they also aired the Queen’s coronation and many other royal events such as Diana’s Funeral in the 90’s.  In more recent events they hosted the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

 One of the most incredible facts about the BBC is that it has some of the most successful TV and radio shows of all time, space and history. For example the most obvious soap opera conducted by ‘the beeb’ is Eastenders, the longest running soap opera which was launched in the 80’s and is still going today.  BBC is also father to the longest running radio drama ever which is the archers – but soon its early and present listeners will be passed to the other side soon, so maybe there will not be audience for much longer?

Recently the BBC has been known for some of its most popular and successful employees to be paedophiles and obviously this is not on the positive side but this task is about the BBC and this is now sadly apart of the BBC. For Example the Jimmy Saville scandal, The BBC has been hit hard by the scandal and the media and press have been taking a toll on the corporation – a media frenzy occurred. The BBC shamefully did a cover up of the wrong doings and this obviously breeched the legal and ethical conditions. This caused for the chairman of the BBC to announce a police investigation. I have seen nor heard of any BBC staff apologising for the circumstances which I again think breeches the terms of legal and ethical constraints.

The BBC has its own regulatory code. This means that unlike other television or production companies such as ITV, if you wanted to complain about them you would go to Ofcom, however with the BBC you get in contact straight to them. Which in my opinion I feel like it is more approachable for the consumer and makes them feel worthy. I found this quote from the BBC regarding their regulatory code “Our Code of Practice sets out our principles as Trustees. We are committed to the highest standards of integrity, impartiality and objectivity.

We promise to be open, responsive and accountable to licence fee payers”

For example the incident with people not liking the baby cot death plot in popular soap opera Eastenders – the most vast quantity of complaints recorded ever by (at least) the BBC. The BBC themselves dealt with these complaints, apologised and then dealt with the situation with slightly changing the story line.

The BBC host a range of opportunities for job roles and experiences’ such as work experience, tours and most obviously job opportunities. The BBC appeal to their potential employees by using their website (bbc.co.uk) which launched in December 1997. People can browse and search for certain locations, jobs and roles within the BBC. The BBC are very helpful with the job and work experience side of things – for example they give you advice and tips on how to succeed within the BBC and television industry on their website.

From my own experience trying to get a job in the BBC, I went to the main television centre in London. When I was there I simply asked a receptionist if they had any opportunities for work experience and she helpfully gave me a list of email addresses and told me to research programmes I would like to work for and try and find the contact details of the producers etc.

There are plenty of job opportunities within the BBC media sector – such as camera work, lighting, editing, acting, researcher, designer, artist, photographer, health and safety, director, cleaner, architect and many more. So all kinds of people from all around the world have a chance to work for ‘the beeb’.