British TV Companies
BBC – The British Broadcasting Corporation (known as the
BBC) is a British public service broadcasting corporation. The main
responsibility of the BBC is to provide impartial public service broadcasting
in the United Kingdom, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. The BBC’s main
headquarters are in London but also has major production centres in Belfast,
Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Salford Quays. The BBC is the oldest
national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by
number of employees with at least 23,000.
The BBC operates under a Royal Charter and a license and
Agreement from the Home Secretary. Within the United Kingdom its work is funded
by the annual television license fee, which is charged to all the British
households, companies and organisations using the type of equipment to receive
live television broadcasts. The level of fee is set annually by the British
Government.
The BBC has been produced television since 1932, although
the regular service started on 2nd November 1396. The BBC has since
launched many channels and are included the channels from the list below:
1.
BBC One
2.
BBC Two
3.
BBC Three
4.
BBC Four
5.
BBC News
6.
BBC Parliament
7.
CBBC
8.
CBeebies
9.
BBC One +1
10.
BBC Alba
11.
BBC World News
12.
BBC America
13.
BBC Entertainment
ITV – ITV is a commercial public service TV network in the
United Kingdom. ITV launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the
auspices of Independent Television Authority, to provide competition for the
BBC. It is the oldest commercial network in the United Kingdom. Since 1990 and
the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, it’s been known by Channel 3 (its
legal name).
ITV is a network of television channels that operate
regional television services that also share programming between each other
that are displayed on the entire network. In years more recent, several
competitors have merged so currently the fifteen franchises are in the hands of
three companies. ITV is funded commercially.
ITV has several different categories of programs they
broadcast including: ITV News, ITV Weather, ITV Sport, CITV and ITV Schools.
ITV has many channels and are listed below.
1.
ITV
2.
ITV 2
3.
ITV 3
4.
ITV 4
5.
ITV Encore
6.
CITV
7.
The Store
BskyB – British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (more commonly
known as Sky) is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephone services
company that is headquartered in London, with operations in the United Kingdom
and Ireland. The broadcasting group was formed in 1990 by the equal merger of
Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting. BskyB is the largest pay-tv
broadcaster in the United Kingdom and Ireland with over 10 million subscribers. Sky is funded by the subscription fees and commercially.
BskyB is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is
constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. The market capitalization of the company is
estimated at £14.32 ($23 Million) as of September 2013. 21st Century
Fox owns 39.14% controlling stake in the company.
After a rocky start to the company and lots of money lost,
on September 1st 1993, Sky multi-channels were launched. The package
included four channels formerly available, broadcasting Astra’s satellites and
introducing all new channels. The service continued until 2001, with the launch
of the Sky Digital Platform. Within two months of the launch, Sky had gained
400,000 subscribers.
Sky’s content also now includes Sky +HD (which was launched in 2006) and Sky 3D. Sky TV
is now available on demand, on game consoles, mobile devices and online. There
are currently almost 700 channels available on Sky.