British TV Companies

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 2^nd 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. 21^st Century Fox owns 39.14% controlling stake in the company.

After a rocky start to the company and lots of money lost, on September 1^st 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.

 

 

Written by Josh Jermy