5 Minutes For English

British Radio and Television

The BBC might be said to be "the mother of information services". Its reputation for impartiality and objectivity in news reporting is largely justified. The BBC depends neither on advertising nor on the government for its income. It gets this from the license fee which everybody who uses a television set has to pay. However, the government decides how much this fee is going to be, appoints the BBC's board of governors and its director general, has the right to veto any BBC programme before it has been transmitted and even has the right to take away the BBC's license to broadcast.

The BBC also runs five national radio stations inside Britain and several local ones:

Radio 1 is devoted almost entirely to pop music.

Radio 2 broadcasts mainly light music and chat shows.

Radio 3 is devoted to classical music.

Radio 4 broadcasts a variety of programs from plays and comedies to advice programs.

Radio 5 is devoted to sports coverage and news.

Radio is the most significant form of broadcasting in Britain.

There is no advertising on the BBC channel. But Independent Television (ITV), which started in 1954, gets its money from the advertisements it screens.

There is no significant difference between the style and content of the news on ITV and that on the BBC. Both BBC 1 and ITV show a wide variety of programs. They are in constant competition with each other to attract the largest audience. But they don’t each try to show a more poplar type of programme than the other. They try instead to do the same type of programme "better".

ITV never takes a break (it broadcasts for 24 hours) and the others broadcast from around six in the morning until after midnight.

Both BBC and ITV show a wide variety of programs. They are in constant competition with each other to attract the largest audience (this is known as the ratings war).

Of particular importance in the ratings war is the performance of the channels' various soap operas. Soap operas and light entertainment shows are so popular because the viewers can see themselves and other people they know in the characters and in the things that happen to these characters.

Britain now has two other channels (BBC 2 and Channel 4) which act as the main promoters of learning and "culture". Both have been successful in presenting programs on serious and weighty topics which are never the less attractive to quite large audience. BBC 2 is famous for its highly acclaimed dramatizations of great works of literature and for certain documentary series that have become world-famous "classics". Another thing that these channels do well, particularly Channel 4, is to show a wide variety of programs catering to minority interests – including, even, subtitled foreign soap operas.

References:

• Horizons: A practical Course in Spoken and Written English: Учеб. пособие для студентов специальности "Современные иностранные языки" учреждений, обеспечивающих получение высшего образования / Авт.-сост. Е.П. Михалева и др – 7-е изд. – Минск: Лексис, 2011