Mass media in the United Kingdom
There are several different types of mass media in the United Kingdom: television, radio, newspapers, magazines and websites. The United Kingdom is known for its large music industry, along with its new and upcoming artists. The country also has a large broadcasting, film, video games and book publishing industries.
The United Kingdom has a diverse range of providers, the most prominent being the publicly owned and funded British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The BBC's largest competitors are ITV plc, which operates 13 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the Sky Group and the publicly owned and commercially funded Channel Four Television Corporation.
Regional media is covered by local radio, television and print newspapers. Reach plc (formerly Trinity Mirror) operates 240 local and regional newspapers. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has overall responsibility over media ownership and broadcasting.[1]
The main BBC public service broadcasting channels accounted for an estimated 28.4% of all television viewing; the three main independent channels accounted for 29.5% and the increasingly important other satellite and digital channels for the remaining 42.1%.[2] Sales of newspapers have fallen since the 1970s and in 2009 42% of people reported reading a daily national newspaper.[3] In 2010, 82.5% of the United Kingdom population were Internet users, the highest proportion amongst the 20 countries with the largest total number of users in that year.[4]
Organisations[edit]
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the national broadcaster of the United Kingdom. Headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, it is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting.[5][6][7] The BBC is established under a royal charter and operates under its agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.[8] Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts and iPlayer catch-up.[9] The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament,[10] and is used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the BBC World Service (launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in over 40 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic and Persian.[11]
The BBC operates several television channels nationally and internationally. The main two in the UK are BBC One and BBC Two, where each English region, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have variations of the channel (excluding BBC Two in Scotland where it is BBC Scotland). Others include youth-focused channel BBC Three, cultural and documentary channel BBC Four, news channels BBC News and the BBC World News, parliamentary channel BBC Parliament, Scottish Gaelic-language channel BBC Alba, and two children's channels, CBBC and CBeebies. The BBC has ten radio stations serving the whole of the UK, a further seven stations in the "national regions" (Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland), and 39 other local stations serving defined areas of England. These are BBC Radio 1, offering new music and popular styles and being notable for its chart show; BBC Radio 2, playing adult contemporary, country and soul music amongst many other genres; BBC Radio 3, presenting classical music and opera, jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts. The station broadcasts the BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras and Singers. There are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. BBC Radio 4, focusing on current affairs, science, history, factual and other speech-based programming, including drama and comedy; and BBC Radio 5 Live, broadcasting 24-hour news, sport and discussion programmes.
In addition to these five stations, the BBC runs a further five stations that broadcast on DAB and online only. These stations supplement and expand on the big five stations, and were launched in 2002. BBC Radio 1Xtra sisters Radio 1, and broadcasts new black music and urban tracks. BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra sisters 5 Live and offers extra sport analysis, including broadcasting sports. BBC Radio 6 Music offers alternative music genres and is notable as a platform for new artists. BBC Radio 4 Extra, provided archive drama, comedy and children's programming. The final station is the BBC Asian Network, providing music, talk and news to this section of the community.
As well as the national stations, the BBC also provides 40 BBC Local Radio stations in England and the Channel Islands, each named for and covering a particular city and its surrounding area (e.g. BBC Radio Bristol), county or region (e.g. BBC Three Counties Radio), or geographical area (e.g. BBC Radio Solent covering the central south coast). A further six stations broadcast in what the BBC terms "the national regions": Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. These are BBC Radio Wales (in English), BBC Radio Cymru (in Welsh), BBC Radio Scotland (in English), BBC Radio nan Gaidheal (in Scottish Gaelic), BBC Radio Ulster, and BBC Radio Foyle, the latter being an opt-out station from Radio Ulster for the north-west of Northern Ireland.
For a worldwide audience, the BBC World Service provides news, current affairs and information in over 33 languages, including English, around the world and is available in over 150 capital cities. It has an estimated weekly audience of 192 million, and its websites have an audience of 38 million people per week.[12] The service is funded by a Parliamentary Grant-in-Aid, administered by the Foreign Office. BBC Online operates numerous sub sites that focus on different knowledge genre centred around the topics of science, nature and wildlife, arts and culture, religion and ethics, food, and history and language. For example, BBC Food contains recipes featured on various BBC cookery programmes, BBC History shares an interactive timeline of key events and individuals, BBC Nature contains a database of nature and creatures, and the language site teaches phrases and more in 40 languages.[13] Included in this range was the well received Your Paintings website that catalogued every painting in public ownership for view.[14] Other BBC services include BBC Music, BBC Film, BBC Earth, BBC Weather, BBC Learning, BBC Schools, BBC Research, BBC Archives, BBC Sounds, and BBC Culture.
The Channel Four Television Corporation is another publicly owned media company founded in 1982. Unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is instead funded entirely by its own commercial activities.[15] It consists of 12 channels including Channel 4, Film4, E4, and its own streaming service.[16]
Sky is a broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television and broadband Internet services. Sky's flagship product is Sky Q and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase, Sky Max, Sky Arts, and Sky Atlantic. UKTV, is a multi-channel broadcaster, wholly owned by BBC Studios. It was formed on 1 November 1992 through a joint venture between the BBC and Thames Television. It is one of the United Kingdom's largest television companies. UKTV's channels are available via a digital satellite or cable subscription in the UK and Ireland. The Dave, Drama and Yesterday channels are also available on Freeview and Freesat, two free-to-air television services in the UK. Most programmes on the channels are repeat broadcasts of productions from the BBC Archives. Other players in the United Kingdom media include ITV plc, which operates 11 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network.[17]
News UK is the current publisher of newspapers such as The Times and The Sunday Times.[18] Reuters is an international news organisation founded and based in England.[19] It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide and is one of the largest news agencies in the world.[20]
Regulation[edit]
Following the Leveson Inquiry the Press Recognition Panel (PRP) was set up under the Royal Charter on self-regulation of the press to judge whether press regulators meet the criteria recommended by the Leveson Inquiry for recognition under the Charter. By 2016 the UK had two new press regulatory bodies, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), which regulates most national newspapers and many other media outlets, and IMPRESS, which regulates a much smaller number of outlets but is the only press regulator recognised by the PRP since October 2016.[74]
Broadcast media (TV, radio, video on demand, streaming), telecommunications, and postal services are regulated by the Office of Communications (Ofcom).[75] Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, streaming, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material.[76][77] Some of the main areas Ofcom presides over are licensing, research, codes and policies, complaints, competition and protecting radio. Ofcom also oversees the use of social media and devices and analyses media use of the youth (ages 3 to 15 years old), to gather information of how the United Kingdom utilises its media.[78]