An introduction to the British media

1. OVERVIEW OF THE British
Media

2. Division of media
Television Radio Newspapers, magazines
Media

3. Introduction
• Television viewing is Britain’s most popular pastime.
• The average Briton spends more than three and a half
hours per day watching television, including
videotapes.
• More than 97 percent of Britain’s households have a
color television and 73 percent have a videocassette
recorder (VCR).
• Practically every home has a radio, and about 70
percent of the population listens to radio on a daily
basis.

4. British National broadcasters
• Public broadcasting
• BBC: The largest UK broadcaster.
• BBC: Running two national television channels, with regional
sub-divisions, five national radio stations, cable and digital TV
channels, and more than 40 local radio stations.
• The Corporation has global enterprises (both television and
radio), as well as a broadcast monitoring service, and
Europe's most visited content web site.

5. The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation)
• Six national stations.
• Broadcasts: BBC 1, 2, 4,
BBC News 24, BBC
Choice, BBC Parliament.
• Radio Channels.
• No advertising.
• Worldwide television
services (BBC World,
BBC Prime)

6. • Private broadcasting
• Independent Television ITV (the Channel 3 companies) – 15
regionally based franchisees provide both local and national
(network) services.
• GMTV operates a breakfast network service. The entire Channel 3
service is largely dominated by two companies, Carlton and
Granada.
• Channel 4 is a hybrid public service, minority interest service
which also raises revenue through advertising sales.
• There is a separate fourth channel in Wales, Sianel Pedwar
Cymru [S4C], which is funded partly by advertising and partly by
the State, and carries peak-time Welsh language programming.
• A fifth terrestrial channel began broadcasting in April 1997.
• Channel 5 is a commercial operation carrying advertising

7. The division of programmes
• Light entertainment (variety shows, soap operas, situation
comedies, game shows)
• News/current affairs
• Documentaries
• Children’s TV
• Music
• Sport
• Films/TV movies
• Drama/plays

8. British favourite TV shows
• “Are you being served?”
• “Bless me father”
• “Fawlty Towers”
• “Mulberry”
• “Yes, Prime Minister”
• “Blackadder”
• “Chef”
• “Holmes”

9. BBC Executive Committee
• The BBC’s day-to-day
operations are run by 16
divisions. Their directors
report to the director-general,
forming the Executive
Committee.
• The director-general is chief
executive and editor-in-chief.
BBC governors appoint the
director-general and, with
him/her, senior management
• Each division's performance
is regularly assessed by the
BBC’s governors.
• Every July, BBC governors
publish an Annual Report to
licence payers and
Parliament which assesses
the BBC's performance
against objectives over the
past year

10. Basic Principles for Broadcasting
• All the channels excepting Channel 4 are
obliged by law to be impartial and neutral in
dealing with social and political affairs.
• Channels 4 is allowed to show its neutrality
across a series of programmes.
• Public broadcasting should serve the purpose
of entertaining, informing and educating the
nation.

11. Basic Principles for Broadcasting
• There should not be political bias and the
presentation of sex and violence on the screen.
• At least 86% of all programmes in the peak
viewing period on ITV and Channel 4 must
come from British or European sources.
• Decent standard should be maintained

12. Radio
• The BBC: five radio networks that broadcast throughout
Britain,
• Three independent national radio services (classical
music, rock music, and talk radio),
• 200 independent local radio services.
• These independent radio services are awarded licenses
by the Radio Authority,
• BBC World Service Radio broadcasts around the world
in English and 45 other languages, carrying extensive
programs and high-quality news broadcasts.

13. The most popular British radio stations
• Clare FM
• Anna Livia
• Live 95
• Welsh Radio International
• Imperial College radio
• Capital FM
• BBC Radio 2

14. The Press in Great Britain
 Nearly every area in Britain has one or more local newspapers— in England alone there are
around 90 daily papers and over 850 which are published once or twice a week.
 In Britain newspapers differ greatly from each other in the type of news they report and the
way they report it.
 On the one hand, there are "quality" newspapers: The Times, The Financial Times, The
Guardian, The Daily Telegraph.
 These papers report major national and international news stories, with the world of politics
and business and with the arts and sport.
 Newspapers in Britain are privately owned and the editors of the papers are usually allowed
considerable freedom of expression.

15. The division of newspapers
Regional National
Daily Morning Evening Sunday
"The Sunday Times"
Tabloids
"Daily Mirror"
British newspapers

16. • The most popular quality paper is The Sun with a
circulation of around 1,100,000 per day, compared
with The Daily Telegraph's circulation of over
4,170,000.
• It is estimated that two out of every three adults
regularly read a national daily newspaper.

17. The most important newspapers
• Belfast Telegraph
• The British Media Review
• The Electronic Telegraph
• The Guardian/The Observer
• The Independent
• The Mirror
• North Wales Newspapers
Online
• The Scotsman
• The Times

18. Tabloids
• On the other hand, there are "populars" or "tabloids", so called because of
their small size.
• Popular papers (The Daily Mail, The Daily Express, The Daily Mirror, The Sun,
The Daily Star) pay much attention to sensational news, extraordinary events,
catastrophes, accidents, private lives of royalty and nobility, of people of art, of
music and movie stars.
• Popular papers use many photographs and cartoons. It is often said that the
popular press aims to entertain its readers rather than inform them.
• The tabloid press is far more popular than the quality press.
• The average daily circulation for The Daily Mirror is almost 3,200,000 while for
The Times it is 450,000.

19. Some of British tabloids
• Anorak
an irreverent tabloid
• The Daily Mail
light-weight daily
• The Mirror
• The Daily Star
Not exactly high
brow!
• The Telegraph hard
to hold, easy to read

20. • In addition to 12 national daily newspapers there are 9
national papers which are published on Sundays.
• Most of the Sundays papers contain more reading
material than the daily papers, and several of them
include color supplements— separate color magazines
which have special supplements with articles on music,
TV, sports and a lot of advertisements of consumer
goods.
• Reading a Sunday paper, like having a big Sunday lunch,
is an important tradition in many British families.

21. Periodicals in Britain
• 7,000 different periodicals
• Classified as “ consumer general interest”, “special interest”, “ business to
business”
• The Radio Times
• Woman`s Own
• Smash Hits
• Q
• Big

22. The Regulation of the Press in England
• The Leveson Report on the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press proposed
a system under which the independence and effectiveness of a self-regulator set
up by the press could be assured through a process of independent “audit” or
“recognition”.
• The system of self-regulation established by the Charter implements two key
innovations which were proposed by Sir Brian Leveson.
• The system is designed to ensure that a self-regulator is independent and
effective, and where it contains “double lock” safeguards against government or
political interference.

23. The New System of Press Self-Regulation in the UK