1. Client Research
Who is the client? – The client for this campaign is the company BBC (British
Broadcasting Corporation) Three and BBC England. The BBC is a public
broadcaster which was based in the United Kingdom which was established by the
Royal Charter. The BBC is funded by something called a TV licence which is paid by
UK households. The BBC broadcasts to the world on TV but also has various radio
stations as well as an online platform which you can use to check the news and
additional information in over 40 languages.
What is the name of the campaign? – The name of this campaign is the Culture in
the Digital Age Campaign.
What is the purpose of the company? – The purpose of the BBC (The British
Broadcasting Corporation) as a whole/their mission and values is to act with the
public interest in mind, serving all audiences to provide high quality and distinctive
service to inform, educate and entertain. However, BBC Three and BBC England are
different in their own ways when it comes to their target audiences and what they
provide. The channel BBC Three is a youth-orientated television channel, typically
aimed to those within the age range of 16-34, which was introduced in 2003 and
then stopped airing in 2016, only recently coming back to television at the beginning
of February 2022. BBC three was strictly online for the six years it no longer ran on
tv, and it could be found on BBC iPlayer. Channel three covered the 2012 Olympics,
providing extra covering of the events. They also broadcasted the 2014
Commonwealth Games. When they channel had been moved online there was a
notable amount of backlash against this, with celebrities such as Matt Lucas, Jack
Whitehall and Greg James speaking out about how they disagreed with this choice.
It includes many different kinds of shoes such as Documentaries, Comedy and
Drama shows and News and Sport. The BBC is organised into many different things
as you can see below. I found this image from the BBC’s website. The BBC claims
2. that they have five different ‘public purposes’ which are reviewed every ten years
and renewed in an agreement between the British Broadcasting Corportation and the
Secretary of State for Culture, Sport, and Media. The last one took place on the first
on January 2017 and this will then be renewed again on January 1st, 2027.
What do they want from you? – What the BBC want from me is the create a short
documentary around the theme of “my culture.” The documentary should run for at
least between 10-15 minutes. The documentary should aim to capture the theme of
culture in the digital age and how it affects young people such as how digital
technology has impacted them. This project should most likely be one by the 13th of
May 2022 however, given the chance the work may not be to the standard it should
be at, there is a resubmission deadline on the 17th of June 2022. This project seems
to give us a lot of creative freedom with our ideas for this campaign, there is no
specific culture we must follow, it just needs to be about our culture, the north of
England and the digital age.
What issues do you have to consider regarding your client? – Issues I would
have to consider when it comes to the client would be that I need to keep their
values and missions in mind when it comes to the creation of my pieces. As well as
this, their vision for their company is to become the most creative organisation in the
world.
History of the BBC:
The BBC was formed on the 18th of October in 1922 however broadcasting by the
BBC did not actually begin until November 14th of the same year. Following the
closure of many different stations at the time, the BBC began its own daily radio
service in the city of London however it did not take long until the radio could be
heard all across the nation, their news being supplied by an agency and the topics
wavering from different things such as music and drama. In December of the same
3. year at the age of 33, a man named John Reith was appointed as the general
manager of the BBC. He was inexperienced around broadcasting and what it
entailed and during the time there had been no generalised rules, standards or really
anything to guide him in the right direction however with the help of a man named
Peter Eckersley he gained experiences and the service began to gradually expand.
“I hadn't the remotest idea as to what broadcasting was.” (“This is the BBC - BBC
100”) - John Reith
In December of 1922 there was the first broadcast from Newcastle upon Tyne (From
the station named 5NO)
In September of 1923, the first edition of “The Radio Times” was released and it
included the different programmes the BBC offered at the time. As well as this
though, the magazine also included advice for those interested in radio, including
advertisements around the radio industry. To this day, this magazine is popular and
has grown to become one of the world's most popular magazines however the
contents have changed over time to suit the everchanging population.
In 1926 due to the general strike beginning, no newspapers were being published
meaning that there were no copies of the radio times being published so due to this,
the BBC were broadcasting five different news bulletins a day to make up for the lack
of printed news sources.
4. In January of 1927, the BBC changed its name from the British Broadcasting
Company to the British Broadcasting Corporation after being granted a Royal
Charter. As well as this, around midway through the month the BBC broadcasted its
first ever live sports broadcast (The Rugby Union international England vs Wales)
In January of 1928, the first edition of the daily service aired which is a short service
from Christians broadcasted every weekday morning between 9:45 and 10am.
The BBC World Service began in the year of 1932 (the BBC went global) During the
second world war, this service broadcasted in many different languages and had a
large number of viewers across Europe. This is still around to this day, and it
averages around 188 million listeners every single week.
Originally television broadcasting through the BBC had begun in 1936 however it
had been stopped during the second work war. However, when it returned in 1946,
the BBC’s viewers could enjoy things ranging from the Olympic Games as well as
Cartoons around Disney’s Mickey Mouse. In the year of 1953, over twenty million
people crowded around the millions of screens across the country to watch the
queen’s coronation and after that occasion the popularity of Tv began to boom.
If we look at the BBC today, we see it is now the largest broadcaster in the world and
it had a staff of more than 23,000 people! The company is forever growing to please
its viewers. The BBC now has ten Tv Channels in the Uk as well as 59 radio stations
and a large internet presence. In Britain, the BBC is that popular that it consists of
30% of the British TV viewing due to its broadcasting popular TV shows such as
Strictly Come Dancing, Top Gear, Frozen Planet as well as many others such as
EastEnders.
Facts About the BBC:
91% of the adult population in the UK use BBC television, radio, or an online
service each week.
The BBC have won 184 major awards (Such as five Golden Globes and
sixteen Baftas for popular shows such as Killing Eve)
The BBC iPlayer had server more than 4 billion programme requests in the
year of 2019 alone.
Around 426 million people access the BBC around the world every week.
The BBC is responsible for 42 percent of all investments into original TV
content in the UK.
Their educational site, BBC Bitesize which provides study materials free to
students is used by more than 80% of students in secondary schools.
The BBC’s website is the third most viewed website, beaten by google itself
and Facebook.
Due to the fact that the BBC is funded by people paying their TV licence they
therefore do not have to rely on shareholders, advertising and it also then
does not completely focus on its ratings which gives it an advantage over
other TV stations.
5. Due to the Red Scare being a prominent issue during the 1930’s up until the
end of the Cold War, anyone who applied to work for the BBC got put through
a secret screening process and anyone suspected of being a communist was
banned from the BBC
Members of Margaret Thatcher’s government had derogatory nicknames for
the BBC such as the “Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporations.” Essentially
implying the BBC were communists.
The BBC run the charity called Children in Need and since 1980 the charity
had raised nearly 1 billion pounds for disadvantaged children and young
people within the United Kingdom.
The BBC spend more than 125 million pounds on just music alone.
The BBC practices the Queen’s death every year just in case.
The song “Deep in the heart of Texas” was banned from being broadcasted
during work hours in the 1940’s after the Pearl Harbour incident as people
would clap alongside the song and they realised workers may accidentally
drop their bombs during production when listening.
The BBC offers free language courses.
So, they could capture footage of tigers hunting in the wild, the BBC gave a
team of elephant's cameras and trained them to operate the equipment.
Due to the assassination of JFK, the BBC had to push back the airing of the
first Doctor Who episode by a week.
Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/academy-guides/what-do-i-need-to-know-about-the-
bbc/#:~:text=The%20BBC%20is%20a%20public,stations%20and%20an%20extensi
ve%20website.
https://www.bbc.com/historyofthebbc/timelines/1920s
https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co35796/radio-times-volume-
1-no-1-1923-magazine
https://elt.oup.com/elt/students/insight/dyslexicfriendlytexts/preint/a002000insightprei
ntsbdfrtunit9d.pdf
https://www.nuj.org.uk/resource-report/bbc-stats-
facts.html#:~:text=91%20per%20cent%20of%20UK,%2C%20Worldwide%20and%2
0Global%20News
https://www.factinate.com/things/bbc-facts/
https://listverse.com/2019/05/09/10-interesting-facts-you-never-knew-about-the-bbc/
https://anglotopia.net/british-entertainment/brit-tv/bbc/ten-more-interesting-facts-
about-the-bbc/
