1.
BBC News
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BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the worlds largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, the service maintains 50 foreign news bureaux with more than 250 correspondents around the world. James Harding has been Director of News and Current Affairs since April 2013, the departments annual budget is in excess of £350 million, it has 3,500 staff,2,000 of whom are journalists. BBC News domestic, global and online news divisions are housed within the largest live newsroom in Europe, parliamentary coverage is produced and broadcast from studios in Millbank in London. Through the BBC English Regions, the BBC also has regional centres across England, as well as national news centres in Northern Ireland, Scotland, all nations and English regions produce their own local news programmes and other current affairs and sport programmes. As with all media outlets, though, it has been accused of political bias from across the political spectrum. The British Broadcasting Company broadcast its first radio bulletin from radio station 2LO on 14 November 1922, on Easter weekend in 1930, this reliance on newspaper wire services left the radio news service with no information to report. The BBC gradually gained the right to edit the copy and, in 1934, however, it could not broadcast news before 6 PM until World War II. Gaumont British and Movietone cinema newsreels had been broadcast on the TV service since 1936, a weekly Childrens Newsreel was inaugurated on 23 April 1950, to around 350,000 receivers. The network began simulcasting its radio news on television in 1946, televised bulletins began on 5 July 1954, broadcast from leased studios within Alexandra Palace in London. The publics interest in television and live events was stimulated by Elizabeth IIs coronation in 1953 and it is estimated that up to 27 million people viewed the programme in the UK, overtaking radios audience of 12 million for the first time. Those live pictures were fed from 21 cameras in central London to Alexandra Palace for transmission and that year, there were around two million TV Licences held in the UK, rising to over three million the following year, and four and a half million by 1955. This was then followed by the customary Television Newsreel with a commentary by John Snagge. It was revealed that this had been due to producers fearing a newsreader with visible facial movements would distract the viewer from the story. On-screen newsreaders were finally introduced a year later in 1955 – Kenneth Kendall, Robert Dougall, mainstream television production had started to move out of Alexandra Palace in 1950 to larger premises – mainly at Lime Grove Studios in Shepherds Bush, west London – taking Current Affairs with it. It was from here that the first Panorama, a new programme, was transmitted on 11 November 1953. On 28 October 1957, the Today programme, a radio programme, was launched in central London on the Home Service. In 1958, Hugh Carleton Greene became head of News and Current Affairs and he set up a BBC study group whose findings, published in 1959, were critical of what the television news operation had become under his predecessor, Tahu Hole
2.
BBC Television
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BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927 and it produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television broadcasts is dated to 2 November 1936. The BBCs domestic television channels have no advertising and collectively they account for more than 30% of all UK viewing. The services are funded by a television licence, the BBC operates several television networks, television stations, and related programming services in the United Kingdom. As well as being a broadcaster, the corporation also produces a number of its own programmes in-house. The simultaneous transmission of sound and pictures was achieved on 30 March 1930, by late 1930, thirty minutes of morning programmes were broadcast from Monday to Friday, and thirty minutes at midnight on Tuesdays and Fridays after BBC radio went off the air. Bairds broadcasts via the BBC continued until June 1932, the BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. Ally Pally housed two studios, various stores, make-up areas, dressing rooms, offices, and the transmitter itself. BBC television initially used two systems on alternate weeks, the 240-line Baird intermediate film system and the 405-line Marconi-EMI system. The use of both made the BBCs service the worlds first regular high-definition television service, it broadcast from Monday to Saturday between 15,00 and 16,00, and 21,00 and 22,00. The two systems were to run on a basis for six months, early television sets supported both resolutions. Television production was switched from Bairds company to what is now known as BBC One on 2 August 1932, regularly scheduled electronically scanned television began from Alexandra Palace in London on 2 November 1936, to just a few hundred viewers in the immediate area. The first programme broadcast – and thus the first ever, on a dedicated TV channel – was Opening of the BBC Television Service at 15,00, the first major outside broadcast was the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in May 1937. The service was reaching an estimated 25, 000–40,000 homes before the outbreak of World War II which caused the service to be suspended in September 1939. Also, many of the services technical staff and engineers would be needed for the war effort. According to figures from Britains Radio Manufacturers Association,18,999 television sets had been manufactured from 1936 to September 1939, BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15,00. Jasmine Bligh, one of the announcers, made the first announcement, saying. Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh, the Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later
3.
BBC
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The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, the BBC is the worlds oldest national broadcasting organisation and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees. It employs over 20,950 staff in total,16,672 of whom are in public sector broadcasting, the total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included. The BBC is established under a Royal Charter and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport. The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament, and used to fund the BBCs radio, TV, britains first live public broadcast from the Marconi factory in Chelmsford took place in June 1920. It was sponsored by the Daily Mails Lord Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian Soprano Dame Nellie Melba, the Melba broadcast caught the peoples imagination and marked a turning point in the British publics attitude to radio. However, this public enthusiasm was not shared in official circles where such broadcasts were held to interfere with important military and civil communications. By late 1920, pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office, was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts. But by 1922, the GPO had received nearly 100 broadcast licence requests, John Reith, a Scottish Calvinist, was appointed its General Manager in December 1922 a few weeks after the company made its first official broadcast. The company was to be financed by a royalty on the sale of BBC wireless receiving sets from approved manufacturers, to this day, the BBC aims to follow the Reithian directive to inform, educate and entertain. The financial arrangements soon proved inadequate, set sales were disappointing as amateurs made their own receivers and listeners bought rival unlicensed sets. By mid-1923, discussions between the GPO and the BBC had become deadlocked and the Postmaster-General commissioned a review of broadcasting by the Sykes Committee and this was to be followed by a simple 10 shillings licence fee with no royalty once the wireless manufactures protection expired. The BBCs broadcasting monopoly was made explicit for the duration of its current broadcast licence, the BBC was also banned from presenting news bulletins before 19.00, and required to source all news from external wire services. Mid-1925 found the future of broadcasting under further consideration, this time by the Crawford committee, by now the BBC under Reiths leadership had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion. Wireless manufacturers were anxious to exit the loss making consortium with Reith keen that the BBC be seen as a service rather than a commercial enterprise. The recommendations of the Crawford Committee were published in March the following year and were still under consideration by the GPO when the 1926 general strike broke out in May. The strike temporarily interrupted newspaper production and with restrictions on news bulletins waived the BBC suddenly became the source of news for the duration of the crisis. The crisis placed the BBC in a delicate position, the Government was divided on how to handle the BBC but ended up trusting Reith, whose opposition to the strike mirrored the PMs own
4.
576i
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576i is a standard-definition video mode originally used for broadcast television in most countries of the world where the utility frequency for electric power distribution is 50 Hz. Because of its association with the colour encoding system, it is often referred to as simply PAL, PAL/SECAM or SECAM when compared to its 60 Hz NTSC-colour-encoded counterpart. The 576 identifies a vertical resolution of 576 lines, and the i identifies it as an interlaced resolution and its basic parameters common to both analogue and digital implementations are,576 scan lines or vertical pixels of picture content,25 frames per second. Digital information not to be displayed as part of the image can be transmitted in the lines, teletext and other services. Analogue television signals have no pixels, they are rastered in scan lines, in digital applications, the number of pixels per line is an arbitrary choice as long as it fulfils the sampling theorem. Values above about 500 pixels per line are enough for conventional broadcast television, DVB-T, DVD and DV allow better values such as 704 or 720. The video format can be transported by major digital television formats, ATSC, DVB and ISDB, and on DVD, when 576i video is transmitted via baseband, most of the differences between the one-letter systems are no longer significant, other than vertical resolution and frame rate. Digital video uses its own separate space, so even the minor colour space differences between PAL and SECAM become moot in the digital domain. When 576i is used to transmit content that was composed of 25 full progressive frames per second. This is the opposite of NTSC, motion pictures are typically shot on film at 24 frames per second. When telecined and played back at PALs standard of 25 frames per second and this also applies to most TV series that are shot on film or digital 24p. Depending on the system in use, it also slightly increases the pitch of the soundtrack by 70.67 cents. More recently, digital conversion methods have used algorithms which preserve the pitch of the soundtrack. Conversion methods exist that can convert 24 frames per second video to 25 frames per second with no speed increase, however image quality suffers when conversions of this type are used. This method is most commonly employed through conversions done digitally, and is employed in situations where the importance of preserving the speed of the video outweighs the need for image quality. Many movie enthusiasts prefer PAL over NTSC despite the formers speed-up, because the results in telecine judder. States the majority of authorities on the subject favour PAL over NTSC for DVD playback quality, also DVD reviewers often make mention of this cause. For example, in his PAL vs. NTSC article, the founder of MichaelDVD says, Personally, I find all but intolerable and find it very hard to watch a movie on an NTSC DVD because of it
5.
1080i
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1080i is an abbreviation referring to a combination of frame resolution and scan type, used in high-definition television and high-definition video. The number 1080 refers to the number of lines on the screen. The term assumes a widescreen ratio of 16,9, so the 1080 lines of vertical resolution implies 1920 columns of horizontal resolution. A1920 pixels ×1080 lines screen has a total of 2.1 megapixels and this format is used in the SMPTE 292M standard. The choice of 1080 lines originates with Charles Poynton, who in the early 1990s pushed for square pixels to be used in HD video formats, within the designation 1080i, the i stands for interlaced scan. A frame of 1080i video consists of two fields of 1920 horizontal and 540 vertical pixels. The first field consists of all odd-numbered TV lines and the second all even numbered lines, 1080i differs from 1080p, where the p stands for progressive scan, where all lines in a frame are captured at the same time. In native or pure 1080i, the two fields of a frame correspond to different instants, so motion portrayal is good and this is true for interlaced video in general and can be easily observed in still images taken of fast motion scenes. However, when 1080p material is captured at 25 or 30 frames/second, it is converted to 1080i at 50 or 60 fields/second, respectively, in this situation both fields in a frame do correspond to the same instant. The field-to-instant relation is more complex for the case of 1080p at 24 frames/second converted to 1080i at 60 fields/second. Both field rates can be carried by digital television broadcast formats such as ATSC, DVB. The frame rate can be implied by the context, while the rate is generally specified after the letter i. In this case 1080i60 refers to 60 fields per second, the European Broadcasting Union prefers to use the resolution and frame rate separated by a slash, as in 1080i/30 and 1080i/25, likewise 480i/30 and 576i/25. Resolutions of 1080i60 or 1080i50 often refers to 1080i/30 or 1080i/25 in EBU notation, 1080i is directly compatible with some CRT HDTVs on which it can be displayed natively in interlaced form, but for display on progressive-scan—e. g. Most new LCD and plasma TVs, it must be deinterlaced, depending on the televisions video processing capabilities, the resulting video quality may vary, but may not necessarily suffer. For example, film material at 25fps may be deinterlaced from 1080i50 to restore a full 1080p resolution at the frame rate without any loss. Preferably video material with 50 or 60 motion phases/second is to be converted to 50p or 60p before display, worldwide, most HD channels on satellite and cable broadcast in 1080i. This also allows local newscasts on these ABC affiliates to be produced in the resolution to match the picture quality of their 1080i competitors
6.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
7.
Television Centre, London
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Television Centre in White City, West London was the headquarters of BBC Television between 1960 and 2013. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type, parts of the building are Grade II listed, including the central ring and Studio 1. Live television events from studios and routing of national and international sporting events took place within the Television Centre before being passed to the Broadcast Centre for transmission and it was announced on 21 September 2010 that the BBC would cease broadcasting from Television Centre in 2013. BBC Worldwide moved into space in the Stage 6 building following extensive refurbishment in 2015. The radio and television news departments moved to Broadcasting House in central London, the building is 4 miles west of central London, in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. The nearest Underground stations are White City and Wood Lane, London broadcasts at the time came from Alexandra Palace and Lime Grove Studios. It was to be the largest television centre in the world, riverside Studios in Hammersmith were used from 1954. It was planned to be 6 acres, but turned out to be twice as big, on 24 August 1956 the main contract was awarded to Higgs and Hill, which also built The London Studios for ITV in 1972. The building was planned to cost £9M, when it opened, the Director of BBC television was Gerald Beadle, and the first programme broadcast was First Night with David Nixon in Studio Three. In 1997 the BBC News Centre was opened, in a new complex at the front of the building, the building featured a central circular block around which were studios, offices, engineering areas and the News Centre. In the centre of the block was a statue designed by T. B. Huxley-Jones of Helios. At the foot of the statue were two reclining figures, symbolising sound and vision, the components of television, even though there was a foundation stone marked BBC1956 in the basement of the main building, construction began in 1951. With the migration of staff and functions to complexes in Salford and London W1, the overall design from the air appeared to resemble a question mark in shape. The architect, Graham Dawbarn CBE, drew a question mark on an envelope while thinking about the design of the building, an article in The BBC Quarterly, July 1946, proposed a circular design, several years before Dawbarn drew up his plans. The building was commissioned in 1949 with work starting in 1950, work resumed in 1953 on the TVC scenery block and work began in 1954 on the canteen block, which doubled as a rehearsal space. Work on Stage 3, the central office block and studios. The shells of TC1, TC6 and TC7 were constructed around the same time, BBC Television Centre officially opened with TC3 operational on 29 June 1960. Arthur Hayes worked on the building from 1956 to 1970 and was responsible for the creation of the iconic BBC Television Centre lettering on the façade of Studio 1, the lettering was later used all over the building, even in tile work outside lift entrances
8.
Broadcasting House
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Broadcasting House is the headquarters of the BBC, in Portland Place and Langham Place, London. The first radio broadcast was made on 15 March 1932, the main building is in Art Deco style, with a facing of Portland stone over a steel frame. As part of a consolidation of the BBCs property portfolio in London. This involved the demolition of post-war extensions on the side of the building. The wing was named the John Peel Wing in 2012, after the disc jockey, BBC London, BBC Arabic Television and BBC Persian Television are housed in the new wing, which also contains the reception area for BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra. The main building was refurbished, and a built to the rear. The radio stations BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC World Service transferred to refurbished studios within the building. The extension links the old building with the John Peel Wing, the move of news operations from BBC Television Centre completed in March 2013. Construction of Broadcasting House began in 1928, programmes transferred gradually to the building. On 15 March 1932 the first musical programme was given by the bandleader Henry Hall, Hall also wrote and performed, with his Dance Band, Radio Times, the name of the BBCs schedule publication. The first news bulletin was read by Stuart Hibberd on 18 March, the last transmission from Savoy Hill was on 14 May, and Broadcasting House officially opened on 15 May 1932. George Val Myer designed the building in collaboration with the BBCs civil engineer, the interiors were the work of Raymond McGrath, an Australian-Irish architect. The building is built in two parts, dispensing with the oft-found central light-well of contemporary buildings this size, the central core containing the recording studios was a windowless structure built of brick. The surrounding outer portion, designed for offices and ancillary spaces, is framed and faced using Portland stone. While the outer portion had plenty of windows, the core required special sound-dampened ventilation systems. There were two areas where right of ancient lights would cause height restrictions, Underground structures, including a hundred-year-old sewer, also presented problems during construction. The building is above the Bakerloo line of the London Underground, the Victoria line was tunnelled beneath in the 1960s, noise from passing trains is audible within the radio theatre, but generally imperceptible in recordings. The ground floor was fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street, the rapid expansion of the BBC meant this never occurred
9.
BBC One
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BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service and it was renamed BBC TV in 1960, using this name until the launch of sister channel BBC2 in 1964, whereupon the BBC TV channel became known as BBC1, with the current spelling adopted in 1997. The channels annual budget for 2012–13 is £1.14 billion, the channel is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBCs other domestic television stations, and therefore shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. It is currently the most watched channel in the United Kingdom, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership. As of June 2013 the channel controller for BBC One is Charlotte Moore, the BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15,00, Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement, saying, Good afternoon everybody. Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh, the Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later. The competition quickly forced the channel to change its identity and priorities following a reduction in its audience. The 1962 Pilkington Report on the future of broadcasting noticed this, and it therefore decided that Britains third television station should be awarded to the BBC. The station, renamed BBC TV in 1960, became BBC1 when BBC2 was launched on 20 April 1964 transmitting an incompatible 625-line image on UHF. The only way to all channels was to use a complex dual-standard 405- and 625-line, VHF and UHF, receiver. Old 405-line-only sets became obsolete in 1985, when transmission in the standard ended, although standards converters have become available for enthusiasts who collect, BBC1 was based at the purpose-built BBC Television Centre at White City, London between 1960 and 2013. In the weeks leading up to 15 November 1969, BBC1 unofficially transmitted the occasional programme in its new colour system, to test it. At midnight on 15 November, simultaneously with ITV and two years after BBC2, BBC1 officially began 625-line PAL colour programming on UHF with a broadcast of a concert by Petula Clark, colour transmissions could be received on monochrome 625-line sets until the end of analogue broadcasting. In terms of share, the most successful period for BBC1 was under Bryan Cowgill between 1973 and 1977, when the channel achieved an average audience share of 45%. On 30 December 1980, the BBC announced their intention to introduce a new breakfast television service to compete with TV-am. On 17 January 1983, the first edition of Breakfast Time was shown on BBC One, becoming the first UK wide breakfast television service and continued to lead in the rating until 1984. The first major overhaul was to axe the deeply unpopular Sixty Minutes current affairs programme and its replacement was the BBC Six OClock News, a straight new programme in a bid to shore up its failing early evening slot
10.
BBC Two
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BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It covers a range of subject matter, but tending towards more highbrow programmes than the more mainstream. Like the BBCs other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence and it is a comparatively well-funded public service network, regularly attaining a much higher audience share than most public service networks worldwide. Originally styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched, a high-definition version of the channel launched on 26 March 2013, replacing BBC HD. British television at the time of BBC2s launch consisted of two channels, the BBC Television Service and the ITV network made up of regional companies. Both channels had existed in a state of competition since ITVs launch in 1955, the 1962 Pilkington Report on the future of broadcasting noticed this, and that ITV lacked any serious programming. It therefore decided that Britains third television station should be awarded to the BBC, prior to its launch, the new BBC2 was promoted on the BBC Television Service, the soon to be renamed BBC1. The animated adverts featured the campaign mascots Hullabaloo, a mother kangaroo, however, at around 18,45 a huge power failure, originating from a fire at Battersea Power Station, caused Television Centre, and indeed much of west London, to lose all power. BBC1 was able to continue broadcasting via its facilities at Alexandra Palace, associated-Rediffusion, the London weekday ITV franchise-holder, offered to transmit on the BBCs behalf, but their gesture was rejected. At 22,00 programming was officially postponed until the following morning, there was believed to be no recording made of this bulletin, but a videotape was discovered in early 2003. By 11,00 on 21 April, power had restored to the studios and programming began. The launch schedule, postponed from the night before, was successfully shown that evening. In reference to the cut, the transmission opened with a shot of a lit candle which was then sarcastically blown out by presenter Denis Tuohy. To establish the new identity and draw viewers to it. The production chosen was The Forsyte Saga, a adaptation of the novels by John Galsworthy, featuring well-established actors Kenneth More. Unlike BBC1 and ITV, BBC2 was broadcast only on the 625 line UHF system and this created a market for dual standard receivers which could switch between the two systems. On 1 July 1967, during the Wimbledon Championships, BBC2 became the first channel in Europe to begin broadcasts in colour. The thirteen part series Civilisation was created as a celebration of two millennia of western art and culture to showpiece the new colour technology, BBC1 and ITV later joined BBC2 on 625-line UHF band, but continued to simulcast on 405-line VHF until 1985
11.
BBC Four
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BBC Four is a British television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite, and cable. BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002, with a running from 19,00 to 04,00. The channel shows a variety of programmes including comedy, documentaries, music, international film, original programmes, drama. An alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels and it is required by its licence to broadcast at least 100 hours of new arts and music programmes,110 hours of new factual programmes and to premiere twenty international films each year. BBC Four launched on 2 March 2002 at 19,00 GMT, BBC Four began originally as a late schedule to BBC Two, before it received its own channel, along with BBC Three. Curiously, BBC Four had to launch before BBC Three as a result of the government delaying approval plans, BBC Four would rebrand this channel, and bring it into line with the well recognised BBC One and Two brands at the same time. Planning for the new channel, along with the new BBC Three, had been in progress since October 2000, however, the BBC Four plans were approved earlier, and as a result launched before BBC Three. BBC Four was different from the old BBC Knowledge, the channel would be more heavily promoted with more new and original programming and the channel would not be broadcast 24 hours a day. This was because on the Freeview digital terrestrial platform, BBC Four is broadcast in a statistically multiplexed stream in Multiplex B that timeshares with the CBeebies channel. As a result, BBC Four broadcasts from 19,00 to around 04,00 each night, with an hours down-time, on 12 May 2011, BBC Four was added to the Sky EPG in the Republic of Ireland on channel 230. It later moved to EPG211 to free up space for new channels, BBC Four forms part of the BBC Vision group, and as a result, the channel controller is answerable to the head of this executive department, Emma Swain, as of 2012. The channel direction is determined by the channels remit, set by royal charter and the governing body. On 20 January 2016, Kim Shillinglaw announced that she had decided to leave the BBC as the Controller of BBC Two & BBC Four, as a result of the reorganisation, the post of Controller BBC Two and Four will close after her departure later in 2016. On 16 July 2013, the BBC announced that a high-definition simulcast of BBC Four would be launched by early 2014, the channel launched on 10 December 2013, and rolled out nationwide up to June 2014. The channel broadcasts on the BBCs new HD multiplex on Freeview, prior to launch, the majority of BBC Fours HD output was broadcast on the BBC HD channel before its closure on 26 March 2013. The first evenings BBC Four programmes were simulcast on BBC Two, BBC Four further supports foreign language films with its annual World Cinema Award which has been running since 2004. On weekdays at 19,00 and weekends at 21,00 and it screens a number of documentaries such as The Century of the Self and The Trials of Henry Kissinger. The channel is also home to many political travel shows such as Holidays in the Axis of Evil which features investigative journalism, drama has given the channel some of its most popular programmes, with The Alan Clark Diaries and Kenneth Williams, Fantabulosa
12.
BBC Parliament
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The channel also broadcasts reports from the European Parliament and the annual conferences of the main political parties and the Trades Union Congress. On 14 October 2016, the received a new look. Before being taken over by the BBC, the channel was known as the Parliamentary Channel, operated by United Artists Cable, the Parliamentary Channel launched as a cable-exclusive channel in 1992. The channel was purchased by the BBC in 1998, retitled BBC Parliament and it now broadcasts on cable, satellite, and Freeview. The channel ran as a service via DAB from launch until 14 November 2000. Due to capacity limitations on the terrestrial television platform, now known as Freeview, from launch until 30 October 2002. Then on Freeview from October 2002 until 13 November 2006 the channel was able to broadcast a quarter-screen picture. After receiving thousands of angry and perplexed emails and letters, not to mention questions asked by MPs in the House itself, the BBC eventually found the bandwidth to make the channel full-screen. Until 2008, BBC Parliament was unique amongst the BBC channels in being broadcast using non-BBC facilities, with ITVs Millbank Studios in Westminster supplying the engineering, production, editorial and journalism were, however, maintained by the BBC. The previous idents, also based on a Big Ben clock motif ran from 2009-2016 and this replaced the channels previous identity which was first introduced in 2002. BBC Parliament was taken off the air during the 2012 Summer Olympics on Freeview in post-digital switchover areas to enable BBC Three to broadcast 24 hours a day. The BBC had done the same during the 2008 Summer Olympics as it used the space to provide an additional BBC Red Button option for Freeview users, BBC Parliament is the only BBC channel which does not broadcast in HD. This has been the case since 10 December 2013 when BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC News, CBBC, on 5 September 2016 BBC Two began broadcasting BBC Parliament during BBC Twos overnight downtime. However this has subsequently been discontinued, the House of Lords is broadcast live only on days when there is no House of Commons sitting scheduled. A summer special is also produced featuring several beach books, briefings - a strand of programmes, usually broadcast weekend evenings, containing recorded coverage of major press briefings and conferences given by politicians in the previous week. Daily Politics - a daily political programme broadcast weekdays on BBC Two during parliamentary sessions and presented by Andrew Neil, daily Politics discusses the latest political news from across the United Kingdom, and is repeated on BBC Parliament every night at midnight. The Sunday Politics from BBC One is also repeated at midnight on the day of broadcast, dragons Eye - presented by Adrian Masters or Rhun ap Iorwerth, providing a weekly roundup of Welsh political developments. Eòrpa - current affairs series which covers political and social developments covering Europe, hearts and Minds - weekly programme covering the latest issues in the politics of Northern Ireland
13.
CBBC (TV channel)
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CBBC is a British free-to-air childrens television channel operated by the BBC. CBBC is primarily aimed at viewers 6 to 12 years old, CBBC was named Channel of the Year at the Childrens BAFTA awards in November 2008 and 2015. The channel averages 300,000 viewers daily, the channel originally shared bandwidth on the digital terrestrial television platform with BBC Knowledge, and later BBC Three, necessitating that CBBC sign off at 7,00 p. m. daily. Beginning on 11 April 2016, following the closure of the linear BBC Three television service, on 22 August 2008, the BBC announced that the channel would be available live on its website from 16 September. CBBCs reach further expanded with the addition of the channel on the Sky line-up in the Republic of Ireland on 12 May 2011, since 27 March 2013, CBBC has been carried by the British Forces Broadcasting Service, sharing a channel with BBC Two. Along with CBBC, the CBBC channel is operated by the BBC Childrens department within the BBC and is part of the BBC North group, the CBBC channels programming output is very similar to the strand shown on BBC One. The channel often complements this strand with programmes shown earlier than on the channels, repeats or whole series shown in a day. The following is a list of the ten most watched shows on CBBC, as part of the channels original remit, the channel originally needed to show 100 hours a year of factual and schools programmes. Much of this programming was old BBC Schools programming shown, in cases, decades before. Very little new schools programmes were commissioned, the CBBC channel has had relatively similar presentation to that of its strand counterpart. The logo has remained the same as the service, green coloured blobs at the beginning of its life. At the beginning of September 2007, along with the relaunch, when the channel launched, presentation was located in TC2 at BBC Television Centre, where the channel shared studio facilities with the channels original magazine show Xchange. A further change was to place on 4 December 2006 when all output moved to a Chroma key set within TC12. This short live decision lasted until the 2007 relaunch, which involved a new office set being constructed, initially in TC12, in 2011, the CBBC Channel moved to MediaCityUK, and has been presented from there since 5 September. On 16 July 2013, the BBC announced that a high-definition simulcast of CBBC would be launched by early 2014, the channel launched on 10 December 2013. The channel broadcasts on the BBCs existing HD multiplex on Freeview, prior to launch, the majority of CBBCs HD output was broadcast on BBC HD before its closure on 26 March 2013. The HD channel was not added to the Sky EPG in the Republic of Ireland, as from 2013, CBBC Extra is now also accessed by the CBBC website. CBBC Extra is an interactive television service from CBBC provided by the BBC Red Button
14.
CBeebies
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The name is used to brand the free-to-air domestic British channel, and is used for international variants supported by advertising, subscription or both. The channel was first launched on 11 February 2002, the channel has won a number of awards. At the BAFTA Childrens Awards, it won awards in 2002 and it has also won Best Schools Programme – 0–6 years awards from the Royal Television Society from 2002 to 2008. CBeebies is the childrens channel in the UK and is the 8th most watched channel overall. CBeebies HD officially launched on 10 December 2013, the CBeebies channel launched on 11 February 2002. The domestic CBeebies channel broadcasts from 6,00 a. m. to 7,00 pm each day– a result of the channel sharing bandwidth with the channel BBC Four on the Freeview platform, later on they launched a weekly publication called CBeebies Weekly. Since 27 March 2013, CBeebies has been carried by the British Forces Broadcasting Service, the international CBeebies channel is advert-free and wholly owned by BBC Worldwide. The first international launch for the CBeebies channel was in India in May 2007, the channel is available in the Republic of Ireland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Poland, Indonesia, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Africa, Australia, and the United States. In March 2011, the on demand version of the network was launched in the US and is available on Xfinity. On 13 May 2011, CBeebies was launched as a block on the channel BBC Kids in Canada. It is serving a similar schedule to the main channel, in the UK, CBeebies is operated by the BBC Childrens division and part of BBC North. The division is responsible for CBBC and overall strategic responsibility for all of the BBCs domestic services for children rests with the Director of Childrens. She took over from the first controller Michael Carrington in 2010, internationally, CBeebies is owned by BBC Worldwide, who operate the brand. CBeebies offers a mix of mostly UK-produced entertainment and educational output designed to encourage learning through play and these goals are realised through a range of programmes about simple science, natural history, music and movement, storytelling, make up and make do, puzzle programmes and animation. The channels schedule is deliberately the same every weekday, with a different schedule at weekends, the schedule also includes signed programmes, shown in the UK between 14,00 and 17,00 on weekends. The international channels also show many programmes broadcast on the UK channel, inversely however, shows that air on CBeebies in the UK may air on networks other than CBeebies worldwide. Also, the international CBeebies airs 24 hours a day, unlike the UK variant, the following is a list of the ten most watched shows on CBeebies, based on Live +7 data supplied by the Broadcasters Audience Research Board. The links between programmes on CBeebies are primarily achieved through the use of in-vision continuity, using presenters to interact with the children, in the UK, links are pre-recorded rather than broadcast live, as is the case on sister channel CBBC
15.
Freeview (UK)
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Freeview is the United Kingdoms digital terrestrial television platform. It is operated by DTV Services Ltd, a joint venture between the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Sky and transmitter operator Arqiva, the service provides consumer access via an aerial to the six DTT multiplexes covering the United Kingdom. In April 2014 it had some 60 DVB-T TV channels,26 digital radio channels,10 HD channels, six services,11 streamed channels. A number of new HD channels launched in 2014, from a new group of multiplexes awarded to Arqiva, the new HD channels were launched in selected areas on 10 December 2013 with a further roll-out during 2014. DTV Services delivery of television and radio is labelled Freeview. Reception of Freeview requires a Freeview tuner, either in a separate box or built into the TV set. Since 2008 all new TV sets sold in the United Kingdom have a built-in Freeview tuner, Freeview HD requires a HDTV-capable tuner. Digital video recorders with a built-in Freeview tuner are labelled Freeview+, depending on model, DVRs and HDTV sets with a Freeview tuner may offer standard Freeview or Freeview HD. DMOL, a company owned by the operators of the six DTT multiplexes is responsible for platform management and policy, including the electronic programme guide. The founding members of DTV Services, who trade as Freeview, were the BBC, Crown Castle UK, on 11 October 2006, ITV plc and Channel 4 became equal shareholders. Since then, the Freeview model has been copied in Australia, with the launch of Freeview other channels were broadcast free-to-air, such as, Sky Travel, UK History, Sky News, Sky Sports News, The Hits and TMF were available from the start. BBC Four and the interactive BBC streams were moved to multiplex B, under the initial plans, the two multiplexes operated by Crown Castle would carry eight channels altogether. The seventh stream became shared by UK Bright Ideas and Ftn which launched in February 2003, the eighth stream was left unused until April 2004 when the shopping channel Ideal World launched on Freeview. There are now 14 streams carried by the two multiplexes, with Multiplex C carrying 6 streams, and Multiplex D carrying 8 and it has recently been announced that more streams are now available on the multiplexes, and that bidding is under way. The Freeview service underwent an upgrade on 30 September 2009. The changes, meant to ensure reception of Channel 5. The Freeview website crashed and the centre was inundated as a result of the problems. The change involved an update to the NIT, which some receivers could not accommodate, many thousands of people could not receive some channels
16.
Freesat
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Freesat is a free-to-air digital satellite television joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc, serving the United Kingdom. The service was formed as a memorandum in 2007 and has been marketed since 6 May 2008, Freesats main competitors are Freeview and Freesat from Sky. On digital terrestrial, the channels have always been available free-to-air with the appropriate equipment, in 2007 Freeview was available to only 73% of the population. After analogue TV services were replaced in the digital switchover, this increased to 98. 5% for the public service channels, to provide more widespread coverage and a larger number of channels, a digital satellite alternative was felt necessary. The use of encryption meant that anyone wishing to view the channels had to purchase equipment from Sky, similarly, to use the Videoguard encryption, the broadcasters needed to pay a fee to NDS Group. In May 2003 the BBC moved most of its channels from the Astra 2A satellite to Astra 2D and this move allowed the BBC to stop encrypting its broadcasts while continuing to meet its rights obligations. It dropped the two months later. Two months later, ITV, whose channels had already been located on the Astra 2D satellite since launching on the Sky platform some years earlier, also made their channels free-to-air. On 18 November 2008, Channel 5 commenced broadcasting a single channel via Freesat, eventually adding its ancillary services 5USA, viva moved from free-to-view to free-to-air on satellite on 19 March 2013, before launching on Freesat on 2 April 2013. On 2 April 2013, all seven of Box Televisions channels left Skys subscription package, with six becoming free-to-air on satellite, on 15 April four of the channels – The Box, TV, Kiss TV and Smash Hits – were added to the Freesat EPG. This was followed by Heat and Magic on 29 April, the Freesat project aims to provide a managed service with an Electronic Programme Guide and interactive features similar to the Freeview service launched three years earlier. Unlike Freeview, however, these features are available on approved receivers manufactured under licence from Freesat. The initial plan was to launch the service in early 2006 and this was postponed to Autumn 2007 as approval from the BBC Trust was only received in April 2007. However, the service was delayed and was officially launched on 6 May 2008. The service launched officially on 6 May 2008, from the launch, Freesat advertised all national television channels from the BBC and ITV as being available on the platform, as well as all national BBC radio networks. Channel 4 also managed to make most of its channels free-to-air in preparation for the launch. In addition some channels from other such as Chello Zone, CSC Media Group, Al Jazeera English, Zee Live, Zee News RIA Novosti. BBC HD was the only channel available on Freesat from launch day
17.
Sky UK
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Sky UK Limited is a telecommunications company which serves the United Kingdom. Sky provides television and broadband services, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers. It is the UKs largest pay-TV broadcaster with 11 million customers as of 2015 and it was the UKs most popular digital TV service until it was overtaken by Freeview in April 2007. Its corporate headquarters are based in Isleworth, formed in November 1990 by the equal merger of Sky Television and British Satellite Broadcasting, Sky became the UKs largest digital subscription television company. Following Skys 2014 acquisition of Sky Italia and a majority 90. 04% interest in Sky Deutschland in November 2014, the United Kingdom operations also changed the company name from British Sky Broadcasting Limited to Sky UK Limited, still trading as Sky. Sky UK Limited is an owned subsidiary of Sky plc, with its current company directors being Andrew Griffith. Griffith acts as the Chief Financial Officer and the Managing Director for the commercial businesses division, after the two companies merged, subscribers could get access to both channels, and later the sports channel Sky Sports also became encrypted. In the autumn of 1991, talks were held for the broadcast rights for Premier League for a five-year period, ITV were the current rights holders, and fought hard to retain the new rights. ITV had increased its offer from £18m to £34m per year to control of the rights. BSkyB joined forces with the BBC to make a counter bid, Murdoch described sport as a battering ram for pay-television, providing a strong customer base. A few weeks after the deal, ITV went to the High Court to get an injunction as it believed their bid details had been leaked before the decision was taken. ITV also asked the Office of Fair Trading to investigate since it believed Rupert Murdochs media empire via its newspapers had influenced the deal. A few days later neither action took effect, ITV believed BSkyB was telephoned and informed of its £262m bid, and Premier League advised BSkyB to increase its counter bid. BSkyB retained the rights paying £670m 1997–2001 deal, but was challenged by On Digital for the rights from 2001–2004, in May 2006, the Irish broadcaster Setanta Sports was awarded two of the six Premier League packages that the English FA offered to broadcasters. Sky picked up the four for £1. 3bn. In February 2015, Sky bid £4. 2bn for a package of 120 premier league games across the three seasons from 2016 and this represented an increase of 70% on the previous contract and was said to be £1bn more than the company had expected to pay. The move has been followed by staff cuts, increased subscription prices, in September 1993, BSkyB launched Sky Multichannels which was the present digital platforms analogue predecessor. Sky Multichannels was a package that gave access not only to Skys own channels
18.
Virgin Media
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Virgin Media PLC is a British company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are in Hook, Hampshire, United Kingdom, the company has been a subsidiary of Liberty Global plc, an international television and telecommunications company headquartered in London, since June 2013. Virgin Media previously had a listing on the NASDAQ Stock Market and was a constituent of the NASDAQ-100 index. It also had a listing on the London Stock Exchange. The company was formed in March 2006 by the merger of NTL and Telewest, in November 2006 the company signed a deal with Sir Richard Branson to license the Virgin brand for the combined business. All of the companys services were rebranded under the Virgin Media name in February 2007. At the same date it had around 3 million mobile telephony customers, Virgin Media competes primarily with Sky, BT Group, EE, O2, TalkTalk, Vodafone and Three. The companys origins lie in both Telewest and NTL, which merged in March 2006, Telewest began in 1984 in Croydon under the name Croydon Cable, and was acquired by United Cable of Denver in 1988. The company expanded during the 1990s and adopted the Telewest name in 1992 following the merger of its then-parent TCI and US West. It expanded into cable television access in 1999 by purchasing the remaining 50% stake in Cable London, one of the first cable TV companies in the UK, from NTL, adding 400,000 homes in north London. In April 2000 Telewest merged with Flextech, and in November extended its network with the acquisition of Eurobell. NTL was established by Barclay Knapp and George Blumenthal in 1993 as International CableTel, initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford, Northern Ireland and parts of Central Scotland and South Wales. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited, the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission network, in 1998 CableTel adopted NTL as its new name. NTL purchased the ISP Virgin. net in 2004, having originally operated it as a joint venture with Virgin Group since it launched in November 1996. It sold ADSL broadband services through BT landlines to those living outside areas served by NTLs cable network and also offered subscription-based, prior to acquiring Virgin. net, NTL offered a similar package called NTL Freedom. Telewest and NTL began discussions regarding a merger in late 2003, thanks to their geographically distinct areas, NTL and Telewest had co-operated previously, as in redirecting potential customers living outside their respective areas. On 3 October 2005, NTL announced a US$16 billion purchase of Telewest, to prevent this, Telewest instead acquired NTL. In December 2005 NTL, Telewest and mobile network operator Virgin Mobile UK announced that talks had taken place regarding a merger
19.
Virgin Media Ireland
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Virgin Media Ireland is Liberty Globals telecommunications operation in Ireland. It is the largest digital cable television provider within the Republic of Ireland, as of 31 December 2014, the company offers broadband internet, digital television and digital telephony to 1.1 million customers. Virgin Media Ireland previously traded under the branding Chorus NTL until 4 May 2010 and it is primarily in competition with Sky Ireland, eir and Vodafone in the Irish pay TV market. Originally a joint venture with Independent News and Media, IN&M sold its shares to Liberty in 2004, in May 2005, NTL agreed to sell its Irish operations NTL Ireland to Liberty Global. Morgan Stanley held the shareholding until Competition Authority approval was obtained and this occurred in December 2005 and UPC Ireland came into being on 12 December 2005. In 2006, UPC Ireland began to integrate the brands Chorus, branding wise, on 5 September 2006 NTLs website was changed to the same design as Chorus i. e. itself based on UPC Netherlands website design at the time. 25 January 2007, NTL Ireland updated the electronic programme guide software to remove the NTL logo, on 31 January 2007, NTL and Chorus began advertising jointly, although the adverts were simply the ongoing campaign from NTL with the Chorus logo added to them. On 4 June 2007 @ntlworld. ie e-mail addresses switched to @upcmail. ie, the new UPC Mediabox set top boxes which contain a hardrive based digital video recording system are fully UPC branded and come with a much enhanced EPG. These were rolled out on both the ex NTL and Chorus cable networks, from 2008, the old Pace STBs supplied by NTL Ireland were replaced with new Pace STBs designed for UPC, also branded UPC Mediabox but without the hard drive/recording capabilities. In a Sunday Business Post article on 11 February 2007, UPC Irelands marketing manager revealed that the rebrand was due to place no later than May 2007. On 16 May 2007 UPC Netherlands introduced a new UPC logo, from July 2007, all UPC advertising began bearing a composite logo reading Chorus NTL – a UPC company. On 10 June 2007 UPC announced its takeover of one of the remaining small Irish operators and this gained UPC an extra 2000 customers. During late September and early October 2007, Chorus and NTL included a leaflet with their bills explaining that a rebrand would occur on 21 October. That did not happen, however, on 30 October 2007, in November 2007, NTL Business was rebranded UPC Business, making it the first part of the company to officially adopt the UPC name. On 29 April 2008 UPCs former Cork Communications cable network, latterly part of Chorus, became the first cable network in the Ireland to switch to digital, with the analogue signal switched off. On 4 May 2010 UPC began a €3 million spend on rebranding, completing the change from Chorus, a high-profile media campaign – fronted by broadcaster Craig Doyle – was planned to run for 3 months. It also lit up a number of buildings in Dublin, Galway, UPC had received the final approvals to acquire assets from broadband rival Broadworks, which was in liquidation. This would give it access to about 6,600 homes in west Dublin, the Competition Authority cleared the deal on 21 April 2010
20.
WightFibre
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WightFibre is the only provider of commercial and residential cable television services on the Isle of Wight. They also provide telephone and broadband internet services and it is the last remaining cable company in the UK which is not part of Virgin Media which, from March 2006, operated more than 95% of cable services in the UK. The Isle of Wight Cable and Telephone Company and Omne Communications were taken over by CLS Holdings in the years of the 21st century. It ran two separate operations, WightCable on the Isle of Wight, and WightCable in south west Scotland. CLS Holdings sold both of the two companies to separate private investors who intend to operate them separately. Smallworld Cable was absorbed by Virgin Media in 2014 leaving WightFibre as the sole independent UK cable company, WightCable Ltd was sold in the last part of 2005, now going under the name Wight Cable 2005 Ltd. New branding was introduced, services upgraded and internet speeds increased, in 2012, WightCable changed its name to WightFibre, promising increased internet speeds up to 100Mbit/s, and introducing IPTV with high-definition channels and on-demand services. A £500,000 investment saw the launch of 50Mb broadband in July 2012, the company advertised heavily and returned to growth in October 2012. A small scale trial of the companys new IP based TV service was held in Nov & Dec 2012, in February 2013 WightFibre was acquired by Keith Young, a serial entrepreneur who was also an original investor in Easynet. The management team remained in place and the strategy remained unchanged
21.
IPTV
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Unlike downloaded media, IPTV offers the ability to stream the source media continuously. As a result, a client media player can begin playing the data almost immediately and this is known as streaming media. Although IPTV uses the Internet protocol it is not limited to television media streamed from the Internet, IPTV in the telecommunications arena is notable for its ongoing standardisation process. Historically, many different definitions of IPTV have appeared, including elementary streams over IP networks, transport streams over IP networks and these services may include, for example, Live TV, Video On Demand and Interactive TV. These services are delivered across an access agnostic, packet switched network that employs the IP protocol to transport the audio, video, the term IPTV first appeared in 1995 with the founding of Precept Software by Judith Estrin and Bill Carrico. Precept developed an Internet video product named IP/TV, the software was written primarily by Steve Casner, Karl Auerbach, and Cha Chee Kuan. Precept was acquired by Cisco Systems in 1998, Internet radio company AudioNet started the first continuous live webcasts with content from WFAA-TV in January 1998 and KCTU-LP on January 10,1998. The operator added additional VoD service in October 2001 with Yes TV, kingston was one of the first companies in the world to introduce IPTV and IP VoD over ADSL as a commercial service. The service became the reference for various changes to UK Government regulations, in 2006, the KIT service was discontinued, subscribers having declined from a peak of 10,000 to 4,000. In 1999, NBTel was the first to commercially deploy Internet protocol television over DSL in Canada using the Alcatel 7350 DSLAM, the service was marketed under the brand VibeVision in New Brunswick, and later expanded into Nova Scotia in early 2000 after the formation of Aliant. IMagic TV was later sold to Alcatel, in 2002, Sasktel was the second in Canada to commercially deploy Internet Protocol video over DSL, using the Lucent Stinger DSL platform. In 2005, SureWest Communications was the first North American company to offer high-definition television channels over an IPTV service, in 2005, Bredbandsbolaget launched its IPTV service as the first service provider in Sweden. As of January 2009, they are not the biggest supplier any longer, TeliaSonera, in 2007, TPG became the first internet service provider in Australia to launch IPTV. Complementary to its ADSL2+ package this was, and still is, free of charge to customers on eligible plans and now offers over 45 local free to air channels, by 2010, iiNet and Telstra launched IPTV services in conjunction to internet plans but with extra fees. In 2008, PTCL launched IPTV under the name of PTCL Smart TV in Pakistan. S. Markets with an IPTV service called Prism and this was after successful test marketing in Florida. During the 2014 Winter Olympics Shortest path bridging was used to deliver 36 IPTV HD Olympic channels, in 2016, KCTV introduced the Set-top box called Manbang, claiming to provide video-on-demand services in North Korea via quasi-internet protocol television. According to KCTV, viewers can use the service not only in Pyongyang, stating that the demands for the equipment are particularly high in Sinuiju, with several hundred users in the region
22.
Swisscom
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Swisscom AG is a major telecommunications provider in Switzerland. Its headquarters are located at Worblaufen near Bern, the Swiss Confederation owns 51.0 percent of Swisscom AG. As of the end of 2015, Swisscom had around 21,000 employees, the Swiss telegraph network was first set up in 1852, followed by telephones in 1877. The two networks were combined with the service in 1920 to form the PTT. The Swiss telecommunications market was deregulated in 1997, Telecom PTT was spun off and rebranded Swisscom ahead of a partial privatisation in 1998 which has left the Swiss government with a 51% stake. Besides pioneering the first mobile telephone network NATEL A, the present-day Swisscom owns the protected brand NATEL, 25% of Swisscom Mobile was sold to Vodafone in 2001. Since then Swisscom has bought a majority stake in Italys second-biggest telecom company Fastweb and invested in such as hospitality support, cloud services, mobile solutions. Switzerlands entry into the era came in 1851, with the passage of legislation giving the Swiss government control over development of a telegraph network throughout the country. The governments initial plans called for the creation of three primary lines, as well as a number of secondary networks. In order to build equipment for the system, the government established the Atelier Fédéral de Construction des Télégraphs, in July 1852, the first leg of the countrys telegraph system—between St. Gallen and Zurich—was operational. By the end of year, most of the countrys main cities had been connected to the telegraph system. In 1855, the network was extended with the first underwater cable, connecting Winkel-Stansstad, night service was also launched that year, starting in Basel, St. Gallen and Bellinzona. Telegraph traffic took off in the late 1860s after the government reduced the cost of a 20-word message in 1867, while telegraph traffic continued to rise in the following decade, the technology was soon to be replaced by the telephone. The following year, the government passed legislation establishing a monopoly on the telephone network. Nonetheless, private operators were allowed to bid for licenses in order to develop their local concessions, by 1880, Switzerlands first private network had been created in Zurich. This was a system with the capacity for 200 lines. The first directory was published that year and listed 140 subscribers. Basel, Bern, and Geneva all launched their own local networks between 1881 and 1882, one year later, the first inter-city telephone line was established, linking Zurichs private exchange with Winterthurs public system
23.
MEO (Portugal)
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MEO is a mobile and fixed telecommunications service and brand from Portugal Telecom, managed by MEO - Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia. The service was piloted in Lisbon in 2006 and was extended to Porto. The commercial launch of the ADSL2+ service took place in June 2007, the satellite service began in April 2008, using the Hispasat satellite, soon followed by the FTTH service. The ADSL2+ and FTTH offers reached across Portugal and included broadband Internet services as well as a telephone service, MEO was officially founded after the separation of PT Comunicações and PT Multimédia. While PT Multimédia employed coaxial cables, after separation, MEO started making use of copper cables, the television service supplied by MEO within the copper cable network is served on the ADSL line. In May 2009 PT Comunicações announced, after Terrestrial Digital Television transmissions had started, another service relies on TDT, MEO TDT, which is included in the 3G plates service that is captured through the mobile internet signals from TDT. This service included one High Definition channel and the five main Portuguese channels, RTP1, RTP2, SIC, MEO TDT service also allows some of the advantages found on the ADSL and Fiber Optic service. In July 2010 Portugal Telecom informed that MEO had surpassed 700 thousand clients, in November 2011, MEO achieved one million subscriptions. In January 2014 MEO and TMN became a brand, MEO Serviços de Comunicações e Multimédia S. A. In 2013 MEO launched a quadruple play service called M4O that in addition to the functionalities already referred has added the mobile phone, in July 2014 MEO launched a bundle which also includes the offering of mobile internet, called M5O. The communication campaign invested in an advertising effort, protagonized by Portuguese humoristic characters. MEOs technology transmits over fiber optic and ADSL - either television, telephone, MEO ADSL integrates a router with a switch, connected to the telephone plug to decode and distribute the signal, and another for the television called MEOBox. The two MEOBox models are built by Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, with a processor, optional hard drive, HDMI slot, the MEO Fiber Optic service uses an Optical Network Terminal, that decodes the fiber optic signal and passes it to the router. MEO ADSL television service includes a slate of 120 TV channels. Subscribers can access more than 170 channels if purchasing the “MEO Total” bundle, FTTH MEO offers bundles distinguished by the speed of data transmission. Just like MEO ADSL, the package includes 120 channels. With IPTV channels can be purchased through the MEObox remote control, unlike the satellite, another advantage is its speed of 200 milliseconds. The IPTV network also enables the customer to play games in the MEOBox and to content from the internet
24.
Streaming media
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Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider. A client end-user can use their player to begin to play the data file before the entire file has been transmitted. For example, in the 1930s, elevator music was among the earliest popularly available streaming media, the term streaming media can apply to media other than video and audio such as live closed captioning, ticker tape, and real-time text, which are all considered streaming text. As of 2017, streaming is generally taken to refer to cases where a user watches digital video content or listens to audio content on a computer screen. With streaming content, the user does not have to download the digital video or digital audio file before they start to watch/listen to it. There are challenges with streaming content on the Internet, as of 2016, two popular streaming services are the video sharing website YouTube, which contains video and audio files on a huge range of topics and Netflix, which streams movies and TV shows. Live streaming refers to Internet content delivered in real-time, as events happen, Live internet streaming requires a form of source media, an encoder to digitize the content, a media publisher, and a content delivery network to distribute and deliver the content. Live streaming does not need to be recorded at the origination point, in the early 1920s, George O. Attempts to display media on computers date back to the earliest days of computing in the mid-20th century, however, little progress was made for several decades, primarily due to the high cost and limited capabilities of computer hardware. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, consumer-grade personal computers became powerful enough to various media. These technological improvement facilitated the streaming of audio and video content to users in their homes and workplaces. The band Severe Tire Damage was the first group to live on the Internet. On June 24,1993, the band was playing a gig at Xerox PARC while elsewhere in the building, as proof of PARCs technology, the bands performance was broadcast and could be seen live in Australia and elsewhere. Microsoft Research developed a Microsoft TV application which was compiled under MS Windows Studio Suite, realNetworks was also a pioneer in the streaming media markets, when it broadcast a baseball game between the New York Yankees and the Seattle Mariners over the Internet in 1995. The first symphonic concert on the Internet took place at the Paramount Theater in Seattle, the concert was a collaboration between The Seattle Symphony and various guest musicians such as Slash, Matt Cameron, and Barrett Martin. When Word Magazine launched in 1995, they featured the first-ever streaming soundtracks on the Internet.4 in 1999, in June 1999 Apple also introduced a streaming media format in its QuickTime 4 application. It was later widely adopted on websites along with RealPlayer. In 2000 Industryview. com launched its worlds largest streaming video archive website to help promote themselves
25.
BBC iPlayer
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BBC iPlayer is an internet streaming catchup television and radio service in the United Kingdom. The service is available on a range of devices, including mobile phones and tablets, personal computers. Neither the iPlayer services nor the individual TV programmes display any commercial advertising, the terms BBC iPlayer, iPlayer, and BBC Media Player all refer to the same services. BBC Redux was developed as a proof of concept for a cross-platform, BBC iPlayer left beta and went live on 25 December 2007. On 25 June 2008, a new-look iPlayer was launched, originally as a beta-test version alongside the earlier version, the site tagline was Catch up on the last 7 days of BBC TV & Radio, reflecting that programmes were unavailable on iPlayer after this time. The BBC state on their website that this is due to copyright reasons, the marketing slogan was later changed to Making the unmissable, unmissable. In May 2010 the site was updated again, to include a recommendations feature, the feature was added to the search function and the channels function. When users click on a programme by another broadcaster, they are redirected to the relevant broadcasters catch up service, in April 2014, BBC iPlayer was once again relaunched with a new look and a different user interface. From October 2014, the BBC extended the availability for programmes on iPlayer from 7 days to 30 days. However, due to legal reasons, most news bulletins are available for 24 hours after initial broadcast. Some archive programming is availabily for the term, such as Timewatch. Specific applications for mobile platforms were launched in February 2011 and these were initially for iOS and Android devices, where the launch would have the biggest impact. In 2015, the BBC reported that it was moving towards playing audio, the original iPlayer service was launched in October 2005, undergoing a five-month trial by five thousand broadband users until 28 February 2006. The iPlayer was heavily criticised for delay in its launch, rebranding, a new, improved iPlayer service then had another very limited user trial which began on 15 November 2006. At various times during its development, iPlayer was known as the Integrated Media Player, Interactive Media Player and this was done reportedly to allow British ISPs and the BBC to gauge the effect of the iPlayer traffic on the Internet within the UK. However, it was only to users of Windows XP. This was a decision by the BBC, which led to a petition against the decision being posted on 10 Downing Streets e-petition website. The petition reached 16,082 signatures on 20 August 2007, the response from the Government was
26.
BBC News Online
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BBC News Online is the website of BBC News, the division of the BBC responsible for newsgathering and production. The website is the most frequently accessed news website in the United Kingdom, and forms a part of BBC Online. The website contains international news coverage, as well as British, entertainment, science, BBC News Online is closely linked to its sister department website, that of BBC Sport. Both sites follow similar layout and content options and respective journalists work alongside each other, location information provided by users is also shared with the website of BBC Weather to provide local content. From 1998 to 2001 the site was named best news website at the BAFTA Interactive Entertainment Awards when the category was withdrawn. It has previously won both the Judges award and the Peoples Voice award for best news site at the annual Webby Awards, the website was launched on 4 November 1997, headed by founding editor Mike Smartt and Project Director Bob Eggington. The management team for launch included Dave Brewer, Chris Nuttall, Matthew Karas, Matt Jones, Janet Marsh, Simon George, nic Newman was seconded from BBC World Service to launch and run Talking Point. The broader editorial team was together from within the BBC, from print journalism. A major overhaul in 2003, primarily by Paul Sissons and Maire Flynn, coincided with a relaunch of the BBC News Channel and featured a wider page design. The site launched a set of semi-official RSS0.91 syndication feeds in June 2003, each news index has its own RSS feed, including the in-depth sections. In 2004 the BBC News website partnered with Moreover Technologies, in a response to the 2003 Graf Report, whilst the BBC does not censor or change results the algorithms used tend to give greater weight to national and international sources over regional or local ones. The BBC began providing real-time global user information in June 2006, new features were gradually introduced, including the publicising of video content more prominently, and the introduction of live streaming of the BBC News channel. Beginning on 30 April 2009, some published stories included in-text links, mostly to in-site profile articles on people, the BBC announced on 19 November 2009 that it was to pay more attention to search engine optimisation by extending news headlines. On 14 July 2010 the site was redesigned, with the vertical section headings moved to run horizontally near the top of the page. It was met with mixed opinions, Stephen Fry stated his approval of the redesign, however, there was also criticism, with some stating that the use of white space was too widespread and led to the need for continuous and excessive scrolling. The new design went live on 23 March 2015, there are two different editions of the site, a UK edition, which gives prominence to UK stories, and an international edition, which prioritises international news. Internet users with IP addresses originating from the UK are served the UK edition, the international version contains advertising and an Advertise With Us link at the bottom. All articles are archived indefinitely and can be retrieved via searching or by browsing the extensive Special Reports section, the previous seven days top stories were formerly available through the Week at a Glance section of the website
27.
TVPlayer
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TVPlayer is a live TV streaming service for users to watch free-to-air channels through their smart devices desktops, smartphones and tablets. The TV service allows television licence holders in the United Kingdom to stream 78 free live television channels, including BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Heart TV, Capital TV and The Box. TVPlayer Plus also allows users to catch up on programmes with their 7 day catch up service when using a Plus subscription, brazilian Channel Globo is available with an extra subscription. TVPlayer was launched as an iOS and Android app in December 2013, TVPlayer launched its tablet version in January 2014. Company representatives reported that TVPlayer had received 250,000 app downloads within 28 days of launching, on 30 January 2017, TVPlayer announced it had launched compatibility for all Windows 10 devices. As of January 2017, the TVPlayer app has been downloaded 2.5 million times since inception and boasts over one million active users. As of January 2017, a TVPlayer Plus subscription amounts to £5.99 per month or £59.99 for the plan with the first month being free to new customers as a free trial. A Globo subscription amounts to £14.99 per month after a one month free trial, all TVPlayer apps can be used via 3G, 4G, and Wi-Fi connections. Some channels are available while using a home Wi-Fi internet connection due to licensing rights. TVPlayer is a United Kingdom-only service so therefore can only be watched in Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, the service can be accessed in the following ways, Within an Adobe Flash Player enabled web browser. Via an app on devices running Android 4.2 or later, via an app on devices running iOS8.0 or later. Via apps on Apple TV 4th Generation the Amazon Fire TV, all TVPlayer Plus channels are available on EE TV. Via an app on the Humax H3 Smart Video Streaming Box, via an app on all Windows 10 devices. On February 16,2016, television channel BBC Three was removed due to the BBC relaunching it as an Internet television service only accessible through BBC iPlayer. TVPlayer is privately owned and operated by Simplestream Ltd, a provider of live streaming and catch-up TV services to broadcast. Adam Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Simplestream Ltd and TVPlayer, was also a co-founder of the similar, TVPlayer streams Freeview channels on your phone and tablet. TVPlayer tablet version comes to iOS, Android,40 of the best Android apps and games from January 2014
28.
Sky News
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Sky News is a 24-hour international multimedia news company based in the U. K. Originally a 24-hour television news channel, Sky News currently provides news on television, online, John Ryley is the Head of Sky News, a role he has held since June 2006. Other versions of Sky News are operated as joint-ventures and these include Sky News Australia and Sky News Arabia. A channel called Sky News International, with the news content but without British adverts, is available in Europe, Africa, Asia. Sky News Radio provides national and international news to radio stations in the UK. Sky News also provides content to Yahoo, the channel is available on Apple TV, Roku and YouTube. On 8 June 1988, Rupert Murdoch announced plans to start a new television service in a speech to the British Academy of Film. Sky News started broadcasting at 6 pm on 5 February 1989, there were overriding reasons of prestige and politics for keeping it. The final hurdle of the Broadcasting Bill had still to be overcome, – former deputy Prime Minister Viscount Whitelaw said in the House of Lords in 1990 that Sky News had a very high reputation. I admire it, as do other people, it will certainly waken up both the BBC and ITN and ensure that they compete with what is a very important news service. The channel has never run for a profit, and has considered using ITN to supplement the service. Ask anyone in Europe, and particularly the BBC and you will be told that Sky News has added a new, Sky News was the UKs first 24-hour news channel, broadcast on Astra 1A. It had no competition until November 1997 when BBC News launched a new 24-hour channel, BBC News 24. In September 1999 the European Commission ruled against a Sky News complaint which argued that the publicly funded BBC News 24 was unfair, the EC ruled that the television licence fee should be considered state aid but that the BBCs public service remit justified the channel. In March 2000 Sky News Active was launched, a 24-hour interactive service providing headlines on demand, in March 2004 it was announced that Sky News had won a 5-year contract to supply news bulletins to Channel 5, taking over from ITN in January 2005. On 24 October 2005, Sky News moved to new studios in Isleworth, London, the new studio was integrated with the newsroom and boasted the biggest video wall in Britain, it was designed by New York architects Janson Design Group. New music was scored by Adelphoi Music and recorded with an orchestra at Air Studios, Hampstead. New on-screen graphics were launched and the channel broadcasting in Widescreen format
29.
BBC Red Button
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BBC Red Button is a branding used for digital interactive television services provided by the BBC, and broadcast in the United Kingdom. The services replaced Ceefax, the BBCs analogue teletext service, the service can be accessed via Digital terrestrial television, satellite television and cable television. The service was launched in September 1999 as BBC Text and it was relaunched in November 2001 under the BBCi brand and operated under this name until late 2008, when it was rebranded as BBC Red Button. The red button name refers to the interface on remote controls for digital televisions and set-top boxes. Although initially marketed as a new form of television, by 2008 this had given way to positioning iTV as ‘everyday’. This was due in part to the landscape of television in the UK. BBC Text originally launched on terrestrial services in September 1999. In the first phase, the service was created using content migrated from the existing analogue teletext service, BBC Text was considerably more advanced than Ceefax, in that it offered a richer visual interface, with the possibility of photographic images and designed graphics. The original text service had no return path, this being made available in later phases, BBC Text pioneered an early form of on-demand interactive television, called Enhanced TV. According to the BBC, the i in BBCi stood for interactivity as well as innovation, the various services all took on a common interface device, an i-bar branded with the BBCi logo, which sought to emphasise the brand across different technologies by providing similar navigation. Interactive TV services continued under the BBCi brand until late 2008, today, the broadcasters online video player, the BBC iPlayer, reflects the branding legacy by retaining an i-prefix in its branding. From 2008, the BBC gradually began to drop the BBCi name from its digital interactive TV services also, the BBCi logo continued in on-screen presentation for some time. In November 2008, the BBC celebrated 10 years of the digital interactive TV service, BBC Connected Red Button launched in December 2012 on Virgin TiVo and on some Freeview and Freesat Smart TVs in December 2013. The service is a composite IP and broadcast service and may be the future of Red Button on internet connected televisions, the service was renamed BBC Red Button+ in April 2015. It launched with an updated brand and it is also available in Ireland through Sky. On Freeview interactivity does not permit users to submit data, as the platform does not provide a return path. BBC Red Button currently provides one video stream to all platforms, the BBC have the ability to increase the amount of streams during major events and have done so on numerous occasions. Additional online streams could also be accessed through the internet-connected BBC Red Button+,2016 Olympics, eight red button video streams were broadcast to all platforms during the 2016 Olympics
30.
BBC World News
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BBC World News is the BBCs international news and current affairs television channel. It has the largest audience of any BBC channel, with an estimated 76 million viewers weekly in 2014, part of the estimated 265 million users of the BBCs four main international news services. Launched on 11 March 1991 as BBC World Service Television outside Europe, its name was changed to BBC World on 16 January 1995 and it broadcasts television programming including BBC News bulletins, documentaries, lifestyle programmes and interviews. It employs more correspondents and reporters and has more international bureaux than any other news channel and it is not owned by BBC Worldwide. It was launched on 11 March 1991, after two weeks of real-time pilots, initially as a half-hour bulletin once a day at 19,00 GMT. The programme editor was Johan John Ramsland from World Service Radio News with John Exelby from domestic BBC TV News as his managing editor, the original picture editing team consisted of Bob Scholes, Peter Hodge and Mike Casey. Monday,30 January 1995 at 19,00 GMT, 24-hour English cable lifestyle, variety and entertainment channel such, variety, culture, leisure, lifestyle, art, since 1995, the service has gone through several branding changes. From 1995 to 1997, the channel used relatively few graphics to display the name of the channel, as part of a major BBC corporate redesign the channel received its first main refresh on 9 November 1997, the day BBC News 24 was launched. Various fictional flags with some real ones were used, the idents were computer generated and developed by the Lambie-Nairn design agency. Another large relaunch for BBC World took place on 3 April 2000, on 8 December 2003 a second makeover, using the same drums and beeps style music but new graphics took place, although on a much smaller scale to that of 1999. The music was changed slightly while the colour scheme became black and red, with studios using frosted glass, white. Later in 2004, the slogan became Putting News First. The graphical refresh introduced in 2003 was refreshed in May 2006 with a more red output, on 22 January 2007 a new refresh was presented based on the previous graphics, a red coloured labels covering a red and black earthglobe along with the BBC World logo. The channels present name was introduced on 21 April 2008 as part of a £550,000 rebranding of the BBCs news output, BBC World News later moved to the renovated former studio of BBC News 24. New graphics were produced by the Lambie-Nairn design agency and music reworked by David Lowe, BBC World News relocated to Broadcasting House from its previous home at BBC Television Centre on 14 January 2013. This was part of the move of BBC News and other audio, Broadcasting House was refurbished at a cost of £1 billion with a new newsroom and several state-of-the-art news television studios being built. Live news output originates from studios B and C in Broadcasting House with some recorded programming from Broadcasting House studio A, the BBC World News newsroom is now part of the new consolidated BBC Newsroom in Broadcasting House along with BBC World Service and UK domestic News services. Previously, the channel was broadcast in 4,3, with the news output fitted into a 14,9 frame for both digital and analogue broadcasting, resulting in black bands at the top and bottom of the screen
31.
West End of London
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Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross. The West End covers much of the boroughs of Westminster and Camden, while the City of London, or the Square Mile, is the main business and financial district in London, the West End is the main commercial and entertainment centre of the city. It is one of the most expensive locations in the world in which to rent office space and it was also close to the royal seat of power at Westminster, and is largely contained within the City of Westminster. Developed in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, it was built as a series of palaces, expensive town houses, fashionable shops. The areas closest to the City around Holborn, Seven Dials, as the West End is a term used colloquially by Londoners and is not an official geographical or municipal definition, its exact constituent parts are up for debate. The Edgware Road to the north-west and the Victoria Embankment to the south-east were also covered by the document but were treated as adjacent areas to the West End. According to Ed Glinerts West End Chronicles the districts falling within the West End are Mayfair, Soho, Covent Garden, Fitzrovia, one of the local government wards within the City of Westminster is called West End. This covers a area that defined by Glinert, Mayfair, Soho. The population of this ward at the 2011 Census was 10,575, the New West End Company is a business improvement district and runs services including street cleaning and security on Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street. NWEC also runs the Red Caps service, the West End is laid out with many notable public squares and circuses, the latter being the original name for roundabouts in London. London West End Things to do General overview of what to do in the West End
32.
Digital television
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Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digitally processed and multiplexed signal, in contrast to the totally analog and channel separated signals used by analog television. Digital TV can support more than one program in the channel bandwidth. It is a service that represents the first significant evolution in television technology since color television in the 1950s. Several regions of the world are in different stages of adaptation and are implementing different broadcasting standards and this standard has been adopted in Europe, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Advanced Television System Committee uses eight-level vestigial sideband for terrestrial broadcasting and this standard has been adopted by six countries, United States, Canada, Mexico, South Korea, Dominican Republic and Honduras. Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting is a designed to provide good reception to fixed receivers. It utilizes OFDM and two-dimensional interleaving and it supports hierarchical transmission of up to three layers and uses MPEG-2 video and Advanced Audio Coding. This standard has adopted in Japan and the Philippines. ISDB-T International is an adaptation of this standard using H. 264/MPEG-4 AVC that been adopted in most of South America and is also being embraced by Portuguese-speaking African countries. Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting adopts time-domain synchronous OFDM technology with a signal frame to serve as the guard interval of the OFDM block. The DTMB standard has adopted in the Peoples Republic of China, including Hong Kong. Digital TVs roots have been tied very closely to the availability of inexpensive and it wasnt until the 1990s that digital TV became a real possibility. S. Until June 1990, the Japanese MUSE standard—based on an analog system—was the front-runner among the more than 23 different technical concepts under consideration, then, an American company, General Instrument, demonstrated the feasibility of a digital television signal. This breakthrough was of significance that the FCC was persuaded to delay its decision on an ATV standard until a digitally based standard could be developed. In March 1990, when it became clear that a standard was feasible. The new ATV standard also allowed the new DTV signal to be based on new design principles. Although incompatible with the existing NTSC standard, the new DTV standard would be able to incorporate many improvements, the final standard adopted by the FCC did not require a single standard for scanning formats, aspect ratios, or lines of resolution. This outcome resulted from a dispute between the electronics industry and the computer industry over which of the two scanning processes—interlaced or progressive—is superior
33.
Satellite
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In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an artificial object which has been intentionally placed into orbit. Such objects are called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as Earths Moon. In 1957 the Soviet Union launched the worlds first artificial satellite, since then, about 6,600 satellites from more than 40 countries have been launched. According to a 2013 estimate,3,600 remained in orbit, of those, about 1,000 were operational, the rest have lived out their useful lives and become space debris. Approximately 500 operational satellites are in orbit,50 are in medium-Earth orbit. A few large satellites have been launched in parts and assembled in orbit. Over a dozen space probes have been placed into orbit around other bodies and become artificial satellites to the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, a few asteroids, Satellites are used for many purposes. Common types include military and civilian Earth observation satellites, communications satellites, navigation satellites, weather satellites, Space stations and human spacecraft in orbit are also satellites. Satellite orbits vary greatly, depending on the purpose of the satellite, well-known classes include low Earth orbit, polar orbit, and geostationary orbit. A launch vehicle is a rocket that throws a satellite into orbit, usually it lifts off from a launch pad on land. Some are launched at sea from a submarine or a mobile maritime platform, Satellites are usually semi-independent computer-controlled systems. Satellite subsystems attend many tasks, such as power generation, thermal control, telemetry, attitude control, the first fictional depiction of a satellite being launched into orbit was a short story by Edward Everett Hale, The Brick Moon. The idea surfaced again in Jules Vernes The Begums Fortune, in 1903, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published Exploring Space Using Jet Propulsion Devices, which is the first academic treatise on the use of rocketry to launch spacecraft. He calculated the speed required for a minimal orbit. In 1928, Herman Potočnik published his book, The Problem of Space Travel — The Rocket Motor. He described the use of orbiting spacecraft for observation of the ground, in a 1945 Wireless World article, the English science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke described in detail the possible use of communications satellites for mass communications. He suggested that three geostationary satellites would provide coverage over the entire planet, the first artificial satellite was Sputnik 1, launched by the Soviet Union on October 4,1957, and initiating the Soviet Sputnik program, with Sergei Korolev as chief designer. This in turn triggered the Space Race between the Soviet Union and the United States, Sputnik 1 helped to identify the density of high atmospheric layers through measurement of its orbital change and provided data on radio-signal distribution in the ionosphere
34.
Digital terrestrial television
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Digital terrestrial television is a technological evolution of broadcast television and an advancement over analog television. A terrestrial implementation of digital television uses a aerial to broadcast to a conventional television antenna instead of a satellite dish or cable television connection. The amount of data that can be transmitted is directly affected by channel capacity, the modulation method in DVB-T is COFDM with either 64 or 16-state Quadrature Amplitude Modulation. In general, a 64QAM channel is capable of transmitting a bit rate. 16 and 64QAM constellations can be combined in a single multiplex, the DVB-T standard is not used for terrestrial digital television in North America. Instead, the ATSC standard calls for 8VSB modulation, which has similar characteristics to the vestigial sideband modulation used for analog television. This provides considerably more immunity to interference, but is not immune — as DVB-T is — to multipath distortion, both systems use the MPEG transport stream and H. 262/MPEG-2 Part 2 video codec specified in MPEG-2, they differ significantly in how related services are encoded. DTTV is received either via a digital set-top box, TV gateway or integrated tuner included with television sets, some set-top-boxes and TV gateways include digital video recorder functionality. This is quite common in the UK, see external links, indoor aerials are even more likely to be affected by these issues and possibly need replacing. Main articles, List of digital television deployments by country, Digital television transition Afghanistan started digital transmissions in MPEG-4 on Sunday,31 August 2014, Afghanistan adopted DVB-T2 system for digital television. India adopted DVB-T system for television in July 1999. The first DVB-T transmission was started on 26 January 2003 in the four metropolitan cities by Doordarshan. Currently the terrestrial transmission is available in digital and analog formats. 4 high power DVB-T transmitters were set up in the top 4 cities, an additional 190 high power, and 400 low power DVB-T2 transmitters have been approved for Tier I, II and III cities of the country by 2017. The Indian telecom regulator, TRAI, had recommended the I&B to allow private broadcast companies to use the DTT technology, so far, the Indian I&B ministry only permits private broadcast companies to use satellite, cable and IPTV based systems. Israel started digital transmissions in MPEG-4 on Sunday,2 August 2009, Israel was the first nation in the Middle East and the first non-European nation to shut down its analogue TV distribution system. The new service which is operated by the Second Authority for Radio, according to government decisions, the system will expand to include two additional multiplexes that will carry new channels and HD versions of the existing channels. In this matter nothing has been decided upon until the end on 2012, on 20 March 2013 it was announced that Thomson Broadcast had won a major contract with The Second Authority for Television and Radio for the extension of its nationwide DVB-T/DVB-T2 network
35.
ITV Digital
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ITV Digital was a British digital terrestrial television broadcaster which launched a pay-TV service on the worlds first digital terrestrial television network. Its main shareholders were Carlton Communications and Granada plc, two franchises of the ITV network, starting as ONdigital in 1998, the service was re-branded as ITV Digital in July 2001. Low audience figures and an ultimately unaffordable multimillion-pound deal with the Football League led to the broadcaster suffering massive losses and these forced it to enter administration in March 2002. The service ceased permanently in June 2002, with the terrestrial multiplexes subsequently taken over by Crown Castle, Digital terrestrial television began in the United Kingdom in 1998. Six multiplexes were set up, with three of them allocated to the existing analogue broadcasters, the other three multiplexes were auctioned off. A consortium of Carlton Television, Granada Television and British Sky Broadcasting won the auction as British Digital Broadcasting, the brand ONdigital was adopted for launch. With Sky originally part of the consortium, ONdigital would have paid discounted rates to carry Skys television channels, instead, with its positioning as a competitor, Sky charged the full market rates for the channels, at an extra cost of around £60million a year to ONdigital. In all ONdigital was given one year from the award of the licence to launch the first DTT service, in addition to launching audio and video services, they also led the specification of an industry-wide advanced interactive engine. This was a standard that was then used by all broadcasters on DTT. The new digital broadcaster was launched on 15 November 1998, with a lineup of 18 channels, including many developed in-house by Carlton, from the launch date, however, the service was quickly losing money. Aggressive marketing by BSkyB for its own service, Sky Digital. The new digital satellite service provided a dish, Digibox, installation and around 200 channels for £159, oNdigitals subscription pricing had been set to compare with the older Sky analogue service of 20 channels. ONdigitals growth slowed throughout 2000 and by the start of 2001 and these offers eventually became permanent, with the set-top box loaned to the customer at no charge for as long as they continued to subscribe to ONdigital. The offer was matched by Sky, oNdigitals churn rate, a measure of the number of subscribers leaving the service, reached 28% during 2001. While there was a return path provided via an in-built 2400 baud modem. Thousands of these packages were sold at well below retail price on auction sites such as the then-popular QXL. As the call to activate the viewing card did not require any bank details and this was later changed so a customer could not walk away with a box without ONdigital verifying their address. Many customers did not activate the viewing card at all, although where the address was known
36.
News Corporation
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The original News Corporation or News Corp. was an American multinational mass media corporation headquartered in New York City. It was the worlds fourth-largest media group in 2014 in terms of revenue, board members include prominent former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar. News Corporation was a traded company listed on the NASDAQ. Formerly incorporated in Adelaide, South Australia, the company was re-incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law after a majority of shareholders approved the move on 12 November 2004. News Corporation was headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York and its major holdings at the time of the split were News Limited, News International, Dow Jones & Company, the book publisher HarperCollins, and the Fox Entertainment Group. News Corp was created in 1979 by Rupert Murdoch as a company for News Limited. News Limited was created in 1923 in Adelaide, subsequently the controlling interest was bought by The Herald, in 1949, Sir Keith Murdoch took control of The Adelaide News. When he died in 1952, his son Rupert inherited a controlling interest in an Adelaide afternoon tabloid, News Limited operates today as News Corporations Australian brand, The Australian operating out of Surry Hills, in Sydney. News Ltd. made its first acquisition in the United States in 1973, soon afterwards it founded the National Star, a supermarket tabloid, and in 1976 it purchased the New York Post. In 1981, News Corp bought half of the movie studio 20th Century Fox, in 1985, News Corp announced it was buying the Metromedia group of stations, setting the stage for the launch of a fourth U. S. commercial broadcasting television network. On 4 September 1985, Murdoch became a citizen to satisfy the legal requirement that only United States citizens could own American television stations. In 1986, the Metromedia deal closed, and the Fox Broadcasting Company was launched and this network, known on-screen as Fox, can now be picked up in over 96% of U. S. households. In 1986 and 1987, News Corp moved to adjust the production process of its British newspapers, a number of senior Australian media moguls were brought into Murdochs powerhouse, including John Dux, who was managing director of the South China Morning Post. This led to a confrontation with the printing unions National Graphical Association and Society of Graphical, the move of News Internationals London operation to Wapping in the East End resulted in nightly battles outside the new plant. Delivery vans and depots were frequently and violently attacked, in 1993, News Corp acquired a 63. 6% stake of the Hong Kong-based STAR TV satellite network for over $500 million, followed by the purchase of the remaining 36. 4% in July 1995. Murdoch declared that, have proved a threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere. Satellite broadcasting makes it possible for residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels. In 1995, the Fox network became the object of scrutiny from the FCC when it was alleged that its Australian base made Murdochs ownership of Fox illegal, the FCC, however, ruled in Murdochs favour, stating that his ownership of Fox was in the publics best interests
37.
Television licence
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The licence is sometimes also required to own a radio or receive radio broadcasts. However, in cases the balance between public funding and advertisements is the opposite - the Polish TVP broadcaster receives more funds from advertisements than from its TV tax. The early days of broadcasting presented broadcasters with the problem of how to raise funding for their services, the licence was originally known as a wireless licence. Some countries also have different fees for users with colour or monochrome TV, many give discounts, or charge no fee, for elderly and/or disabled consumers. National public broadcasters in countries also carry supplemental advertising. In 1993, this treaty entered into force when it achieved 7 ratifications including 5 member states and it has since been acceded to by 34 countries, as of 2010. The Museum of Broadcast Communications in Chicago notes that two-thirds of the countries in Europe and half of the countries in Asia, TV licensing is rare in the Americas, largely being confined to French overseas departments and British Overseas Territories. In some countries, radio channels and broadcasters web sites are funded by a radio receiver licence, giving access to radio. The actual cost and implementation of the television licence varies greatly from country to country, the rest of this section looks at the licence fee in a number of countries around the world. The Albanian licence fee is 800 lekë per year, however, the licence fee makes up only a small part of public broadcaster RTShs funding. RTSh is mainly funded directly from the government through taxes, the remaining 42% comes from commercials, in accordance with the Austria RGG all broadcasting reception equipment in use or operational at a given location must be registered. The location of the equipment is taken to be places of residence or any other premises with a purpose of use. GIS employs some 191 people and approximately 125 freelancers in field service,3.4 million Austrian households are registered at GIS, percentage of licence dodgers in Austria amounts to 2. 5%. The main principle of GIS communication strategy is to instead of control. Annual fees from April 2012 are, The licence fee in Belgiums Walloon Region is €100.00 for a TV and €0.00 for a radio in a vehicle. Only one licence is needed for each household with a functional TV receiver regardless of the number, household radios do not require a licence. The money raised by the fee is used to fund Belgiums French, people with certain disabilities are exempt from paying the television licence fee. Hotels and similar lodging establishments must pay a fee of €50.00 for each additional functional TV receiver and are required to pay between January 1 and March 1 inclusive
38.
European Commission
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Commissioners swear an oath at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, pledging to respect the treaties and to be completely independent in carrying out their duties during their mandate. The Commission operates as a government, with 28 members of the Commission. There is one member per state, but members are bound by their oath of office to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state. One of the 28 is the Commission President proposed by the European Council, the current Commission is the Juncker Commission, which took office in late 2014. The procedural languages of the Commission are English, French and German, the Members of the Commission and their cabinets are based in the Berlaymont building in Brussels. The first Commission originated in 1951 as the nine-member High Authority under President Jean Monnet, the High Authority was the supranational administrative executive of the new European Coal and Steel Community. It took office first on 10 August 1952 in Luxembourg, in 1958 the Treaties of Rome had established two new communities alongside the ECSC, the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community. However their executives were called Commissions rather than High Authorities, the reason for the change in name was the new relationship between the executives and the Council. Some states such as France expressed reservations over the power of the High Authority, louis Armand led the first Commission of Euratom. Walter Hallstein led the first Commission of the EEC, holding the first formal meeting on 16 January 1958 at the Château of Val-Duchesse, Hallstein notably began the consolidation of European law and started to have a notable impact on national legislation. The three bodies, collectively named the European Executives, co-existed until 1 July 1967 when, under the Merger Treaty, the Rey Commission completed the Communitys customs union in 1968 and campaigned for a more powerful, elected, European Parliament. Despite Rey being the first President of the communities, Hallstein is seen as the first President of the modern Commission. The Malfatti and Mansholt Commissions followed with work on monetary co-operation, with that enlargement the Commissions membership increased to thirteen under the Ortoli Commission, which dealt with the enlarged community during economic and international instability at that time. Following the Jenkins Commission, Gaston Thorns Commission oversaw the Communitys enlargement to the south, the Commission headed by Jacques Delors was seen as giving the Community a sense of direction and dynamism. Delors and his team are considered as the founding fathers of the euro. The International Herald Tribune noted the work of Delors at the end of his term in 1992. He arrived when Europessimism was at its worst, although he was a little-known former French finance minister, he breathed life and hope into the EC and into the dispirited Brussels Commission. The successor to Delors was Jacques Santer, the entire Santer Commission was forced to resign in 1999 by the Parliament as result of a fraud and corruption scandal, with a central role played by Édith Cresson
39.
Board of Governors of the BBC
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The Board of Governors of the BBC was the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation. It consisted of people who together regulated the BBC and represented the interests of the public. It existed from 1927 until it was replaced by the BBC Trust on 1 January 2007, the governors were independent of the Director-General and the rest of the BBCs executive team. They had no say in programme-making, but were nevertheless accountable to Parliament. Although a state broadcaster, the BBC is theoretically protected from government interference due to the independence of its governing body. The Governors role was to appoint the Director-General and they approved strategy and policy, set objectives, oversaw complaints, and produced Annual Reports that documented the BBCs performance and compliance each year. The role of chairman of the Board of Governors, though a non executive, was one of the most important positions in British media, Governors were usually appointed from senior positions in various walks of British society. Appointments were part-time positions and lasted for four years, four governors were given specific responsibilities, for Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions. Governors were nominally appointed by the monarch on the advice of ministers, in practice, governors were chosen by the government of the day. This has led to claims of interference, in particular during the years of Margaret Thatchers premiership. The Thatcher government appointed a succession of governors with the apparent intent of bringing the BBC into line with government policy, BBC director general Mark Thompson said staff were “quite mystified” by the rise of Margaret Thatcher but that there was “less overt tribalism” among its journalists. In January 2004 Gavyn Davies, who had been appointed chairman of the Board of Governors by the Labour government in 2001, lord Ryder, previously a Conservative Member of Parliament and a member of Margaret Thatchers personal staff, replaced him as Acting Chairman. In May 2004, Michael Grade took over as permanent chairman and he was to be the last permanent chairman of the Board of Governors
40.
BBC News at One
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The BBC News at One is the afternoon news bulletin from the BBC. Produced by BBC News, the programme is broadcast on BBC One, the programme is usually presented by Sophie Raworth every Monday to Thursday and Kate Silverton or Reeta Chakrabarti on Friday. The BBC News at One achieved a reach of 2.7 million viewers per bulletin in 2007. Martyn Lewis, who had joined the BBC from rival ITN, was the presenter of the new One OClock News. At this time Anna Ford took over as the presenter of the bulletin. On 22 January 2007 the programme titles were relaunched, along with the rest of the BBC television output, on 4 February 2008, the programme temporarily moved studios, from N6 to N8, as part of restructuring across BBC News. On 21 April 2008 the programme underwent a refresh and returned to the refurbished N6 as well as changing its name to the BBC News at One. On 5 November 2010, during the National Union of Journalists strike action, former Sky News, further strike dates occurred on 15 July 2011 and 1 August 2011 plus on the 28 March 2013. Gavin Grey presented on these days in addition to BBC News Channel, on 18 March 2013, the programme moved to Broadcasting House, along with the BBC News channel and the other BBC One bulletins, and began broadcasting in high-definition. The programme was the first to be broadcast from the new studio, the national regional updates however have been increased in length but certain and finally items are often missed by viewers in these national regions. However, in June 2015, the returned to 30 minutes following the election. In addition, Huw Edwards often presents in the events of major stories, presenters below are occasional or relief presenters unless indicated otherwise. The BBC News at One has been shown on the BBC News channel since April 2006, significant differences can be seen between the two halves of the programme, as the second half is presented by the Duty News Channel presenter. During the headlines and coming up section, BBC One viewers see a preview of the stories to come from their region, between 12,45 and 13,30 BBC News has a service providing in-vision British Sign Language for those viewers with hearing difficulties. ITV Lunchtime News BBC News at BBC Online BBC News at One at BBC Programmes
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