1.
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
2.
London
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London /ˈlʌndən/ is the capital and most populous city of England and the United Kingdom. Standing on the River Thames in the south east of the island of Great Britain and it was founded by the Romans, who named it Londinium. Londons ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its 1. 12-square-mile medieval boundaries. London is a global city in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism. It is crowned as the worlds largest financial centre and has the fifth- or sixth-largest metropolitan area GDP in the world, London is a world cultural capital. It is the worlds most-visited city as measured by international arrivals and has the worlds largest city airport system measured by passenger traffic, London is the worlds leading investment destination, hosting more international retailers and ultra high-net-worth individuals than any other city. Londons universities form the largest concentration of education institutes in Europe. In 2012, London became the first city to have hosted the modern Summer Olympic Games three times, London has a diverse range of people and cultures, and more than 300 languages are spoken in the region. Its estimated mid-2015 municipal population was 8,673,713, the largest of any city in the European Union, Londons urban area is the second most populous in the EU, after Paris, with 9,787,426 inhabitants at the 2011 census. The citys metropolitan area is the most populous in the EU with 13,879,757 inhabitants, the city-region therefore has a similar land area and population to that of the New York metropolitan area. London was the worlds most populous city from around 1831 to 1925, Other famous landmarks include Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Piccadilly Circus, St Pauls Cathedral, Tower Bridge, Trafalgar Square, and The Shard. The London Underground is the oldest underground railway network in the world, the etymology of London is uncertain. It is an ancient name, found in sources from the 2nd century and it is recorded c.121 as Londinium, which points to Romano-British origin, and hand-written Roman tablets recovered in the city originating from AD 65/70-80 include the word Londinio. The earliest attempted explanation, now disregarded, is attributed to Geoffrey of Monmouth in Historia Regum Britanniae and this had it that the name originated from a supposed King Lud, who had allegedly taken over the city and named it Kaerlud. From 1898, it was accepted that the name was of Celtic origin and meant place belonging to a man called *Londinos. The ultimate difficulty lies in reconciling the Latin form Londinium with the modern Welsh Llundain, which should demand a form *lōndinion, from earlier *loundiniom. The possibility cannot be ruled out that the Welsh name was borrowed back in from English at a later date, and thus cannot be used as a basis from which to reconstruct the original name. Until 1889, the name London officially applied only to the City of London, two recent discoveries indicate probable very early settlements near the Thames in the London area
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.
BBC Home Service
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The BBC Home Service was a British national radio station that broadcast from 1939 until 1967, when it became the current BBC Radio 4. Between the 1920s and the outbreak of the Second World War, as well as a basic service programmed from London, the Regional Programme included programming originating in six regions. On 1 September 1939, the BBC merged the two programmes into one service from London. The reasons given included the need to prevent enemy aircraft from using differentiated output from the Regional Programmes transmitters as navigational beacons. To this end, the regional transmitters were synchronised in chains on two frequencies,668 and 767 kHz, with an additional chain of low-powered transmitters on 1474 kHz appearing later. The new service was named the Home Service, which was also the designation at the BBC for domestic radio broadcasting. On 29 July 1945, the BBC resumed its previous structure, though true regional radio stations would not return till the 1970s. The Home Service had seven regions, London and South East England was served by the basic Home Service, which was not considered a region by the BBC and acted as the sustaining service for the other regions. The Northern Ireland service was separated from the North region on 7 January 1963, the Service provided five national news programmes a day from London, and drama, talks and informational programmes. Non-topical talk programmes and heavier drama output were transferred to the BBC Third Programme when it began broadcasting on 29 September 1946, during the day, the Service included programmes of classical music. They disappeared when the Music Programme began regular 0700–1830 broadcasting daily on 22 March 1965, the Service broadcast educational programmes for schools during the day, backed with booklets and support material. On 30 September 1967, the BBC split the Light Programme into a pop music service, the Light Programme became BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 2. The BBC Third Programme became BBC Radio 3, with the Music Programme losing its separate identity, the Home Service was renamed BBC Radio 4. With the introduction of BBC Local Radio, starting with BBC Radio Leicester on 8 November 1967, the BBC produced a report, Broadcasting in the Seventies, on 10 July 1969, proposing the reorganisation of programmes on the national networks and the end of regional broadcasting. During the 1970s Radio 4 FM in the East of England carried a breakfast magazine programme, Roundabout East Anglia, the service closed in advance of the opening of BBC Radio Norfolk in 1980. Radio 4 FM continued to carry four daily five-minute regional news bulletins on Mondays to Saturdays until the early 1980s, the wide coverage of the Holme Moss transmitter meant that listeners in much of Northern England received combined North and North-West news. BBC Radio Timeline of the BBC Stations of the BBC BBC English Regions Radio drama BBC Year Book 1947, London, BBC Year Book 1948, London, British Broadcasting Corporation,1948. BBC Handbook 1967, London, British Broadcasting Corporation,1967, BBC Handbook 1972, London, British Broadcasting Corporation,1972
5.
BBC Radio 3
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BBC Radio 3 is a British radio network operated by the BBC. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture, the station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and through its New Generation Artists scheme promotes young musicians of all nationalities. The station is notable for its broadcast of the BBC Proms concerts, live and in full, each summer in addition to performances by the BBC Orchestras, there are regular productions of both classic plays and newly commissioned drama. Radio 3 won the Sony Radio Academy UK Station of the Year Gold Award for 2009 and was nominated again in 2011, Radio 3 is the successor station to the BBC Third Programme which began broadcasting on 29 September 1946. The name Radio 3 was adopted on 30 September 1967 when the BBC launched its first pop station, Radio 1 and rebranded its national radio channels as Radio 1, Radio 2, Radio 3. On 10 July 1969 the BBC published its plans for radio, at the time of the review, Radio 3 faced several problems. However Day-time serious music would be the casualty of these proposals, a further rumour was expressed that Radio 3 could be closed altogether as a strong statistical case existed against the station according to The Guardian. However, the Director-General, Charles Curran, publicly denied this as quite contradictory to the aim of the BBC, which is to provide a comprehensive radio service. As a result of Broadcasting in the Seventies, factual content, including documentaries and current affairs, were moved to BBC Radio 4 and the separate titled strands were abolished. The document stated that Radio 3 was to have an output of standard classical music but with some element in the evening of cultural speech programmes – poetry. Equally, questions were being asked by the poet Peter Porter about whether other spoken content, for example poetry, the Broadcasting in the Seventies report also proposed a large cutback in the number and size of the BBCs orchestras. The campaign objected to the dismantling of the Third Programme by cutting down its spoken word content from fourteen hours a week to six, mention of the campaign even reached debate in the House of Commons. From the launch until 1987, the controllers of Radio 3 showed preferences towards speech and arts programming as opposed to focus on classical music and the Proms. The first controller, Newby, made little contribution to the station, focusing on the transition from the Third programme to Radio 3, the second controller, Stephen Hearst who assumed the role in 1972, was different. As Hearst had previously been head of television arts features his appointment was seen with scepticism among the staff who viewed him as a populariser. However, during this time the long running arts discussion programme Critics’ Forum was launched as well as themed evenings, in 1978, Ian McIntyre took over as controller of Radio 3 but quickly faced uncomfortable relationships between departments. An example of this is the replacement of Homeward Bound in 1980 with an extended, senior management was also getting dissatisfied with listening figures leading to the Director-General Alasdair Milne to suggest that presentation style was too stodgy and old-fashioned. In 1987 the positions of Controller of Music and Controller of Radio 3 were merged, Drummond, like Hearst, believed that the music programmes presentation was too stiff and formal and he therefore encouraged announcers to be more natural and enthusiastic
6.
Academy
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Academy is a type of secondary or tertiary education institutions. The word comes from the Academy in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, outside the city walls of Athens, the gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive grove, in these gardens, the philosopher Plato conversed with followers. Plato developed his sessions into a method of teaching philosophy and in 387 BC, by extension academia has come to mean the cultural accumulation of knowledge, its development and transmission across generations and its practitioners and transmitters. In the 17th century, British, Italian and French scholars used the term to describe types of institutions of higher learning, in ancient Greece, after the establishment of the original Academy, Platos colleagues and pupils developed spin-offs of his method. Arcesilaus, a Greek student of Plato established the Middle Academy, carneades, another student, established the New Academy. In 335 BC, Aristotle refined the method with his own theories, the library of Alexandria in Egypt was frequented by intellectuals from Africa, Europe and Asia studying various aspects of philosophy, language and mathematics. The University of Timbuktu was a university in Timbuktu, present-day Mali. During its zenith, the university had an attendance of around 25,000 students within a city of around 100,000 people. In China a higher education institution Shang Xiang was founded by Shun in the Youyu era before the 21st century BC, in the 8th century another kind of institution of learning emerged, named Shuyuan, which were generally privately owned. There were thousands of Shuyuan recorded in ancient times, the degrees from them varied from one to another and those advanced Shuyuan such as Bailudong Shuyuan and Yuelu Shuyuan can be classified as higher institutions of learning. Taxila or Takshashila, in ancient India, modern-day Pakistan, was an early Buddhist centre of learning and it is considered as one of the ancient universities of the world. According to scattered references which were only fixed a millennium later it may have dated back to at least the 5th century BC, some scholars date Takshashilas existence back to the 6th century BC. The school consisted of several monasteries without large dormitories or lecture halls where the instruction was most likely still provided on an individualistic basis. Takshashila is described in detail in later Jātaka tales, written in Sri Lanka around the 5th century AD. It became a centre of learning at least several centuries BC. Takshashila is perhaps best known because of its association with Chanakya, the famous treatise Arthashastra by Chanakya, is said to have been composed in Takshashila itself. Chanakya, the Maurya Emperor Chandragupta and the Ayurvedic healer Charaka studied at Taxila, generally, a student entered Takshashila at the age of sixteen
7.
John Reith, 1st Baron Reith
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His concept of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses marked for a long time the BBC and similar organisations around the world. Born at Stonehaven, Aberdeenshire, Reith was the youngest, by ten years, of the seven children of the Reverend Dr George Reith and he was to carry strict Presbyterian religious convictions forward into his adult life. Reith was educated at The Glasgow Academy then at Greshams School, Holt and his father refused to support any further education and apprenticed him as an engineer at the North British Locomotive Company. Reith was also a soldier in the 1st Lancashire Rifle Volunteers. In 1914, Reith left Glasgow for London, though he readily found work at the Royal Albert Dock, his commission in the 5th Scottish Rifles sent him serving in World War I. He was struck in the cheek by a bullet in October 1915, at time he was a Lieutenant. He spent the two years in the United States, supervising armament contracts, and became attracted to the country. He was promoted to Captain in 1917, before being transferred to the Royal Marine Engineers in 1918 as a Major and he returned to the Royal Engineers as a Captain in 1919. Reith resigned his Territorial Army commission in 1921, the end of the war found Reith returning to Glasgow as general manager of an engineering firm. In 1922, he returned to London, where he started working as secretary to the London Conservative group of MPs in the United Kingdom general election,1922 and that elections results were the first to be broadcast on the radio. Reith had no broadcasting experience when he replied to an advertisement in The Morning Post for a manager for an as-yet unformed British Broadcasting Company in 1922. He later admitted that he felt he possessed the necessary to manage any company. In 1926, Reith famously came into conflict with the Government during the 1926 United Kingdom general strike, the BBC bulletins reported, without comment, all sides in the dispute, including the TUCs and of union leaders. He even turned down a direct request from the Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald who wanted to deliver a talk, MacDonald complained that the BBC was biased and was misleading the public while other Labour Party figures were just as critical. Philip Snowden, the former Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer, was one of those who wrote to the Radio Times to complain, Reiths reply also appeared in the Radio Times, admitting the BBC had not had complete liberty to do as it wanted. He recognised that at a time of emergency the government was never going to give the complete independence. The Labour leadership was not the only high-profile body denied a chance to comment on the strike. Davidson telephoned Reith about his idea on 7 May, saying he had spoken to the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who had said he would not stop the broadcast, but would prefer it not to happen
