The National Broadcasting Company is an American English-language commercial terrestrial radio and television network, a flagship property of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. The network is headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City, with additional major offices near Los Angeles and Philadelphia; the network is one of the Big Three television networks. NBC is sometimes referred to as the "Peacock Network", in reference to its stylized peacock logo, introduced in 1956 to promote the company's innovations in early color broadcasting, it became the network's official emblem in 1979. Founded in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America, NBC is the oldest major broadcast network in the United States. At that time the parent company of RCA was General Electric. In 1932, GE was forced to sell NBC as a result of antitrust charges. In 1986, control of NBC passed back to General Electric through its $6.4 billion purchase of RCA. GE began to liquidate RCA's various divisions, but retained NBC.

Following the acquisition by GE, Bob Wright served as chief executive officer of NBC, remaining in that position until his retirement in 2007, when he was succeeded by Jeff Zucker. In 2003, French media company Vivendi merged its entertainment assets with GE, forming NBC Universal. Comcast purchased a controlling interest in the company in 2011, acquired General Electric's remaining stake in 2013. Following the Comcast merger, Zucker left NBCUniversal and was replaced as CEO by Comcast executive Steve Burke. NBC has thirteen owned-and-operated stations and nearly 200 affiliates throughout the United States and its territories, some of which are available in Canada and/or Mexico via pay-television providers or in border areas over-the-air. During a period of early broadcast business consolidation, radio manufacturer Radio Corporation of America acquired New York City radio station WEAF from American Telephone & Telegraph. Westinghouse, a shareholder in RCA, had a competing outlet in Newark, New Jersey pioneer station WJZ, which served as the flagship for a loosely structured network.

This station was transferred from Westinghouse to RCA in 1923, moved to New York City. WEAF acted as a laboratory for AT&T's manufacturing and supply outlet Western Electric, whose products included transmitters and antennas; the Bell System, AT&T's telephone utility, was developing technologies to transmit voice- and music-grade audio over short and long distances, using both wireless and wired methods. The 1922 creation of WEAF offered a research-and-development center for those activities. WEAF maintained a regular schedule of radio programs, including some of the first commercially sponsored programs, was an immediate success. In an early example of "chain" or "networking" broadcasting, the station linked with Outlet Company-owned WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island. C. WCAP. New parent RCA saw an advantage in sharing programming, after getting a license for radio station WRC in Washington, D. C. in 1923, attempted to transmit audio between cities via low-quality telegraph lines. AT&T refused outside companies access to its high-quality phone lines.

The early effort fared poorly, since the uninsulated telegraph lines were susceptible to atmospheric and other electrical interference. In 1925, AT&T decided that WEAF and its embryonic network were incompatible with the company's primary goal of providing a telephone service. AT&T offered to sell the station to RCA in a deal that included the right to lease AT&T's phone lines for network transmission. RCA spent $1 million to purchase WEAF and Washington sister station WCAP, shut down the latter station, merged its facilities with surviving station WRC; the division's ownership was split among RCA, its founding corporate parent General Electric and Westinghouse. NBC started broadcasting on November 15, 1926. WEAF and WJZ, the flagships of the two earlier networks, were operated side-by-side for about a year as part of the new NBC. On January 1, 1927, NBC formally divided their respective marketing strategies: the "Red Network" offered commercially sponsored entertainment and music programming.

Various histories of NBC suggest the color designations for the two networks came from the color of the pushpins NBC engineers used to designate affiliate stations of WEAF and WJZ, or from the use of double-ended red and blue colored pencils. On April 5, 1927, NBC expanded to the West Coast with the launch of the NBC Orange Network known as the Pacific Coast Network; this was followed by the debut of the NBC Gold Network known as the Pacific Gold Network, on October 18, 1931. The Orange Network carried Red Network programming, the Gold Network carried programming from the Blue Network; the Orange Network recreated Eastern Red Network programming for West Coast stations at KPO in San Francisco. In 1936, the Orange Network affiliate stations became part of the Red Network, at the same time, the Gold Network became part of the Blue Network. In the 1930s, NBC developed a network for shortwave radio stations, called the NBC White Network. In 1927, NBC moved its operations to 711 Fifth Avenue in Manhatta

The Sovereign Grant Act 2011 is the Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which introduced the Sovereign Grant, the payment, paid annually to the monarch by the government in order to fund the monarch's official duties. It was the biggest reform to the finances of the British Royal Family since the inception of the Civil List in 1760. In 1760, King George III agreed with Parliament that he was no longer to govern in person, therefore was no longer entitled to income from the Crown Estate, which for 700 years had always been used for the administration of the state. Parliament passed the Civil List Act 1760; the resulting system required the annual state expenditure on the monarchy to be decided by the Treasury and presented to House of Commons. Prior to abolition, the Civil List was fixed at £7.9 million annually for the decade 2001–2010, the same amount as in 1991, with the reserve being consumed over the decade. In 2011 the Civil List was raised to £13.7 million. There were four funding sources: The Civil List paid by the Exchequer The Grant-in-Aid for Royal Travel paid by the Department for Transport The Grant-in-Aid for Communications and Information paid by the Department for Culture and Sport The Grant-in-Aid for the Maintenance of the Royal Palaces paid by the Department for Culture and Sport The Act came into force on 1 April 2012, the start of the financial year, changed the arrangements for the funding of the Queen’s official duties.

The Act consolidated all four funding sources into a single payment, called the Sovereign Grant. The current system is intended to be a more permanent arrangement than the previous one, reign-specific; the Sovereign Grant is paid annually by H. M. Treasury at a value indexed as a percentage of the revenues from the Crown Estate and other revenues in the financial year two years earlier, it is based on an index percentage, set at 15% and this is reviewed every five years by the Royal Trustees. Any unspent Sovereign Grant is put into a reserve fund; the level of the Sovereign Grant is protected by law from decreasing as a result of falling Crown Estate revenues. In addition, the legislation requires that the Sovereign Grant shall not rise to such a level that the Reserve Fund becomes more than half the level of annual expenditure. Annual financial accounts are published by the Keeper of the Privy Purse and audited by the National Audit Office, making the Sovereign Grant more accountable than its predecessor.

Funding to the Royal Household is treated to funding for other government departments, unlike previous Civil List payments. Since its inception, the Sovereign Grant has been rising each year at a rate higher than the rate of inflation. About a third of the grant is used to tackle the backlog in property maintenance at the Royal Palaces. Following the 2016 review of the percentage of the Crown Estate income used to calculate the grant, it was announced that a temporary increase in the Sovereign Grant would be used to fund a £369 million refurbishment of Buckingham Palace, subject to parliamentary approval; the trustees recommended that the percentage should rise to 25% for the 10 years during which the work would take place, that the grant should be returned to 15% when building work is finished in 2027. This was expected to result in a 66% rise in the grant in 2017–18; the increase in the grant to 25% was approved by Parliament in March 2017. The Queen and the Prince of Wales receive private income through the Duchy of Lancaster and Duchy of Cornwall.

The Sovereign Grant only accounts for a small part of the total cost of running the monarchy, £300 million annually. The Sovereign Grant does not cover the costs of police and military security and of armed services ceremonial duties. Nor does it cover the costs of royal ceremonies or local government costs for royal visits

Admiral Sir Harry Burrard-Neale, 2nd Baronet was a British officer of the Royal Navy, Member of Parliament for Lymington. He was the son of William Burrard, the governor of Yarmouth Castle on the Isle of Wight, nephew of Sir Harry Burrard, 1st Baronet, of Walhampton, whom he succeeded in 1791. In 1795, he adopted the additional name of Neale on his marriage to Grace, daughter of Robert Neale of Shaw House, Wiltshire, he was succeeded by his brother George. Educated at Christchurch Grammar School, Burrard joined the Royal Navy in 1778, he was present at the Siege of Charleston in 1780. Burrard distinguished himself during the Mutiny at the Nore in 1797, he was one of the Lords of the Admiralty between 1804 and 1807, was promoted to rear-admiral on 31 July 1810. He was engaged at the Action of 13 March 1806 in HMS London, he was invested as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on 2 January 1815, advanced to a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath on 14 September 1822. He became Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet in 1823, which led to his appointment as a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George the following year.

In the summer of 1809 he was called as a witness at the Court-martial of James, Lord Gambier which assessed whether Admiral Lord Gambier had failed to support Captain Lord Cochrane at the Battle of Basque Roads in April 1809. Gambier was controversially cleared of all charges, he was Member of Parliament for Lymington between 1790 and 1802, 1806 to 1807, 1812 to 1823 and 1832 to 1835. He was a Groom of the Bedchamber to King George III from 1801 to 1812, continuing afterwards at Windsor from 1812 to 1820 during the Regency, he died at age 74 and was buried in Lymington Church, Hampshire, England. Burrard Inlet was named in his honour by Captain George Vancouver in June 1792, during his expedition of exploration in the Pacific Northwest. During the development of the city of Vancouver, a major north-south thoroughfare, Burrard Street, was named for the inlet, which subsequently gave its name to Burrard Bridge, one of the three major bridges that connect downtown Vancouver to its suburbs to the south.

The inlet and street have inspired many other building and institution names in the Vancouver area, so although Harry Burrard never visited British Columbia his name is found in that area. George Edward Cokayne, The Complete Baronetage, 5 volumes, volume V, page 148. Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Sir Harry Burrard-Neale Burrard-Neale 250 Project