Angus Deayton
Gordon Angus Deayton is an English actor, musician and broadcaster. He was the original presenter of the satirical panel game Have I Got News for You, a job from which he was dismissed in October 2002 after a second round of tabloid allegations about his personal life, he was the host of British panel show Would I Lie To You? from 2007–2008. He played Victor Meldrew's long-suffering neighbour Patrick Trench in the comedy series One Foot in the Grave, George Windsor in the final three series of Waterloo Road; the youngest of three sons of a Prudential plc insurance broker/manager and a home economics school teacher, Deayton was brought up in Banstead and attended Oakhyrst Grange School and Caterham School. He showed early promise as a footballer, had a trial with Crystal Palace, he was captain of the Caterham U16 Rugby team. Deayton read languages at New College, where he was recruited into the Oxford Revue, performing with them at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe; this led to the creation of the parody band the Hee Bee Gee Bees in 1980, with the songs written by Richard Curtis and Philip Pope.
Their best-selling single "Meaningless Songs" was a parody of the falsetto style of disco hits by the Bee Gees. Deayton began his career on Radio Active, a parody of British local radio stations broadcast on BBC Radio 4 between 1981 and 1987, which he co-wrote and performed, it transferred to television as KYTV between 1989 and 1993. Deayton presented a tribute to Radio Active and KYTV colleague and friend Geoffrey Perkins for BBC Radio 4 on 4 October 2008. Deayton was a straight man alongside Rowan Atkinson, he starred with Atkinson as a pool attendant and a man on a park bench in the Mr. Bean episode "The Curse of Mr. Bean" and appeared opposite Atkinson in the Black Adder episode "Born to Be King" as one of the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem. From 1988–91, Deayton was a featured player in all three series of the Emmy award-winning sketch comedy programme Alexei Sayle's Stuff. In 1990, Deayton was cast as the Meldrews' neighbour Patrick Trench in the British suburban sitcom One Foot in the Grave and was selected as host of Have I Got News for You.
The same year, he featured on television advertising the Vauxhall Nova. Andre Ptaszynski tried to persuade him to take the lead role in Steven Moffat's sitcom Chalk, a role taken by David Bamber. Deayton's suave manner as host of Have I Got News for You led to his being nicknamed "TV's Mr Sex", by a Time Out listings writer, he was much in demand as a presenter of television specials including the BBC's New Year's Eve show and the BAFTA Awards. He featured in a series of advertisements for Barclaycard and the films Savage Hearts and Elizabeth. In an episode of Coupling, he appears in a fantasy sequence with Mariella Frostrup. In addition, he hosted the late-1990s BBC show Before They Were Famous, which showed early and embarrassing clips of TV and film stars when they were unknown. In May 2002, the News of the World had sex with prostitutes, he was ridiculed by Paul Merton and Ian Hislop in the following episode of Have I Got News For You but continued as presenter. Deayton began the episode with: "Good evening and welcome to Have I Got News For You, where this week's loser is presenting it."
He added "For those watching at home, don't adjust your sets, my face is this red." After more allegations in October, Deayton was sacked two episodes into the new series after Merton and Hislop implied during the programme that Deayton should resign. After Have I Got News for You, his work included a reunion of the Radio Active cast in a new episode in December 2002. In 2003, he guest-starred as Downing Street's spin doctor in an episode of the BBC comedy Absolute Power, starring Stephen Fry and John Bird. In January 2004, he starred in the BBC comedy Nighty Night. Deayton had a cameo role as a hotel receptionist in the 2004 Fat Slags film. A few months he presented the quiz Bognor or Bust. In January 2006, he hosted an ITV show based upon self-help videos called Help Your Self. Deayton is featured in its broadcasts, he co-presented the Sport Relief charity programme Only Fools on Horses in July 2006. Deayton appeared for the England team as a second-half substitute in the Soccer Aid match in support of UNICEF on 27 May 2006.
He returned as a starting player for England in 7 September 2008 rematch. In 2007, he was in Casualty, playing an exaggerated version of himself in a Comic Relief-related story. In June 2007, Deayton returned to the BBC to host panel show, Would I Lie to You?. In November 2007, he was censured by the BBC for making a "pungently personal" joke about Jimmy Savile and his mother on the show. Deayton was replaced by Rob Brydon. On 3 September 2007, Deayton hosted the third series of Hell's Kitchen, but was sacked in 2009 after arguments with chef Marco Pierre White and was replaced by Claudia Winkleman. In 2008, Deayton presented Comedy Sketchbook, a nostalgic look at classic comedy sketches, on BBC1. On 6 December 2008, he presented the 2008 British Comedy Awards, after host Jonathan Ross stepped down because of controversy surrounding The Russell Brand Show prank telephone calls row, his feature film appearances include the mysterious, all-knowing man in That Deadwood Feeling, Swinging with the Finkels, Playing the Moldovans at Tennis.
He returned to BBC Radio 4 in 2011 to host the panel show It's You
The Independent
The Independent is a British online newspaper. Established in 1986 as a politically independent national morning newspaper published in London, it was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev in 2010; the last printed edition of The Independent was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only its digital editions. Nicknamed the Indy, it began as a broadsheet, but changed to tabloid format in 2003; until September 2011, the paper described itself on the banner at the top of every newspaper as "free from party political bias, free from proprietorial influence". It tends to take a pro-market stance on economic issues; the daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. In June 2015, it had an average daily circulation of just below 58,000, 85 per cent down from its 1990 peak, while the Sunday edition had a circulation of just over 97,000. Launched in 1986, the first issue of The Independent was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.
It was produced by Newspaper Publishing plc and created by Andreas Whittam Smith, Stephen Glover and Matthew Symonds. All three partners were former journalists at The Daily Telegraph who had left the paper towards the end of Lord Hartwell's ownership. Marcus Sieff was the first chairman of Newspaper Publishing, Whittam Smith took control of the paper; the paper was created at a time of a fundamental change in British newspaper publishing. Rupert Murdoch was challenging long-accepted practices of the print unions and defeated them in the Wapping dispute. Production costs could be reduced which, it was said at the time, created openings for more competition; as a result of controversy around Murdoch's move to Wapping, the plant was having to function under siege from sacked print workers picketing outside. The Independent attracted some of the staff from the two Murdoch broadsheets who had chosen not to move to his company's new headquarters. Launched with the advertising slogan "It is. Are you?", challenging both The Guardian for centre-left readers and The Times as the newspaper of record, The Independent reached a circulation of over 400,000 by 1989.
Competing in a moribund market, The Independent sparked a general freshening of newspaper design as well as, within a few years, a price war in the market sector. When The Independent launched The Independent on Sunday in 1990, sales were less than anticipated due to the launch of the Sunday Correspondent four months prior, although this direct rival closed at the end of November 1990; some aspects of production merged with the main paper, although the Sunday paper retained a distinct editorial staff. In the 1990s, The Independent was faced with price cutting by the Murdoch titles, started an advertising campaign accusing The Times and The Daily Telegraph of reflecting the views of their proprietors, Rupert Murdoch and Conrad Black, it featured spoofs of the other papers' mastheads with the words The Rupert Murdoch or The Conrad Black, with The Independent below the main title. Newspaper Publishing had financial problems. A number of other media companies were interested in the paper. Tony O'Reilly's media group and Mirror Group Newspapers had bought a stake of about a third each by mid-1994.
In March 1995, Newspaper Publishing was restructured with a rights issue, splitting the shareholding into O'Reilly's Independent News & Media, MGN, Prisa. In April 1996, there was another refinancing, in March 1998, O'Reilly bought the other shares of the company for £30 million, assumed the company's debt. Brendan Hopkins headed Independent News, Andrew Marr was appointed editor of The Independent, Rosie Boycott became editor of The Independent on Sunday. Marr introduced a dramatic if short-lived redesign which won critical favour but was a commercial failure as a result of a limited promotional budget. Marr admitted his changes had been a mistake in My Trade. Boycott left in April 1998 to join the Daily Express, Marr left in May 1998 becoming the BBC's political editor. Simon Kelner was appointed as the editor. By this time the circulation had fallen below 200,000. Independent News spent to increase circulation, the paper went through several redesigns. While circulation increased, it did not approach the level, achieved in 1989, or restore profitability.
Job cuts and financial controls reduced the quality of the product. Ivan Fallon, on the board since 1995 and a key figure at The Sunday Times, replaced Hopkins as head of Independent News & Media in July 2002. By mid-2004, the newspaper was losing £5 million per year. A gradual improvement meant. In November 2008, following further staff cuts, production was moved to Northcliffe House, in Kensington High Street, the headquarters of Associated Newspapers; the two newspaper groups' editorial and commercial operations remained separate, but they shared services including security, information technology and payroll. On 25 March 2010, Independent News & Media sold the newspaper to Russian oligarch Alexander Lebedev for a nominal £1 fee and £9.25m over the next 10 months, choosing this option over closing The Independent and The Independent on Sunday, which would have cost £28m and £40m due to long-term contracts. In 2009, Lebedev had bought a controlling stake in the London Evening Standard. Two weeks editor Roger Alton resigned.
In July 2011, The Independent's columnist Johann Hari was stripped of the Orwell Prize he had won in 2008 after claims, to which Hari admitted, of plagiarism and inaccuracy. In January 2012, Chris Blackhurst
LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a business and employment-oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, launched on May 5, 2003, it is used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs; as of 2015, most of the company's revenue came from selling access to information about its members to recruiters and sales professionals. As of March 2019, LinkedIn had 610 million registered members in 200 countries. LinkedIn allows members to create profiles and "connections" to each other in an online social network which may represent real-world professional relationships. Members can invite anyone to become a connection. Since December 2016 it has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Microsoft. LinkedIn participated in the EU's International Safe Harbor Privacy Principles. LinkedIn is headquartered in Sunnyvale, with offices in Omaha, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Washington, D. C. São Paulo, Dublin, Milan, Munich, Stockholm, Hong Kong, Japan, Canada and Dubai.
In January 2016, the company had around 9,200 employees. LinkedIn's CEO is Jeff Weiner a Yahoo! Inc. executive. Founder Reid Hoffman CEO of LinkedIn, is Chairman of the Board, it is funded by Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners and the European Founders Fund. LinkedIn reached profitability in March 2006. Through January 2011, the company had received a total of $103 million of investment; the site has an Alexa Internet ranking as the 28th most popular website. According to the New York Times, US high school students are now creating LinkedIn profiles to include with their college applications. Based in the United States, the site is, as of 2013, available in 24 languages, including Arabic, English, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Indonesian and Tagalog. LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011 and traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, under the NYSE symbol "LNKD"; the company was founded in December 2002 by Reid Hoffman and founding team members from PayPal and Socialnet.com.
In late 2003, Sequoia Capital led the Series A investment in the company. In August 2004, LinkedIn reached 1 million users. In March 2006, LinkedIn achieved its first month of profitability. In April 2007, LinkedIn reached 10 million users. In February 2008, LinkedIn launched a mobile version of the site. In June 2008, Sequoia Capital, Greylock Partners, other venture capital firms purchased a 5% stake in the company for $53 million, giving the company a post-money valuation of $1 billion. In November 2009, LinkedIn opened its office in Mumbai and soon thereafter in Sydney, as it started its Asia-Pacific team expansion. In 2010, LinkedIn opened an International Headquarters in Dublin, received a $20 million investment from Tiger Global Management LLC at a valuation of $2 billion, announced its first acquisition and improved its 1% premium subscription ratio. In October of that year, Silicon Valley Insider ranked the company No. 10 on its Top 100 List of most valuable start ups. By December, the company was valued at $1.575 billion in private markets.
LinkedIn filed for an initial public offering in January 2011. The company traded its first shares on May 19, 2011, at $45 per share. Shares of LinkedIn rose as much as 171% on their first day of trade on the New York Stock Exchange and closed at $94.25, more than 109% above IPO price. Shortly after the IPO, the site's underlying infrastructure was revised to allow accelerated revision-release cycles. In 2011, LinkedIn earned $154.6 million in advertising revenue alone, surpassing Twitter, which earned $139.5 million. LinkedIn's fourth-quarter 2011 earnings soared because of the company's increase in success in the social media world. By this point, LinkedIn had about 2,100 full-time employees compared to the 500 that it had in 2010. In April 2014, LinkedIn announced that it had leased 222 Second Street, a 26-story building under construction in San Francisco's SoMa district, to accommodate up to 2,500 of its employees, with the lease covering 10 years; the goal was to join all San Francisco-based staff in one building, bringing sales and marketing employees together with the research and development team.
They started to move in in March 2016. In February 2016, following an earnings report, LinkedIn's shares dropped 43.6% within a single day, down to $108.38 per share. LinkedIn lost $10 billion of its market capitalization that day. On June 13, 2016, Microsoft announced that it would acquire LinkedIn for $196 a share, a total value of $26.2 billion and the largest acquisition made by Microsoft to date. The acquisition would be an debt-financed transaction. Microsoft would allow LinkedIn to "retain its distinct brand and independence", with Weiner to remain as CEO, who would report to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Analysts believed Microsoft saw the opportunity to integrate LinkedIn with its Office product suite to help better integrate the professional network system with its products; the deal was completed on December 8, 2016. In late 2016, LinkedIn announced a planned increase of 200 new positions in its Dublin office, which would bring the total employee count to 1,200. In July 2012, LinkedIn acquired 15 key Digg patents for $4 million including a "click a button to vote up a story" patent.
In
Broadcasting
Broadcasting is the distribution of audio or video content to a dispersed audience via any electronic mass communications medium, but one using the electromagnetic spectrum, in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began with AM radio, which came into popular use around 1920 with the spread of vacuum tube radio transmitters and receivers. Before this, all forms of electronic communication were one-to-one, with the message intended for a single recipient; the term broadcasting evolved from its use as the agricultural method of sowing seeds in a field by casting them broadly about. It was adopted for describing the widespread distribution of information by printed materials or by telegraph. Examples applying it to "one-to-many" radio transmissions of an individual station to multiple listeners appeared as early as 1898. Over the air broadcasting is associated with radio and television, though in recent years, both radio and television transmissions have begun to be distributed by cable; the receiving parties may include the general public or a small subset.
The field of broadcasting includes both government-managed services such as public radio, community radio and public television, private commercial radio and commercial television. The U. S. Code of Federal Regulations, title 47, part 97 defines "broadcasting" as "transmissions intended for reception by the general public, either direct or relayed". Private or two-way telecommunications transmissions do not qualify under this definition. For example and citizens band radio operators are not allowed to broadcast; as defined, "transmitting" and "broadcasting" are not the same. Transmission of radio and television programs from a radio or television station to home receivers by radio waves is referred to as "over the air" or terrestrial broadcasting and in most countries requires a broadcasting license. Transmissions using a wire or cable, like cable television, are considered broadcasts but do not require a license. In the 2000s, transmissions of television and radio programs via streaming digital technology have been referred to as broadcasting as well.
The earliest broadcasting consisted of sending telegraph signals over the airwaves, using Morse code, a system developed in the 1830s by Samuel F. B. Morse, physicist Joseph Henry and Alfred Vail, they developed an electrical telegraph system which sent pulses of electric current along wires which controlled an electromagnet, located at the receiving end of the telegraph system. A code was needed to transmit natural language using only these pulses, the silence between them. Morse therefore developed the forerunner to modern International Morse code; this was important for ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communication, but it became important for business and general news reporting, as an arena for personal communication by radio amateurs. Audio broadcasting began experimentally in the first decade of the 20th century. By the early 1920s radio broadcasting became a household medium, at first on the AM band and on FM. Television broadcasting started experimentally in the 1920s and became widespread after World War II, using VHF and UHF spectrum.
Satellite broadcasting was initiated in the 1960s and moved into general industry usage in the 1970s, with DBS emerging in the 1980s. All broadcasting was composed of analog signals using analog transmission techniques but in the 2000s, broadcasters have switched to digital signals using digital transmission. In general usage, broadcasting most refers to the transmission of information and entertainment programming from various sources to the general public. Analog audio vs. HD Radio Analog television vs. Digital television WirelessThe world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks more than quadrupled during the two decades from 1986 to 2007, from 432 exabytes of information, to 1.9 zettabytes. This is the information equivalent of 55 newspapers per person per day in 1986, 175 newspapers per person per day by 2007. There have been several methods used for broadcasting electronic media audio and video to the general public: Telephone broadcasting: the earliest form of electronic broadcasting.
Telephone broadcasting began with the advent of Théâtrophone systems, which were telephone-based distribution systems allowing subscribers to listen to live opera and theatre performances over telephone lines, created by French inventor Clément Ader in 1881. Telephone broadcasting grew to include telephone newspaper services for news and entertainment programming which were introduced in the 1890s located in large European cities; these telephone-based subscription services were the first examples of electrical/electronic broadcasting and offered a wide variety of programming. Radio broadcasting. Radio stations can be linked in radio networks to broadcast common radio programs, either in broadcast syndication, simulcast or subchannels. Television broadcasting, experimentally from 1925, commercially from t
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in continuous operation, it grew from 1167 when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled north-east to Cambridge where they established what became the University of Cambridge; the two'ancient universities' are jointly called'Oxbridge'. The history and influence of the University of Oxford has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world; the university is made up of 38 constituent colleges, a range of academic departments, which are organised into four divisions. All the colleges are self-governing institutions within the university, each controlling its own membership and with its own internal structure and activities, it does not have a main campus, its buildings and facilities are scattered throughout the city centre.
Undergraduate teaching at Oxford is organised around weekly tutorials at the colleges and halls, supported by classes, lectures and laboratory work provided by university faculties and departments. It operates the world's oldest university museum, as well as the largest university press in the world and the largest academic library system nationwide. In the fiscal year ending 31 July 2018, the university had a total income of £2.237 billion, of which £579.1 million was from research grants and contracts. The university is ranked first globally by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as of 2019 and is ranked as among the world's top ten universities, it is ranked second in all major national league tables, behind Cambridge. Oxford has educated many notable alumni, including 27 prime ministers of the United Kingdom and many heads of state and government around the world; as of 2019, 69 Nobel Prize winners, 3 Fields Medalists, 6 Turing Award winners have studied, worked, or held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford, while its alumni have won 160 Olympic medals.
Oxford is the home of numerous scholarships, including the Rhodes Scholarship, one of the oldest international graduate scholarship programmes. The University of Oxford has no known foundation date. Teaching at Oxford existed in some form as early as 1096, but it is unclear when a university came into being, it grew from 1167 when English students returned from the University of Paris. The historian Gerald of Wales lectured to such scholars in 1188 and the first known foreign scholar, Emo of Friesland, arrived in 1190; the head of the university had the title of chancellor from at least 1201, the masters were recognised as a universitas or corporation in 1231. The university was granted a royal charter in 1248 during the reign of King Henry III. After disputes between students and Oxford townsfolk in 1209, some academics fled from the violence to Cambridge forming the University of Cambridge; the students associated together on the basis of geographical origins, into two'nations', representing the North and the South.
In centuries, geographical origins continued to influence many students' affiliations when membership of a college or hall became customary in Oxford. In addition, members of many religious orders, including Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians, settled in Oxford in the mid-13th century, gained influence and maintained houses or halls for students. At about the same time, private benefactors established colleges as self-contained scholarly communities. Among the earliest such founders were William of Durham, who in 1249 endowed University College, John Balliol, father of a future King of Scots. Another founder, Walter de Merton, a Lord Chancellor of England and afterwards Bishop of Rochester, devised a series of regulations for college life. Thereafter, an increasing number of students lived in colleges rather than in halls and religious houses. In 1333–34, an attempt by some dissatisfied Oxford scholars to found a new university at Stamford, was blocked by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge petitioning King Edward III.
Thereafter, until the 1820s, no new universities were allowed to be founded in England in London. The new learning of the Renaissance influenced Oxford from the late 15th century onwards. Among university scholars of the period were William Grocyn, who contributed to the revival of Greek language studies, John Colet, the noted biblical scholar. With the English Reformation and the breaking of communion with the Roman Catholic Church, recusant scholars from Oxford fled to continental Europe, settling at the University of Douai; the method of teaching at Oxford was transformed from the medieval scholastic method to Renaissance education, although institutions associated with the university suffered losses of land and revenues. As a centre of learning and scholarship, Oxford's reputation declined in the Age of Enlightenment. In 1636 William Laud, the chancellor and Archbishop of Canterbury, codified the university's statutes. These, to a large extent, remained its gove
Staffordshire University
Staffordshire University is a university in Staffordshire, England. It has one main campus based in the city of three other campuses. In 1901, industrialist Alfred Bolton acquired a 2-acre site on what is now College Road and in 1906 mining classes began there. In 1907, pottery classes followed, being transferred from Tunstall into temporary buildings, in 1914 the building now known as the Cadman Building was opened as the Central School of Science and Technology by J. A. Pease, President of the Board of Education. A frieze over the entrance depicts miners. In 2013, the Library Conference room in the Cadman building was renamed the Alfred Bolton room. In 1915, a department was established for the commercial production of Seger cones used to measure and control the temperatures of ceramic furnaces, based upon research completed by the principal, Joseph Mellor. Grants from the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust in 1924 were used to develop the ceramics library and in 1926 the name of the institution was changed to North Staffordshire Technical College.
By 1931 extensions to the Cadman Building housed the Mining Department. A grant was awarded from the Miners’ Welfare Fund to fund the building work; the new extension housed the library, which by now had 35,000 volumes. By 1934 the college consisted of four departments: Engineering, Pottery and Chemistry. In 1939, new engineering workshops were occupied for the first time and the land opposite the Cadman Building was purchased. By 1950 Victoria Road changed its name to the site now extended over 12 acres; the Mellor Building and Experimental Production Block were constructed for the North Staffordshire College of Technology by 1960. Various faculty movements and further building work resulted in North Staffordshire Polytechnic being formed in 1970 with the merger of Stoke-on-Trent College of Art, North Staffordshire College of Technology, Staffordshire College of Technology in Stafford. In 1977, the polytechnic absorbed a teacher training facility in Staffordshire; the polytechnic developed traditional strengths of the component institutions, e.g. ceramics and sports education.
The mining department closed as result of the decline of coal mining in the 1980s. New subjects were developed. North Staffordshire Polytechnic was amongst only a handful of third-level institutions in the UK to offer International Relations as a dedicated degree; the 1992 UK government Research Assessment Exercise placed the International Relations Department as the highest-rated in the institution. In 1988, the institution changed its name to Staffordshire Polytechnic. In 1992, it became one of the new universities; the university has two main campuses, four smaller campuses, extensive links with National and Transnational academic institutions. The two main campuses and the Lichfield campus all have purpose built Business Villages; these have furnished small office spaces with internet access. In the 2012/13 academic year, the VC, Michael Gunn, announced that a consultation exercise would be undertaken on whether to keep both campuses open or whether to close one; as yet no definitive conclusion has been made and the ultimate result will based on many decisive factors including student feedback and financial viability.
It is anticipated. The university announced the result of their Estates Strategy on 30 January 2014 after the Board of Governors met at a special meeting to decide on it the night before; the decision was made to move the computing and entertainment technology courses to the Stoke-on-Trent campus by 2016 and health courses in Stafford will remain. The main campus is in Shelton, Stoke-on-Trent, offers law, sciences, applied computing, arts, design and media production courses; these are split into two areas, one on College Road, the other on Leek Road. A new Science and Technology facility was opened in 2012 as part of a major redevelopment adjacent to Stoke-on-Trent railway station; the old science building on the College Road campus, Mellor building has since been refurbished to form the new home of the School of Engineering in 2013 and applied computing which moved from Brindley building in 2013. A large section of the campus is supported by the university's free wireless connection; the Stoke campus features its own student nightclub called the "LRV" short for the Leek Road Venue.
This nightclub hosts a variety of student nights on various days of the week but its main open nights are on a Wednesday and Friday. A public film theatre is situated on the side of the Flaxman building on College Road, shows mainstream and independent films on a regular basis to an audience of up to 180 people, as well as being used for large lectures. In 2006, a new TV studio facility was opened by former BBC Director General Greg Dyke in the Arts and Design faculty building on College Road, Stoke; the new £ 1 million development features industry specification equipment. Nursing, operating department practice and paramedic science courses are taught at the Centre of Excellence in Stafford on Blackheath Lane and at the Centre of Excellence in Shrewsbury, situated at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. Staffordshire University have closed the Stafford camp
BBC Two
BBC Two is the second flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tends to broadcast more "highbrow" programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio channels, it is funded by the television licence, is therefore free of commercial advertising, it is a comparatively well-funded public-service network attaining a much higher audience share than most public-service networks worldwide. Styled BBC2, it was the third British television station to be launched, from 1 July 1967, Europe's first television channel to broadcast in colour, it was envisaged as a home for less mainstream and more ambitious programming, while this tendency has continued to date, most special-interest programmes of a kind broadcast on BBC Two, for example the BBC Proms, now tend to appear on BBC Four instead. British television at the time of BBC2's launch consisted of two channels: the BBC Television Service and the ITV network made up of smaller regional companies.
Both channels had existed in a state of competition since ITV's launch in 1955, both had aimed for a populist approach in response. The 1962 Pilkington Report on the future of broadcasting noticed this, that ITV lacked any serious programming, it therefore decided that Britain's 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, "Custard", her joey. Prior to, several years after, the channel's formal launch, the channel broadcast "Trade Test Transmissions", short films made externally by companies such as Shell and BP, which served to enable engineers to test reception, but became cult viewing; the channel was scheduled to begin at 19:20 on 20 April 1964, showing an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts, a performance from Soviet comedian Arkady Raikin, a production of Cole Porter's Kiss Me, culminating with a fireworks display.
However, at around 18:45 a huge power failure, originating from a fire at Battersea Power Station, caused Television Centre, indeed much of west London, to lose all power. BBC1 was able to continue broadcasting via its facilities at Alexandra Palace, but all attempts to show the scheduled programmes on the new channel failed. Associated-Rediffusion, the London weekday ITV franchise-holder, offered to transmit on the BBC's behalf, but their gesture was rejected. At 22:00 programming was postponed until the following morning; as the BBC's news centre at Alexandra Palace was unaffected, they did in fact broadcast brief bulletins on BBC2 that evening, beginning with an announcement by the newsreader Gerald Priestland at around 19:25. 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 been restored to the studios and programming began, thus making Play School the first programme to be shown on the channel; the launch schedule, postponed from the night before, was successfully shown that evening, albeit with minor changes.
In reference to the power cut, the transmission opened with a shot of a lit candle, sarcastically blown out by presenter Denis Tuohy. To establish the new channel's identity and draw viewers to it, the BBC decided that a promoted, lavish series would be essential in its earliest days; the production chosen was The Forsyte Saga, a no-expense-spared adaptation of the novels by John Galsworthy, featuring well-established actors Kenneth More and Eric Porter. Critically for the future of the fledgling channel, the BBC's gamble was hugely successful, with an average of six million viewers tuning in per episode: a feat made more prominent by the fact that only 9 million were able to receive the channel at the time. Unlike BBC1 and ITV, BBC2 was broadcast only on the 625 line UHF system, so was not available to viewers still using sets on the 405-line VHF system; this created a market for dual standard receivers. Set manufacturers ramped up production of UHF sets in anticipation of a large market demand for the new BBC2, but the market did not materialise.
The early technical problems, which included being unable to transmit US-recorded videotapes due to a lack of system conversion from the US NTSC system, were resolved by a committee headed by James Redmond. On 1 July 1967, during the Wimbledon Championships, BBC2 became the first channel in Europe to begin regular broadcasts in colour, using the PAL system; 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 joined BBC2 on 625-line UHF band, but continued to simulcast on 405-line VHF until 1985. BBC1 and ITV introduced PAL colour on UHF on 15 November 1969, although they both had broadcast some programmes in colour "unofficially" since September 1969. In 1979, the station adopted the first computer-generated channel identification in Britain, with its use of the double striped, orange'2' logo; the ident, created in house by BBC engineers, lasted until March 1986 and heralded the start of computer-generated logos.
As the switch to digital-only terrestrial transmission progressed, BBC Two was the first analogue TV channel to be replaced with the BBC multiplex, at first four two weeks ahead of the other four channels. This was required for those relay transmitters that had no current Freeview service giving vie
