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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,[1] with a schedule running from 19:00 to 04:00. The channel shows "a wide variety of programmes including comedy, documentaries, music, international film, original programmes, drama and current affairs ... an alternative to programmes on the mainstream TV channels".[2] 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.[3][4]
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster. It is headquartered at Broadcasting House in London. The BBC is the world's oldest national broadcasting organisation[3] 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.[2][4][5][6][7] The total number of staff is 35,402 when part-time, flexible, and fixed contract staff are included.[8]
The BBC is established under a Royal Charter[9] and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport.[10] Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee[11] which is charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts.[12]The fee is set by the British Government, agreed by Parliament,[13] and used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded the BBC World Service (launched in 1932 as the BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, radio, and online services in Arabic, and Persian.
Around a quarter of BBC revenues come from its commercial arm BBC Worldwide Ltd, which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes the BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC World News, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd.
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 was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution.[2] 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 channel's annual budget for 2012–13 is £1.14 billion.[3] The channel is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations, and therefore shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. It is currently the most watched television channel in the United Kingdom, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership, ITV.
Sky Atlantic is a television channel owned and operated by Sky plc. It broadcasts in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Separate channels with the same name also operate in Germany, Italy and Austria. This article is about the version of the channel produced in the UK.
It launched on 1 February 2011 on Sky in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.[1][3][4]