BBC Sound Effects made available to download for use under RemArc Licence (2018)

I know as much as anyone else who has actually read the Royal Charter. (-:

The Charter covers "UK Public Services" and the "World Service", as does the Agreement with the Minister of the Crown. The World Service is a specific thing, which you can read about for yourself.

* So public service broadcasting to other countries isn't within the terms of the Charter.

* Commercial activities are prohibited to the BBC itself. They are limited to commercial subsidiaries.

The upshot of this is that services that you get outwith the U.K. are not from the BBC. They are from commercial subsidiary companies, such as BBC Studios for example, or from joint venture companies. BBC Studios is what broadcasts BBC content such as BBC America outwith the United Kingdom. Similarly, the WWW site that is served up to computers outwith the United Kingdom isn't provided by the BBC. It is provided by BBC Global News Ltd, another commercial subsidiary. It's quite different to the WWW site that is seen within the U.K..

The commercial subsidiaries aren't funded by the Licence Fee, and the BBC itself is not permitted to make a profit from its dealings with them, which must be "at arm's length" (to quote the Agreement).

* https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/governance/charter

I used to work at BBC and was part of the team that split the BBC News website up into UK and International (UKFS and IFS) and some of the early advertising additions.

BBC Worldwide is an independent for-profit organization and, for the most part, responsible for the commercialization of BBC assets outside of the UK as the BBC itself is not able to commercialize.

Assets like Top Gear are an example of that - the show's production budget is(/was) unusually high because the BBC produces it for the world market where it knows it will generate a significant return selling the licenses (or broadcasting on BBC America etc). Compare that to domestic shows, such as Have I Got News For You, which is not shown abroad.

The advertising on BBC Website is placed by BBC Worldwide and they receive the money from that.

Profits made by BBC Worldwide are dispersed back into the BBC itself.

Aside from Worldwide the BBC has split up and sold or commercialized other assets. Much of the technical infrastructure it owned became RedBee and was invested in by Castle and/or Siemens (my memory is fuzzy). They also broke off their studio facilities into BBC Studios which I believe now operate commercially.

The BBC has been pushed considerably by Tory governments to becomes smaller over time which has resulted in these sell offs and break offs.

I've not worked at the BBC for 15 years but follow it closely and can probably answer other questions you might have.

My goodness! I've never heard that song until today. I wonder what street of what town Lally Stott is walking down, in the video. It makes quite a contrast with Richard Ashcroft moodily stomping down Hoxton, 27 years later. M. Stott is walking in time to the beat. And smiling. (-:

It really isn't as clear as that. Most youtube videos are not monetised, but the status could change years later. Further, in an hour long video, using a 5 second audio clip with an advertising revenue of £0.10 is considered commercial and a payment?

"Yes" would have been shorter.

No. The BBC One service description is actually:

> a mixed-genre channel, with versions for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and variations for English regions and the Channel Islands, providing a very broad range of programmes to a mainstream audience;

As I said, the different channels are different services, which is partly the point. BBC Four's service description is, for example:

> a channel providing an intellectually and culturally enriching alternative to mainstream programming on other BBC channels;

They were elected... to be the opposition. They’re the elected opposition. If they were unelected they couldn’t be the opposition.

Really trying hard to parse

(The unelected Labour opposition)

OK, very wrong, but I think that's attempting to describe the elected labour mps in parliament

"activist shills"

I assume this means people who don't read the daily express

So I think I can parse this as

Some Labour MPs, at some point, proposed a group of people should take control of the editorial policy of the BBC and newspapers.

I'm not sure what story he's talking about though.

Possibly because:

"The unelected Labour opposition proposed activist shills"

is difficult to understand.

The BBC is overseen by a government minister

The BBC, to me, over the last 2-3 years has demonstrated massive pro-Conservative party bias. The mechanism for that is not apparent, but look at Kuenssberg and you see someone who has regularly been followed by accusations of strong bias with ultimately, it seems, nothing being done about it. To my view she (or the team she's in?) directly interfered in the last election; she didn't seem to be hindered in any way. Someone caught divisively lying on several occasions (each damaging Corbyn/Labour) yet remaining in post says to me their is political control over the BBC. She did grill Johnson after the election when it no longer mattered though.

Ironically Radio 4 (taken as a whole) seems to provide a reasonably level playing field; but their listeners are a small fraction of BBC1's viewers.

I think the parties involved are smart enough not to leave evidence lying around in public. The "postal vote" debacle was either a direct attack on democracy, out in the open, or a complete failure of the entire editorial team that should have seen them immediately sacked.

Interestingly the Cabinet Secretary, head of the civil Service - which headlines itself as having open public recruitment - was chosen by Johnson on entry to Downing Street.

My personal opinion is this is a drip-drip-drip erosion of balance to allow the current government fascististic levels of control.

Most recently reports are that some satirical comedy shows are being stopped as the government see them as too critical of Tories and not critical enough of others (they must have forgotten who is in power). How is it possible the BBC aren't being interfered with in removing some of their most popular domestic broadcasting when the only extent reasoning is 'to reduce on-air criticism of the current government'.

I'm sure you'll wave your hand and say this is all anecdote. In general Trump's playbook has been copied by Johnson, control of media/reporting is a part of that.