Discuss the Contribution of the Bbc to Public Service Broadcasting in Britain. Does the Contemporary the Bbc Lives up to Its Original Psb Values?

Discuss the contribution of the BBC to public service broadcasting in Britain. Does the contemporary the BBC lives up to its original PSB values?

The essential intention of public service broadcasting is to inform and improve the listener and viewer. (Hutchison, 1999, p.156) According to the governors’ overview about the BBC, the existence of the BBC is important to enrich the lives of individuals and make an effective impact on the society. Its responsibilities as a public service broadcasting is to inform, educate and entertain the entire country. The contribution of the BBC can be seen through the effects of its individual projects and services on the viewers they serve. (The Board of Governors, 2004, p.2-5) This essay argues the purposes of the BBC that differ it from the commercial market and its current Public Service Broadcasting values.

   Firstly, the BBC was approved by the Post Office in February 1922 to deliver planned speech programmes and shows from a transmitting station at Writtle. On 18 October 1922, wireless producers, including Marconi and the General Electric Company created the British Broadcasting company. Later in the year, on 14 November, scheduled boradcasts were kicked off by the company from Marconi House in London and John Reith was officially chosen the first General Manager. (MacDonald, B, p.6) Even though Royal Charter established the BBC as the British independent public corparation in 1927, (The New York Times, 1985) the importance of broadcasting and in this manner, its public eminence, was identified almost from the inception of the BBC as a public corporation. Additionally, that corporation was the outcome of the discussions from the meeting of the Crawford Committee in 1926. In this meeting, it was thought that the BBC already was to be responsible for something of great informational and social implication. (Madge, T, p.24)

   The BBC’s increasingly move to providing its audience more of they expected to see was marked in the origin of representations of working-class life in the output. Though, there were no projects particularly made for working-class viewers or listeners until the Second World War. Aspects of working-class life emerged in The Plums which was a comedy show in 1937. However, when the corporation launched its first domestic serial in 1938, the BBC considered its auidence in middle-class terms in general. For instance, English Family Robinson was presenting “a typical English family and its daily lifestyle”, who “lived in a suburb with a servant named Shirley and a car which was called Ella”. At the end of the 1930s, survey demonstrates that the number of broadcasts and listening involvement with tivalry dramatically increased. At the same time, the first practices of radio show took part in the example of “You Asked for it” named program which is predicted to be connected with BBC’s origin. The vert first examples of community radios which created an initial connection with the airwaves consisted of different programmes such as competitions, survey, appeal shows, and also programs with live calls. When the BBC started to improve as a public corporation, this kind of projects began to disappear. Right after that, the relations between broadcaster and listener were restores namely “lofty condescension of the Public Company. (Williams, K, p.100-101).

   The aims of the BBC are to deliver information, education and entertainment which fulfill the BBC’s public service responsibility. It is suggested that the BBC’s public value lies in five important parts. To start with democratic value, the BBC supports civic life and national considerations by suppliying credible and non-intervention information and news that enables nationals to comprehend the world and encourages them to connect with it. Secondly, for the cultural and creative value, the BBC improves cultural life of the UK by uniting talent and the viewers together to break new ground, to celebrate our social legacy. Third comes educational value, where BBC provides formal and informal educational opportunities to its auidences in each medium. The next value is social and community value which works by allowing many socities of the UK to perceive what they hold in like manner. Finally, for the global value, the corporation supports global role of the UK by being the most main provider of international news and information in the world. (BBC, 2004, p.10).