Broadcasting House in Portland Place, London, which is the official headquarters of the BBC

Finance and Revenue..

The BBC has the largest budget of any UK broadcaster with an operating expenditure of £4 billion in 2005 compared to £3.2 billion for British Sky Broadcasting and £1.7 billion for ITV.

The funding the BBC is through the television licence, costing £11.37 a month. Such a licence is required to operate a broadcast television receiver within the UK. The cost of a television licence is set by the government and enforced by the criminal law. The revenue is collected privately and is paid into the central government Consolidated Fund, a process defined in the Communications Act 2003. Funds are then allocated by the DCMS and Treasury and approved by Parliament via the Appropriation Act(s). Additional revenues are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to compensate for subsidised licences for over-75s. As the state controls BBC's funding, it is sometimes referred to as a "state" broadcaster.

According to the BBC's 2005-2006 Annual Report, its income can be broken down as follows:
£3,100.6 m licence fees collected from consumers.
£620.0 m from BBC Commercial Businesses.
£260.2 m from the World Service, of which £239.1 m is from grants (primarily funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), £15.8 m from subscriptions, and £5.3 m from other sources.
£24.2 m from other income, such as providing content to overseas broadcasters and concert ticket sales.

The BBC is a 'public corporation': neither a private corporation nor a government department. The high ideal is that it is held in trust for the public of the UK by the BBC Trust (the successor to the Board of Governors following the renewal of the BBC Charter by the government in 2006).

The British Broadcasting Corporation, which is usually known as the BBC, is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world in terms of audience numbers.
It has 26,000 employees in the United Kingdom alone and a budget of more than GBP£4 billion.

Founded in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd, it was granted a Royal Charter and made a state-owned corporation in 1927. The corporation produces programmes and information services, broadcasting globally on television, radio, and the Internet. The stated mission of the BBC is "to inform, educate and entertain" its motto is "Nation Shall Speak Peace Unto Nation".

The BBC is a quasi-autonomous Public Corporation operating as a public service broadcaster. The Corporation is run by the BBC Trust; however, the BBC is, per its charter, to be "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners". The government's Foreign and Commonwealth Office funds the World Service.
Its domestic programming and broadcasts are primarily funded by levying television licence fees (under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 1949), although money is also raised through commercial activities such as sale of merchandise and programming. The BBC World Service, however, is funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In order to justify the licence fee, the BBC is expected to produce a number of high-rating shows in addition to programmes that commercial broadcasters would not normally broadcast.

Radio

Starting in 1964 a series of pirate radio stations (starting with Radio Caroline) came on the air, and forced the UK government to finally deregulate radio services. The Light Programme was split into Radio-1 offering continuous rock music and Radio-2 more "Easy Listening". The "Third" programme became Radio-3 offering classical music and cultural programming. The Home Service became Radio-4 offering news, and non-musical content such as quiz shows, readings, dramas and plays. As well as the four national channels, a series of local BBC radio stations was established

Competition to the BBC was introduced in 1955 with the commercially and independently operated television network ITV. The BBC monopoly on radio services persisted until the 1970s. As a result of the Pilkington Committee report of 1962, in which the BBC was lauded and ITV was very heavily criticised for not providing enough quality programming, the BBC was awarded a second TV channel, BBC2, in 1964, renaming the existing channel BBC1. BBC2 used the higher resolution 625 line standard which had been standardised across Europe. BBC2 was broadcast in colour from 1 July 1967, and was joined by BBC 1 and ITV on 15 November 1969.

The BBC

The original British Broadcasting Company was founded in 1922 by a group of telecommunications companies (including subsidiaries of General Electric and AT&T) to broadcast experimental radio services. The first transmission was on 14 November of that year, from station 2LO, located at Marconi House, London.

The Company, with John Reith as general manager, became the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927 when it was granted a Royal Charter of incorporation and ceased to be privately owned. It started experimental television broadcasting in 1932. It became a regular service (known as the BBC Television Service) in 1936. Television broadcasting was suspended from 1 September 1939 to 7 June 1946 during the Second World War.