BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a public broadcaster funded by a television licence fee on consumers. It started in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company Ltd., then incorporated and nationalised in 1927 as The British Broadcasting Corporation.

British media watchdog Media Lens regularly critiques the pro-corporate bias of the BBC.


 * Lord Hall of Birkenhead - Director General (from March 2013)

Spooks On The Job Selection Panel
Archived internal BBC documents from the 1980s, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph under Freedom of Information legislation, have revealed that until the late 1980s the British spy service, MI5, was used to vet existing and potential staff at the public broadcaster. The paper reported that the documents revealed that "at one stage it [MI5] was responsible for vetting 6300 BBC posts - almost a third of the total workforce." The BBC adopted "categorical denial" as its "defensive strategy" to deflect questions about the practice by unions. A March 1, 1985, memo suggested the best approach was "keep head down and stonewall all questions."

BBC Trust
Accessed March 2012:


 * Lord Patten - 	Chairman
 * Richard Ayre
 * Diane Coyle
 * Anthony Fry
 * Alison Hastings
 * Patricia Hodgson
 * Rotha Johnston
 * David Liddiment
 * Bill Matthews
 * Mehmuda Mian
 * Elan Closs Stephens
 * Nicholas Kroll - 	Director

BBC Trust (2009)
Accessed April 2009:


 * Sir Michael Lyons 	Chairman
 * Chitra Bharucha 	Vice Chairman
 * Diane Coyle
 * Anthony Fry
 * Alison Hastings
 * Patricia Hodgson
 * Rotha Johnston
 * Janet Lewis-Jones
 * David Liddiment
 * Mehmuda Mian
 * Jeremy Peat
 * Richard Tait

Executive Board (2009)
Accessed April 2009:


 * Mark Thompson (BBC) 	Director-General and Chair, Executive Board
 * Mark Byford 	Deputy Director-General
 * Jana Bennett 	Director, Vision
 * Tim Davie 	Director, Audio & Music
 * Erik Huggers 	Director, Future Media & Technology
 * Lucy Adams (from 1 June 2009: see press release) 	Director, People
 * Zarin Patel 	Group Finance Director
 * John Smith (BBC) 	Chief Executive BBC Worldwide
 * Caroline Thomson 	Chief Operating Officer
 * Sharon Baylay (from 5 May 2009: see press release) 	Director, Marketing, Communications & Audiences
 * Marcus Agius 	Senior Independent Director
 * Val Gooding CBE 	Non-executive Director
 * Mike Lynch OBE 	Non-executive Director
 * David Robbie 	Non-executive Director
 * Samir Shah OBE 	Non-executive Director
 * Robert Webb (BBC) QC 	Non-executive Director

Critical Books

 * Robert Waller, Shadow of Authority (1956).
 * Tom O'Malley, Closedown?: BBC and Government Broadcasting Policy, 1979-92 (Pluto Press, 1994).
 * Simon James Potter, Broadcasting Empire: The BBC and the British World, 1922-1970 (Oxford University Press, 2012).

Websites

 * About the BBC: www.bbc.co.uk/info
 * BBC UK: www.bbc.co.uk
 * BBC's International Commercial TV Channels: www.bbc.co.uk/tv
 * BBC World Service (Radio): www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice

Related Sourcewatch articles

 * BBC World Service Trust
 * BBC World Service
 * BBC Children in Need
 * Yogesh Chauhan - the BBC's Chief Adviser on Corporate Responsibility and Environment
 * John Birt - was Director-General of the BBC from 1992 to 2000
 * Gavyn Davies - former chair (2001-4)
 * Richard Deverell
 * Jonathan Drori
 * Penny Young - former head of audiences
 * William Rees-Mogg - former vice-chair
 * Jenny Abramsky - former governor
 * Baroness Deech - former governor
 * Alan Hayling - former head of documentaries
 * Sir Christopher Bland - former chair
 * Tony Hall (UK) - former head of news
 * Greg Dyke - Former Director General
 * Heather Rabbatts
 * Howell James
 * Michael Grade - chair
 * Paul Hamann - former head of documentaries
 * Anna Ford - spent 32 years in news department
 * Liz Forgan
 * Nicholas Kenyon
 * Ronald Neil - former director of news and current affairs
 * Peter Kellner - Newsnight
 * Shirazuddin Siddiqi - Afghanistan
 * Sir Mark Tully - India
 * Ian Skelly - radio broadcaster
 * Carolyn Fairbairn - former Director of Strategy
 * Lucy Adams - Director of Business Operations
 * Sue Farr - former Marketing Director
 * Mihir Bose - Sports Editor
 * Rodney Baker-Bates
 * Kim Shillinglaw - Commissioning Editor for Science and Natural History
 * Etienne De Villiers
 * Alex Kirby - former head of environment
 * Brian Cox - Science Presenter