[11] The fee is set by the British government, agreed by Parliament,[12] and is used to fund the BBC's radio, TV, and online services covering the nations and regions of the UK.

It was sponsored by the Daily Mail's Alfred Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe and featured the famous Australian soprano Dame Nellie Melba.

By late 1920, the pressure from these quarters and uneasiness among the staff of the licensing authority, the General Post Office (GPO), was sufficient to lead to a ban on further Chelmsford broadcasts.

[19] The first edition, subtitled "The official organ of the BBC", was priced at tuppence (two pence) on newsstands, and quickly sold out its run of a quarter of a million copies.

By now, the BBC, under Reith's leadership, had forged a consensus favouring a continuation of the unified (monopoly) broadcasting service, but more money was still required to finance rapid expansion.

[39] On 5 March 1928, Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister, maintained the censorship of editorial opinions on public policy, but allowed the BBC to address matters of religious, political or industrial controversy.

Fearing dissent within the police force and public support for the movement, the BBC censored its coverage of the events, only broadcasting official statements from the government.

[40] From 1935 to 1939, the BBC also attempted to unite the British Empire's radio waves, sending staff to Egypt, Palestine, Newfoundland, Jamaica, India, Canada and South Africa.

Through collaboration with these state-run broadcasting centres, Reith left a legacy of cultural influence across the empire of Great Britain with his departure from the corporation in 1938.

[51] In 1938, John Reith and the Government of the United Kingdom, specifically the Ministry of Information which had been set up for WWII, designed a censorship apparatus for the inevitability of war.

[58][59] There was a widely reported urban myth that, upon resumption of the BBC television service after the war, announcer Leslie Mitchell started by saying, "As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted ..." In fact, the first person to appear when transmission resumed was Jasmine Bligh and the words said were "Good afternoon, everybody.

[69] In 1987, the BBC decided to centralize its operations by the management team with the radio and television divisions joining forces together for the first time, the activities of the news and currents departments and coordinated jointly under the new directorate.

[70] During the 1990s, this process continued with the separation of certain operational arms of the corporation into autonomous but wholly owned subsidiaries, with the aim of generating additional revenue for programme-making.

[85] These plans were fiercely opposed by unions, who threatened a series of strikes; however, the BBC stated that the cuts were essential to move the organisation forward and concentrate on increasing the quality of programming.

[90] On 16 February 2016, the BBC Three television service was discontinued and replaced by a digital outlet under the same name, targeting its young adult audience with web series and other content.

[103] In March 2023, the BBC was at the centre of a political row with football pundit Gary Lineker, after he criticised the British government's asylum policy on social media.

[104] In April 2023, Richard Sharp resigned as chairman after a report found he did not disclose potential perceived conflicts of interest in his role in the facilitation of a loan to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

[123] This relationship garnered wider public attention after an article by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar appeared in The Observer in August 1985, revealing that MI5 had been vetting appointments, running operations from Room 105 in Broadcasting House.

A 50% discount is also offered to people who are registered blind or severely visually impaired,[130] and the licence is completely free for any household containing anyone aged 75 or over.

Ratings figures suggest that during major incidents such as the 7 July 2005 London bombings or royal events, the UK audience overwhelmingly turns to the BBC's coverage as opposed to its commercial rivals.

BBC News received some 1 billion total hits on the day of the event (including all images, text, and HTML), serving some 5.5 terabytes of data.

BBC Jam was a free online service, delivered through broadband and narrowband connections, providing high-quality interactive resources designed to stimulate learning at home and at school.

Examples include viewers to play along at home to gameshows, to give, voice and vote on opinions to issues, as used alongside programmes such as Question Time.

Examples cited include the television series Civilisation, Doctor Who, I, Claudius, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Pot Black, and Tonight, but other examples can be given in each of these fields as shown by the BBC's entries in the British Film Institute's 2000 list of the BFI TV 100, with the BBC's 1970s sitcom Fawlty Towers (featuring John Cleese as Basil Fawlty) topping the list.

[259] Writing for The Guardian, the left-wing columnist Owen Jones stated "the truth is the BBC is stacked full of rightwingers,"[260] and cited as an example of bias its employment of "ultra-Thatcherite" Andrew Neil as a politics presenter.

[261] A 2018 opinion poll by BMG Research found that 40% of the British public think that the BBC is politically partisan, with a nearly even split between those that believe it leans to the left or right.

[263][264][265] According to Massoumeh Torfeh of the London School of Economics, "conspiracy theorists in Iran, led by the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, still regard the BBC as an instrument of British political machinations".

[267] In 2011, Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi said the BBC's real identity was "Baháʼí Faith and Zionist" and he accused it of helping direct the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests.

[277] British parliamentarian Stephen Pound supported these claims, referring to the BBC's whitewashing of the terror attacks as "the worst sort of mealy mouthed posturing.

"[278] A BBC World Service newsreader who presented a daily show produced for Kyrgyzstan was claimed to have participated in an opposition movement with the goal of overthrowing the government led by president Kurmanbek Bakiyev.