British Culture

Christopher Medina Rodríguez 1488028

Javier Alejandro Garza Vasquez 1606968

Juan Jose Moreno Velazco 1524350

Radio, Television and Newspapers

Main Features

Radio and Television The three public bodies responsible for television

and radio throughout Britain are:

•The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), which

broadcasts television and radio programmes;

•The Independent Television Commission (ITC),

which licences and regulates commercial television

service including cable, satellite and independent

teletext services;

•The Radio Authority, which licences and regulates

commercial radio services, including cable and satellite.

Television

People in Britain watch on average 25

hours of TV every week.

Television viewing is Britain's most

popular leisure pastime. About 96 per

cent of the population of Britain have

television in their homes. In 1999, 13%

of households had satellite television

and 9% cable television.

There are five main channels in Britain:

Two national commercial-free BBC networks, BBC1 and BBC2,

commercial ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 services. The BBC

channels are commercial free while the other three have

commercials.

ITV1 is the most popular commercial television channel in Britain,

watched on average by 45 million people every week.

The most popular are "Eastenders", an often shocking drama about

life in East London, and "Coronation Street", which is about life in

Northern Britain. We also watch "Emmerdale", about life in a farming

village and two Australian soaps, "Neighbours" and "Home and

Away".

Reality programmes

These type of programmes involve filming normal people

in their every-day lives or putting several people in a

specially built house where they can be filmed 24 hours-

a-day and giving them challenges to do.

The most famous of these is Big Brother. People in the

house vote on who should be kicked out of the house and

in the end the viewers vote for the winner who receives a

large amount of money

TV Licence

In the UK pay an annual licence to watch the television or PC at home, no matter how much or how little we watch TV.

In the UK, if you use a TV or any other device to receive or record TV programmes (for example, a VCR, set-top box, DVD recorder or PC with a broadcast card) - you need a TV Licence. You are required by law to have one.

Currently a TV Licence costs £142.50 for colour and £48.00 for black and white.

There are no advertisements during BBC programmes.

www.tvlicensing.co.uk/

Freeview TV

You can buy a digital box (costs about

£40 to £60 and plugs into TV) or a new

TV.

Additional free digital services include

the existing channels. There are about

30 channels in all, known as 'Freeview'

channels.

Radio

People in Britain listen to an average 15

hours and 50 minutes of radio each week.

The BBC has five national radio networks

which together transmit all types of music,

news, current affairs, drama, education,

sport and a range of feature programmes.

There are also 39 BBC local radio stations,

and national radio services in Scotland,

Wales and Northern Ireland.

Newspapers

There are about 130 daily and Sunday newspapers, over 2,000 weekly newspapers and some 7,000 periodical publications in Britain.

The press in Britain is free to comment on matters of public interest, subject to law.

Daily Newspapers sell 322 copies per 1000 people in the UK, the eighth highest rate in the world.

British newspapers include the

following:

The Daily Mail

The Daily Telegraph

The Financial Times

The Guardian

The Independent

The Scotsman

The Times

Western Mail and Echo

The Sun

The Mirror

The Herald