11 Facts About BBC Television

1.

When ITV was launched in 1955, the BBC Television Service showed popular programming, including comedies, drama, documentaries, game shows, and soap operas, covering a wide range of genres and regularly competed with ITV to become the channel with the highest ratings for that week.

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2.

BBC Television2 was the first British channel to use UHF and 625-line pictures, giving higher definition than the existing VHF 405-line system.

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3.

On 1 July 1967, BBC Two became the first television channel in Europe to broadcast regularly in colour, using the West German PAL system that was used for decades until it was gradually superseded by digital systems.

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4.

The different remit of BBC Television2 allowed its first controller, Sir David Attenborough to commission the first heavyweight documentaries and documentary series such as Civilisation, The Ascent of Man and Horizon.

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5.

BBC Television Wales produces a large amount of Welsh language programming for S4C, particularly news, sport and other programmes, especially the soap opera Pobol y Cwm briefly shown on BBC Television2 across the UK with subtitles in the 1990s.

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6.

In March 2003 the BBC announced that from the end of May 2003 it intended to transmit all eight of its domestic television channels unencrypted from the Astra 2D satellite.

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7.

BBC Television department headed by Jana Bennett was absorbed into a new, much larger group; BBC Vision, in late 2006.

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8.

In 2008, the BBC began experimenting with live streaming of certain channels in the UK, and in November 2008, all standard BBC television channels were made available to watch online via BBC iPlayer.

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9.

On 8 December 2020, Moore announced a new leadership structure for BBC Television Content taking effect in April 2021, which will prioritise iPlayer in order to compete with commercial streaming services.

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10.

BBC's wholly owned commercial subsidiary, BBC Studios, operates several international television channels under BBC branding:.

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11.

BBC Television Japan was a general entertainment channel, which operated between December 2004 and April 2006.

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