Whats the BBC?

The BBC, or British Broadcasting Corporation, is an entity set up by the British government back in the thirties to govern and regulate all radio and TV broadcasts in the British Isles, while still making its own programmes for transmission over the airwaves. While that is a common enough known part of the BBC, there are some areas that are usually left unsaid about Englands most critically acclaimed broadcasting channels and radio programmes.

Just one of the many things that people dont know is that during the second world war Englands government used the BBC and its broadcasting reach to disseminate information to the Maquis, the French resistance fighters in Nazi held France (as quite a large area of France was self governing under Marshal Petain at the same time as so many Frenchmen were fighting for their lives, both in France itself and in North Africa, against the German invaders) to enable them to co-ordinate their attacks and timing to coincide with British and American raids so that they would be more effective against the occupying forces that were ultimately thrown from the country in the latter half of 1944. While this may not seem like a big thing these days, at the time anyone found tuning in to a BBC broadcast in France could be executed, just for listening to the radio.

After the advent of TV and its dominance in the way that people found information and self educated themselves, the Beeb as its cutely known in England, went to great lengths to make sure that the quality and strengths of the world renowned British theater were properly supported and shown on this new medium, with programmes like Play for Today showcasing both up and coming writers and actors, and giving a break to those looking to get into the Tv industry itself.

While this was admirable, and continues today, sadly it has to be said that with the advent of commercialism of the medium the BBC fell prey to consumer desires, and so to compete with upstarts like BSkyB and Channel 4 it lowered standards on some of its channels. However, there is a solid core of amazing programming still coming from the BBC, programs like Ideal, Skins, Wire in the Blood, Being Human et al, all challenge what we may have thought before and continue to do what the corporation was set up to do educate yourself thru television. A hard job to do, but none do it better than the BBC.