Jargon Buster

Here you can find explanations of some of the terms used in Shape our Future.



Licence fee: the Charter sets out our right to be a public service in the UK which provides telecommunications services such as television, radio and online, and to pay for them, we collect the licence fee. The BBC is paid for directly through each UK residence with at least one television set. This allows the BBC to run a wide range of popular public services for everyone, free of adverts and independent of advertisers, shareholders or political interests. 98% of the UK population used the BBC every month in 2003/4.

The BBC's website has a lot more information about the Charter and the Licence Fee.

Radio: in the UK, radio services include a mix of BBC and commercial stations; with the advent of digital radio in Britain, there are even more local and national stations available, including more from the BBC and more privately-owned services.

TV: viewers in Britain are served by many TV services – there are five national “terrestrial” stations, which can be watched by anyone with a basic television set; there are satellite and cable services, with a much larger offer of channels but requiring a monthly subscription to have access to the channels on offer; and the BBC is also helping bring digital television to more and more of the population, with the BBC offering a wider choice of channels even for those who do not want to pay to have a satellite or cable operator.

Public service television: the “terrestrial” national channels are BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and channel Five. Apart from BBC1 and BBC2, the other three rely on commercials as their main source of income.

Channel 4 has another distinctive feature – it is a public corporation (in other words, like the BBC, it doesn't have shareholders or private owners, but it isn't owned or run by the government either) and it doesn't produce any programmes by itself. Instead, Channel 4 commissions its productions – from children's programmes to news – from independent producers. ITV, channel Five and the BBC all broadcast a mix of programmes produced by their own staff and programmes commissioned from independent producers.

In other words, not every programme broadcast on the BBC and other television (and radio) stations is actually produced by the station's own staff – many are produced by third parties and bought by the station.

Ofcom: is the regulator for the UK communications industries, with responsibilities across television, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications services.

^

Back to top