Portal:BBC

The Radio 1 Madonna controversy was a series of events that occurred as a result of BBC Radio 1's decision not to playlist American singer Madonna's single "Living for Love" in February 2015. Despite receiving moderate airplay from commercial radio in the United Kingdom, the single was not added to Radio 1's playlist, leading to accusations of ageism. The controversy stemmed from an article in the Daily Mail, which quoted an unnamed Radio 1 insider describing Madonna as "old" and "irrelevant". In response, the singer's fans posted numerous requests for the song on Radio 1's social media accounts, and several artists criticized Radio 1's music policy, prompting the station to release a statement defending their decision not to play the track.

The controversy received significant media coverage in the UK and internationally, sparking a wider discussion about ageism in the music industry. "Living for Love" was subsequently added to BBC Radio 2's C-list, before being promoted to the B-list. The station targets audiences aged 35 and higher. Commercially, the single peaked at number 26 on the UK Singles Chart for the week ending 28 February 2015. (Full article...)

BBC journalist, presenter and newsreader Huw Edwards during an outside broadcast for BBC News. He joined the BBC in 1984, and since 2003 he has been the main presenter of the BBC Ten O'Clock News.

Blue Peter is a British children's television programme created by John Hunter Blair. The first programme was broadcast on 16 October 1958. It is the longest-running children's television programme in the world, and also one of the longest-running television programmes in the world.

Blue Peter currently airs weekly on Fridays in the United Kingdom on CBBC, a digital television channel. The show is produced in a magazine format, often transmitting live, and features a combination of studio presentation, interviews and outside broadcasting items. There have been forty-three official presenters of Blue Peter. (Full article...)

Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher; 17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter Nigel Kneale, most notably the Quatermass serials and their 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

After studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in Berlin, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in 1935. Initially failing to gain a foothold in the British film industry, he began working for BBC Television in the late 1930s (among other productions he was involved in the making of Rehearsal for a Drama, BBC 1939). The outbreak of war, however, meant that his contract was terminated; his television play The Dead Eye was stopped in the production stage. After the war, he occasionally worked for British films before he was again hired by the BBC in 1952. He soon became one of the public service broadcaster's leading directors and went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play Loyalties in 1976. (Full article...)

BBC Television Centre on Children in Need appeal night 2008. The annual telethon was formerly broadcast from Television Centre on BBC One until its closure in 2013.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that despite attracting the highest ratings ever for a comedy show debut on BBC Three, Horne & Corden was described by one critic as, "about as funny as credit default swaps"?

• ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?

• ... that the BBC coat of arms was adopted in 1927 and uses heraldic symbols to depict the various qualities of broadcasting?

• ... that Clothes-Line, aired in 1937, was the first television programme on fashion history and also probably the first to feature a heavily pregnant female presenter?

• ... that in May 2015 BBC Four aired "the most boring TV show ever" – an un-narrated, two-hour narrowboat journey on the Kennet and Avon Canal?

• ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
• ... that working broadcast journalists were used as extras for the portions of the Doctor Who episode "73 Yards" that were filmed at the BBC Cymru Wales New Broadcasting House?
• ... that after criticising horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules" live on air, the British DJ Arielle Free was suspended from BBC Radio 1 for a week?
• ... that François Glorieux was a Belgian pianist and improvisor, conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra and Stan Kenton's band, and arranger for Michael Jackson?