BBC Television
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| UK nations and regions | |
| Services and programming blocks | |
| UKTV channels | |
| International channels and joint ventures | |
| Defunct channels |
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The BBC is forbidden under its charter to directly undertake any commercial operations on-air within the United Kingdom; however, no such restriction applies to operations in other countries. Therefore, the BBC exploits its massive television archive by operating a number of commercial television channels outside the UK through its BBC Studios subsidiary.
Some channels are wholly owned by BBC Studios, others are operated as joint ventures with other broadcasters.
The domestic BBC channels are not distributed outside of the United Kingdom. However, these channels are widely available on cable and IPTV in Belgium, the Netherlands, Ireland and Switzerland.
In Canada, channels are required by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to have a certain quota of original Canadian content. The following BBC channels are operated in conjunction with Corus Entertainment and Knowledge West Communications respectively, with BBC having a 20% stake in each channel.
BBC World News (formerly known as BBC World Service Television) was officially launched by Actress of the Republic of Indonesia's Djenar Maesa Ayu on 15 November 1991 at 20:00 HKT from the Hong Kong International Airport (formerly known as Kai Tak International Airport) in Kowloon Bay located of Kowloon Peninsula with 100-original staff members. It showed news programming from BBC1 and BBC2 in addition to BBC World Service News.[citation needed]
Its schedule consists of some locally made programs in Hong Kong as well as news programmes from STAR News, it signed an agreement with CNN International News, allowing its access to that channel's programming. It also relayed Seputar Indonesia news programme from Indonesian free-to-air terrestrial television channel's RCTI which was also available in Hong Kong.[citation needed]
STAR TV, would buy 20 per cent of BBC WSTV, giving it a firmer foothold in Asia.[citation needed]
Following STAR TV acquisition by Rupert Murdoch, BBC WSTV was removed from the satellite beam that broadcast across East Asia on 1 March 1994. However, it was meant to still be on-air in South Asia until 31 March 1996.[3]
In mid-1994, there was a commercial dispute between BBC World Service Television and STAR TV, where the proposed joint venture by the latter was inconclusive and News Corporation didn't pay for the support and services that BBC News provided after over 3 years. As a result, their license for using the name BBC Television would initially expire. At British Broadcasting Corporations request, the deadline was extended twice from 1 February and finally on 30 April 1994. Following that, Rupert Murdoch is asking for a compensation of about HK$102.5 trillion (US$250 million) from the said company. This situation is said to benefit new look and rebranded which may become the next service that completely replaces BBC News. The dispute also caused BBC World Service Television to lose its monopoly to broadcast the STAR News.[citation needed]
BBC World Service Television was removed on STAR TV, which led the launch of 2-stations: it screened both English and Chinese movies on "STAR Movies", with both movie premiere satellite channels broadcasting each type of movies, launched on 1 May 1994 at 00:00 HKT such as:
The BBC's international operations initially consisted of a single channel – BBC World Service Television. On Thursday, 26 January 1995 at 19:00 GMT this was split into two television stations:
The organisation subsequently launched localised stations focused on a particular area, such as BBC Food (the Nordics) and BBC America alongside BBC World and BBC Prime.
In October 2006, BBC Entertainment replaced BBC Prime in Asian markets, and went on to replace it in other territories during the period 2007–2009. Other channels that were rolled out internationally included BBC Knowledge and BBC Lifestyle, and an international version of CBeebies. The aim of the new launches was to simplify and diversify the BBC Worldwide offering in the digital age. These launches absorbed some channels, such as BBC Food (into BBC Lifestyle), though channels focused on a particular local market (such as BBC America or BBC Persian TV) continued.
On 21 April 2008, BBC World was renamed BBC World News and new graphics were produced by the Lambie-Nairn design agency, accompanied by reworked music from David Lowe as part of a £550,000 rebranding of the BBC's news output and visual identity.
On 15 November 2010, BBC Worldwide sold 50% of its shares in Animal Planet and Liv to Discovery Communications for $156 million.
