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As a division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), BBC News reports on news and current events. BBC News was founded on November 14, 1922, coinciding with its first broadcast. BBC News reports on news in both the United Kingdom and worldwide, via its website and radio, television, and social media channels.
The BBC was originally founded as the British Broadcasting Company on October 18, 1922. The first news broadcast made by BBC was via radio on the evening of November 14, 1922. The first night's news bulletins included information about London's weather, a train robbery, and billiard game scores. At first, broadcasts were given twice a night, once at 6 p.m. and once at 9 p.m. Over a month later on December 23, broadcasts before 7 p.m. were shut down. Other restrictions made on broadcasts included no content that could be deemed controversial and no live commentary on sporting events. At the end of April 1926, miners in Britain began striking, which led to a general strike in the region days later. These events quickly led to the lifting of the ban on broadcasts before 7 p.m., and five news bulletins were broadcast each day during the duration of the strike.
On January 1, 1927, the British Broadcasting Corporation was established in place of the British Broadcasting Company by the Royal Charter. The new establishment enabled the reporting of international news instead of just news within Britain, as well as a permanent grant to report news before 7 p.m., which was previously disallowed before Britain's general strike. Live sports commentary was now permitted too. Controversial subjects, however, were still banned from being broadcast until March 1928.
In the early 1930s, the BBC began developing and airing experimental television broadcasts six days per week. In November 1936, the BBC began airing regular television programs via its new branch, the BBC Television Service. There was not a television station dedicated to news until the late 1940s, when the program BBC Newsreel was established in January 1948. Weather forecasting made a comeback in 1949; it had started to air just before World War II started and was then abandoned.
In November 1997, the BBC News 24 channel was launched. The next month, the BBC website was launched as BBC Online, at the URL bbc.co.uk. Today, BBC News continues to provide news coverage on television, radio, and online.
