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Periodicals and magazines. The Broadcasting Media
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Periodicals and magazines
There are 9, 000 different periodicals and magazines in Britain, which are of a weekly, monthly or quarterly nature. They are aimed at different markets and levels of professions and business or are dealing with sports, hobbies and interests.
Different magazines cover different interests such as computers, rural pastimes, gardening, railways, cooking, architecture, do-it-yourself skills, sports, women’s and youth problems.
Among serious weekly journals are The New Statesman and Society, the Economist, the Spectator and The New Scientist. “The Times” publishes infl uential weekly magazines, such as the Educational Supplement, the Higher Education Supplement and the Literary Supplement. A very interesting journal for scientists is Scientific American.
The Broadcasting Media
In spite of Englishmen’s love for newspapers and magazines they have to compete fi rst with radio, television and internet. Although some of them have survived, since the 1970s there has been a decline in sales and in the number of national and other newspapers and magazines.
The broadcasting media consist of radio and television. Three authorities oversee these services: the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), the Independent Television Commission (ITC) and the Radio Authority.
The BBC is based mainly in Broadcasting House in London, but has stations throughout the country, which provide regional networks for radio and television. It was created by Royal Charter and has a board of governors who are responsible for supervising its programmes. They are appointed by the Crown on the advice of government ministers and are fi nanced by a grant from Parliament, which comes from the sale of television licensees. These are payable by anyone who owns a television set. The BBC also generates considerable income from selling its programmes abroad and from the sale of a program guide (Radio Times), books, magazines and videos.
The BBC’s external services, the World Service in English and 42 other languages abroad, were founded in 1932 and are funded by the Foreign Office. These have a reputation for objective news reporting and programmes. News reports, documentaries and current-affairs analyses, animal films are generally of a high standard.
The BBC also began commercially funded television programmes in 1991 by cable to Europe and by satellite links to Africa and Asia. BBC World news has now merged with the World Service.
The BBC is not a state organization, but it is not as independent on political pressures as many in Britain and overseas assume. Its charter has to be renewed by Parliament and by its terms government can, and does, intervene in the showing of programs. The BBC governors are in fact government appointees. Governments can also exert pressure upon the BBC when the license fee comes up for renewal by Parliament.
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There are 5 national radio channels and 39 local stations serving many districts in England and regional and community services in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The national channels specialize in different tastes. Radio 1 caters for pop music; Radio 2 has light music, news, and comedy; Radio 3 provides classical and modern serious music, talks, discussions and plays; Radio 4 concentrates on news reports, analysis, talks and plays; and Radio 5 Live (established in 1990) has sport and news programs.
The BBC was certainly affected by the invention of television and the Internet, which changed British entertainment and news habits. The BBC now has two television channels (BBC1 and BBC2). BBC1 is a mass-appeal channel with an audience share of 28 per cent. Its programmes consist of news, plays and drama series, comedy, quiz shows, variety performances, sport and documentaries. BBC2, with an audience share of 11 per cent, tends to show more serious items such as news analysis and discussion, documentaries, adaptations of novels into plays and series, operas, concerts and some sports. It also provides Open University courses. In 2001 The Labour government approved the expansion of BBC television services by the creation of a BBC4 channel (culture and the arts) and two channels for children.
A large number of the programmes shown on television are made in Britain, although there are also many imported American series. A few programmes come from other English-speaking countries, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Although British television has a high reputation abroad, lately the bias of some programs is changing. At the moment there is a lot of criticism about sex, violence and bad language on British television. A Broadcasting Standards Complaints Commission monitors programmes, examines complaints, establishes codes of conduct for the broadcasting organizations.
Reuters News Agency is an international news agency headqutered in London. It operates in more than 200 cities and offers quick and easy access to hot news in about 200 languages.
Translate into Russian:
Circulation, Editorials to hinder Censorship
To eliminate Superficial Illiteracy Allegedly
The Foreign Office Government appointees Availability
Revenue To exert pressure
To merge updated news
To oversee Obscenity
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