38. Radio and tv

Millions of people watch TV and listen to the radio in their spare time. Television informs, educates, and entertains people, but it is also a habit-forming drug impossible to resist.Various TV shows, such as quiz, and music programmes attract a large audience. There is also a lot of advertising on TV. A lot of commercial films buy the time to advertise their goods and services. Advertising often annoys the general public.There is too also much violence on television, which has a bad influence on young viewers. Television often shows scenes of violence. Good or bad, television brings the world into our home and brings us closer to other people. Television is difficult to avoid. Besides, it is good company for people who live alone.But it is hardly fair to say that TV doesn’t try to raise the cultural level of the people or develop their artistic taste. Television brings into millions of homes not only news and entertainment, but also cultural and educational programmes.

It is also impossible to imagine our life without radio. Radio is widely used in today’s world. It is the quickest means of spreading news and information. Radio plays an important role in reflecting the life of society and building opinions. It keeps us informed about current events, provides the cultural recreation, allows us to follow the latest developments in science and politics and offers a lot of information which is useful and entertaining.

But both radio and TV play an important role in our life as well as newspapers. That’s why in the recent years there has been the increase in the amount of time spent watching TV and listening radio.

In 1936 the government established the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to provide a public service in radio. Since then the BBC has been most affected by the invention of television, which changed the entertainment habits of the nation, and the establishment of independent and commercial radio and television, which removed the BBC's broadcasting monopoly.

The BBC has five national radio channels for listeners in the United Kingdom. Radio (channel) 1 provides mainly a programme of rock and pop music. Radio 2 broadcasts lights music and entertainment, comedy as well as being the principal channel for the coverage of sport. Radio 3 provides mainly classical music as well as drama, poetry and short stories, documentaries, talks on ancient and modern plays and some education programmes. Radio 4 is the main speech network providing the principals news and current affairs service, as well as drama, comedy, documentaries and panel games. It also carries parliamentary and major public events. BBC 5 ( on medium wave only), which is devoted chiefly to sport, education and programmes for young people. An important but separate part of the BBC's work is its external services, essentially the BBC World Service and its broadcasts in thirty-five vernacular languages. These are funded separately from the rest of the BBC, by money from the Foreign Office. In other words, although the BBC has freedom in the content of what it broadcasts, the government decides in which foreign languages it should broadcast, and the amount of funding it should receive.

Apart from these national programmes, the BBC also has 36 local radio stations in England and Channel Islands, and six regional services in Scotland, Wales and Nothern Ireland. Broadcasts on local radio concentrate on local news and information, together with music, entertainment and educational broadcasts.

Television is the single most popular form of entertainment in Britain. In the late 1980s the average adult spent twenty-five hours, and chil­dren eighteen hours, in front of the television set each week. They had four channels to choose from: BBC1 and BBC2, ITV (Independent Televi­sion) and Channel Four. BBC 1 broadcasts a schedule of news ,information programmes, documentaries, plays, films and light entertainment(such as comedies and quiz shows) from early morning to late at night. ITV’s schedule is similar, but its presentation is generally slicker and more “glossy”.Its programmes are broadcast round the clock. Both the BBC and ITV broadcast educational programmes, including broadcasts for schools.

BBC 2 broadcasts drama, arts and sports programmes. Channel Four, which was established in 1982, specialises in minority interest programmes, but has proved highly successful. BBC television derives its income from the annual licence fee for television, while ITV and Channel Four are financed solely(исключительно) through advertising. Coronation Street, ITV's most watched show, attracts advertising worth ten times the cost of making the programme. British television is the best in the world. Its export record and high audience ratings certainly suggest it is among the best.

In 1990 the government passed the Broadcasting Act, which promised to change the basis of television from 1992 onwards. This act was inspired by two factors: the Conservative govern­ment's free market ideology and the reality that satellite television would make it possible for viewers to receive programmes transmitted from outside Britain. This effectively destroys the regulatory controls previously applied by govern­ment. In order to prepare Britain's own commer­cial television for the 'white heat' of competing with satellite television for audiences, and thus for advertisers, the intention of the Act was to open British commercial television to genuine and open competition.

Television viewing is Britain's most popular leisure pastime: 95 per cent of households have a colour television set and 68 per cent have a video recorder.

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