Home > BBC One

BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the United Kingdom, and indeed, the world. It is the primary channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and first broadcast as the 'BBC Television Service' on November 2, 1936, although the BBC had been broadcasting experimental and test transmissions in a variety of formats since 1929. The station held a complete monopoly on television broadcasting in the UK until ITV was launched in 1955.

1 History

The transmission mast above the BBC wing of Alexandra PalaceAlexandra Palace was built on a hill in Muswell Hill in North London in 1873 as a public entertainment centre. It is now a conference centre operated by a charitable trust. It was nicknamed "The People's Palace", or "Ally Pally", and in 1936 became the he, home of BBC One from 1936 until the early 1950sCenturies: 19th century 20th century 21st century Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s 2000s Years: 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 Events and trends Technology United States tests the first fusion bomb., photographed in 20012001 is a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar), and also: The International Year of the Volunteer The United Nations Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Events January January 1 A black monolith measuring approximately nine feet tall ap.The earliest broadcasts used the 210-line Baird system and the 405-line Marconi-EMI system on alternate weeks. However the Baird system proved too cumbersome and by early 1937Events January January 1 Anastasio Somoza becomes President of Nicaragua January 11 The first issue of Look magazine goes on sale in the United States. January 19 Howard Hughes sets a new air record by flying from Los Angeles to New York City in 7 hours, had been dropped. The station was based in a converted wing of Alexandra PalaceAlexandra Palace was built on a hill in Muswell Hill in North London in 1873 as a public entertainment centre. It is now a conference centre operated by a charitable trust. It was nicknamed "The People's Palace", or "Ally Pally", and in 1936 became the he in London, housing two studios, various scenery stores, make-up areas, dressing rooms and so forth, and even the transmitter itself. The Palace was the home base of the channel until the early 1950s when the majority of production moved to the Lime Grove Studios, and then in 1960 the headquarters moved to the purpose-built BBC Television Centre at White City, also in London, where the channel is based to this day.

On September 1, 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was unceremoniously taken off air at 12:10pm after the broadcast of the Mickey Mouse cartoon, Mickey's Gala Première. The last words broadcast were of a caricature of Greta Garbo saying "Ah tank ah kiss you now". It was feared that the VHF transmissions would act as a beacon to enemy aircraft homing in on London—also, many of the television service's technical staff and engineers would be needed for the war effort, in particular on the RADAR programme. The television channel returned on June 7, 1946 at 3pm. Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement saying "Remember me?" Remarkably, the programming continued with the same Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939, introduced with the announcement: "As we were saying before we were so rudely interrupted..."

An Emitron camera, of the type that would have been used to make the earliest 405-line programmes broadcast on the channel. This particular example is a dummy constructed for the 1986 BBC drama Fools on the Hill, which depicted the early days of the station.

Initially, the station's range was officially only within a twenty-five mile radius of the Alexandra Palace transmitter—in practice, however, transmissions could be picked up a good deal further away, and on one occasion in 1938 were picked up by engineers at RCA in New York, who were experimenting with a British television set. They filmed the static-ridden output they got on their screen, and this poor-quality, mute film footage is the only surviving record of 1930s British television.

By the outbreak of war in 1939, there were an estimated 30,000–40,000 television sets in London. Coverage extended to Birmingham in 1948 with the opening of the Sutton Coldfield television transmitter, and by the early 1950s the entire country was covered.

The station was renamed BBC1 on the day that BBC2 was launched in April 1964. In 1969, simultaneous with ITV and two years after BBC2, the channel began 625-line PAL colour programming. Stereo transmissions began in 1988, and widescreen programming was introduced on digital platforms after 1997. However many of these developments took some years to become available on all transmitters.

For the first half century of its existence, with the exception of films and imported programmes from countries such as the United States and Australia, almost all the channel's output was produced by the BBC's own in-house production departments. This changed following the 1990 Broadcasting Act , which required that 25% of the BBC's television output be out-sourced to independent production companies. As of 2004 many popular BBC One shows are made for the channel by independents, but the in-house production departments continue to contribute heavily to the schedule.