The Technological Innovations and the Business Strategy of BBC Essay

The Technological Innovations and the Business Strategy of BBC - Essay Example Over the years, the company grew from a single person entity to one that employs people in the thousands and spans across the globe in its operations. (Briggs, 1985) The BBC is well known for its record of impartiality and independence in reporting and coverage of news events. Though there has been some criticism in the recent past about the way in which it has handled some events, nonetheless, on the whole, the record of BBC has been relatively unblemished. The BBC is a pioneer in terms of launching a global news channel covering almost all regions in the world. To quote from the profile of BBC on its website, â€Å"The BBC is the largest broadcasting organization in the world. Its mission is to enrich peoples lives with programmes that inform, educate and entertain. It is a public service broadcaster, established by a Royal Charter and funded by the license fee that is paid by UK households. The BBC uses the income from the license fee to provide services including 8 national TV channels plus regional programming, 10 national radio stations, 40 local radio stations and an extensive website.† (BBC, 2010) The business strategy of BBC is relatively straightforward. The primary revenue earner for BBC is through its license fee that averages around 145 GBP per year per household. This is the fee paid by individual households to receive the broadcast television in the UK. Though there is no fee to own a television in the UK, there is a fee to receive the cable TV. However, the world service of the BBC is funded by government and as the website puts it, â€Å"BBC World Service broadcasts to the world on radio, on TV and online, providing news and information in 32 languages. It is funded by a government grant, not from the license fee.† (BBC, 2010) The technological innovations that have been introduced by the BBC are to do with the re-launched news website that receives visitors in the millions. The BBC claims the site to be "Europe's most popular content-based site" and states that 13.2  million people in the UK visit the site's more than two million pages each day.