BBC 

T' British Broadcastin' Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcastin' House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as t' British Broadcastin' Company, shiver me timbers, it evolved into its current state with its current name on New Year's Day 1927. Well, blow me down! T' oldest and largest local and global broadcaster by stature and by number o' employees, t' BBC employs over 21,000 staff in total, o' whom approximately 17,200 are in public-sector broadcasting. T' BBC was established under a royal charter, matey, and operates under an agreement with t' Secretary o' State for Culture, me bucko, Media and Sport. Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee which is charged t' all British households, me bucko, companies, and organisations usin' any type o' equipment t' receive or record live television broadcasts or t' use t' BBC's streamin' service, iPlayer. Begad! T' fee is set by t' British government, agreed by Parliament, and is used t' fund t' BBC's radio, TV, and online services coverin' t' nations and regions o' t' UK. Since 1 April 2014, it has also funded t' BBC World Service (launched in 1932 as t' BBC Empire Service), which broadcasts in 28 languages and provides comprehensive TV, me hearties, radio, arrr, and online services in Arabic and Persian. Some o' t' BBC's revenue comes from its commercial subsidiary BBC Studios (formerly BBC Worldwide), which sells BBC programmes and services internationally and also distributes t' BBC's international 24-hour English-language news services BBC News, and from BBC.com, provided by BBC Global News Ltd. In 2009, t' company was awarded t' Queen's Award for Enterprise in recognition o' its international achievements in business. Since its formation in 1922, t' BBC has played a prominent role in British life and culture. It is sometimes informally referred t' as t' Beeb or Auntie. Well, blow me down! In 1923 it launched Radio Times (subtitled "T' official organ o' t' BBC"), t' first broadcast listings magazine; t' 1988 Christmas edition sold 11 million copies, t' biggest-sellin' edition o' any British magazine in history.

This article uses material from t' Wikipedia article "BBC", which is released under t' Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.