BBC One

*For the BBC radio stations, see BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 1Xtra.*

*"BBC Television Service" redirects here. For the BBC department, see BBC Television.*

### Picture format

16:9 576i (SDTV)
1080i (HDTV)

### Formerly called

**BBC Television Service**
(2 November 1936 – 8 October 1960)
**BBC TV**
(8 October 1960 – 20 April 1964)
**BBC1**
(20 April 1964 – 4 October 1997)

### Sister channel(s)

BBC Two
BBC Four
BBC News
BBC Parliament
CBBC
CBeebies

## Terrestrial

### Freeview

Channel 1
Channel 101 (HD)

## Satellite

### Freesat

Channel 101
(SD: England; HD: Sco/Wal/NI)
Channel 106
(SD: Sco/Wal/NI; HD: England)
Channels 950–967, 972, 973, 976, 978 (regional variations)

### Sky (UK)

Channel 101
(SD: England; HD: Sco/Wal/NI)
Channel 115
(HD: England)
Channel 801
(SD: Sco/Wal/NI)
Channels 951–968, 976–979 (regional variations)

## Cable

### Virgin Media (UK)

Channel 101
Channel 108 (HD)
Channels 851, 861–864 (regional variations)

**BBC One** is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom, Isle of Man and Channel Islands. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the **BBC Television Service**, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed **BBC TV** in 1960, using this name until the launch of sister channel BBC2 in 1964, whereupon the BBC TV channel became known as **BBC1**, with the current spelling adopted in 1997.

The channel's annual budget for 2012–13 is £1.14 billion. The channel is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations, and therefore shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. It is currently the most watched television channel in the United Kingdom, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership, ITV.

As of June 2013 the channel controller for BBC One is Charlotte Moore, who succeeded Danny Cohen initially as an Acting Controller from May 2013.

## History

### Early years and launching

*Main article: BBC Television*
The BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. The BBC Television Service officially began regular broadcasts on 2 November 1936 from a converted wing of the Alexandra Palace in London. On 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was taken off air with little warning, with one of the last programmes to be shown before the suspension of the service being a Mickey Mouse cartoon; the government was concerned that the VHF transmissions would act as a beacon to enemy aircraft homing in on London. BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at 15:00. Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement, saying, "Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?". The Mickey Mouse cartoon of 1939 was repeated twenty minutes later.

### 2010s

As part of the Delivering Quality First proposals submitted by the BBC in October 2011 and approved by the BBC Trust in May 2012, all children's programming on BBC One and Two would be moved permanently to the CBBC and CBeebies channels following the digital switchover. It was found that the majority of child viewers watched the programmes on these channels already and that only 7% of these children watched CBBC programmes on BBC One and Two only, it was made clear "Children's programmes are absolutely fundamental to the BBC and that is why we have protected investment in them in the light of cuts elsewhere." Children's programming on BBC One ended on 21 December 2012. The move was criticised by *Teletubbies* co-creator Anne Wood, who described the changes as "ghettoising children's programmes" and believe it was merely a cost-cutting measure. Wood said "On the one hand it is inevitable. But it is dismissive of children. There is a certain amount of overlooking of the fact that children's programmes do get a wider audience than people are aware of... I have frequently had letters from older people who have enjoyed my programmes as much as children do. A lot of the reason older people like to watch children's programming is because it is life-enhancing." Head of BBC Children's, Joe Godwin said: "Our young viewers are our priority and the vast majority of children in the UK already tune in to CBeebies and CBBC to find their favourite BBC children's programmes. Far from being a 'cynical' move, we're just following where our audience has already gone."

As part of the review in 2012 other changes were brought in, including:

* BBC One is reducing the minimum hours of arts and music from 45 to 40, achieved through cutting episodes of shows, in particular Film 2013.
* BBC One and Two will "largely be protected from making significant cuts".
* Repeats on BBC One will increase, but remain under 10% of all output (the current rate is 8.4%.
* Expenditure on sports rights will be cut by 15%. This had largely been achieved already by sharing rights to Formula 1 coverage from 2012 (it was later dropped entirely from 2016).

In 2012, the BBC out-bid ITV for the rights to *The Voice UK*, which had already proved to be popular in other countries. The BBC paid £22 million for the rights to broadcast the show in the UK for two years. *The Voice UK* achieved good ratings for the BBC but ratings dropped towards the end of the first series and the second series. In 2013, *The Voice* was rescheduled to avoid a clash, and as a result, ratings have improved. In November 2015, it was announced that *The Voice* would be moving to ITV from 2017.

## External links

Template:Media in the United Kingdom
Template:Freeview