British Peoples - Culture - Media and Music

Media and Music

Further information: Music of the United Kingdom, Radio in the United Kingdom, and Television in the United Kingdom

Although cinema, theatre, dance and live music are popular, the favourite pastime of the British is watching television. Public broadcast television in the United Kingdom began in 1936, with the launch of the BBC Television Service (now BBC One). In the United Kingdom and the Crown dependencies, one must have a television licence to legally receive any broadcast television service, from any source. This includes the commercial channels, cable and satellite transmissions, and the Internet. Revenue generated from the television licence is used to provide radio, television and Internet content for the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Welsh language television programmes for S4C. The BBC, the common abbreviation of the British Broadcasting Corporation, is the world's largest broadcaster. Unlike other broadcasters in the UK, it is a public service based, quasi-autonomous, statutory corporation run by the BBC Trust. Free-to-air terrestrial television channels available on a national basis are BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4 (S4C in Wales), and Five.

100 Greatest British Television Programmes was a list compiled by the British Film Institute in 2000, chosen by a poll of industry professionals, to determine what were the greatest British television programmes of any genre ever to have been screened. Topping the list was Fawlty Towers, a British sitcom set in a fictional Torquay hotel starring John Cleese.

"British musical tradition is essentially vocal", dominated by the music of England and Germanic culture, most greatly influenced by hymns and Anglican church music. However, the specific, traditional music of Wales and music of Scotland is distinct, and of the Celtic musical tradition. In the United Kingdom, more people attend live music performances than football matches. British rock was born in the mid-20th century out of the influence of rock and roll and rhythm and blues from the United States. Major early exports were The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks. Together with other bands from the United Kingdom, these constituted the British Invasion, a popularisation of British pop and rock music in the United States. Into the 1970s and 1980s there was a diversification of British musical genres; Progressive rock, Glam rock, Heavy Metal, New Wave, and 2 Tone. Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands reviving British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s. Leading exponents of Britpop were Blur, Oasis and Pulp. Also popularised in the United Kingdom during the 1990s were several domestically produced varieties of electronic dance music; Acid house, UK hard house, Jungle, UK garage which in turn have influenced Grime and British hip hop in the 2000s. The BRIT Awards are the British Phonographic Industry's annual awards for both international and British popular music.