Portal:BBC

The Radio 1 Madonna controversy was a series of events that occurred as a result of BBC Radio 1's decision not to playlist American singer Madonna's single "Living for Love" in February 2015. Despite receiving moderate airplay from commercial radio in the United Kingdom, the single was not added to Radio 1's playlist, leading to accusations of ageism. The controversy stemmed from an article in the Daily Mail, which quoted an unnamed Radio 1 insider describing Madonna as "old" and "irrelevant". In response, the singer's fans posted numerous requests for the song on Radio 1's social media accounts, and several artists criticized Radio 1's music policy, prompting the station to release a statement defending their decision not to play the track.

The controversy received significant media coverage in the UK and internationally, sparking a wider discussion about ageism in the music industry. "Living for Love" was subsequently added to BBC Radio 2's C-list, before being promoted to the B-list. The station targets audiences aged 35 and higher. Commercially, the single peaked at number 26 on the UK Singles Chart for the week ending 28 February 2015. (Full article...)

Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Alison Steadman (left-to-right) during a recording of the BBC Radio 4 programme You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.

BBC Young Musician is a televised national music competition broadcast biennially on BBC Television and BBC Radio 3. Originally BBC Young Musician of the Year, its name was changed in 2010.

The competition, a former member of the European Union of Music Competitions for Youth (EMCY), is open to UK-resident percussion, keyboard, string, brass and woodwind players, who are eighteen years of age or under on 1 January in the relevant year. (Full article...)

Rudolph Cartier (born Rudolph Kacser, renamed himself in Germany to Rudolph Katscher; 17 April 1904 – 7 June 1994) was an Austrian television director, filmmaker, screenwriter and producer who worked predominantly in British television, exclusively for the BBC. He is best known for his 1950s collaborations with screenwriter Nigel Kneale, most notably the Quatermass serials and their 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

After studying architecture and then drama, Cartier began his career as a screenwriter and then film director in Berlin, working for UFA Studios. After a brief spell in the United States he moved to the United Kingdom in 1935. Initially failing to gain a foothold in the British film industry, he began working for BBC Television in the late 1930s (among other productions he was involved in the making of Rehearsal for a Drama, BBC 1939). The outbreak of war, however, meant that his contract was terminated; his television play The Dead Eye was stopped in the production stage. After the war, he occasionally worked for British films before he was again hired by the BBC in 1952. He soon became one of the public service broadcaster's leading directors and went on to produce and direct over 120 productions in the next 24 years, ending his television career with the play Loyalties in 1976. (Full article...)

Broadcasting House in Belfast is the headquarters of BBC Northern Ireland and was opened in 1941.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that the proposed BBC television special Planet Relief, created to raise awareness of climate change, was cancelled before it was made, for fear that it would be biased against climate sceptics?

• ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?

• ... that BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?

• ... that the composer Zbigniew Preisner wrote the title music for the monumental BBC documentary People's Century, which spans 26 parts?

• ... that Up the Women was the last sitcom to be filmed before an audience at BBC Television Centre?

• ... that the BBC documentary India: The Modi Question, which examines the career of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, was banned in India?
• ... that Dahiru Musdapher, the 12th chief justice of Nigeria, was once a BBC World Service contributor for West Africa and Hausa?
• ... that BBC Breakfast's resident doctor Nighat Arif has advocated for more women to be given vibrators for medical reasons?
• ... that the first song played on That's 60s was the same song Tony Blackburn had played on BBC Radio 1 more than 55 years earlier?