BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, primetime drama and entertainment, and live BBC Sport events.
The channel was launched on 2 November 1936 under the name BBC Television Service, which was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution. It was renamed BBC Television in 1960 and used this name until the launch of the second BBC channel, BBC Two, in 1964. The main channel then became known as BBC1. The channel adopted the current spelling of BBC One in 1997.
The channel's annual budget for 2024–2025 was £1.28 billion. It is funded by the television licence fee together with the BBC's other domestic television stations and shows uninterrupted programming without commercial advertising. The television channel had the highest reach share of any broadcaster in the United Kingdom as at 2019, ahead of its traditional rival for ratings leadership ITV. In 2013, a study conducted across 14 countries by the polling organisation Populus found BBC One to be the station most favourably viewed by its country, with BBC Two coming in third place.
Availability BBC One is available via most major television providers in the United Kingdom.
Terrestrial Freeview: Channel 101 (HD), Channel 1 (SD)
Satellite Freesat: Channel 101 (HD) Sky: Channel 101 (HD)
Cable Virgin Media: Channel 101 (HD)
IPTV Sky Glass: Channel 101 (HD) Freely: Channel 1 (HD)
Streaming BBC iPlayer (UK only)
History
Early years and launch
The BBC began its own regular television programming from the basement of Broadcasting House, London, on 22 August 1932. The channel officially began regular broadcasts on 2 November 1936 at three o'clock in the afternoon from a converted wing of the Alexandra Palace in London.
Initially, programmes ran from three o'clock to four o'clock in the afternoon and nine o'clock to ten o'clock in the evening. Television director Gerald Cock described his rationale for the timings of the service as to "avoid eye strain" for home viewers in breaks between programmes, and to have a five-hour break between both periods in order not to interfere with home routines, such as mealtimes and children's bedtimes. The BBC also depended on newsreels from other companies as it did not have a television news service of its own until 1948.
On 1 September 1939, two days before Britain declared war on Germany, the station was taken off air with little warning, with the last programme to be shown being a Mickey Mouse cartoon (the 1933 short Mickey's Gala Premier); the government was concerned that the VHF transmissions would act as a beacon to enemy aircraft that could bomb London.
BBC Television returned on 7 June 1946 at three o'clock in the afternoon. Jasmine Bligh, one of the original announcers, made the first announcement, saying, "Good afternoon everybody. How are you? Do you remember me, Jasmine Bligh?". Twenty minutes later, BBC Television again aired the Mickey Mouse cartoon that they had broadcast in 1939. It carried the 1948 Summer Olympics, which tested the limits of new television equipment, the most ambitious outside broadcast that the BBC had ever done to date. The channel was made available outside of London for the first time on 17 December 1949, when the Sutton Coldfield transmitting station in the Midlands opened. The BBC hoped for the service to reach 70% of the British population by 1952, then 80% by 1954. The BBC made its first cross-country broadcast on 27 August 1950, crossing the English Channel in cooperation with its French counterpart RTF in Calais, lasting for one hour. From this experiment, the term "Eurovision" was coined, which was later adopted by the European Broadcasting Union as the name of its network, which in 1954 was already fully operational.
Creation of BBC1 The BBC held a statutory monopoly on television broadcasting in the United Kingdom until Associated-Rediffusion, the first Independent Television (ITV) station, began to broadcast on 22 September 1955. Lord Reith, which had long left his position at the corporation, compared its introduction to a plague at the House of Lords. While Reith's predictions did not come to pass, BBC Television's viewing share fell down to less than 30% by the end of the decade.
The competition quickly forced the channel to change its identity and priorities, following a large reduction in its audience, as noted in the 1962 Pilkington Report on the future of broadcasting. Simultaneously, the Pilkington Report decided to award an additional television station to the BBC on the basis that ITV was in comparison lacking in serious programming.
BBC Television became BBC1 when BBC2 launched on 20 April 1964, transmitting an incompatible 625-line image on UHF. The only way to receive all channels was to use a complex "dual-standard" 405- and 625-line receiver with both a VHF and a UHF aerial (405-line-only sets became obsolete in 1985 when VHF transmissions ended). BBC1 moved to purpose-built facilities at Television Centre on 20 September 1969. Television News continued to use Alexandra Palace as its base and by early 1968 had even converted one of its studios to colour. In the weeks leading up to 15 November 1969, BBC1 unofficially transmitted the occasional programme in its new colour system in order to test it. At midnight on 15 November, simultaneously with ITV and two years after BBC2 had done so, BBC1 officially began 625-line PAL colour programming on UHF with a broadcast of a concert by Petula Clark. Colour transmissions could be received in monochrome via monochrome 625-line sets until the end of analogue broadcasting.
Competition tactics with ITV flared up again in the early 1970s, when the channel opted to air its key sitcoms at 7:30pm, countering Coronation Street (at the time airing two nights a week) and related drama series. During the early years of BBC2, some programmes made for the channel were repeated on BBC1, attracting higher attention there, such as The Forsyte Saga when it gained a repeat on this channel. Between 1973 and 1977, BBC1 achieved an average audience share of 45% under Bryan Cowgill. This was the channel's most successful period in terms of audience share.
On 30 December 1980, the BBC announced plans to introduce a new breakfast television service to compete with TV-am. They stated that the new show would be broadcast before TV-am but included the caveat that the new show would not launch until at least November 1981, whereupon new licence fee income could finance the necessary extension of broadcasting hours. On 17 January 1983, one year after originally planned, the first edition of Breakfast Time was shown on BBC1, becoming the first UK wide breakfast television service and continued to lead in the ratings until 1984.
Michael Grade era (1984–1987) In 1984, Bill Cotton become managing director of Television at the BBC, and set about overhauling BBC1, which had been slated with poor home grown shows, its heavy reliance on US imports, with Dallas and The Thorn Birds being BBC1's highest rated programmes and ratings being over 20% behind ITV. Cotton recruited Michael Grade to become Controller of BBC1 from 1 September 1984Top job for Grade at BBC 1: The Times (London, England), Thursday, 31 May 1984,Early-evening ratings war likely if BBC replaces 'Sixty Minutes. Hewson, David The Times (London, England), Wednesday, 6 June 1984, p.3. the first time the corporation had recruited someone outside of the BBC, replacing Alan Hart.
The first major overhaul was to axe the unpopular Sixty Minutes current affairs programme: this was a replacement for the news and magazine show Nationwide. Its replacement was the BBC Six O'Clock News, a straight news programme in a bid to shore up its failing early evening slot. It was believed the BBC were planning to cut short the evening news and move more light entertainment programming in from the 18:20 slot, but this was dismissed. The Miss Great Britain contest was dropped, being described as verging on the too offensive after the January 1985 contest, with World's Strongest Man and International Superstar also being cancelled.
BBC1 was relaunched on 18 February 1985 with a new look, new programming including Wogan and EastEnders, and a revised schedule to help streamline and maintain viewers throughout the course of the evening. Grade started to gear most programmes to either on the hour or half past the hour, while Panorama and Omnibus were both moved after the Nine O'Clock News. Grade was also determined to end the dated and inept BBC1 scheduling which was hampering the channel and holding back good programmes. Grade said "When I took over BBC1, I discovered there were wonderful things, it was just a case of where to put them." Wogan had been scheduled for a 10 pm slot, but Grade moved it to a 7 pm slot as he believed the show had potential.
From February to August 1985, a high number of American mini-series were broadcast while filming took place of a number of new home grown programmes, including 'Allo 'Allo!, In Sickness and in Health, and Open All Hours. Further improvement came about when the corporation strengthened its drama output costing £30 million, with eight new series, including Howards' Way, All Creatures Great and Small, Hold the Back Page, and Bluebill, along with the return of Bergerac and Big Deal. The increase in the drama department was achieved by switching the money away from the administrative service over a three-year period, after BBC1 was criticised for failing to match ITV's output in drama. EastEnders was moved to a 19:30 slot, where it managed to soar to 20 million, helping the BBC1 audience share increase to nearly 50% for the first time since 1982.
On 27 February 1985, Doctor Who was placed on an 18-month hiatus. The BBC originally planned to axe the series as they wished to spend its budgets on new programming for the channel, but was forced to back down from public pressure and Doctor Who returned in September 1986. At the time Michael Grade and Jonathan Powell were blamed for the decision (Grade was the target of death threats).
On 9 September 1985, the long-standing children's programming block was overhauled and rebranded as Children's BBC, which gave it dedicated idents for the first time and had a live in-vision presenter, similar to rival ITV's Children's ITV block which had been running since January 1983. Previously the BBC had broadcast children's programming using BBC1's team of regular duty announcers. The launch presenter for this block, and thus the first Children's BBC presenter of the current format, was Phillip Schofield.
On 23 May 1986, long-running lunchtime magazine show Pebble Mill at One was broadcast for the last time after being on air for 14 years. On 27 October 1986, BBC1 launched its daytime television schedules. In a statement, BBC Daytime head Roger Laughton said:
1990s
Stereo audio transmissions, using the NICAM digital stereo sound format began on BBC1 in late 1987, to coincide with the sale of the first consumer NICAM-enabled equipment, a year after BBC2, and were gradually phased in across BBC TV output, although it took until 31 August 1991 for the service to begin officially on both channels. During this time, both commercial analogue broadcasters, ITV and Channel 4 had officially begun stereo transmissions using the BBC-developed NICAM system. Widescreen programming was introduced on digital platforms in 1998.