| BBC Parliament |
| BBC Parliament is a British television channel from the BBC. It broadcasts live and recorded coverage of the British House of Commons and House of Lords, Select Committees, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and occasionally from the General Synod of the Church of England. The Channel also broadcasts reports from the European Parliament. Before being taken over by the BBC, the channel was known as The Parliamentary Channel, at first operated by United Artists Cable and funded by a consortium of British cable operators. The Parliamentary Channel launched as a cable-exclusive channel in 1992. The channel was purchased by the BBC in 1998, retitled 'BBC Parliament', and relaunched under the new name on 23 September 1998. |
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It now broadcasts on cable, satellite, and Freeview. The channel ran as an audio service via DAB from launch until 14 November 2000.
Due to capacity limitations on the Digital Terrestrial Television platform, from launch until 30 October 2002, the channel ran as "audio only". Then on Freeview from October 2002 until 13 November 2006 the channel had a quarter-screen picture. After receiving "thousands of angry and perplexed e-mails and letters", not to mention questions asked by MPs in the Houses of Parliament itself, the BBC eventually found the bandwidth to make the channel full-screen.
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It is unique amongst the BBC channels in being entirely produced by an independent company, Millbank Studios, based in Millbank. Its 2002 relaunch has introduced an identity more in line with the BBC's corporate image, the channel now featuring music and graphics produced by BBC News.
Since 2002, the channel has frequently shown (almost) complete recordings of BBC general election coverage from a given year, from the 1955 election, the first British election programme to be telerecorded, to the 2005 election. Some have been broadcast on the anniversary of their original transmissions. The channel's editor has described this as adding "something of value" and says it helps the channel "reach a wider audience for our normal parliamentary schedule". |
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| Programming |
Dateline London
Dragon's Eye (BBC Wales)
First Minister's Questions (from the devolved administrations)
Hearts and Minds (BBC Northern Ireland)
Mayor's Questions (from the London Assembly)
Politics Scotland (BBC Scotland)
The Record
The Record Europe
Washington Journal (C-SPAN) |
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