Text 83. Newspapers. TV. Radio

Fleet Street in London is the home of most national daily and Sunday newspapers. People often say “Fleet Street” to mean “the press”.

British newspapers can be divided into two groups: quality and popular. Quality newspapers are more serious and cover home and foreign news while popular newspapers like shocking, perso­nal stories. These two groups of papers can be distinguished ea­sily because the quality newspapers are twice the size of the popular newspapers.

The quality daily papers are the “Times”, the “Guardi­an”, the “Daily Telegraph”, the “Financial Times”. The “Ti­mes”, founded in 1785, is considered to be the most authoritati­ve newspaper voice in the country. The “Guardian” appeals to well-educated readers. The “Daily Telegraph” is bought by educa­ted upper-middle and middle class readers. The “Financial Ti­mes”, printed on pink paper, is read by businessmen.

The “popular” press consists of the “Daily Mail”, the “Da­ily Express”, the “Daily Star”, and the “Daily Mirror”. In all newspapers there is a desperate fight to maintain their circulation, but sometimes their main weapons are sex, scan­dal and sport.

Apart from London-based papers there are many local newspa­pers. Most of them are evening papers and many appear weekly.

Broadcasting in the UK is controlled by the British Broad­casting Corporation (ВВС) and the Independent Broadcasting Autho­rity (IBA). The ВВС receives its income from the government but the private companies controlled by the IBA earn money from ad­vertizing.

National radio is controlled by the ВВС. Listeners can choose between four stations. Radio 1 is a pop-music station with news and magazine-style programmes. Radio 2 plays light music and re­ports on sport. Radio 3 plays classical music, and Radio 4 has news programmes. There are many local stations, some private and some run by the ВВС. Their programmes consist mainly of music and local news.

The ВВС has 2 TV channels. ВВС 2 has more serious programmes and news. There is a break for advertisements about every 15-20 minutes. The IBA is responsible for looking after the regional independent TV companies who broadcast their own programmes and those they have bought from other regions. The most recent in­dependent channel is Channel 4 and it has more specialized prog­rammes than the main channels.

TV and radio are also two of the main teaching channels used by the Open University. This “university of the air” allows many thousands of students to study at home for degrees. They also have to do without sleep as most of their programmes are broadcast early in the morning or late at night.

“Top of the Pops” is a programme that has been shown every week on ВВС TV for many years. Each week computers in a number of record-shops throughout the UK show how many copies of a re­cord have been sold this week. With this information the show’s producers decide which songs will be played. Usually the show fi­nishes with the number 1 single. In this way a record becomes a hit.

Answer the following questions:

1. What is the home of most national daily and Sunday newspa­pers?

2. What are the groups British newspapers can be divided into?

3. What are the daily newspapers?

4. Who controls broadcasting in Great Britain?

5. How many stations does the English radio have?

6. How many channels does ВВС have?

7. What does “The Open University” mean?

8. How does a record become a hit?

Подписано в печать 2009 г. Формат 60х84 1/16

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