Is the BBC the largest broadcasting corporation in the world?

Largest broadcasting corporation in the world?

I'm not sure that's necessarily true - Wouldn't that be News Corporation and not the BBC?

After taking into account the world service, unlikely also what measure or size are you going on? Coverage, company size, number of channels?

I think a similar debate over this claim in the article has happened before. One point made by another editor that is worth re-highlighting is that News Corp's tentacles stretch into other areas such as film production and print media (whereas ignoring a relatively miniscule magazine business owned by BBC Worldwide, the BBC is purely a broadcaster). Once these are stripped out, of the equation News Corp's size is greatly reduced.

Nonetheless, News Corporation has over $60 billion revenue compared to BBC's approx. $8 billion budget. Even News Corp's revenue from broadcasting alone is more than $8 billion. The source used at the moment is simply a press release by Verisign - there's no proof provided to show that BBC is the largest broadcasting corporation in the world based on revenue.

I must also note, there is the TimeWarner company - although again it does more than just broadcasting, it is large - CNN is influential in many countries. But it might just be worth looking into these more closely to ensure the claims made on the BBC page are valid - especially since this claim is in the first sentence of the lead.

Going into this further, CNN's International service and its related networks reach more than 1.5 billion people - In comparison, BBC World reaches 281 million worldwide. So it can certainly, as far as I'm concerned, be argued that BBC is *not* the biggest broadcaster in terms of revenue, number of channels and worldwide coverage

Hmmm 1.5b? Sounds suspicous. That means a quarter of the worlds population watch it. That's before you consider the billions in Africa, South America, and Asia that dont have electricity never mind satellite or cable TV. Nor those who live in nations where either CNN or all satellite TV is banned. That begs the question: Over what time scale? A year would certainly be believeable especially if you use the traditional broadcasting definition of "reach" (i.e. something like more than 3 mins - that potentially means that if I quickly watch for a few mins once a year in a hotel on holiday I have been "reached"). Hoewever, as an example, according to the article on Wikipedia, 180m listen to the BBC World Service per week. I find it hard to believe that 1.5b individual people tune into CNN International alone every single week (at the very least this sounds like one of those suspicious double (treble,quadruple or more) counting statistics such as 10billion people tuning into the Olympics when there are only 6billion on the planet.

All very true - but since the 1.5 billion figure was from Wikipedia (the CNN International page), it is probably false as well - I also found it hard to believe. Looks like someone (not you, but someone) has let people add false information to these kinds of pages on Wikipedia.

I would admit the BBC is the biggest is also suspect. Especially with lack of detail in what regard. For example, I could believe the BBC was the World's largest public broadcaster and, although I believe no longer true, between around 1997 and a few years ago it was the world's largest news gathering organisation in terms of the number of reporters that it directly employed, as opposed to (I guess) freelancers and those working possibly in different subsiduaries of other companies in the same group. Perhaps it would be better if we could find a referenced source as in what regard the BBC is the largest?

I agree that it is a difficult question. I doubt the criterion of revenue or net profit is useful; as you have stated above, media conglomerates like News Corporation and Time Warner spread their tentacles in many areas beyond broadcasting. However, I find it hard to dispute the fact that no broadcasting system has a wider reach than BBC. CNN does not say it has 1.5b viewers, it says that it is available to 1.5b people, should they bother to buy a satellite aerial or subscribe to a cable service. The number has more to do with the reach of its electromagnetic waves than with the number of people that actually watch it. Probably, if we estimated the number of people that could in theory watch the BBC if so they wanted, the number would probably be similar or perhaps even larger. The number of households that actually receive broadcasting regularly is a much better measure, even more so because one cannot really count how many people are watching, but an estimate of how many TV sets are switched on a given channel can be made. If the data are accurate, then the numbers are indisputable: BBC has 281 million to CNN's 200 million. But I agree it is difficult to compare. Let us try to make some inferences by taking the broadcasting branches of the three combined. News Corporation has FoxNews, which is available in 40+ countries and essentially focuses on the US market, to the extent that the international programming is essentially the same as for the US. It has no radio service. It has enterntainment channels in the US, UK and Australia, but one viewer counts as one, regardless whether they watch one or five channels of the same broadcaster's. So, we may conclude that News Corporation is a feeble dwarf compared to the other two in terms of broadcasting. At its prime in the US, it reached 3.3 million households weekly. Compare with the 75+ million of BBC's wordlwide weekly coverage. In the UK, BSkyB is no competitor to the BBC even when it comes to entertaining.

Time Warner is headquartered in the US. It has several cable broadcasters there, and also has its international service, CNNi, available to 200+ countries. It has no radio service.

BBC, conversely, has an international service that reaches 50% more households than CNNi. And it has a radio, BBC WorldService, operating all over the world in short wavelength. It is surpassed in number of hours only by China's national radio and the Voice of America umbrella. So, it seems to me that the BBC is unsurpassed in terms of coverage of the Earth Surface and of the human population. It is believed that the World Service is the only source of news in certain places of the Earth where there are curbs on freedom of expression. As for revenue, I do not think one can compare private and public broadcasters. BBC is so big precisely because it is not so much interested in profit. And it is open in the UK, which means that all people that have a license (virtually everybody) can watch it, making it more comparable to ABC and NBC in the US than with CNN. It also reaches more than 200 countries.

One can, of course, try and compare other aspects. BBC still claims to be largest news-gatherer of the world. I assume it bases this claim on the number of regional offices, agreements with news outlets and number of foreign correspondents. It boasts more than 200 of the latter. It broadcasts in more than 30 languages.

I think CNN is big, but I doubt there can be a claim that BBC is not the largest broadcasting - not publishing, film-making, and not only TV - corporation in the world as far as the number of viewers is concerned. If another broadcasting system can have a claim to be so distributed and globalized as BBC, perhaps it will be Al-Jazeera in a few years.

I hope I have helped to settle the subject. If no one offers new arguments, I shall revert the statement in the article in a few weeks. Sincerely yours

I have to point out that you seem to have focused on TV, Broadcasting includes radio. No idea on exact figures but you can get radio signals over a huge area. It is possible to have a larger media organization & and for the BBC still to be the largest broadcaster, but 'Largest broadcaster needs defining first.

I would also say that a financial measure is the worst ,as the BBC isn't primarily a commercial company and that TV costs far more than radio, coverage (area/potentials) and actual listeners/viewers would seem the most appropriate for a measure of broadcasting. Either way it needs an explanatory note

Re this diff, I don't see the point of removing a cited reference in favor of a "citation needed" tag. I understand the cite is from the corporation itself, and I understand a neutral third-party cite would be nice. But how about WP:AGF on the part of the subject here? We have a cite from a source that is generally considered reliable. Is it right to assume that all reason goes out the window when the BBC is describing itself?

I truly believe this just proves that the statement isn't entirely correct when you can't find another source but the BBC page. Are you basically saying that the only thing on the web that says the BBC is the largest is the BBC themselves? Surely if it was so true there would be many other reliable sources that could be used. Also, it would help to clarify by what measure - largest by employees, budget, reach

I suggest a compromise; how about saying that "it describes itself as the world's largest..."? That would at least match the current citation

Seems reasonable to me. Regarding Wackymacs' point, I'm not sure how or where one would find such a list. I am not saying it's true because the "only" source available (BBC itself) claims it is true. Heck, I don't even know if it is true. It just seems to me it's not a stretch to assume good faith on this point - even if they are a large (or very large) international corporation. (I know, good faith doesn't necessarily apply, but that isn't good faith, now, is it?)