Media & Culture

The circulation figures for newspapers in the UK are amongst the highest in the world. The popular broadsheets are the Daily Telegraph, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer and The Times. The widely-read tabloids include The Daily Express, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror and The Sun. The prominent newspapers in Scotland are Daily Record, the Herald and The Scotsman, while the popular Sunday newspapers include Sunday Mail, Sunday Post, Sunday Herald and Scotland on Sunday. The only Wales-based national newspaper is the Western Mail, its Sunday counterpart being the Wales on Sunday tabloid. Several regional papers also published across the country. In London, the Evening Standard is produced in several editions daily, the first being at midday.

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is the oldest and largest broadcaster in the world and is funded by a licence fee, collected from all TV viewers. BBC operates BBC1, BBC2 and digital services including BBC News 24 and BBC World, which is a commercially-funded international news channel. There is no advertising on BBC1 and BBC2. Commercial TV began in 1955 with the launch of ITV, which is a major commercial network, with regional franchises. Today, Channel 4 and Five make up the rest of the terrestial channels' network. British Sky Broadcasting-operated Sky, a digital satellite broadcaster, provides a variety of film, entertainment, sports and news channels.

BBC Radio is the principal broadcaster and its national services include music stations Radio 1 and Radio 2, cultural network Radio 3, flagship speech station Radio 4 and news and sports station Five Live. In addition, it has regional broadcasts that include BBC Radio Scotland, BBC Radio nan Gaidheal (Gaelic-language), BBC Radio Ulster (Northern Ireland), BBC Radio Wales and BBC Radio Cymru (Welsh-language). BBC Asian Network targets Asian communities in the UK. BBC World Service is available worldwide via shortwave and gradually on FM relays with programmes in more than 40 languages. The prominent commercial stations include music station Virgin Radio, sports station Talk Sport and classical music station Classic FM. Besides, there are a vast number of privately owned radio stations.

British Telecom is the main provider of fixed line services and also provides lease lines to many other providers who sell fixed telephone services carried over BT lines as they do not have their own infrastructure. Virgin Media is the second biggest player in the residential telephone line market. A few other companies provide fixed telephony mainly to large companies in the major cities. The major providers of mobile services are O2, Vodafone, 3, Orange, T-Mobile and Tesco. The main internet service providers are BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, Orange, Tiscali, Tesco, Carphone Warehouse and Entanet.

THe UK has a multicultural society with people from all parts of the world, a phenomenon that can be attributed to immigration and intermarriages. English is the official language and the first language of the majority. Welsh is spoken in parts of Wales, Gaelic in parts of Scotland and Northern Ireland, and French and Norman French in the Channel Islands. The ethnic minorities speak their own languages (e.g. Cantonese, Greek, Hindi, Punjabi, Mandarin, Turkish, Urdu, etc). The population is predominantly Christian (Church of England, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist) with sizeable Muslim, Sikh, Jewish and Hindu minorities.

The rich and diverse artistic heritage of UK encompasses a wide variety of activities including music, opera, dance, literature, craft and visual arts. Ballet, theatre and musicals are the popular forms of entertainment, promoted by specialist schools and dance companies alike. In classical music, symphony orchestras and operas are available and London alone has four symphony orchestras, as well as two major international opera houses. The famous international events held in the UK are the Leeds International Pianoforte Competition and the biennial Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Besides classical, the other popular forms are pop, rock, rap and Asian fusion. UK music festivals, such as Glastonbury and WOMAD, bring together the best new music and draw large international crowds.

The country's rich literary heritage is evident with writers such as Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Austen, Dickens, Eliot, Kipling, Hardy, Orwell, Wells and Auden. The popular modern day writers include James Kelman, Jeannette Winterson, Salman Rushdie, Irvine Walsh and Benjamin Zephaniah. UK is particularly known for the exceptional range of literature for children and has produced world-renowned authors for children's books namely Edward Lear, Beatrix Potter, Roald Dahl, Philip Pullman and the most recent and extremely popular JK Rowling. There are more than 200 annual literary prizes in the UK.

The most popular sport is soccer (football), the major teams or clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal. The highlight of the English soccer year is the FA (Football Association) Cup Final each May. Rugby union and rugby league are the other major team sports. Cricket is popular in England and Wales, but is less so in Scotland and Northern Island.

Horseracing and greyhound racing are popular spectator sports with people betting on the races at legal off-track betting shops. Motor racing is equally popular. Every year a Formula One car race is held at Silverstone. Major individual sports include athletics, golf, tennis, badminton and boxing. Popular water sports include sailing and rowing. The famous rowing race between the teams from universities of Cambridge and Oxford is held every year at Henley on the River Thames.