Britain: An official handbook > 1993

TELEVISION AND RADIO
maintains a technical monitoring station
where frequency measurements and other
observations on broadcasting stations are
carried out. The Union provides a forum
linking the major public services and national
broadcasters of Western Europe and other
parts of the world, and co-ordinates joint
operations in radio and television.
International Telecommunications Union
The BBC, ITC and Radio Authority
participate in the work of the International
Telecommunications Union, the United
Nations agency responsible for regulating and
controlling all international
telecommunications services, including radio
and television. It also allocates and registers
all radio frequencies, and promotes and
co-ordinates the international study of
technical problems in broadcasting.
Other International Bodies
The BBC, the ITC (until the end of 1992)
and the Radio Authority are associate
members of the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting
Union, and the BBC also belongs to the
Commonwealth Broadcasting Association,
whose members meet every two years to
discuss public service broadcasting issues.
Training
The BBC provides non-financial technical
assistance, particularly in training the staff of
overseas broadcasting organisations. The
Government finances overseas students on
broadcasting training courses at the BBC,
British Council and the Thomson Foundation
Television College, which sends lecturers, and
arranges courses, overseas.
Technical Developments
One of the most important recent
developments in television has been in news
coverage, where compact electronic cameras
have replaced film cameras, eliminating the
need for film processing and enabling
pictures to be transmitted directly to a studio
or recorded on video tape on location.
Other recent advances in television
broadcasting include:
• adoption of digital video tape recorders;
• increasing use of computer-aided digital
equipment for picture generation and
manipulation;
• use of portable satellite links to transmit
pictures from remote locations to studios;
and
• the introduction of stereo sound on the
NICAM 728 digital system, developed by
the BBC.
Both the BBC and the independent sector
are engaged in the further development of
digital techniques for studio applications and
inter-city links. In satellite broadcasting, the
MAC transmission format was developed by
IBA engineers, who went on to devise
refinements for the MAC system compatible
with widescreen television. The BBC and
IBA co-operated in the development of
teletext, and teletext sets in some 30
countries are based on the British system.
Both the BBC and the ITC are
undertaking a number of important areas of
long-term research. These include:
• the development of a 1,250-line wide¬
screen high definition television
(HDTV), which is being developed
under the EUREKA 95 group of
British and other European
manufacturers;
• enhancements to the PAL colour
television system;
• digital terrestrial audio and television
broadcasting; and
• data transmission studies.
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