BBC Trust

The BBC offers twenty-five public services in the UK. There are eight television channels, sixteen radio stations and an online/red button interactive service.

The Trust governs each UK public service using a published service licence. The Trust is required to assess the performance of services and to consider any proposals from the BBC Executive for new services or changes to services. A published protocol sets out our duties and how we carry these out. We publish a summary of our work each year in the Annual Report.

The Trust must review each of the public services every five years and it publishes its findings and the evidence used to reach these.

All BBC programmes and services are required to comply with BBC editorial guidelines. 

The Executive is responsible for operating the BBC’s services and for making day to day decisions regarding their schedules and programmes. Each year the Executive publishes a statement of programme policy for each service setting out the plans for the year ahead.