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50 free BBC trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
The BBC began in 1922 as a company owned by wireless-set makers and became a royal-chartered corporation in 1927 under John Reith, whose instruction to inform, educate and entertain still defines it. A century on it runs the World Service, the Proms, five orchestras and the longest-running children's show on earth. This quiz covers the history, the radio and television landmarks, and the things only the British would know: the six pips, the Shipping Forecast's 31 sea areas, Bubbles the clown on Test Card F, and why Doctor Who started 80 seconds late. Every answer is sourced and explained.
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Q 01In which year was the British Broadcasting Company formed?
1922
It began as a private company owned by a consortium of wireless-set makers, with the GPO issuing a single licence to avoid American-style chaos.
Q 02The BBC became a royal-chartered corporation on 1 January of which year?
1927
The Crawford Committee recommended replacing the commercial company with a non-commercial, Crown-chartered body.
Q 03Who was the BBC's first director general?
John Reith
A Scottish Calvinist minister's son, Reith ran the company from 1922 and the corporation from 1927, and was knighted the same year.
Q 04Which motto appears on the BBC's coat of arms?
Nation shall speak peace unto Nation
Adopted in 1927, it adapts a line from the Book of Micah about nations beating swords into ploughshares.
Q 05The Reithian mission is to "inform, educate and" do what?
Entertain
The three verbs still anchor the BBC's public purposes a century after Reith first set them down.
Q 06What is the name of the BBC's headquarters building in Portland Place?
Broadcasting House
The first broadcast from the building went out on 15 March 1932, and a new wing named after John Peel was added in 2005.
Q 07Which weekly listings magazine did the BBC launch in 1923?
Radio Times
The first issue cost tuppence and sold out its quarter-million print run; the 1988 Christmas edition remains Britain's best-selling magazine issue ever.
Q 08Which comedian coined the nickname "the Beeb" at a 1972 Goon Show reunion?
Peter Sellers
He said "Beeb Beeb Ceeb"; DJ Kenny Everett shortened it and ran with it, and Bowie and Queen both titled albums after it.
Q 09How is the BBC's work principally funded?
A television licence fee
The fee is set by the government and agreed by Parliament; the ban on advertising dates back to the 1920s.
Q 10Britain's first live public broadcast in 1920 starred which Australian soprano?
Nellie Melba
The Daily Mail sponsored the Chelmsford broadcast from Marconi's factory; officials then banned further ones for interfering with military signals.
Q 11The BBC's regular television service launched in 1936 from which London venue?
Alexandra Palace
Haringey's coat of arms still carries lightning bolts for Ally Pally's role in the birth of television.
Q 12Which commercial network ended the BBC's television monopoly in 1955?
ITV
The BBC's radio monopoly lasted far longer, until LBC went on air in London in October 1973.
Q 13In which year did BBC2 launch?
1964
The Pilkington report had praised the BBC and savaged ITV, so the second channel went to the BBC, using the sharper 625-line standard.
Which station's easy-listening half came from the 1967 split of the Light Programme?
Q 21What is the name of the clown doll on Test Card F?
Bubbles
The card aired for more than four decades, long enough to become one of the most parodied images in British culture.
Q 22Which company built the BBC Micro for the Computer Literacy Project?
Acorn Computers
Acorn won the contract with a hastily prototyped machine called the Proton, renamed once the BBC signed on.
Q 23How many pips make up the Greenwich Time Signal?
Six
The final, longer pip marks the exact start of the hour; the Royal Observatory generated them until the BBC took over in 1990.
Radio 2
Radio 1 took the pop, Radio 2 the easy listening; the Third Programme became Radio 3 and the Home Service Radio 4 the same day.
Q 15Radio 1 was launched in 1967 to answer demand created by what?
Pirate broadcasters
Radio Caroline and its offshore rivals had been playing pop from ships since 1964 while the BBC rationed it.
Q 16Who was the first DJ to broadcast on Radio 1?
Tony Blackburn
He came straight from the pirate ships Radio Caroline and Radio London, which gave the new station instant credibility.
Q 17Which band's record was the first played in full on Radio 1?
The Move
'Flowers in the Rain' was only number 2 that week; the number 1, Engelbert Humperdinck's 'The Last Waltz', was judged wrong for the station's sound.
Q 18What was the BBC's teletext service, launched in 1974?
Ceefax
It was built to deliver subtitles and grew into a news service; it finally went dark in October 2012 with the digital switchover.
Q 19The name of the BBC's teletext service was a pun on which phrase?
See facts
Viewers typed a three-digit page number and waited a few seconds for it to cycle round.
Q 20On Test Card F, Carole Hersee is playing which game with a clown doll?
Noughts and crosses
Her father George, a BBC engineer, designed the card; it was the first UK test card in colour and the first to show a person.
Q 24Into how many sea areas does the Shipping Forecast divide the waters around Britain?
31
Heligoland was renamed German Bight in 1955, and Finisterre became FitzRoy in 2002 to honour the forecast's founder.
Q 25Which HMS Beagle captain established the storm-warning service behind the Shipping Forecast?
Robert FitzRoy
FitzRoy, who had sailed Darwin around the world, coined the word 'forecast' and founded what became the Met Office.
Q 26What was the name of Blue Peter's first pet dog?
Petra
The original puppy died of distemper within days and was quietly replaced with a lookalike so young viewers would not be upset.
Q 27Blue Peter holds which world record?
Longest-running children's TV show
It started in October 1958 and stayed live for decades before switching to a pre-recorded format in 2025.
Q 28The Archers is set in which fictional village?
Ambridge
Borchester is the county town of fictional Borsetshire, wedged between Worcestershire and Warwickshire.
Q 29Who presented Match of the Day from 1999 to 2025?
Gary Lineker
He was only the fifth regular presenter in six decades, and the longest-serving of them all.
Q 30How many recordings does a Desert Island Discs castaway choose?
Eight
They also get one book and one luxury item, and must name the single disc they would save from the waves.