BBC

Britain's public broadcaster has come under fire for compromising over the song "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" which was sent flying up the UK charts by a campaign to celebrate former prime minister Margaret Thatcher's death.

The passion for mountain biking in Queenstown and further afield has gained international exposure on the BBC website, courtesy of two Lonely Planet writers.

The BBC did not cover up allegations of sex abuse against one of its former stars Jimmy Savile but the British broadcaster missed numerous warnings and proved incapable of dealing with the scandal when it finally broke, an inquiry found.

Max Clifford, Britain's highest-profile celebrity publicist, has been arrested for alleged sex crimes by a special police unit set up in the wake of an abuse scandal involving a former BBC TV star, his lawyer said.

When Tim Davie, the new acting director-general of the BBC, fronted up for his first day on the job earlier this month, it was a given all eyes would be on him as the corporation tries to resurrect its reputation in the wake of the Jimmy Savile sex abuse allegations.

Britain's BBC could be doomed unless it makes radical changes, the head of its governing trust says, after its director general quit to take the blame for the airing of false child sex abuse allegations against a former politician.

BBC director general George Entwistle has resigned just two months into the job, after the state-funded broadcaster put out a programme denounced by its chairman as shoddy journalism.

The family of the BBC presenter at the centre of a sex abuse scandal that has rocked the broadcaster has offered its "deepest sympathy" to the late Jimmy Savile's victims, saying it felt "despair and sadness".

British police investigating alleged sexual abuse by one of the BBC's most celebrated TV stars say some 300 victims have come forward and they are preparing to make arrests in a scandal that has thrown the broadcaster into disarray.

A sex scandal gripping Britain's BBC has deepened with claims that a paedophile ring had existed involving some of its stars, as its former director general said his handling of the case shouldn't stop him becoming the boss of the New York Times.