BBC

The current dip in classical CD sales scarcely makes it seem a propitious time to launch a new record label. Rather than expend resources on recording new artists, all the major labels are cannibalizing their vaults to reissue old material in refurbished form -- whether Sony's "Classical Masterworks Heritage" series, EMI's "Great Recordings of the Century" or Philips' "Great Pianists of the 20th Century." Old wine in new bottles, if you like.But one new label, BBC Legends, is offering a distinctive spinoff of this formula: old wine of the finest vintage -- but rarely, if ever, bottled before.

Today's nuptials of Britain's Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys-Jones will draw lots of coverage, but not the castle-load of attention that was given to the 1981 union of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.Far fewer networks will be offering live coverage of this royal wedding. Steep fees charged by the BBC to license the footage are being blamed for keeping at least some networks away, while a general sense of "So what!" is also to blame.ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN are expected to air coverage in their regular news programs, but only MSNBC, the Fox News Channel, the Learning Channel and BBC America plan to cover the event as it unfolds.

LONDON -- There is a radio station that is forever England, where soap operas survive, game shows thrive and news rules the day. This is the British Broadcasting Corporation's Radio 4.It's not called talk radio. This is intelligent speech radio, featuring programs that hark back to the "wireless" age.On Radio 4, "The Archers" live in a fictional English village, their soap opera about family and farming spinning out over 40 years, encompassing everything from gay rights to crop failure. Listeners have Archer parties, arriving dressed as their favorite character.

Discovery Communications Inc. will invest $500 million or more in a long-term partnership with the British Broadcasting Corp. to develop programming and new cable TV channels in the U.S. and abroad, the Bethesda company said yesterday.The deal is expected to lead to a BBC cable channel in the United States that would be owned by the British government-controlled broadcaster, yet distributed through Discovery's relationships with local cable systems.It also will give Discovery the right of first refusal to show nearly all of the BBC's nonfiction programming in the U.S., and the right to work with the BBC to develop programs for Discovery's present and future cable channels, including the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, and the Animal Planet Channel.

BBC offering on cableBBC World Channel, a 24-hour international news and information channel in Britain, is coming to U.S. cable TV systems next year under Reese Schonfeld, the man who invented CNN.Mr. Schonfeld, who designed, launched and ran Cable News Network as its founding president, said yesterday that he changed his mind 18 months ago when the federal Cable Act cleared the way for the BBC on U.S. cable. BBC World will be available Feb. 1 and will cost operators about 5 cents per subscriber, he said.

Everybody knows about the Beatles playing "The Ed Sullivan Show." Indeed, seeing the Fab Four on the Sullivan show was a seminal experience for countless American fans, most of whom had no other hope of catching the band in concert.Back home in Britain, however, it was much easier to have a sense of what the Beatles sounded like live. It wasn't just that the group did more touring there than here; it also taped no less than 52 programs for BBC radio between March 1962 and June 1965. Unfortunately, although the BBC taped each of the performances, the only fans with access to the recordings were those who invested heavily in bootlegs.

You may have heard the term "British invasion." Once upon a time, it meant four cute and cuddly moptops from Liverpool, waving on the airport tarmac in New York, four guys with great tunes and dry wit who were poised to take the nation by storm.But that was 30 years ago. Today, the British invader is a cute and cuddly, pink and yellow seven-foot clown in a latex rubber suit, with a rotund polka dot stomach and a frozen maniacal grin, who doesn't say anything except his name, and whose major talent seems to be his ability to fall on top of people.

LONDON -- The British have been explaining America ever since Capt. John Smith first sailed into the Chesapeake Bay and stepped ashore to examine the vast, unknown and recalcitrant continent before him.Almost four centuries later, the United States remains a preoccupation of the guys who once owned the store but now find themselves running a branch office after the big takeover.This fall, the British Broadcasting Corp.'s World Service is trying its hand at figuring out America with more than 100 programs on "The State of the States."

ON AND OFF THE AIR:* Would-be kingmaker Larry King, whose talk show ushered billionaire Ross Perot onto and then abruptly off the presidential platform, tonight steps away from politics for his third show biz celebrity special."

LONDON -- It was dirty work, but somebody had to do it.The contract went to David Yallop, a man with melancholy eyes accustomed to dealing in violence and conspiracy. He was handed a list of 10 names. Get rid of these people, he was told.The paymaster promised about $156,000. Mr. Yallop put black stars by the names of his victims on a chart by his desk. He planned to start with a bomb.He wound up in court. So did his bosses.The would-be victims? Well, they're still around: Pete, the market stall holder, and his girlfriend, Barbara; Sufia's still with us, and even baby Steven.

When visitors come, you want to show off the good stuff. Crabs on the Fells Point waterfront. Sailing the Inner Harbor. Walks around Fort McHenry. The dolphin show at the aquarium. An afternoon Orioles game. Recently, I had guests who wanted to see the other Baltimore, the one with the bodies and the bloodshed, the one with the boarded rowhouses and empty neighborhoods, the one TV news and TV entertainment have blurred into one macabre pageant of urban ills, dysfunction and misfortune.

Three of fall's most anticipated new series premiere tonight, and taken together, they offer a near-perfect snapshot of the state of network TV today - for better or worse. There are talented stars and bits of strong writing in each of the two dramas and one sitcom, but there is little originality or inspiration. Two are knockoffs of BBC and Australian TV series, and the other is a Jerry Bruckheimer assembly-line procedural (Think: Without a Trace). They are, however, about as good as network TV is going to get in this era of decline, and each has its moments, small as they may be. ABC's "Life On Mars" Who could not find something to like in a cop drama that features Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli?

Fifty women on racing bicycles, wearing sunglasses, helmets, gloves and bright jerseys, gathered in a fiercely competitive-looking group at Oregon Ridge Park in Baltimore County yesterday. But instead of racing, they shared. One by one, they went around the circle introducing themselves, describing why they love to ride and how much it means for their mental and physical health. "I feel like this is A.A.," one rider confessed, referring to Alcoholics Anonymous. And then they took off on a 25-mile ride under a glorious blue sky. The event yesterday, called "She Got Bike," was the opposite of Bikeaholics Anonymous.

BEIRUT -- I had a very unusual experience recently as I was going through my pleasant early morning routine while sitting in my easy chair on our balcony overlooking the Mediterranean Sea: reading the newspapers, drinking coffee, listening to the BBC radio news. The unusual thing was that there was not a single item about the Middle East on the BBC radio news. I do not exaggerate when I say that it may be the first time in around 36 years of regular listening that the morning bulletin did not carry Middle East news.

NEW YORK -- When it comes to reach, few news organizations rival that of the BBC, the venerable British broadcasting service recognized for its no-nonsense newscasts delivered in crisp, clipped tones. BBC World, the BBC's commercially funded 24-hour television news channel, attracts 76 million viewers a week from more than 200 countries, making it one of the biggest international news networks. But 16 years after its launch, the channel is largely absent from one major market: the United States.

JERUSALEM -- A videotape of journalist Alan Johnston surfaced yesterday, the first signs of the BBC reporter who was abducted in the Gaza Strip 2 1/2 months ago. In the tape, posted on a militant Islamic Web site, Johnston says he is being treated well, laments the "huge" and "unacceptable" suffering of the Palestinian people and condemns the U.S. and British invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Although Johnston appears to be speaking extemporaneously, it was not possible to know under what conditions the videotape was made.

JERUSALEM -- An obscure Palestinian group claimed in a tape released yesterday that it was holding BBC correspondent Alan Johnston and demanded as a condition of his release that the British government free a jailed Muslim cleric. The statement, if confirmed, would be the first public demand made by kidnappers since Johnston was seized at gunpoint in Gaza City two months ago. The BBC said the tape shows a picture of his identification card, a possible sign that the claim is true, but not one of Johnston.

The History Boys treats teaching as an art and makes it thrilling. Watching and listening to its lead character Hector dissect a Thomas Hardy poem is more vivid and emotionally startling than any CSI TV show, because what Hector demonstrates are the forensics of the soul. While Casino Royale continues to rev up action audiences with an agent On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the freshest piece of writing for dramatic audiences, The History Boys, has come from a man who served On Her Majesty's Public Broadcasting Service.

Within a 10-minute period yesterday, CNN offered viewers reports that ranged from a live update in London on the alleged terrorist plot, to an analysis from New York by Valerie Morris on how the stock market was reacting to the news. In between, the coverage segued to Washington for a report on political fallout from correspondent Andrea Koppel, and to John F. Kennedy International Airport for a segment on how travelers were coping. Each report was done with so much context, confidence and calm that America's pioneering 24-hour cable news channel nearly could have been mistaken for its venerable counterpart, the standard-bearer of international crisis reporting, the BBC. That was no accident, Jon Klein, president of CNN/U.

Dec. 19--1843: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was first published in England. 1932: The BBC began transmitting to Australia. 1957: Meredith Willson's musical play The Music Man opened on Broadway. 1972: Apollo 17 splashed down in the Pacific, winding up the Apollo program.