List of songs banned by the BBC

The following is a list of songs that the BBC (The British Broadcasting Corporation) has, at one stage or another, considered unsuitable for broadcasting on its radio and television stations. Although the BBC has historically banned songs it deemed unsuitable, in recent years the Corporation has claimed that it no longer bans any records. As the United Kingdom's public service broadcasting corporation, the BBC has always felt some obligation to standards of taste and decency, to varying levels, at different times in its history. This "we know best" attitude has earned it the nickname of "Auntie BBC" or "Auntie Beeb".

The BBC has banned songs from the following artists; Cliff Richard, Frank Sinatra, Noël Coward, The Beatles, Ken Dodd, Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, the BBC Dance Orchestra, Glenn Miller, and George Formby. In addition, 67 songs were banned from BBC airplay as the first Gulf War began, including ABBA's "Waterloo", Queen's "Killer Queen" and The Boomtown Rats' "I Don't Like Mondays".

Files at the BBC's Written Archives Centre in Caversham, Berkshire now available for public inspection show that the Dance Music Policy Committee, set up in the 1930s, took the role of Britain's cultural guardian seriously: one 1942 directive read:

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