U.S. President Donald Trump is suing the BBC for $10 billion over a television documentary he claims was “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory and malicious.”

Britain’s national broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the way it edited a speech in the program, but says it will defend itself against the defamation claim.

The BBC is not the first media organization on the receiving end of a lawsuit from the president. But its position is complicated by its status as a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster and its stature as a closely scrutinized national institution.
The BBC was founded in 1922 as a radio service to “inform, educate and entertain,” a mantra still central to its self-image.

It launched the world’s first regularly scheduled television service in 1936, and helped make TV a mass medium when many Britons bought a TV set specifically to watch the 1953 coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

It operates 15 U.K. national and regional TV channels, several international channels, 10 national radio stations, dozens of local radio stations, the globe-spanning World Service radio and copious digital output including the iPlayer streaming service.

As well as its news output it has a huge global viewership for entertainment shows including “Doctor Who,” “EastEnders,” “The Traitors” and “Strictly Come Dancing.”

The BBC is funded from the public purse

The broadcaster is funded by an annual license fee, currently set at 174.50 pounds ($230), paid by all U.K. households who watch live TV or any BBC content.

The license fee has long had opponents, not least rival commercial broadcasters, and they have grown louder in an era of digital streaming when many people no longer have television sets or follow traditional TV schedules.

The BBC’s governing charter, which sets the license fee, is reviewed once a decade, and the latest round of the process kicked off Tuesday. The center-left Labour government says it will ensure the BBC has “sustainable and fair” funding but has not ruled out replacing the license fee with another funding model.

The broadcaster is bound by the terms of its charter to be impartial in its output. It is not a state broadcaster beholden to the U.K government, but is overseen by a board that includes both BBC staff and political appointees.

It’s frequently a political football, with conservatives seeing a leftist slant in its news programs and some liberals accusing it of having a conservative bias.