LONDON — The British Broadcasting Corporation is variously seen as a crown jewel of British culture, a producer of refined entertainment and reliable news coverage and as a cumbersome monolith, burdened by scandal and mismanagement.

But there is wide agreement that the BBC is at a critical moment in its nearly 94-year history. Challenged by the same forces that have upended traditional news media organizations elsewhere, including the technology-driven fracturing of its mass audiences, it faces intense budget pressures. Accused of using public funds to distort the market for programming, it is under constant assault by private-sector competitors. Criticized by some members of the governing Conservative Party as having a left-leaning institutional bias, it has been caught in political crosscurrents.

As the government prepares to set out on Thursday its plans for a new BBC charter — the document governing its operations, and the first revision in a decade — Britain is grappling with fundamental questions about what role the broadcaster should play in a world of streaming video, podcasts and proliferating news sites. Already, the BBC has put itself through a series of staff cuts and reorganizations in recent years intended to address its array of challenges, from the legacy of long-ago sexual abuse cases involving big-name stars to lapses in its journalism.

Any institution so central to public life and so huge — it receives 3.72 billion pounds a year, or about $5.4 billion, through the £145.50 license fee nearly all households pay, plus £1.3 billion in commercial and other income — is inevitably going to prompt questions about its scope, size and purpose.