fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3560 ]

[ SECRET POST #3560 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3560 ⌋

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ayrt

Well, there are complaints of course. One is that you have to pay this license fee that funds the BBC if you want to watch any tv, even if you never watch the BBC at all. The rest of the channels are still paid for by ads, or part of a cable/digital/satellite package or whatever.

A second one comes from the fact that it's taxpayer money, and therefore not everyone's always going to be happy how it's spent. Sometimes because it has a bit too much 'diversity' (though no one would put it that way of course). Or because it's too vulgar, or has nudity, or it's too pretentious and not for the average viewer. It's too populist, or too cerebral, or yet something else.

But most people seem pretty pleased with the BBC from what I understand.

How much is it, do you know? I wonder if it's the same as our cable service, price wise?

And yeah - people will always bitch about *something*.

Wikipedia says it's about £145/$190 a year. And most of it goes to everything the BBC does: all the tv channels, radio stations, online stuff. So it's a lot, but they do get a lot in return IMO. BBC 1 & 2 are pretty much the only reason I keep my tv anymore.

A *year*? Wow. That's like...nothing. Some cable over here charges fifty to 100 a *month*.

I'd take that a year any freakin' day.

It's not cable though? I think? It's really just the BBC, I think. If you want any other channels you have to pay extra.

Thing is, though - unless you live in the right area and can get an antenna? You can't get *any* tv here. Cable is it. I tried to see if an antenna would work at my house, but it's all hills and valleys here, and it just won't pick up anything. Some places you can get two or maybe three local channels, but that's all.

and that's with a pretty big rig, up high. So...that for a *year* - is amazing.

(I'm asking by UK friend what all it entails, heh.)

£145 is a lot of money, though. And that's just what we pay for basically owning a TV; we still have to pay loads more each month if we want to watch anything more than the few things on the BBC channels at any time. We pay £55 a month so we also get other channels and that doesn't give us sports (costs an extra £30 a month) or movies (another £45 each month).
But yes, we do have much more diversity in our programming because of the laws that govern the BBC. In the last decade or so, other producers have improved their diversity to be more in line with the Beeb's. The audience expects it but the main reason is because they want to be eligible to be picked up the BBC so they have the widest audience.

I guess it depends on what you want? My UK friend (Devon) said there are over fifty free channels she could get if she had any kind of reception, and fifty channels seems like a lot to me! Basic cable here gives you less than that, and you have stuff like six 'home shopping' channels and five 'religious' channels and crap almost nobody wants to watch (four C-SPAN? Sheesh.) And if you want like HBO or whatever, that's extra.

So if you're really into sport or something, i can see it being irksome to have to buy that extra (but we do that kind of thing here, too), but even if you pay for all those extras, that's still under 25 a month and there is *nowhere* in the US where you can get that rate for cable a month.

You are ignoring a lot of freeview channels, wanna take a guess at why it is called "free"view? Give you a hint, no bills. Plus a chunk of the licence fee goes to Channel Four too. There has always been more than the BBC The BBC channels being BBC1 BBC2 BB3-now online channel like the BBC's own Netflix- BBC4, BBC News, CBBC, Cbeebies, plus so many radio channels I lost count of them at least six radio channels all of which are supported by the licence fee, plus the regional variants for BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland, BBC Wales, all of which produce their own content too. That is a cable package just in BBC channels, plus all the other Freeview and Freesat (like freeview but with a satellite dish) channels.

Here is the list:
http://www.radioandtelly.co.uk/freeviewchannels.html

That is an out of date by a couple of years list, because it is missing some channels. The licence fee even supports the infrastructure that helps broadcast these through the transmitter mast system.

How is all of that at 145 a year, less than £3 a week, not an amazing deal? That is why Murdoch hates it so much, he'd never be able to compete on price and he knows it.

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