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Originally Posted by Graham
I would think that the vast majority of US TV output is an overwhelming argument for keeping at least *one* broadcaster that doesn't rely on either advertising revenue or subscriptions to pay its way!!
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But the output of HBO - things like from the earth to the moon and the 2nd world war 'band of brothers' thing, along with all the discovery channels show that commercial TV can produce good products. There also appears to be less of a political correctness about productions, friends could be produced with an all white cast, compare to this life, will and grace can have outragously camp gay characters. Anything UK produced seems to have political correctness built into the casting, sometimes at the expense of the expense of the jokes, for example the crouches
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pre...crouches.shtml that was written by Ian Pattison and according to many just did not reflect how a black family would interact, a potentially funny comedy (he also wrote Rab C Nesbit and more
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/ta...ison_ian.shtml but just did not get black comedy in the same way Lenny Henry did.
However these are expensive(ish) subscription channels with highly developed commercial arms (there are discovery channel shops now).