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Originally Posted by Damien
Ok. This is BBC Worldwide. You have always had to pay to own BBC content. It may not be good value but the concept itself in fine. You had to buy DVD's and this is no different.
The patten goes BBC TV > iPlayer > iTunes > DVD. It will eventually be on the US iTunes too.
---------- Post added at 08:38 ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 ----------
That article is also written in a way that designed to annoy people, they clearly wanted to have a go at Apple and the BBC. I did like this comment from someone in Munich.
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What you say and what the German say are both very very true.
If you ever leave the UK you realise how cheap the licence fee is and how much you get for it. Note the US is a big country and less populated but the transmission networks here have way less coverage than the UK. And the transmission network (Crown Castle?) is partly funded by the licence fee.
You need to remember that the licence fee not only gets you shows like Ashes to Ashes which are 55mins plus in running time compared to the 42 odd mins of an episode of Lost. Thats a lot of adverts to wade through in the US. It gets you an 'impartial' - and I realise that is open to debate news service with global reach, many radio stations and the great content on those that often transfers to TV as a result of ideas being given radio budget to develop and develop a following.
So here in the US, realistically I can't get TV from any other means than cable or Sat (or FiOS in some places), the broadcast network is not good enough. FM radio has less than stellar coverage so the alternative is to subscribe to XM, another fee. And news, well the BBC does a good job of keeping me informed, more often the first site that I and many of my American colleagues go to for news.
A final example that always amazes me and makes me realise how the fee paying model of TV works so much better in the UK is the Disney channels in the UK. They are (or were when I last paid NTL for them) an extra fee a month. But that means they are advert free. I so preferred my son watching them there where he was not bombarded with adverts for toys and junk food than here where they are part of the usual tier of cable but with adverts. Similarly in the UK you have CBeebies and CBBC as advert free childrens television.
Be grateful for the BBC you don't know what you have until you don't have it any more.
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