On Tue, 20 Jan 2004, Keith Whaley wrote: > Which brings up a question. Is it only BBC programming one pays for, or > do you have to add a bit for ITV? > I can't imagine ITV is free!
Keith, In the UK everyone with a televison set pays a licence fee (about £10/$15 a month). The money raised pays for the BBC (2 tv channels + about 8 radio channels). In return you are supposed to get: Public service broadcasting with a mission to 'inform, educate and entertain' No adverts (apart from ads for the BBC itself between programmes) Complete autonomy from commercial pressure keeping standards high (which commercial broadcasters have to compete with). This works with varying degrees of success. Without arguing who's television programmes are actually better, I would say that British tv is more watchable than say American or Canadian tv because of the lack of adverts (even commercial stations can't put too many in or people will turn over to the BBC!). Apart from the BBC there are three other commercial channels; ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. All of them carry advertising to pay for their programmes and do not require subscription. So yes, ITV is actually 'free'! The situation has gotten more complicated in the last decade with the arrival of satellite, cable and more recently digital TV. The former two are available via subscription and the latter is free, with the BBC also running several digital channels + a few more free commercial channels in there too. So come to the UK, the only country where you need a licence to own a TV set :-) Chris
