Friends of Rupert Murdoch.
Same goes for our national health service, which is currently being gutted for the same reasons.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/29/bbc-the-voice-i...
Kind of a moot point now seeing as the BBC were outbid for the next series:
Not that the last Labour government were very keen on it!
Furthermore it creates a potential conflict of interest. Do you pass a law that benefits 'your' company over private companies? What about passing a law levels the playing field in a sector but will take profits away from the government?
They aren't burdened by paywalls or quarter-capitalism. As long as they do a good job (ensuring that the public want them funded) I think they'll be around.
In Sweden, SVT (public service channels) have done a good job providing all content online, on Apple TV, etc. It feels like they have a modern mindset.
"The TV licence does not have a long-term future and is likely to be replaced by a new levy within the next 15 years, a group of MPs has said."
"The MPs suggested every household could pay a new compulsory levy instead."
Yeah. So if enough people decide they don't need or want the BBC so they're not paying for it, it will hit a threshold where they just start charging everyone.
One of the important things to note is that the US absolutely dominates world media, from TV to movies to music to everything else. For countries that are linguistically compatible (UK, Canada, Australia, etc) this is extra-true. You get into a weird situation where the bulk of the entertainment being consumed by the populace is foreign-made, and there's increasingly less room for expressions of local culture.
The funding of the CBC in Canada for example is less about making you watch the CBC but more about state funding to create local arts and culture in an environment where foreign culture dominates. It's about making sure "Canadian TV" and "Canadian music" even exists (sorry about the Bieber).
I can't speak for the BBC, but it's also important to note that unlike public broadcasters of the US like PBS, the CBC is not a giant money pit. It creates programs that are highly successful, generate revenue, and have viewership competitive with major American programs. The CBC is a mainstream cultural institution in a way that the PBS can only hope to be, so it's not as if taxpayer money is being spent to create shows nobody watches.
The entertainment isn't produced by the state though. The BBC is owned and funded by the British public, not the state. The government isn't directly involved in the BBC, although "BBC Trustees are appointed by the British monarch on advice of government ministers"[0]. Other European countries have similar models.
Besides, and I understand that this is a contentious issue, I think that there are certain services that all members of a society should pay for, even if not everybody uses them. My taxes pay for roads even though I don't own a car. Bear in mind that the BBC also produces news and a lot of other content, all without ads and independent of commercial interests.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#Governance_and_Corporate_S...
Yes, it is messed up.
In Australia, our ABC is funded directly out of general taxes, rather than an explicit TV License. I can imagine Britain eventually moving to a similar model to fund the BBC.
While the BBC may have broadcast River, Endemol Shine Group has the distribution rights, which is who Netflix would have paid.
I don't know all the details, but unless River was a wholly internal BBC production, I'd suggest Endemol probably contributed to the production budget in return for the distribution rights.
This happens with a lot of BBC programmes. The majority of the rights reside with BBC Worldwide, a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC. BBC Worldwide bids on distribution rights like any other TV sales and distribution company. Any profits from BBC Worldwide's activities are invested back in the public BBC, thus reducing licence fee rises to some extent.
However, other companies like Endemol and All3Media also produce programmes broadcast on various BBC channels or work with independent production companies to fund productions, in return for distribution rights, regardless of where it is broadcast domestically.
BBC Worldwide has also been investing in independent production companies in order to increase their distribution catalogue.
Disclosure: I worked for BBC Worldwide for 9 years and then ran my own post-production company for a few more years.
The BBC is in a difficult bind. It can't charge for license-fee funded content in the UK where it's best known. And if it had to make all its income from its commercial arm, it would only make Doctor Who and Top Gear, none of the classical music, news, or drama that it's best at.
How the BBC is funded is intensely political, being argued a ton right now as the charter is up for renewal in 2016. The BBC in 2017 could be much smaller.
from here: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/panic-at-the-bbc-as-...
"Maintaining an international foothold is vital for Top Gear, which is the BBC’s biggest global brand with sales of the TV show, DVDs, books, live shows and other merchandise worth more than £50 million ($101 million) a year. BBC sources fear Evans is a complete unknown outside the UK. Top Gear’s former three stooges are settling in well at Amazon."
"Clarkson, Hammond and May may no longer be on Top Gear, but they are still vying for the same viewers. While Top Gear’s schemes play out in public, they are busy preparing their new rival big-budget show for Amazon — and crowing about how little interference they get from their latest masters. Along with the lack of outside pressure, the team also has cash, and lots of it, with a budget reported to be at £4 million ($8.1 million) an episode — ten times that of Top Gear’s."
So the BBC will be losing all that Top Gear money too.
And by "left", you mean that Clarkson got canned for punching out a guy because he didn't like his catered dinner, after being warned repeatedly for starting fights and making racist remarks on camera.
Source: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one which I assume would have the broadest possible definition
"1.3 Note also that “received” means receiving a TV programme as it is being broadcast on TV. It does not include receiving programmes by means of a DVD or the on-demand elements of services such as i-Player."
Meaning that anything that is live, or recorded from a live signal, requires a TV licence - whether or not it came from an over-the-air signal or via an IP service.
But if you consume a catch-up TV service, or watch DVDs, or use Netflix... then you do not need a TV licence.
Aside from the person I know who works at the BBC, no-one I know now has a TV licence, just as no-one I know has a land-line telephone. Modern technology (smart TVs and smart DVD players mostly) have obliterated old style viewing.
The licence is needed for any "live broadcast tv". The equipment used is not relevant; and the source of the signal is not relevant. So someone in England watching French satellite TV still needs a licence.
I would like to see the TV License flipped on its head: you pay a subscription that gets you access to everything the BBC offers, except what they broadcast live (and maybe online news), which you get for free (the exact opposite of how they charge now).
A much better proposal for the streaming generation, essentially a tax-cut for the older generation, and none of the nasty TV License policing issues.