Re:Al Jazeera English: The Most Hated Name in News
by laut on Friday April 30, 2010 @10:09AM
(#1308190)
The license fee is a de facto tax on TVs. The license money goes to the BBC because the government said so. If the government is unhappy with the BBC it can take the license fee away again.
The BBC is independent of the government and the vast majority of its funding comes directly from the British public. From wikipedia:
According to the BBC's 2008–2009 Annual Report,[30] its income can be broken down as follows:
£3,493.8 million in licence fees collected from householders;
£775.9 million from BBC Commercial Businesses;
£294.6 million from government grants;
£41.1 million from other income, such as providing content to overseas broadcasters and concert ticket sales;