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A comment on NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid. Parent comment

Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by DrJokepu on Friday July 27, 2012 @08:22PM (#4304186)
In many countries (including the United Kingdom) the amount of commercials that can be broadcasted per hour on terrestrial broadcast is limited by law or other regulations. The UK is special in that the biggest broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4) are all publicly owned.

Edit: as others have pointed out, ITV is not publicly owned, but Channel 4 (and obviously BBC) are.

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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by MichaelApproved on Friday July 27, 2012 @09:24PM (#4304360)
The US used to be one of those countries until Ronald Reagan signed a bill removing restrictions.

"June 28, 1984: President Ronald Reagan signs 'The Cable Communications Act' into law. During his first term in office, President Ronald Reagan approved "The Cable Communications Act," groundbreaking legislation that, among other things, lifted time restrictions on television advertisements. The stage was now set for the long-form infomercial."

http://news.yahoo.com/crazy-tv-products-evolution-infomercia...

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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by josephlord on Friday July 27, 2012 @08:49PM (#4304273)
I would also add Sky as one of the biggest broadcasters, certainly by revenue. They are commercial pay TV with some advertising broadcasting on their own satellite platform but with some of their channels also available on cable and terrestrial. Not everyone has the Sky channels.

Yes BBC is fully public corporation of it's own unique type (Corporation by Royal Charter - I think). Largely license fee funded with the rest coming from its commercial arm selling content (mostly overseas) and also books, magazines and back catalogue content in the UK.

Channel 4 is a normal company but government owned. Funded by ad revenue.

ITV is mostly ad funded and fully commercial. It used to be a group of regional companies (a bit like US affiliates) but they have all merged to one big company.

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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by DrJokepu on Friday July 27, 2012 @09:23PM (#4304358)
Due to my job, I work a lot with these broadcasters, especially Channel 4. From what I can tell, even though they are commercially funded, the folks over there in Horseferry Road try to take their "publicly owned" status seriously and try to act with the "public interest" (whatever that means) in mind. For example, I know that at least unofficially, they try really hard to help and support small, independent producers.
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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by andyjohnson0 on Friday July 27, 2012 @08:37PM (#4304239)
ITV is not publicly owned. Channel 4 is though [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Four_Television_Corpora...

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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by polshaw on Friday July 27, 2012 @08:34PM (#4304226)
>The UK is special in that the biggest broadcasters (BBC, ITV, Channel 4) are all publicly owned.

No, no, no. Only the BBC is 'publicly owned' (e: ok and channel 4 is although commercial- the point was definitely not ITV). They do have some regulatory requirements, though.

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Re:NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid,... by handelaar on Friday July 27, 2012 @08:54PM (#4304281)
Do tell us who you think owns Channel 4.
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