On Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:02:22 +0000, Orchid XP v8 wrote:

> In the UK, everybody who owns a TV has to pay money to the BBC. The BBC
> therefore has no incentive at all to ever show anything. (Well, except I
> suppose that if they stopped broadcasting, the government wouldn't be
> too amused about it...) In general, the BBC used to produce some pretty
> high-quality stuff. (They also have fewER adverts.) Today, even the BBC
> is being diluted across too many channels.
> 
> I just don't watch TV any more. :-P
> 
> Let's face it, watching TV adverts is like a bad acid trip.
> 
> PS. In theory if you don't own a TV you don't have to pay for a TV
> license. In reality, *everybody* has to pay. If you so much as own a
> toaster which contains a CPU with is hypothetically powerful enough to
> run a TCP/IP stack, they will argue that you could mod your toaster to
> watch TV, so you need a TV license.

Well, arguing about the TV license fee in the UK is something of a 
national pastime.  (As you probably know, the funding it also goes to pay 
for BBC radio, which doesn't charge a license fee, and for the BBC 
website - outside the UK, we see ads unless using ad blocking software)

Comparatively speaking, though, the amount you pay for your TV license is 
far less than Cable TV costs in the US - so for me, my reaction is kinda 
like most UK residents' reactions to US people complaining about the 
price of petrol.

You pay 142.50 GBP per year (about $210 at current exchange rates).

For Comcast basic+digital cable, that covers only about 2.5 months worth 
of service (our cable bill is about $100/month, without any premium 
channels.

What's more, most of what we watch originates in the UK on the BBC.  We'd 
happily pay $214/year for what we watch, rather than damn near *$1,200* a 
year.

Just like you'd rather pay 0.49 GPB/litre (the cost our gas station down 
the block is charging for 87 octane right now) instead of 1.14 GBP/l (the 
reported average in the UK right now).

Jim

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