While I generally agree with what you said, they do track metrics, and that is one part of how the BBC decides how to spend it's money. If their articles online

While I generally agree with what you said, they do track metrics, and that is one part of how the BBC decides how to spend it's money. If their articles online got a 10th of the traffic they would probably get a lot less money to write those articles. Public service is only useful if people consume it even if it should not optimize for that metric alone (or even primarily).