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BBC is awesome, their news is very good and they produce some of the best series in the world. It's a shame that they have split up BBC UK and BBC International
by jonathanstrange 6y ago
BBC is awesome, their news is very good and they produce some of the best series in the world. It's a shame that they have split up BBC UK and BBC International so strictly and do everything they can to lock all BBC UK offerings to citizens of the UK. It infuriates me that I'm redirected from bbc.co.uk to bbc.com and are being displayed something else than people in the UK. If I go to bbc.co.uk, I do that to find out what Brits are seeing.
My girlfriend would gladly pay for being able to access BBC UK series, but that's apparently impossible. They've made some horrible contracts with BBC International that seem to prohibit that. It makes no sense that she has to resort to illegal streaming even though she'd love to be a paying customer.
Another problem is also that BBC International creates and distributes US productions that are far below their normal standards. So if you're looking for BBC nature documentaries, for instance, you have to manually sort out all those trashy international productions that are like National Geographic commercials. As I've said, it's a shame.
- jannes 6y agoApparently there is a subscription service called BritBox - created by BBC and ITV, but it's only available in Australia, USA and Canada. https://www.britbox.com/ https://www.britbox.com/
- M2Ys4U 6y agoI expect that will be slowly expanded; the BBC's new Director-General wants to increase commercial revenue (and immediately before being appointed as DG he was the CEO of BBC Studios, the BBC's commercial subsidiary).
- powderpig 6y agoThe new chairman has apparently donated to the Tory party. https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-sharp-donated-more-than-400000-to-conservative-party/ https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-... The DG was also a former deputy chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party. https://inews.co.uk/news/tim-davie-new-bbc-director-general-conservatives-reset-relations-downing-street-434450 https://inews.co.uk/news/tim-davie-new-bbc-director-general-...
- da_big_ghey 6y agoShould making a donation, campaigning for a candidate, or exercising other forms of political speech disqualify one from working as a civil servant?
- RobertKerans 6y agoNo, but it just raises valid questions regarding motivations. Civil servants are supposed to not be biased toward a particular political party. In practice, that may well not be the case, but questioning his appointment is fair enough. The Tory party has for many years attacked the BBC, using those attacks as a political tool. So people draw conclusions from the appointment of a prominent Tory donor to the post of DG.
- mrsuprawsm 6y agoUnfortunately BBC news really isn't that good any more. It's been on a long slow decline since about 2005 or so, and now the majority of their news programming (with a few small but notable exceptions) are primarily cheering on the Tory government + ministers of the day.
- andybak 6y agoIt sometimes seems like each side of the UK political spectrum is convinced that the BBC is irrevocably biased in favour of their opponents. The Tory right want to hamstring the BBC ("Bunch of Bloody Communists" used to be the witty cry) and jump on it at any opportunity.
- vidarh 6y agoThat used to be more of a thing, but the recent governments have politicised the control of the BBC in a way that was not nearly as overt in the past.
- WolfRazu 6y agoI agree with this sentiment considerably. The BBC seems to get equal bashing from both sides of the political spectrum. I think therefore it's likely it's doing quite well in terms of impartiality.
- hyperdunc 6y agoIt's partial to the status quo.
- arethuza 6y agoI'm a huge fan of the BBC but I couldn't help notice that during the last Scottish Independence Referendum there was definitely a bias - which I did conclude was simply a bias towards the current state of things.
- cameronh90 6y ago
- tannhaeuser 6y agoRe BBC nature documentaries That's interesting what you have to say about international vs domestic documentaries. Could you give an example of either group? I mean, I appreciate the BBC documentaries that I've seen for their high production quality and photography, innovative CGI and all, and I think they inspired and pushed the limits and budgets for TV documentaries worldwide. But personally, I prefer old-school quiet and scientific documentaries having extended interviews with leading scientist of a field and generally are about a scientific discourse rather than CGI-heavy interpretations of historic, cosmic, or paleo events; you know the kind where dinosaurs look up to an approaching meteorite in sorrow, or idk Alexander the Great is portrayed as a vulgar commander yelling at his men, with lots of made-up ethno kitsch and sensationalist commentary. But perhaps these latter ones are exactly the kind you're not so appreciative of.
- mongol 6y agoThose old-school documentaries do not seem to be made much any more. I also prefer them but they are rare to find nowadays. Instead I go looking for lectures on the topic on Youtube instead. Or search for podcasts. The production cost ratio is probably 1-100 or 1-1000, at least, between the old school, interview-an-expert type, and the dramatized CGI-heavy ones, so it is strange that so much money is put into production of documentaries with so little factual content value.
- vanilla-almond 6y ago"I prefer old-school quiet and scientific documentaries" I do as well. The BBC actually produces a lot of these types of documentaries but they are probably not sold to broadcasters outside of the UK. I presume it's because they lack the big-budget, glossy look that is attractive to bigger audiences (and to international broadcasters). Or sometimes documentaries are trimmed or edited for international audiences. (I don't know if this is the BBC editing the programme or the broadcaster who bought the programme.) A lot of the "old-school quiet" documentaries can be found on BBC4 - a specialised channel that shows programmes on specialised or niche topics.
- visarga 6y agoethno kitsch .... mmmm, tasty
- pbhjpbhj 6y agoThey lock content away from UK users too, it's mostly made by third party, paid by UK public, and so it's locked from international use so those companies can sell rights abroad, and locked from UK users so they can buy the content again (despite paying for it already).
- DrBazza 6y ago> My girlfriend would gladly pay for being able to access BBC UK series, but that's apparently impossible. There's the Britbox streaming service, but I have no idea whether it is international. Otherwise, there's limited amounts of BBC content on Netflix. But again, that may just be the UK version.
- Hard_Space 6y agoIt's not international, and is jealously geo-blocked. As a Brit expat, I wish it was available. They are effectively refusing my custom, presumably because they can make more money from international licensing deals for terrestrial stations and higher-reach streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon.
- visarga 6y agoBBC also sat on their 10 million hour archive of media while the internet, social networks, Wikipedia and blogs went ahead commenting, sharing, indexing, discussing and remixing other sources of content. They cared so much for their copyrights that their media became unconnected and unused.
- notahacker 6y agoThe BBC and developed the web based on-demand video platform that inspired Netflix back in 2005 and operates the world's most visited news website. They did this despite having fixed funding, charter obligations not to advertise around their content and royalty obligations to producers.
- billfruit 6y agoWhile locking out most of that content for people outside the UK..