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Long story short: broadcasting rights have been awarded to premium channels across Europe and the globe, therefore local radio stations of the BBC are restricte
by zahrc 5y ago
Long story short: broadcasting rights have been awarded to premium channels across Europe and the globe, therefore local radio stations of the BBC are restricted there, as the BBC is a free television and radio network in the uk.
- lwhi 5y agoThx! Has the BBC decided to do this in retaliation though?
- angrais 5y agoIn what way is the BBC free? You still need a TV licence to view it live or via iPlayer, which has an annual cost of about £100 if I recall correctly.
- lwhi 5y agoIt's funded via a license fee. Operates under a model of public service broadcasting.
- Silhouette 5y agoBBC radio is free.
- lwhi 5y agoI ~think~ thought officially you should buy a black and white license.
- pmyteh 5y agoIt's free. There used to be a radio licence, but it was discontinued once the income from the TV licence was enough. B&W licences are only for B&W TVs and are now rare.
- lwhi 5y agoIn that case, the moratorium placed on local radio seems even more bizarre.
- Silhouette 5y agoIt seems likely that the BBC itself has limited rights to broadcast the material internationally. This phenomenon isn't unique to the Olympics. There is a lot of other BBC content that isn't freely available outside the UK for similar reasons. However the IOC is well known to be very aggressive in the demands it makes of partners and even host nations so it would be unsurprising if that was the reason here. I don't really understand why they have to switch off entire radio stations though if that's what they're doing, unless so much of the content on those stations is currently about the Olympics that it's not worth continuing to run the rest on its own.
- lwhi 5y agoThis is local radio .. not Olympics coverage.
- Silhouette 5y agoExactly. That's the part that doesn't really make sense to me. It sounds like they're turning off whole stations during the Olympics even though those stations don't necessarily have much if any actual coverage of the Olympics.
- sleepychu 5y agoYou need the licence to watch any live television, there's an increasing segment of the population which doesn't need it of course but it's a "free" channel compared to Sky/BT Sports.
- vixen99 5y agoImportant to note the word 'any'. Even if you never watch BBC programmes, you need a license or you'll finally end up with criminal conviction if you persist. Poor single mothers tend to form the majority of convictions in magistrates courts when I last checked.
- denton-scratch 5y ago> any live television A licence is required to watch any channel while it is being broadcast. It doesn't have to be "live" (or perhaps that is the same as "while it is being broadcast"). You also need a licence to record it while it is being broadcast. You need a licence to use iPlayer. For these purposes, "broadcast" includes satellite, even if you only watch foreign channels. The BBC and its funding have been a political football since forever. The right hate the BBC because it's funded by taxes, and seen as socialist; the left hate the BBC because it tends to lick the as* of the government of the day - the style of news coverage changes in the first few weeks after a general election. The licence fee is a regressive tax; the beeb should be funded out of general taxation. I'd like to see a BBC that is independent of the government, ad-free, and cut loose from the need to chase viewing numbers. I don't know how to get from here to there. If the beeb were a subscription service, I'd consider subscribing.
- Silhouette 5y agoI'd like to see a BBC that is independent of the government, ad-free, and cut loose from the need to chase viewing numbers. I don't know how to get from here to there. The TV licence is one of those anachronisms that should have gone away long ago. There's a wild mismatch between who pays and who benefits even if you accept the principle. And as you said funding through general taxation would be less regressive anyway. I don't see a big problem with setting that up. It requires an Act of Parliament that establishes an arms-length public body to run the BBC, which it more-or-less already has in practice anyway, and a budget, which can then only be changed through a further Act of Parliament. That's as "independent of the government" as you can ever get under our legal system, but at least any attempt to change it later would require active steps by the government at the time that would immediately attract attention and could be resisted in both Houses of Parliament if they were inappropriate.
- toyg 5y ago> of about £100 I renewed it literally this morning with a credit card and it clocked £ 159. But the radio is free.
- bennyp101 5y agoI guess free as in, the signals are floating around free for anyone to pick up and listen to - there is no subscription technically needed. You don't need a TV Licence to view or listen to anything, you are just supposed to. Nothing stops you from firing up iplayer or BBC sounds over a VPN or something (unless something has changed outside the UK)
- zahrc 5y agoThe article is talking about radio channels and those are indeed free and available world wide, hence they’ve been “blocked” as they would be broadcasting olympics for free outside of the Uk. I’ve realised that I wrote “free television and radio network” in my parent, I can’t edit anymore.
- lwhi 5y agoWhy would local radio be broadcasting the Olympics?