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The BBC are prohibited from running certain commercial services (of which BBC.com is one) in the UK due to regulatory requirements. It's not their decision. Y
by ig1 13y ago
The BBC are prohibited from running certain commercial services (of which BBC.com is one) in the UK due to regulatory requirements.
It's not their decision.
You could of-course lobby your MP to get it changed, but I imagine there would be substantial opposition from both supporters and opponents of public media services to allowing BBC to run commercial services in the UK.
- josscrowcroft 13y agoThis applies also to BBC Travel, which is run in partnership with Lonely Planet, last I checked. I used to really enjoy those articles, now I never read them because I can't be faffed to proxy up every time...
- jpatokal 13y agoLonely Planet was, until very recently, owned by BBC Worldwide.
- gadders 13y agoWhich they sold at an £80m loss. How many license fees is that?
- sambeau 13y agoBBC Worldwide is a separate commercial organisation. It does not get to spend any of your license-fee.
- gadders 13y agoI will re-state then. If BBC Worldwide had not lost that £80m, how much in additional funds could have been offset against the license fee that UK people pay?
- whiskers 13y agoNone. BBC Worldwide is a separate entity that neither takes money from license fees nor produces anything specifically for license fee payers.
- gadders 13y agoWhiskers - it seems I can't reply to you, but according to the top-rated comment on this page: The majority of the operation is a taxpayer-funded public broadcaster with a remit to produce high quality programming for free; but there's a unit called BBC Worldwide whose job it is to battle it out in the red-in-tooth-and-claw world of commercial TV programming, selling BBC programmes overseas and minting money that can then be used to subsidize the public broadcasting component. That would imply that BBC Worldwide profits do impact the license fee (assuming the BBC don't just spend the profits, but use it to drive down license fee costs).
- zorbo 13y agoIf anybody is still wondering why BBC Worldwide would block its contents from viewers in the UK, it seems reactions like these are what they're trying to prevent.
- gadders 13y agoYes, they block the websites from the UK because people being outraged at a ("commercial" arm of a) state broadcaster losing £80m is a complete overreaction.
- Nursie 13y agoI may well try asking about it. IMHO this is just breaking the net, and blatantly weird.
- louthy 13y agoThe thing is they're still running the services whether someone in the UK consumes it or not. I thought the primary reason for it not running commercial services was so that its integrity as an independent source of news and culture wasn't compromised. So surely by running anything commercial, it is potentially compromised. You can already see that by the type of programmes that get made these days. It's clear much of it is made to sell to the rest of the world, rather than just for a UK audience.
- ig1 13y agoBBC Worldwide which is their commercial arm is an independent subsidiary of the BBC.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- Fuxy 13y agoSo showing ads is the problem right? Then don't show adds to UK citizens and let them read the damn thing instead of blocking the article? Then BBC International can charge BBC for showing "add free content" to UK citizens and that would take care of the formalities.
- _delirium 13y agoThey are not allowed to do that, either, due to lobbying from the private media companies. The companies managed to push through a rule that the BBC cannot show any content in the UK whose production was funded commercially, even if they showed the result ad-free in the UK.
- ronaldx 13y agoShowing ads is not really the problem. Using public money to compete with industries (i.e. Rupert Murdoch) who can place very high lobbying pressure on them not to do that is the problem.
- orsenfelt 13y agoNo the problem is that the content was created with the intention of making profit and the BBC aren't allowed to do that in the UK.