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welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

I'm pretty sure that we get the BBC in Canada.

The British should just quit letting anybody else in the world show Doctor Who, and let the rest of the world pay a subscription fee: instant profit.

Canadians are effectively British. There is a test.

1. What do the initials LBW stand for?
2. What is Marmite and do you like it?
3. I can't remember that one but if you pass 1 and 2 it doesn't matter.

If you fail, Canadians are honorary British anyway.

A Marmite is a cute fuzzy animal from the Alps right

Correct! Well done!!

<mark his file for deletion, Control>

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Canadians are effectively British. There is a test.

1. What do the initials LBW stand for?
2. What is Marmite and do you like it?
3. I can't remember that one but if you pass 1 and 2 it doesn't matter.

If you fail, Canadians are honorary British anyway.

1 - Larry's big welly
2 - a sweet sticky substance, best served spread thickly on toast.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Canadians are effectively British. There is a test.

1. What do the initials LBW stand for?
2. What is Marmite and do you like it?
3. I can't remember that one but if you pass 1 and 2 it doesn't matter.

If you fail, Canadians are honorary British anyway.

According to my passport I am British, a sad state of affairs as my real nationality isn't able to issue passports (yet)

1. No idea
2. Some kind of horrific waste product of the brewing industry.
3. cheese

I dont think that this means that I am British

Leg before Wicket.
Marmite, you either love it or you hate it.
Pip pip, carry on. *Smokes his pipe.*

feeder wrote:
Oh really? I was under the impression it was not opt-out. If you owned a TV, you had to have a license.

You can own a TV and not have a licence. You just can't watch TV without a licence.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Everyone hates marmite.
The deviants who enjoy it should probably either be deported or shot...

Hiding the TV from the inspector is a national sport in Europe.

welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

I love a lot of British shows, it's when the Americans rip it off, produce a knock off and claim it as an original concept when it starts to suck hard.

 Eisensapper wrote:

welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

I love a lot of British shows, it's when the Americans rip it off, produce a knock off and claim it as an original concept when it starts to suck hard.

We do the same thing with Japanese movies too!

 d-usa wrote:

 Eisensapper wrote:

welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

I love a lot of British shows, it's when the Americans rip it off, produce a knock off and claim it as an original concept when it starts to suck hard.

We do the same thing with Japanese movies too!

Yeah but they didn't make much sense to start with...

 d-usa wrote:

 Eisensapper wrote:

welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

I love a lot of British shows, it's when the Americans rip it off, produce a knock off and claim it as an original concept when it starts to suck hard.

We do the same thing with Japanese movies too!

...and now Korean ones too. I can definitely wait to see them butcher Oldboy.

 d-usa wrote:
Hiding the TV from the inspector is a national sport in Europe.

I quite enjoy the occasional inspection visit myself. I used to get worked up over them and tell them to bugger off(they don't actually have any right to enter your home without permission unless they have a police officer with them, and those TV "detector" vans they used to have are a complete joke, everyone knew they were fake), but these days my TV has so many wires going in and out of it watching them try and figure out whether or not any of them are actually running out to a TV aerial or a cable box is endless fun.

We had a similar system here (TV licences).

When we went to a commercial model for broadcasting, and the ABC went to nationally funded via taxation revenues, they stopped doing it.

 Yodhrin wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Hiding the TV from the inspector is a national sport in Europe.

I quite enjoy the occasional inspection visit myself. I used to get worked up over them and tell them to bugger off(they don't actually have any right to enter your home without permission unless they have a police officer with them, and those TV "detector" vans they used to have are a complete joke, everyone knew they were fake), but these days my TV has so many wires going in and out of it watching them try and figure out whether or not any of them are actually running out to a TV aerial or a cable box is endless fun.

The radio detector vans were the basis of part of a Monty Python sketch that involved a man that had a license for his pet cat, Eric.

I never seen so many bleeding aerials. The man said that their equipment could pinpoint a purr at four hundred yards! And Eric, being such a happy cat, was a piece of cake.

One thing to bear in mind is that those fees mean that shows are actually slightly longer in the UK than in the US - there is no need for chopping out holes for the insertion of commercials.

The Auld Grump

Oh, I know.

Adam Savage was chatting on his "untitled" podcast about how many different cuts there are of Mythbusters - because he gets copies of the Aussie releases of the dvds and he gets the US ones, and the Aussie and UK cuts are longer than the US ones.

They don't like showing goof ups on US tv, for some reason, and both Aussies and Brits like seeing TV people embarrass themselves on camera - it shows they are human, not idols to be worshipped.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yup, the BBC might have its flaws, and I firmly believe the license fee should be changed to be more progressive, either by replacing it with a tax-like construct(not government administered)

How do you impose a tax and not have government administer it?

And the most practical way of funding the BBC would just be for government to cover the revenue raised through the license out of consolidated revenue. Only charging people who owned a tv made sense when a large number of homes didn't have one, but these days very few homes don't own a tv, and so the whole thing just looks like an expensive way to raise money.






*And those people should be taxed 145 pounds for being annoying twits that like to tell everyone that they don't own a tv.

The concept behind the licence fee is to allow the BBC to maintain itself at public expense without tax money from the government, thus making it independent of the party in power, and of advertisers.

This is partly successful since the government of the day always complains the BBC is biased against them (despite independent academic research showing the BBC is on the whole slightly pro-government). However, the licence fee comes up for review every few years, which creates a chance for the government to interfere.

I think I have seen it mention here, but is online access free of subscription? Germany has the fee per TV, but I think even computers count now since you can access the programming online.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
One thing to bear in mind is that those fees mean that shows are actually slightly longer in the UK than in the US - there is no need for chopping out holes for the insertion of commercials.

Here in Oz on the commercial channels typically run an extra 30 seconds to a minute of ads in every half hour compared to the US. So when running US shows they'll cut out little bits here and there - remove establishing shots and things like that. For a while they would speed up film in bits where characters weren't talking, which was really distracting and couldn't possibly have saved that much time.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
The concept behind the licence fee is to allow the BBC to maintain itself at public expense without tax money from the government, thus making it independent of the party in power, and of advertisers.

This is partly successful since the government of the day always complains the BBC is biased against them (despite independent academic research showing the BBC is on the whole slightly pro-government).

That mirrors our experience with the ABC exactly. Government always thinks the public broadcaster is picking on them. ABC is direct funded.

However, the licence fee comes up for review every few years, which creates a chance for the government to interfere.

That's the thing - government still gets to decide the level of funding. Just they do it without having to employ another little bureaucracy to administer another tax.

 sebster wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Yup, the BBC might have its flaws, and I firmly believe the license fee should be changed to be more progressive, either by replacing it with a tax-like construct(not government administered)

How do you impose a tax and not have government administer it?

And the most practical way of funding the BBC would just be for government to cover the revenue raised through the license out of consolidated revenue. Only charging people who owned a tv made sense when a large number of homes didn't have one, but these days very few homes don't own a tv, and so the whole thing just looks like an expensive way to raise money.






*And those people should be taxed 145 pounds for being annoying twits that like to tell everyone that they don't own a tv.

I don't know a single uni student with a TV that they use as anything more than a console screen.

There was a time, long ago, when it was used for Breaking Bad. Might get some use again when Madmen comes back.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Canadians are effectively British. There is a test.

1. What do the initials LBW stand for?
2. What is Marmite and do you like it?
3. I can't remember that one but if you pass 1 and 2 it doesn't matter.

If you fail, Canadians are honorary British anyway.

1 an explanation of the offside rule is also acceptable

3 is almost certainly something to do with tea.

 Steve steveson wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Canadians are effectively British. There is a test.

1. What do the initials LBW stand for?
2. What is Marmite and do you like it?
3. I can't remember that one but if you pass 1 and 2 it doesn't matter.

If you fail, Canadians are honorary British anyway.

1 an explanation of the offside rule is also acceptable

I'm going to be disappointing a lot of people throughout my life, aren't I?

 Kilkrazy wrote:

This is partly successful since the government of the day always complains the BBC is biased against them (despite independent academic research showing the BBC is on the whole slightly pro-government). However, the licence fee comes up for review every few years, which creates a chance for the government to interfere.

To be fair and balanced the party in opposition also claims the same.

And if you take a look at the posts on the comments the public agrees. It is not uncommon to see the BBC being accused of being part of the lefty liberal media and the right wing establishment over the same thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Fafnir wrote:


I'm going to be disappointing a lot of people throughout my life, aren't I?

We are all active adult members of a wargaming website. It goes without saying.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

welshhoppo wrote:
Thats because it often takes a British person to understand a British programme. So there really isn't much point showing it outside the UK.

Top Gear's been doing pretty well here in Sweden, and BBC Entertainment generally has better stuff than the Swedish equivalent, at least in my opinion.

I agree. I used to watch BBCAmerica all the time when I had cable. It often had something worth watching on. Though saying that, Im still glad I got rid of cable TV altogether. I dont miss it at all and I find myself getting things done rather than sitting infront of the tv

 d-usa wrote:
I think I have seen it mention here, but is online access free of subscription? Germany has the fee per TV, but I think even computers count now since you can access the programming online.

It's only if you watch live tv. So if you stream it or you watch it from a tv then you have to pay. If you watch it from an on-demand service like Iplayer or 40D then it's fine.

 Steve steveson wrote:

And if you take a look at the posts on the comments the public agrees. It is not uncommon to see the BBC being accused of being part of the lefty liberal media and the right wing establishment over the same thing.

I don't think it's really debatable that the BBC has a pro-multiculturalist agenda. The ratio of ethnic minorities on BBC news reports is about 3 to 5 times that found in general population.