Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
Well, how 'bout that?
Greg Dyke, director general of the BBC, has announced plans to give the public full access to all the corporation's programme archives. Mr Dyke said on Sunday that everyone would in future be able to download BBC radio and TV programmes from the internet. The service, the BBC Creative Archive, would be free and available to everyone, as long as they were not intending to use the material for commercial purposes, Mr Dyke added.
"The BBC probably has the best television library in the world," said Mr Dyke, who was speaking at the Edinburgh TV Festival. "Up until now this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn't been an effective mechanism for distribution. But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that. For the first time there is an easy and affordable way of making this treasure trove of BBC content available to all."
Lovely. Chalk one up for the virtues of public broadcasting.
UPDATE (1:20 am): Paul Boutin discusses some of the technical aspects of this at Slate. And linked from that page: I had no idea you need a license to watch television in the United Kingdom. You can be fined up to £1,000, they say they catch up to 1200 people a day watching unlicensed television, and get this:
Our detection equipment will track down your TV
The fact that our enquiry officers are now so well equipped with the latest technology means that there is virtually no way to avoid detection.
How our detector vans can catch out licence evaders
We can detect a TV in use, in any area. That's because every TV contains a component called the 'local oscillator', which emits a signal when the television is switched on. It's this signal that the equipment on our vans picks up.
But, what if you live in a block of flats or a house without road access? Well if this is the case our enquiry officer can simply use one of our hand-held scanners. Measuring both direction and strength of signal, they make it easy for us to locate television sets in hard to reach places.
Are you kidding me? My goodness.
TrackBackYeah, how do you think the BBC is funded? Is a fee-based approach better or worse than a tax-based or commercial-based approach?
Some interesting things I found when I was there: a license is needed for a radio, too, even a car radio, but the home-tv license covered all radios.
Oh, and blind people must pay a fee, too, but it was some absurdly small amount less than sighted people - like 2 Pounds less a year or something.
It shwed me the American way was not the only way.
Posted by: Tripp at August 27, 2003 11:51 AMCan't say that I've pondered it long enough to have an opinion on which is better. I suppose you could argue that the fee system is more equitable since you can opt out, but a tax-based system would eliminate the odd television-cop enforcement regime. It was the latter that struck me as particularly odd. It never occurred to me that radio frequencies would be anything but publicly available.
Further demonstrating my provincialist American ignorance: how does cable figure into this? Over and above the license fee?
Posted by: apostropher at August 27, 2003 12:21 PMAs best I recall, cable was above and beyond. I was there 6 months, but had to get a year TV license - they didn't have 6 months licenses.
Apparently TV receivers are also transmitters, a little bit, and they can drive or walk around looking for scofflaws.
This website describes the license: http://www.tv-l.co.uk/tvlic/index_frameset.html
Apparently the fee for a color tv is 116 Pounds, and b+w is 38.50. Oooh, and the blind now pay only half, which makes more sense (for the sound, presumably).
Posted by: Tripp at August 27, 2003 03:42 PMI suppose it's not really any stranger than requiring pet licenses or fishing licenses.
Posted by: apostropher at August 27, 2003 03:50 PMWhile the license works out as only a few pence per day, it's hard not to feel like you're getting ripped off. Most of the shows I watch are on commerical channels, where I have to endure minutes of commercial breaks every hour. Why should I have to pay just to be able to watch non-BBC television? The BBC does have a few great shows, but they have a lot of dull stuff besides. Every morning I sit watching Breakfast News on the BBC thinking to myself, damn, these presenters look really well fed and dressed, and gosh aren't the sets extravagant; hang on, I paid for that! It seems crazy to me that if you buy a TV you're legally bound to buy a license. The BBC's website is fantastic, but it kinda pisses me off that half the content on there is stuff license payers have funded, yet anyone can access it for free, whether they're license payers or not. And now they have digital channels like BBC 3 and BBC 4, which are funded by the license fee, but which only a small minority of license fee payers (i.e. those with digital TV) can see.
Posted by: Stu at August 28, 2003 03:06 AMThere's a lengthy, v interesting piece on why everyone hates the BBC in The Register: BBC news site facing extinction?
Posted by: Stu at August 28, 2003 01:37 PMTV Licensing
Please be advised that the website link for TV Licensing is no longer www.tv-l.co.uk, it has been changed to www.tvlicensing.co.uk, please could you update your records accordingly.
Any problems please do not hesitate to contact me either by e-mail or telephone
020 7839 4321.
Regards
Chris Reed