BBC for the rest of us?

BBC => BBC Trust approves bbc.com proposal

The BBC Trust has approved proposals for the BBC to establish bbc.com, a commercial venture to offer advertising on the BBC’s international online service for users outside the UK. UK users’ experience of bbc.co.uk will not be affected.

bbc.com will deliver a new flow of income from international visitors into the BBC for investment in its core journalistic mission and capabilities, and into BBC Worldwide and BBC Global News to strengthen the range and reach of their offering to international audiences.

In principal, this sounds fair. UK citizens pay their license fee and they deserve their web and TV content to be “free.” Foreigners are getting a “free ride” and I’ve long held that isn’t fair and would I voluntarily pay the license fee if it was an option.

But, on the other hand, there’s a whole lot more of us than there are UK citizens. What happens if the monetization stream of the BBC becomes heavily weighted by foreign revenue? Would that cloud their editorial or program-making decisions? It’s always been a slippery slope for the BBC, ever since they started selling their programs overseas, but are they greasing up their own pole with this decision?


What’s on my iTunes right now?
MechaGodzilla Flies At Full Speed from the album “Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla” by Akira Ifukube


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