National Geographic buys in quite a bit of BBC programming, but alas. Right. How about politics? Programmes on art and culture? Philosophy? Documentaries on current affairs? I am - without attaching any value to that - an intellectual (in what interests me - I don't enjoy going to pubs, but I enjoy looking at art and theatre and similar "deep" issues). The problem with purely commercial stations is that they go for things that are guaranteed to get high ratings. Which is reducing the scope of what TV can (and imho should do). It's not just an entertainment medium.

The BBC still has the opportunity and does go for programmes that fall outside the mainstream. That is something to cherish - even if not every programme is "mine". [Of course as should be clear out of the debate up there BBC is not ideal; but, I feel, a lot of that is down to the BBC still being in competition with private TV. There's A LOT of pressure from both politicians, the rest of the media and in extension the general public on the BBC to produce programmes that draw a lot of viewers (value for money and all that - which does mean it has to ape the private TV stations more than I think is good.

Also again - at least with the BBC and the German fee funded stations - they do a lot more than just TV. As mentioned before - that hidden aspect of their activity that does a lot for the national art / documentary / theatre / writing scene. All those things that happen outside the commercialised bestseller / hollywood culture. That's quite different here in the UK. The cheapest Sky package comes down to £240 / year and that doesn't include HD programmes and - most of what makes Sky interesting. Depending very much on what you want on your TV. If it is entertainment mainly, sure. I've never had that much of an interest in that - and tbh. find most series no matter what station rather dull and badly written (The Wire was an exception). I am a bookish person though. Always will prefer reading over watching TV series. I do love cinema though - a lot of world cinema (and that's why I press so much on things like Arte and Film Four - loads of my favourite films come from that direction). .

No. I get a service. One I am largely happy with in return. If you don't, in Poland, then do put pressure on your politicians and the station to stop wasting your money.

Actually the BBC is banned from selling it's content (they can't even sell DVD's) a for profit arm BBC Worldwide handles that and the BBC itself doesn't see a penny of it except when BBC-W finances a show/channel it's a strange state of affairs but is in place to keep them neutral since it stops them being reliant on anyone...

You surely don't know of existence of such channels like Mezzo (classical tv, ballet, opera) , Travel (world culture, etc etc) , CNN (news and political affairs) , Discovery Science, Discovery World (culture), 24 hours news stations, and lot lot more.

I barely watch national tv, because every commercial station do it better. But again, BBC might be an exception.
It's strange, because we have BBC Entertainment in Polish language here on cable and it's not for free , most def :P

Your kidding right? When Sky started bidding for sports the price of them went up over 20x what the stations had been paying.. and that was Sky's opening bid! If the BBC wanted to buy the whole football season that year it would have cost them 2x their entire sports budget.

Comercial stations can sell a single 30 second advertising spot for hundreds of thousands if it's primetime in the middle of a popular show.

Also HBO is wholly owned by it's american arm you only cost them broadcast costs once they have enough viewers expect ads to appear...
Thats a bbc worldwide channel a seperate entity from aunty.

So they override the law , create and external brand to make profit (because original BBC is non profit organistaion), yes? Or it's something totally different (but how, since it shares the same name?)

Sorry, what I meant is that BBC Worldwide helps pay for the shows that they then sell overseas (which seems to be almost everything they make, even news coverage), so while the BBC isn't seeing the profits as such their content is still paid for by that income, which raises the question of why it's worth having separate licensing to cover the remainder instead of merging it into the taxes as seen elsewhere.

Paying for BBC TV costs through taxes instead of separate licensing would make it more convenient for everyone and eliminate license dodging. The public are also generally more open to funding things when they don't have to specifically pay for them (if you had to pay, say, a fire department license you can bet there would be people insisting they shouldn't have to pay since their house has never caught fire).

The income from BBC worldwide is used to fund the international tv and radio services (the worldservice for example or BBC America). As part of the BBC's charter is to provide services to UK citizens, both present and former, no matter where in the world they are. Because the government accepts thats not possible with just the license fee they allowed the formation of BBC worldwide the rights to distribute programs are handed to BBC-W to fund this. Aunty itself sees none of the profits unless BBC-W commissions a show through them... BBC3 for example is a channel commissioned by BBC-W in the UK which the BBC produces shows for in exchange for the right to reshow them on BBC1/2
Actually no they don't pay for many shows take Dr Who it's actually a codevelopment between BBC Cymru(Wales) and the BBC BBC-W pays for very little BBC broadcasting.

BBC Worldwide doesn't use licence fees as part of it's operating budget, so it's irrelevant to your point.

Also, BBC Worldwide is required by law to reinvest the vast majority of it's profits and dividends to the BBC for public service programming. It's not a commercial front designed to profit on the tax payer funded brand of BBC, quite the opposite in fact.

Ah, so shows are licensed after the fact and so only paid for indirectly by BBC Worldwide? Interesting. This strange way of doing things seems to work out in the end though. :)

That was TV4, which is not public service.

Well, now that this thread is well and truly dead, I must say as the original poster i never expected this conversation to take off so massively. obviously theres alot to say.