Someone a few days ago wrote: "Let's see. In the UK, you can't just go
buy a TV, bring it home, and turn it on. You must OWN A LICENSE, paid
for to the crown, to receive television entertainment. That's so
ridiculous, it's amazing. What are those people thinking. And yet they
put up with it."
Yes, we do. It's called democracy. We'd rather pay $200 a year and get
two analogue terrestrial channels and five analogue radio channels,
plus lots of local services, plus an increasing number of digital
terrestrial/satellite/cable TV and radio channels from the publicly
owned (not state owned) BBC than have advertisements on those
channels.
Time and again opinion polls say the population supports it; no
serious political campaign has ever won popular support for suggesting
that the licence fee be withdrawn and the BBC be forced to take
advertisements. Audience figures show that for its $200 per household
a year (not $200 per TV set) it is delivering a service that people
watch and listen to. Just as people also watch and listen to dozens of
advertising-funded TV and radio stations.
And except during the 1939-45 war the BBC has always been free of
state control and politically neutral, giving equal coverage to
opposition politicians and to whichever politicians happened to be in
government.
No doubt in time support for the licence fee will wane, and the BBC
might eventually move to a subscription basis of funding. But at the
moment, and for the past 80 years, the democratic will of the British
people has been that the BBC be funded by a licence fee. That's
democracy for you. You got a problem with that?
Alan Burkitt-Gray
Alan Burkitt-Gray, Editor, Global Telecoms Business
http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/
http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com Click on Forward features link for
editorial calendar until mid-2005
email <mailto:aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com> aburkitt@euromoneyplc.com;
tel +44 20 7779 8518 or +1 212 224 3880; fax +44 20 7779 8248. Please
send all press releases to gtb@euromoneyplc.com
<mailto:gtb@euromoneyplc.com> only
Global Telecoms Business Top 5 Daily: email me to get on the distribution
list for this free newsletter.
For subscription details please contact Murray McArthur on
mmcarthur@euromoneyplc.com <mailto:mmcarthur@euromoneyplc.com> ; tel
+44 20 7779 8710; fax +44 20 7779 8344
Nestor House, Playhouse Yard, London EC4V 5EX, UK
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: BBC is a quality radio service and you
can enjoy BBC World Service with hourly headline news and many other
features at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/bbc.html while you are
reading our own 'News Feed Sweep' feature. Or, if you prefer a more
'Americanized' version of the news, you can read 'News Feed Sweep'
with Associated Press Audio at http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html
PAT]
Alan Burkitt-Gray (ABurkitt@EUROMONEYPLC.COM)