A 'high-risk' year for the future of the BBC.

[atomic_joe2]

Tony Hall's speech on the future of the BBC had a simple message: "there may be trouble ahead."

The Director General's tone was akin to one of those in-flight messages from the captain warning of turbulence.

It was reassuring and calm, but the words were rather more troubling.

Comments

[joiedumonde]

I've always envied the Brits for having the BBC. Even with a mandatory license fee for a TV the general value over what we pay for cable in the US is amazing. (I've been told this can be waived if the TV is only hooked to computer/gaming console, but I don't know if this is true.)

Assuming that purchasing power is generally relative the £12.13 per month that the license fee works out to would be like Americans paying $12/month for cable. (I'm trying to factor out exchange rates, because Brits aren't paying for their goods in USD.) For that price you get awesome shows like Doctor Who, really reliable news that seems to generally strive to be unbiased as much as possible, no to mention tons of great history/science/etc documentaries, and several radio stations. I paid about $45/month for basic cable here. I think I may have had access to more channels than are available with 'freeview,' (is that still what it's called?) but the quality of most of those channels is not great. Most of the great channels are premium ones that you have to pay extra/upgrade your package to get.