BBC Begins Blocking VPN Access To iPlayer (torrentfreak.com) 174
nickweller points out Ars Technica's report (based on news initially on Torrent Freak) that The BBC has begun to block VPN users from its iPlayer video streaming service. From the article: Naturally, VPN providers are already working on a fix for the block, with IPVanish already claiming it has found a way around it.
Earlier this year, a GlobalWebIndex report claimed that up to 60 million people outside the UK had been accessing iPlayer. The BBC disputes this figure however, saying: "These figures simply aren’t plausible. All our evidence shows the vast majority of BBC iPlayer usage is in the UK. BBC iPlayer and the content on it is paid for by UK licence fee payers in the UK and we take appropriate steps to protect access to this content."
Maybe a better way? (Score:3, Insightful)
"BBC iPlayer and the content on it is paid for by UK licence fee payers in the UK and we take appropriate steps to protect access to this content."
That's all well and good, but what about UK licence fee payers who are temporarily outside the UK? Shouldn't they still be able to access the content they are, after all, still paying for? Perhaps a more thoughtful process based on a log in, rather than just a blanket geo-block, might be a better solution.
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"All our evidence shows the vast majority of BBC iPlayer usage is in the UK."
Isn't that the whole point of using a VPN?
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I'm outside the UK but I pay for the BBC. Not through the licence fee, but (I presume) they don't give it to my cable provider for nothing.
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Are you speaking of BBC America?
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Is that one of those spinoffs with adverts? Anyway, no. I get BBC1 & 2, exactly as in the UK, except with the time wrong.
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Re: Maybe a better way? (Score:2)
Cablelink in Dublin (then ntl, not sure what it's called now - possibly UPC) had BBC proper. I was never sure how that worked as surely that would break licencing.
Re:Maybe a better way? (Score:4, Informative)
BBC America is not the same as the BBC.
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Hognoxious didn't say he was American - nice assumption though. Many cable TV providers around the world provide subscription access to the UK BBC channels. I live in Switzerland and get BBC+ITV through my cable subscription.
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Then you can receive that part of the BBC for which you pay through your cable provider.
In the UK we pay 145.50 GBP per year for the BBC. Thats about $225. Your cable provider won't be paying that on your behalf for the BBC World channel.
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I've seen a lot of brits whine for that. I guess they've never seen TV outside UK. I'd gladly pay that money. BBC content is just fantastic, way superior to the ad-supported bullshit you get everywhere else.
Re:Maybe a better way? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, there are three models for funding TV, each with its pros and cons.
You have ad-supported networks, where advertising pays for the programming. I'll lump in cable networks as part of the same. Here, the pro is that the end user pays nothing, while the con is the networks produce content to gather the most eyeballs. For a lot of the time, this means serving the lowest common denominator. The other con is that the network will not run content that potentially antagonizes an advertiser, for they represent dollars.
You have subscriber funded networks, where subscribers pay for the content, which include networks like HBO, Netflix and even Amazon Prime. The pro here is the content tends to be better because the only way to make money is to attract subscribers, so they will produce programming that attracts new subscribers. They use lots of analytics to find out who are the ones likely to subscribe, then produce programming that will attract them. The con is, well, you have to pay money, and if you fall out of the desired subscriber demographic, then the programming is less and less interesting to you. The other con is well, they will not produce content that may be potentially controversial because they don't want half their subscriber base leaving.
The third model is state-level funding. The pro here is the ability to produce any kind of content (in free countries) - you can stir controversy, anger advertisers and other groups provided you tell the truth (e.g., pro-consumer advocacy shows). You can also take risks and produce more specialized programming. The cons include, well, people complain about their tax dollars being mis-spent, especially if the programming is contrary to their beliefs. The other con is, well, in less free country, it's an ideal propaganda source.
There's no ideal form of funding for TV, they all have their pros and cons.
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Most of the subscriber funded tv networks also show advertisements... I don't like the idea of paying twice for the same thing.
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Indeed the way the Tory government is putting the pressure on the BBC to be more right wing is appalling. The Labour government also interfered, although in their case the worst example was simply a criticism of populist programming, in particular "Fame Academy".
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What are some of the right wing shows on the BBC?
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Exactly, provide a login when you send the tv licence paperwork... Anyone who has a valid tv license also has a login, and can use it from anywhere. You could then allow foreign subscription too, after all why shouldn't someone outside the uk be able to watch bbc content if they're paying the same fee as anyone else?
Many brits live abroad, and often still want to watch bbc content but there is often no legal way for them to do so.
EU, a continent without borders (Score:3, Insightful)
EU, a continent with borders, at least for human smugglers, drugs traffickers, money launderers and undeclared workers, but playing a documentary or tv show from your neighboring country? Than you're an ordinary thief, a pirate, a criminal.
It's easier to kidnap an eastern European blond sex slave, buy a handful of Kalashnikov's in Bulgaria, buy some legal stocks with your black money in Austria, and sell your sex slave in a Dutch brothel, sell your weapons to some radicalized Muslims in Brussels and exchange your legal stocks for some British pounds in London, than it is to stream a freaking boring British TV show in France, even if the one who wants to stream the show is a Brit living in France.
Watch video streams? Are you crazy, you criminal?
Muslim immigrants? Well you take them and give them a warm welcome, and adapt to their culture, you racist.
Re:EU, a continent without borders (Score:4, Funny)
Stop complaining and start buying and selling people and guns. Long live capitalism, what are you, a commie?
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A true British gentleman would never live in France.
I'm British, but no gentleman!
I'm very glad that Britain is in the EU. Why? So I can live anywhere in Europe EXCEPT the UK!
Simple Solution (Score:2)
So their concern comes down to people accessing content that they aren't paying for? Then charge for access. They estimate 60 million people outside the UK are accessing. That's a large potential market.
I'm currently paying for VPN service to watch shows with iPlayer. I would be happy to just pay them directly.
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So their concern comes down to people accessing content that they aren't paying for? Then charge for access. They estimate 60 million people outside the UK are accessing. That's a large potential market.
I'm currently paying for VPN service to watch shows with iPlayer. I would be happy to just pay them directly.
The BBC doesn't estimate that number - that number has been suggested by third parties and the BBC has suggested that the number is nowhere near accurate.
The other point is that they *do* charge for access outside the UK, but via their for-profit arm BBC Worldwide, which handles distribution of their content to non-UK markets. Due to various legal reasons in the way the BBC is funded, they have to do it this way, and the profits they can receive back from BBC Worldwide from these overseas sales are limited
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So their concern comes down to people accessing content that they aren't paying for? Then charge for access. They estimate 60 million people outside the UK are accessing. That's a large potential market.
I'm currently paying for VPN service to watch shows with iPlayer. I would be happy to just pay them directly.
The BBC doesn't estimate that number - that number has been suggested by third parties and the BBC has suggested that the number is nowhere near accurate.
The other point is that they *do* charge for access outside the UK, but via their for-profit arm BBC Worldwide, which handles distribution of their content to non-UK markets. Due to various legal reasons in the way the BBC is funded, they have to do it this way, and the profits they can receive back from BBC Worldwide from these overseas sales are limited by legal limitations.
They understand how big the market is but they are legally hamstrung in being able to access it.
So some bright parliamentarian should propose changing the law. People want to pay for our content? Then take their money.
It doesn't even have to be a "for-profit" scenario, if that contravenes the BBC's mandate. Just charge what it takes to cover the cost of distribution. With iPlayer it's not even possible to skip over the ads. Even their advertisers should be happy with more eyeballs viewing their content.
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So their concern comes down to people accessing content that they aren't paying for? Then charge for access. They estimate 60 million people outside the UK are accessing. That's a large potential market.
I'm currently paying for VPN service to watch shows with iPlayer. I would be happy to just pay them directly.
The BBC doesn't estimate that number - that number has been suggested by third parties and the BBC has suggested that the number is nowhere near accurate.
The other point is that they *do* charge for access outside the UK, but via their for-profit arm BBC Worldwide, which handles distribution of their content to non-UK markets. Due to various legal reasons in the way the BBC is funded, they have to do it this way, and the profits they can receive back from BBC Worldwide from these overseas sales are limited by legal limitations.
They understand how big the market is but they are legally hamstrung in being able to access it.
So some bright parliamentarian should propose changing the law. People want to pay for our content? Then take their money.
It doesn't even have to be a "for-profit" scenario, if that contravenes the BBC's mandate. Just charge what it takes to cover the cost of distribution. With iPlayer it's not even possible to skip over the ads. Even their advertisers should be happy with more eyeballs viewing their content.
Right now parliament is not where the BBC wants to go for support - the current conservative government wants nothing more than to cripple the BBC. They certainly want the licence fee to go away, or better yet, attach even more restrictive conditions to it that prevent the BBC from being able to compete with the wealthy donor to the tories - Rupert Murdoch.
Also, there aren't any adverts on iPlayer, unless you mean the intertitles?
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Also, there aren't any adverts on iPlayer, unless you mean the intertitles?
I have no idea what an "intertitle" is, but I know what advertisements are, or what we refer to here as "commercials". Not sure if you call them that in the UK, but I am subjected to two or three rounds of commercials in the course of watching a show. You can see little markers on the iPlayer timeline where they are going to occur, but you can't skip past them.
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Inter titles are the things they show between shows, like the channel branding or upcoming pieces for shows on the network.
On the iPlayer site (I live in the UK) these commercials are not present, nor are there any markers visible in the timeline that indicate where one would be. This was my confusion. I assume they appear in the same way that the ads do in youtube timelines?
If these are present in your version of iPlayer, I assume they are inserted by the vpn host or something? They are definitely not pres
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Ah, I see my mistake. I was confusing "itvplayer" with "iplayer".
Ah, yes, that would do it. Yes, the other commercial providers in the UK (ITV, Channel 4 etc) have adverts on their players.
Strangely the adverts are always in super high definition and load instantly while the content itself is potato quality and often fails to load. Was never a fan of Channel 4's player in particular unless it has been vastly improved.
How do they detect a VPN? (Score:2)
Imagine a company were to set up a roadwarrior style VPN in their UK office (which for the sake of argument assume a TV licence) for their UK staff who are visiting abroad to access IPlayer from their hotels in the evening. How would the BBC be able to tell that those staff were accessing it via the VPN and not from computers directly connected to the office LAN?
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When I first started investigating accessing the iPlayer from outside the UK, I found that all you need is to use a UK-based DNS server. That's it. There was no check on IP address used to download the media. Other UK services required that the media download went to a UK IP address (after showing the adverts!).
At some point the BBC might shut off access to IP addresses that are in datacenters since these are more likely to be using a VPN.
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TV vs. Radio (Score:2)
If limiting access to just the UK license fee payers is so important, why is it that BBC Radio is free to listen to online worldwide?
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BBC World Service used to be funded directly by the government, although this changed in 2014. I don't think people have caught up with that yet.
Why not block it with a login? (Score:2)
Presumably they have a database out there of everyone who has paid their TV license. So the BBC could have a registration page where people input their details including their TV license number and (if the details are correct) would let them in.
That way Brits overseas who have a paid up TV license are able to watch BBC stuff but those who don't have a TV license (including those in the UK) aren't able to watch it.
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Let me pay the damn license fee (Score:2)
Stop trying to prevent me from watching it. Let me pay the damn license fee for a legal login to that player that is not geo-locked.
Let ~anyone~ buy a TV license, please! (Score:2, Interesting)
I am a US citizen, born and raised. And I despise American TV.
It's SHIT. 98% of everything on US TV is shit. Plain and simple.
I subscribe to Dish AT250 and it's SHIT. So called "reality" shows.
The "Science" channel? Where's the science? A bunch of washed up entertainers reviewing youtube idiots, explaining why a shot to the nuts hurts.
The "Learning" channel? Really?
And on and on and on.. What pisses me off is that I have to subscribe to the top tier to get the slightly less shitty channels. $110 a
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I've watched a LOT of BBC material and it's great. I love their science shows where they teach real science without hand puppets and crayons. Think Through the Wormhole with their idiotic animations. Brian Cox vs Morgan Freeman. WTF? Morgan Freeman is not a scientist. Not even a little. Also TTWH is always going on about the "god" thing which is extremely annoying. So much about that show is crap.
The funny thing is, that many of us Brit science-y types bemoan the state of BBC science programming these days, compared to what it used to be back in the 70s and 80s. By the 90s, all the old guys had retired and the young arts graduates had taken over, and it was all dumbed down hugely, on the grounds that if they couldn't understand it, then surely nobody could.
Thankfully this trend has reversed a little in recent years, although my blood still boiled when, during the first episode of Prof. Brian Cox's
Another exercise in futility (Score:2)
How exactly do you expect to block every VPN? How do you determine what connections are VPNs and what aren't? I don't get how a country that is so tech savvy can be so tech stupid.
Re: Don't care (Score:5, Insightful)
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They need to get paid. If they don't collect the UK's mandated license fee^H^H^H television tax for all viewers, they lose a big chunk of their income. And the sports teams, especially, charge premiums for live content. And easy access for numerous downloaders allows them to organize the content into something that *actually makes sense* instead of the completely crap BBC program scheduling and interface. *No one cares* when the 12 different showings of Doctor Who happened in your particular county and want
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Ding! Downtown Abbey was an ITV (UK) and PBS (USA) show.
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How does people accessing from outside the UK have any affect on how much the BBC is paid? They receive the same income from the TV licence payers whether or not people access iPlayer via a VPN.
Re: Don't care (Score:4, Interesting)
The reason they've always given is that some of the stuff they broadcast is third party content for which they've only bought the rights to distribute within the UK. Apparently it's too much effort to set up a system whereby they classify content as "OK to distribute worldwide" vs "UK-only" and allow foreigners and ex-pats to watch the former category.
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Money grabs which don't have to exist encourage piracy, so that's dumb.
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Re: Don't care (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:Just Sell It World Wide (Score:4, Insightful)
Dump the licence fee, switch to subscription, sell BBC programming to anyone in the world who wants it, stop forcing people in the UK who don't want it to pay for it.
The BBC are adamant that they make the highest quality programmes in the world, so I'm sure they'll have no problem finding new subscribers to make up for lost licence revenue.
Yeah they should load up their websites and apps with ads instead!
What could possibly go wrong...
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Yeah they should load up their websites and apps with ads instead!
What could possibly go wrong...
Where did you get that conclusion from the parent post?
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They don't need ads; They could just sell subscriptions as was suggested by the AC.
But ads would fit the pattern!
Re:Just Sell It World Wide (Score:5, Insightful)
The entire point of the license fee is that because everyone with a TV has to pay it (no matter their political affiliation), the BBC can be relatively unbiased in their reporting. The second you attach advertising or a subscription to it, they end up biased.
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But couldn't they make their program available outside the UK for a small fee and still not give a fuck about their non-UK viewers?
That way, it would be a win-win.
Re:Just Sell It World Wide (Score:5, Informative)
No - because then you have viewers choosing to pay or not pay the BBC. As soon as someone can make that choice, the BBC has to bias their broadcasting towards keeping that person paying, in order to keep their funding high. The whole point of the license fee is to avoid that situation.
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But I said "and still not give a fuck about their non-UK viewers". Even if they do not care, they would get more money than they do now.
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I live in Europe and am well accustomed to state media (and I'm also not a capitalist, at least not by US and UK standards).
My point was very simple, but I will try to make it even simpler for you. BBC now gets X money from UK residents via the usual fees for state media. If they sell their program to viewers outside the UK as they already do now (BBC worldwide), only more liberally and with full access to their program, they would get X+Y funding and would not have to change their program direction even a
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My version of capitalism is Skandinavian socialism with strong anti-cartel regulations and customer protection laws, but otherwise minimal interference of politics with economy. And no, I won't stop pushing my version of capitalism on the rest of us.
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What part of "subscription" sounded like "advertising" to you? They should charge the same 145/year fee as the tax, to anyone worldwide who wants to pay. Bit more than Netflix, but perhaps better content.
And don't kid yourself that the BBC is unbiased - they're biased in the way they choose to be, which is different.
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The "anyone who wants to pay" part is the problem. As soon as people can choose whether to pay or not (be they subscribers or advertisers), the BBC has to start tailoring their product to match the people making the choice to pay or not. As soon as that happens they have motivation to bias their reporting.
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The "anyone who wants to pay" part is the problem. As soon as people can choose whether to pay or not (be they subscribers or advertisers), the BBC has to start tailoring their product to match the people making the choice to pay or not. As soon as that happens they have motivation to bias their reporting.
They already bias their reporting, so no flaw there. Maybe they'd change to a bias less in sync with your own? The world would keep turning. As far as all other programming, the more they make it appealing to viewers, the better.
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Yet still by a massive margin the least biased major news broadcaster in the English-speaking world.
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I think that would be Al Jazeera as the least biased.
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Lasts time I read/watched Al Jazeera I thought Fox News or msnbc. Levels of bias. Some individual reporters were good but on a whole not really unbiased.
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I would agree that Al Jazeera does an excellent job on stories about most of the world. When covering the middle east, however, they are pretty much the official voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, being owned by the government of Qatar, and are about as biased as you can get.
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Al Jazeera is deeply liberal. It just has a much more serious and less clickbaity tone than so many other liberal news sources these days (Salon, anyone?)
Whether this liberalism is for propaganda purposes or not is left to the reader to decide.
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Well rather less so since they sacked Jeremy Clarkson.
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"The BBC is already exceptionally biased without advertising. Any claim to the contrary is absurd."
Don't you just love sweeping statements without a jot of justification, and a dash of pompous bombast thrown in for good measure?
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The BBC is already exceptionally biased without advertising. Any claim to the contrary is absurd.
Nope.
I just dismissed your unevidenced assertion without evidence.
Either you're a Tory, in which case you hate the BBC generally, but specifically because it's Red, or you're a leftie, in which case you hate it because it's Conservative.
So own up, which one-eyed biased ideologue are you? I have to be honest, I'm guessing the former.
Re:Why can't we just pay for it? (Score:5, Insightful)
They legally can't. The BBC has to pass the worldwide distribution rights of their shows to their for-profit arm BBC Worldwide which pays them ~20% of the revenues in return (the legal max due to how the BBC is funded). The BBC's special funding is also the source of a number of special headaches for them if the requirement for them to stay a non-profit were dropped they then could sell access worldwide. If you want to bitch about not gaining access iplayer bitch to BBC Worldwide that technically separate business that owns their worldwide rights.
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They have worked it out. They are happy with the status quo.
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There is a problem with the Copyright Holders wanting to have their cake and eat it.
The might license a show to be shown in the UK but not say in Spain. If you are in Spain then these copyright holders don't want you to see the show. End of story.
How can this possibly apply to, say, Radio 4?
Pester BBC Worldwide (Score:2)
As Anonymous Coward suggested [slashdot.org], you could pester BBC Worldwide to create a subscription service to watch BBC-owned programmes and then tell us what form letter you get.
Re:Charge me. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem with that is that as soon as people can choose to pay it or not, the BBC has to pander to them to keep them paying - and they become biased. The reason that the BBC isn't as massively biased as CNN or Fox is because its funding is guaranteed, and it doesn't have to pander to audiences.
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... the BBC isn't as massively biased ...
It sounds more like the BBC is just biased in a way which you happen to agree with. Forcing their audience to pay anyway just substitutes the bias of the journalists or their bosses for the the bias from needing to be useful and relevant to the people watching.
Re:Charge me. (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the BBC does a reasonable job of being unbiased. They don't get it right all the time, and certainly, in general they have a slight leftward lean, but they do a far far far better job than any channel beholden to people who can choose whether to pay or not. You only need to look at CNN's coverage of who won the democratic debate as an example of how bad it can get if you're beholden to people choosing to pay you.
Re:Charge me. (Score:4, Insightful)
All media has bias. It's inherent in the role of choosing stories to emphasize and how to cover them. People naturally choose what interests them, what they think is important, etc... People generally don't recognize it when they mostly agree with the underlying premise it's based on and thus consider it reasonably "unbiased".
By default, I'd expect the BBC's reporters to have at least an "educated brit" bias, for example. Likely average left-wing politically (with probably a few noticeable exceptions, even more noticeable for their rarity) of the general population based on their chosen profession.
Insisting the BBC is unbiased says more about your own cultural background and personal biases than it does about the BBC. It's like the old joke about how the intelligence of someone is defined by how much they agree with me on everything...
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All media has bias. It's inherent in the role of choosing stories to emphasize and how to cover them. People naturally choose what interests them, what they think is important, etc... People generally don't recognize it when they mostly agree with the underlying premise it's based on and thus consider it reasonably "unbiased".
That can easily be compensated for by having a diverse content generating team. It is true that every story has a bias of some form, but in many ways freely funded independently operated media outlets show less overall bias than any alternative. Compared to the likes of CNN or Newscorp the BBC is effectively as unbiased as it gets, and they often do a good job of writing examples that come from both sides of major debates.
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They don't get it right all the time, and certainly, in general they have a slight leftward lean, but they do a far far far better job than any channel beholden to people who can choose whether to pay or not.
From my perspective, they don't have a leftward lean as much as they have an authoritarian, pro-government lean. That may have something to do with them being "beholden to people who can choose whether to pay or not."
Superficially, the left appears more authoritarian, but that's only because the right prefers to distribute the authority (and thus diffuse the accountability) through the private sector.
Re:So what if the world sees it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Probably this crack down is in preparation for BBC offering paid iPlayer access world-wide to a subset of the content. This is something I think a lot of people around the world have wanted for some time.
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The problem there surely is the "subset of the content" aspect. Currently the only TV we watch in the US is iplayer - and most of that is documentaries that the BBC still does much better than the American channels do. If the subset of the content is just major new series, I wouldn't pay for it. I would be very happy to pay a subscription to all content - and even better if, like CBS all access and other options, it then includes a back catalogue so you don't have to catch a programme within 30 days of broa
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I would be very happy to pay a subscription to all content
You might change your mind on that if they started putting out blatantly biased propaganda for or against certain US political parties, as they do for UK ones over here.
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The BBC are indeed biased towards the Tory party. But it would be worse if the UK didn't have a public sector broadcaster. Look at Fox News!
Re:So what if the world sees it? (Score:4, Insightful)
The BBC are indeed biased towards the Tory party. But it would be worse if the UK didn't have a public sector broadcaster. Look at Fox News!
It's always hilarious to read about which way they think the BBC is biased. Just in this article alone the BBC has been accused of being both "biased towards the left" and "biased towards the Tories".
I think that might suggest more about the viewer than the organisation - in other words, that it is actually pretty balanced overall.
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What it says about this particular viewer is that I'm taking the piss out of the OP. In reality the BBC is remarkably unbiased - within the limits of British political viewpoints. Or at least biased to the centre - where centre means a point somewhere between the two major parties.
For sure, to anyone who's politics are more left than Labour or more right than the Conservatives would see the BBC is biased. Which is pretty much your point.
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As a UK resident and license fee payer, I have no problem whatsoever with non-UK residents watching the BBC.. I don't really understand why the BBC has a problem with it, it doesn't affect the amount of money they receive so who cares who watches it?
They are legally obliged to care about it due to the way they are funded.
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Why? The licence fee payers don't get to decide on BBC programming.
Don't like it? Oppose the licence fee like millions of us already do.
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Yes. Millions of Top Gear fans oppose paying the BBC license fee.
(And they have done so since long before Clarkson punched a producer and was sacked.)
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They tried that before, but some terrible fans^W pirates restored almost everything they broadcast.
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I live in a country with a similar problem, where our national TV broadcaster gets to squeeze money out of you for having a TV. It has been suggested that they could encrypt their content and people who pay their fee (and hence have a TV) get a free decoder card. For some odd reason they opposed it quite vehemently.
The cynic in me would say that they know that NOBODY would get the useless card to decode a program nobody watches.
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"Baaaa you sheep"
Obviously, just sheeps that pass in the night.
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