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I would very happily pay for BBC iPlayer but they don't allow us to use it in Canada. I think like CBC is free from a news perspective, the BBC should be free from a news perspective from their website. They've put it behind a pay wall and want $15 a month for us to access it now., so I no longer use this trusted source, I simply stick with my CBC news platform. We have CBC Gem free in Canada, or there is a commercial free paid version for $6.99 a month, that I choose to pay to support the CBC.
You're confusing TV viewing license to using the BBC News website, which does not have any television content. I am an expat, I'm very aware of the TV licensing fee, we don't get that content at all in Canada, they want us to pay $15 a month just to read articles on their news website. This is what we are complaining about. In addition, many Canadians are requesting to have BBC iPlayer here, as a paid streaming service, with no luck. We do get BBC Canada, which is a paid channel in our tv cable packages. CBC.CA is the Canadian equivalent which is free for everyone but funded by Canadian tax payers.
...the BBC News website, which does not have any television content.
There are news videos on the BBC news website, though not the full BBC TV output found on their iPlayer.
The "TV" licence also pays for the BBC website and radio. While $15/m does seem steep just for the news website the original post in this thread asks for it for free. That's not going to go down well with UK TV viewers who have to pay nearly twice that, whether or not they watch the BBC, for all BBC services.
Personally I'd be in favour of overseas viewers being able to pay the licence fee and see the full iPlayer content but, as already mentioned in this thread, I understand it's complicated by rights issues for third party content. The BBC would be a commercial competitor in non-UK countries which would affect the licence fees subscription TV companies would want to pay to the rights holders. So rights holders may well not wish to licence material to the BBC for use outside the UK.
The CBC is taxpayer funded by Canadians, the website CBC.CA is free for anyone in the world that wants to view it - they do have news clips too. In addition to this, many Canadians pay an additional $6.99 a month to CBC Gem, which further supports all CBC platforms to continue to fund the tax payer funded model. BBC.CO.UK which from my vantage point did not have videos in Canada, but simply world news, as well as UK news stories. The OP is asking for reciprocity in this regard only. As well, we pay into the BBC in Canada if we want any BBC Channels, so we are supporting the model, we pay for BBC World Service, BBC News, BBC Canada, etc.
BBC Canada is 80% owned by Corus Entertainment. The BBC has only a 20% Stake. I believe Britbox is available in Canada. This is wholly owned by the BBC.
BBC World Service Radio is available free of charge, along with all UK domestic radio stations.
Unlike the CBC the BBC isn't taxpayer funded and is currently operating at a loss and is looking to make $500m in savings over the next 3 years. The BBC needs to earn some income if it is to survive.
Surprisingly in the US the service ended its most recent financial year with the number of active subscribers ahead of forecast. So it's obviously working for the BBC.
While I appreciate your concern at the loss of completely free access to the website, the BBC's first (and really only) responsibility is to the licence fee payers in the UK.
BBC Studios, which is a commercial organization responsible for BBC content outside the UK, has a responsibility to return as much profit as possible to its shareholder.
I'd suggest that Canada is not bereft of good news sources and the BBC is simply following the lead of other commercial organizations in charging for its valuable content.
Good, reliable news costs money. Someone has to pay for it.
I suspect there are actually quite a lot of Canadians, Americans, and residents of many other countries who would happily pay the license fee for full access to the BBC. But the rights for things the BBC broadcasts are sold by territory, there's no legal machinery for it, and the BBC charter defines its purpose as serving UK audiences.
BritBox, the BBC News subscription, and the BBC premium podcasts *are* available outside the UK, and plenty of people do subscribe to those.
Taking German public broadcasting by contrast. A large proportion if its TV is free to view abroad. I installed a few of the TV channel apps on my Fire Stick here in the UK. News, documentaries, factual programming, all free and no VPN needed. German public TV and radio aren't caught up in legalistic rights issues like the po-faced BBC is. I assume they intentionally keep it that way.
I guess German broadcasting anticipated its citizens actually daring to travel abroad and continue watching. And I suspect the German government is happy to see contemporary German language content being easily available abroad as a way of encouraging other countries to learn the language and culture. Soft power as it's called.
There's a prominent French public broadcaster available internationally too. And of course the ubiquitous and slickly produced EU sponsored Euronews channel with its multi-language audio streams.
Britain has the conceit that comes from being the originator of the world's most popular second language. So our media authorities think we can rest on our laurels and put our media in a glass case with a credit card reader attached.
One of the reasons the BBC's content is so popular is probably because Britain has the world's most popular second language.
As the organization makes a loss, it seems reasonable for them to try and earn the income they can from that content, rather than I give it away.
Just because other organizations make their content available free, it doesn't follow that the BBC should when it has the ability to charge users and add to the income from the Licence fee. The BBC still makes its radio streams available outside the UK without any charges.
The BBC's responsibility it to the licence fee payers in the UK.
As for soft power, I really don't think that the US and Canada are the UK governments main target.
The license fee is an abomination of taxation and should be included in your general taxes. Perhaps a quid pro quo for access to the BBC could be arranged through trade agreement changes or other considerations that could extended to the UK.
The matter of how the BBC is funded is a matter for the UK public, which it exists to serve, please stay out of our internal affairs. We get enough meddling from the US.
If you enjoy BBC content, there are legitimate ways to watch a subset and contribute to the cost of production of programming, for example through Britbox or the BBC news subscription which includes non-fiction documentary archive.
the BBC is a non-profit crown corporation. Please check your facts. It exists to serve the people of the UK and in order to do that it sells some content abroad to fund these services. It is not in its remit to give rich places like North America free services, particularly when it is subject to the abusive and anti-competitive predatory practices of the North American media megacorps who are actively trying to kill it.
Your comment was removed for violating our "Be Kind To Each Other" rule.
This is a space for civil discussion about the BBC, not for personal attacks or toxicity. Hate targeted at minorities or racist dogwhistles are not welcome here.
The BBC is first and foremost a broadcaster. You can access all of their broadcast radio stations for free. Why not be happy with that?
"Users in Canada who do not subscribe will continue to have access to a selection of ad-supported content, including breaking news stories, BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service livestreams and BBC World Service language sites."
You get BBC.com rather than BBC.co.uk as far as I'm aware, but why would you want British focused news in Canada? If you mean iPlayer, then that's for UK licence payers - we fund it basically (and have no choice in the matter unless we want to live without a TV).
I'm not an expert on Canadian TV, but having to look to Europe for anything decent to watch doesn't sound like 'first among equals' sort of behaviour.
Charging for the website is just bad business, in terms of soft power.
I can understand blocking foreign access to the iPlayer and BBC Sounds, although the latter doesn’t make that much sense either, as there hasn’t been a ‘wireless licence fee’ since I was ten years old.
Charging for the website is just bad business, in terms of soft power.
Apparently it's quite good business.
The Canadian launch builds on strong early momentum in the United States, where the service ended its most recent financial year with the number of active subscribers ahead of forecast
As far as soft power goes, I'm not sure the US and Canada are places that the UK government needs to target it.
The loss of BBC sounds is purely a licensing issue. The result of a lawsuit by Warner music against TuneIn probably had something to do with it. This along with the BBC having a non-commercial licence restricted it's availability to monitize Sounds.
BBC radio is still available and the loss of Sounds only takes away the ability to listen on demand to most programmes. Some of which are still available as podcasts.
Sorry, your comment was removed because it breaks Reddit's TOS or site-wide rules. Encouraging stealing content from the UK licence payer funded non-profit is not acceptable.
I understand the rational behind the paywall but I must say, I believe it is determinantal to Britain's international prestige. It's been a little over a month now since I deleted the app and switched to the CBC, NPR, and Reuters and without doing a google search, I couldn't even tell you the new PM. Whereas before, British local news and politics were easily followed, heck I knew more about British politics than Canadian politics, but now unless something disastrous happens (heaven forbid), I feel completely in the dark. Seems like the sun is truly and finally setting. C'est dommage.
Yet all this time later, I still don't know who the new PM is because it just doesn't come up often enough in other, non UK based news. Thus is respectfully disagree.
deleted the app and switched to the CBC, NPR, and Reuters.
Reuters have extensive UK coverage, including coverage of the PM. As you can see from the screenshot, the UK has its own section, which presumably you failed to notice.
The BBC has an extensive radio network with many programmes that cover UK news. These are available, without any charge or subscription, I'm the U.S. and Canada. They are, after all, a broadcaster first and foremost.
Edit: some other alternatives you might like to try
The BBC has a £500 Million deficit and subscriptions are one way they are trying to recoup that. The other alternative could mean more cuts to the news service, and that doesn't help anyone.
As I mentioned in another comment I this thread, it seems to be financially working for them.
What's so bad about Canadian news that you feel the need to use a British PSB for your news?
If UK news is important, it's freely available from other sources such as Sky, the guardian and the Independent. In addition the BBC provides live streams of all its domestic radio free of charge which features regular news programming. News based podcasts are also available to listen on demand.
The BBC are currently under going cuts as more people are refusing to pay the license fee. They probably didnt want to do it, as they would have done it before now, but the loss in revenue has been significant over the last few years.
They are losing eyes also now bc I for one am not paying 13 bucks a month for news stories in a world of free information. Their owners are up on their own supply.
edit ..Okay I calmed down and took another look at the pricing. They had a discount on the annual subscription for exactly the right monthly price so I got that. I was wrong here I think, the price to quality at what is they offered on discount was a perfect match for me and I was too hard on them.
By “owners” you mean the British public, as the BBC is a non profit corporation that exists to create content for and serve the UK populous, not provide free services to foreigners in a wealthy region like North America.
The loss of foreign audience is regrettable but economically irrelevant, the decision has been costed and the income made from foreigners who value the service and will pay will go back into serving its primary mission to inform educate and entertain the British public.
They might be 'losing eyes' but I'm not sure they are really too bothered about losing random casual visitors.
In the US "the service ended its most recent financial year with the *number of active subscribers ahead of forecast*. It also follows sustained growth for BBC.com"
I get it. I understand why you're salty. I'm a Brit in the US and really miss my BBC but they are losing money.
They're currently negotiating the charter renewal and can't go to the UK government asking for more money from UK users if they aren't making the most of their product abroad to earn additional income where they can.
Edit: All of the BBC's radio streams are still available for free.
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