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EU May Become a Single Digital Market of 500 Million People
RockDoctor writes: The Guardian is reporting that the EU is becoming increasingly vociferous in its opposition to "geo-blocking" — the practice of making media services available in some areas but not in others: "European consumers want to watch the pay-TV channel of their choice regardless of where they live or travel in the EU." That adds up to a block of nearly 500 million first-world media consumers. They don't necessarily all speak the same language, but English is probably the most commonly understood single language. And the important thing for American media companies to remember is that they're not American in thought, taste or outlook.
State broadcast means little to nothing. You're paying for it - let other people see it. In return, you get to see all of THEIR stuff. You specifically mention that the BBC is not the only state sponsored broadcast in Europe - you'll get all of their stuff too.
And, I'll point out that despite all the piracy in the world, America's "entertainment" industries continue to post record profits, again and again.
In short - you'll lose nothing. If anything, you stand to gain something. The bigger the audience, the more likely you are to find people WILLING to pay for the content.
The entertainment industries seriously need to change their business models, worldwide. "Entertainement", when done right, makes people WILLING to part with their hard earned money. Sometimes, I see, hear, or watch something that is so good, I actually WANT to give the author a dollar. However, I've never once in my life felt compelled to give some faceless corporation any of my money. Granted, the BBC is somewhat unlike most faceless corporations, but they are still running a scam with their GeoIP blocking.
Not that it's difficult to get around the blocking. There's not a whole lot that I want to see on the BBC entertainment channels, but when something catches my eye, I manage to grab it.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Back in its beginnings, TV content was "shipped" in radio waves without encryption. Thus it had a "Free rider" problem that was happily solved with a tax (read TV license).
Now that technology solved that "Free rider" problem (encryption), that is not reason for your(mine) tax anymore.
The only reason nowadays to have public funding for a TV Channel, is considering it a public good (debatable) and in such case you will have no reason to block it to anyone other than your sworn enemy (if you have).
And while their may be some truth in that, the British tax-payer will not pay a penny more or less if half Europe watches their shows, since the cost is in creating them, not in distributing.
Well, in IP there is also cost in distributing, esp. when local connectivity (exchanged at local peering point like LINX in London) to users in UK is probably much cheaper than international connectivity to users in rest of Europe.
I'm an American, and I would happily pay for a subscription service to the various BBC channels. As it sits now, the only was people like myself have access to this content is via torrents / pirate streams. The BBC shows are the only content that even registers on my conscious, and "BBC America" just doesn't cut it. I too wouldn't ever want the programming to change from it's Britishness...in fact, that's one of the major reasons I enjoy it is to broaden my cultural knowledge. The amount of income from the potential subscriptions is probably in the millions, and that's just in the USA.
I'm already enjoying much of the content, if I could pay for it I would. The same goes for CBC in Canada, CH4, Space, etc.
Ever heard the phrase "Divided by a common language?"
In British English a member of "the government" is not a Bureaucrat with a public service-style salary, it's the Prime Minister and his Cabinet. Where they use "government" we'd use "Administration" (as in: the Obama Administration).
So you basically just said that the Right Honorable David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; actually has control over what the BBC does. He does not. No Prime Minister ever has. And in several recent memorable cases (in particular the run-up to the Iraq War) the Beeb took a stronger line against the Prime Minister (and this in British English, agains the government) stance then our non-governmental independent media did.
Even assuming that you actually meant 'government' in the American sense of a public bureaucracy, it's not really in business. The BBC is pretty much the only broadcaster, and is the only English-language broadcaster, that has 54 African correspondents for 54 African countries. If something interesting happens in Zambia the non-business BBC will immediately have a reasonably intelligent (tho not necessarily pretty) person posting to their website, appearing on their broadcasts, etc. Which is low ratings, and high cost, thus bad business; but tends to produce excellent journalism.
OTOH, Fox and CNN tend to have a stable of a dozen or so photogenic blondes who get air-dropped to trouble-spots, who compare everything to Iraq or Afghanistan because their entire career consists of spending time with our boys in those countries. It's low-cost, and high-ratings; thus good business. Then they juice the ratings more by adding heavy doses of partisanship. The business side gets even better if they can force some extremely dramatic turn of events that will keep people glued to their screens due to the constant potential for mass death.
Currently their business plan to do juice ratings is relatively harmless but incredibly fucking annoying ("Go go Donald Trump!"), but in the run-up to that Iraq War...