What it costs to run the BBC
Talk about transparency! You can see everything about costs and services at the BBC’s Web site. I went to take a look because Jeff Jarvis addressed the matter without providing any figures.
What does the BBC cost the good people of Britain? In 2004-05, it was £10.08 a month, or £120.96 a year. At today’s exchange rate, that is US$220.87 a year. The current fee is apparently £131.50 a year (US$240.11).
I just pledged more than that to my local NPR affiliate, earlier today. (Why? because I listen to Morning Edition or Weekend Edition every morning of the year. It’s my favorite offline news source. And if the affiliates don’t pay NPR, one day we may not have NPR anymore.) I give money to my local radio station — even though I hate most of their other programming (save me from opera!) — because I love those shows, and All Things Considered, and Fresh Air.
About a year ago, I looked into the individual taxpayer’s share of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s annual budget. It was even less than the BBC fee.
But in my country, we do not have real public broadcasting. We have the radio network (NPR) and the separate public television network (PBS), but both of them must go begging for donations twice every year — which most listeners and viewers just hate. What’s worse than having your favorites shows interrupted continually for two solid weeks is the larger result, which is that old rich people give most of the money — so the programming is mostly content that appeals to old rich people. Like opera. And imported BBC costume dramas.
There’s precious little journalism on PBS, unfortunately. Apart from the NewsHour, there’s Frontline and Frontline World (both wonderful), P.O.V., and Now. And they run Independent Lens, which airs cool documentaries like Negroes with Guns. Not a bad bunch … but nothing like the BBC.
Heck, I would pay $240.11 a year for BBC TV, if I could get BBC1 and BBC2.
I would be overjoyed to pay an annual fee in exchange for a true public broadcasting system like the BBC, or Canada’s CBC. But I don’t know, maybe most Americans would not share that attitude.
Technorati tags: audiences | public broadcasting | journalism
Leave a Reply