BBC asking for US funding

I wouldn't say desperate.

They wanted funding to circumvent China's media lock down... And the US gave them it.

Not on it's knees or anything. The US wouldn't have given them it if it were a bad idea in their eyes.

Me personally, I'm neutral. :p
 
IIRC both the BBC and the American government equivalent were both working on pretty much the same thing.
So the US government decided it was cheaper to help fund the BBC world service's efforts, rather than duplicate it.

From memory it's not the first time by a long shot that the BBC has worked with other media organisations to get past censorship in various countries, and the BBC has a very long history of working with other broadcasters both here and abroad for R&D related to broadcasting, and solving technical problems.

It's also worth remembering that this is the BBC World Service which is funded by a variety of sources already, including the UK government, the EU and the UN in addition to individual contributions and money from various charities (I suspect charities help fund specific programming related to their own work in some countries).
 
why does the bbc care about countries that dont want the programs they make ! they probably had enough of eastenders and drwho and decided to just blocked out the whole rubbish channel i wish we could do the same :P
 
arknor said:
why does the bbc care about countries that dont want the programs they make ! they probably had enough of eastenders and drwho and decided to just blocked out the whole rubbish channel i wish we could do the same :P
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It's not often I do this, but :rolleyes:

The BBC world service is often the only source of non government approved broadcast news in many countries (specifically places like China and the far east), and unlike News International (Fox etc) doesn't pander to the wishes of the individual governments, as it doesn't have to worry about loss of subscribers if the Chinese government decides it doesn't like the truth about something being broadcast.

Mind you, if you can't see beyond Eastenders (a BBC show that isn't even broadcast via radio...let alone on the World service), I'm not too surprised you don't understand what is being talked about and the potentially huge importance of a non government approved information source in a lot of countries.
 
Werewolf said:
It's not often I do this, but :rolleyes:

The BBC world service is often the only source of non government approved broadcast news in many countries (specifically places like China and the far east), and unlike News International (Fox etc) doesn't pander to the wishes of the individual governments, as it doesn't have to worry about loss of subscribers if the Chinese government decides it doesn't like the truth about something being broadcast.

Mind you, if you can't see beyond Eastenders (a BBC show that isn't even broadcast via radio...let alone on the World service), I'm not too surprised you don't understand what is being talked about and the potentially huge importance of a non government approved information source in a lot of countries.
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Hear hear.
The BBC may not be everyone's cup of tea but the World Service is very important to a lot of countries where it is the only access to non-State manipulated news.
 
That's essentially the point as described above.

But these days I think you still have to question the Beeb's neutrality. It may better than the rest out there but that doesn't mean it can be thought of that much more highly.
 
It also covers all the obscure bits of news relevant to other countries that don't get covered on the normal BBC news. Useful if you have a particular interest in another country.
It's a neat form of diplomacy too, so people don't only have their state as the only source of news.
 
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arknor said:
why does the bbc care about countries that dont want the programs they make ! they probably had enough of eastenders and drwho and decided to just blocked out the whole rubbish channel i wish we could do the same :P
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You think that the BBC are spending hundreds of thousands of state department dollars to force Chinese people to watch East Enders?
 
Stretch said:
You think that the BBC are spending hundreds of thousands of state department dollars to force Chinese people to watch East Enders?
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dont take every post on the internet seriously... it was in humour hence the :P on the end.
its general discussion not speakers corner ;)
 
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