Quote:
Originally Posted by NewVista
Collectivism to the "rescue":
Enter BBC - funded by $6b/yr licensing tax.
What do they do with all that money? Create Public Sector jobs.
What do they do at these jobs? Keep working on a failed VTR project for 2 more years after Broadcast-Quality VTR available.
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Ah, you must be referring to the British Broadcasting Communists, an organisation that is little known this side of the pond. I reckon that $230 per household per year (about 60 cents per day) is pretty good value for 4 national TV channels, about 7 national radio channels, a bunch of local radio stations and what was the pioneering and probably most extensive online offering of any broadcaster anywhere. None of it interrupted by commercials either. (Please note BBC World TV is a commerical operation that carries advertising)
I don't know about current figures but through the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s the BBC had a reputation for being able to produce programmes at a lower cost than its commercial rival in the UK.
When will a US broadcaster stage a music festival that rivals the Proms? When will a US broadcaster run a mainstream radio channel that comes close to BBC Radio 4? Neither of these would be commercially viable but both add hugely to the quality of life over here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by NewVista
...while BBC maintained Money-burn for 6 years
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Burning, in the sense of keeping a candle dimly alight. I doubt if figures are readily available but BBC engineering research probably used less than 1% of the BBC's budget and VERA was some small fraction of that. To get some idea of the work done by BBC Research have a look at some of the reports
http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/rdreports.shtml As with all research, some of it will have led up blind alleys while other work will turn out to be very useful. No real way to tell in advance.