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posted by martyb on Thursday November 08 2018, @09:47PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-don't-see-what-you-did-there dept.

BBC:

More than 7,000 people still watch TV in black and white more than half a century after colour broadcasts began.

London has the most TV licences for black and white sets at 1,768, followed by 431 in the West Midlands and 390 in Greater Manchester.

A total of 7,161 UK households have failed to start watching in colour despite transmissions starting in 1967.

BBC2 was the first channel to regularly broadcast in colour from July that year with the Wimbledon tennis tournament.

The number of black and white licences has almost halved in the past five years and is down from 212,000 in 2000.

Aha! Those must be the last Manichaeans.


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  • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:34PM (4 children)

    by Freeman (732) on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:34PM (#759582) Journal

    I assume, they have just as many commercials as their American counterparts? While I'm sure it made sense at some point, I'm curious as to what those costs are covering. Is this money that is directly funneled into the BBC? Then again, if it saved me $150 on my taxes, I would be quite happy to not receive over the air broadcasting.

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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:58PM (1 child)

    by bob_super (1357) on Thursday November 08 2018, @10:58PM (#759598)

    AFAIK, the Beeb is ad-free.
    The license fee is how they are funded and -in shaky theory- free of outside influence.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Friday November 09 2018, @07:56AM

      by kazzie (5309) Subscriber Badge on Friday November 09 2018, @07:56AM (#759765)

      Also, because the BBC is ad-free (and only have a short trail or continuity slot instead), commercial broadcasters keep their ad breaks fewer and shorter than in Canada/USA, to avoid alienating viewers.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday November 08 2018, @11:20PM (1 child)

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Thursday November 08 2018, @11:20PM (#759603) Homepage

    I assume, they have just as many commercials as their American counterparts?

    The only "commercials" are for themselves, between programmes (with the exception of political ads around election time, which are scrupulously allocated among the major parties, and they warn you they're coming so you can change over).

    I'm curious as to what those costs are covering.

    World-renowned drama, documentaries, natural history programmes, films, science and technology coverage, 24-hour rolling news coverage (a mixed blessing, some would say), current affairs, sports coverage (every single event at the 2012 Olympics in HD), music, children's television, Radios 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Live, 6Music, 1Xtra, Asian Network, the World Service and various local radio stations, iPlayer, coverage of Parliament, research and development of new broadcasting technologies, and Simon McCoy [youtube.com].

    "Alright, point taken, but apart from that, what has the BBC ever given us? [youtube.com]"

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday November 09 2018, @04:23PM

      by Freeman (732) on Friday November 09 2018, @04:23PM (#759916) Journal

      I'm part of the unwashed masses that immigrated to America, so I've not had the pleasure to watch their geolocked data stream. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-32718259 [bbc.com] Though, apparently that's partially the American TV Networks fault.

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"