Why is the BBC future site not accessible from the UK?
bbc.com
bbc.com
We're sorry but this site is not accessible from the UK as it is part of our international service and is not funded by the licence fee. It is run commercially by BBC Worldwide, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the BBC, the profits made from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes. You can find out more about BBC Worldwide and its digital activities at www.bbcworldwide.com
On a technical interest note, I viewed the page first from my home here in Poland, then via my UK proxy using the same cookies. Both worked, but as soon as I switched to Incognito mode using the same UK proxy, I got the "go away" message. At a guess they're doing something with cookies to prevent repeated geo-up lookups.
The fun part is that when viewing using the UK proxy but with my "I'm a foreigner" cookies, adverts magically disappear from the page. Interesting mix of geo-ip tech they must be using :)
Well that's a different question to the one in the post title ;-)
The fact that it is not funded by the licence fee is not an explanation... I find it ridiculous
It is an explanation, albeit one that you don't like. Fair enough. My worry is that people will kick up a huge fuss over this when, frankly, it's a storm in a teacup.
BBC Worldwide does operate in the UK, it sells DVDs, magazines, etc, so there seems no reason to lock UK users out of a specific website just "because" - the explanation they give does nothing to expand on the "because" element.
And I don't understand it either.
(UK citizen living in UK, big supporter of BBC)
I think that if we were to consider the BBC as a signal of Fascism, then the term loses all meaning because even the states criticized by Mussolini had state controlled companies, from the what he called supercapitalists to the socialists.
It's not funded by the licence fee, but by revenue from the commercial arm of the organisation, BBC Worldwide. It's not as though those in the UK who pay the licence fee have a right to view the content free of charge.
Presumably the international version of the site is supported by advertising (as many other BBC online properties are), and someone decided it would be better to just block UK users' access to this content than to provide it to them with advertising, creating no end of confusion...
The content on /future is generated and created by BBC Worldwide and thus, unavailable to the UK because of this...
They can't show adverts on this page and allow people from the UK to see it because this would cause confusion and make people wonder where their licence fee is going.
The BBC use location services to show adverts on the BBC news website, they could equally use the same services to not show adverts on this site.
It's just plain shoddy thinking.
It's a BBC worldwide website, working in the UK, using the BBC brand (e.g. the logo), showing adverts to UK people.
At the bottom of the (very good) content it says:
"BBC Worldwide is a commercial company that is owned by the BBC (and just the BBC).
No money from the licence fee was used to create this website.
The profits we make from it go back to BBC programme-makers to help fund great new BBC programmes."
That's essentially the same message used as the explanation as to why I can't use the bbc.com/future website. Confusion has not abounded, the world has not ended.
The UK-blocked "future" website continues to make no sense to me. I can't see how this is not daft.
This is one of the dumbest things I've ever heard.
The BBC absolutely could serve this content, with a persistent explanation of why this page serves adverts with its content.
Essentially the BBC is not confident in its own ability to design something which communicates a simple message ("This content is produced by a BBC subsidiary which is not funded by the licence fee, and we therefore have to pay for it by placing adverts on this page"). Having seen the incompetent UX work the Beeb have done on their homepage in recent years (BBC Sport redesign, anyone?), I can understand why they don't have that much confidence in their own abilities.
It's a shame that the BBC's arbitrary fear of confusion, which is fundamentally rooted in their own inability to manage expectations, is preventing millions of people from accessing interesting content.
On the contrary, I would argue it is more a case of the BBC lacking confidence in the ability of the general public to understand such a message.
The problem is exacerbated here (unlike in the case of Top Gear magazine, the BBC Good Food website, etc.) because the /future page is not an obviously distinct entity.
Whichever it is, they're going about it entirely the wrong way. Is there a solution which most people could understand? I bet there is. Farm it out to five or six top UX people and I don't doubt that they would come up with a dozen beautiful and workable solutions.
The BBC shouldn't be censoring its/its subsidiary's output because of the stupidity of the general public.
This is not funded by the licence fee, but people in the UK cannot access it at all. They don't have the option to pay for it if they want to consume it.
A better solution would be to make these pages accessible from the UK but serve adverts and have a persistent alert bar at the top which explains why it is served with adverts.
I'm guessing that they're more keen on avoiding the tabloid headlines ("The BBC is dead: serves adverts on website for first time") than providing the content.