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Comment by th0ma5 | Hacker News Reader

The BBC is flat out a pioneer in media management and distribution. I had the opportunity to use the iPlayer some during the London Olympics, and the level of automation, and the completeness of coverage, really opened my eyes to how media technology in the US is solely at the mercy of licensing and advertising. PBS is somewhat interesting, but only in a "look we know what the internet playing a video is" sort of way. It was a better experience than YouTube, Netflix, Prime, Roku, etc. BBC's model is the future, today.

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Completely agreed. And, to be honest, I'm consistently surprised at the sheer quality of output the BBC manages, not just in terms of content but technologically too. I know they have a lot of smart people working for them, but I'm still surprised bureaucracy and infighting and budget constraints and all the other things that usually hinder progress haven't taken over.

I completely agree with your sentiment. Could it be that in the UK, there is more ingrained sense of collective duty? Or that the prestige of working for the BBC is such that it attracts higher than average talent and work ethic?

Have you not heard Radio 2??

The BBC is in a unique position where not only does it get a massive amount of funding from it's commercial arm [0] it also receives a massive amount on 'tax' in the form of a TV licence [1].

And whilst I am personally proud of some of the technical advances made by the broadcaster I am continually troubled by the commercial advantage the BBC has over it's competitors and the massive waste internally. The later I have personal experience of as I spent some time working for the BBC.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_Worldwide#BBC_Worldwide_pro... [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Uni...

> The BBC is in a unique position where not only does it get a massive amount of funding from it's commercial arm [0] it also receives a massive amount on 'tax' in the form of a TV licence [1].

It's not entirely unique. The NHK is in a similar position and look what they've done: broadcast satellite research, digital terrestrial broadcasting, a bunch of different kinds of HD resolutions and codecs, infrastructure, and I think they've even funded research on high-definition TVs.

It's pretty cool and makes me wish PBS in the US were more respected and had better funding.

Worth pointing out that Japan's NHK is actually modelled after the BBC. So that is two "wins" for that funding model to my mind.

Exactly. I think it's wonderful that both companies are able to not only innovate and stay modern, but do a really good job of producing quality fiction and non-fiction programming (not that it's ALL great).

NHK in particular always has a bunch of really neat "how it's made" documentaries that explore places that make everyday things, like snacks or umbrellas or what have you. I always enjoy those, even if other people don't. :-/

Might be interesting to know that Swedens SVT (Sveriges Television, Swedish Television) is also modeled after the BBC and the UK television license. I'm sure there's plenty more country broadcasters, like above comments have mentioned - the UK and the BBC are quite the pioneers in this field.

ooo, didn't know that. Is SVT generally well regarded in Sweden?

I'm pretty sure it's standard across most of the EU. Portugal also has its own (RTP - Portuguese Radio and Television). Personally, I don't find it any better than the private channels. Even the more cultural/alternative channel has plenty of crap (e.g. Two and a Half Men).

Most of Europe has some public broadcaster but both the level of funding and the model of funding varies widely. Many public broadcasters rely on advertising.

Also the funding available is also dependent on the population so even with other things being equal (and they probably aren't) the total size of a Portuguese service and its capacity to make programmes would be about 1/6 that of the BBC.

While the content may not be better, I find the non-commercial, state-funded stations to have better online solutions.

Their content is after all licensed for everyone to use as they see fit (it belongs to the people), and thus their main limitation is what technology can do, and not what the license permits them to.

We have the same situation in Norway with NRK, which has a fantastic web-offering, not to mention native apps for Android and iOS. It's at the point where you don't need a TV to watch (their) TV-content.

None of the commercial counterparts are ready to offer that, at least not with an experience at the same level of quality.

Oh, yeah, they have mobile apps as well, but frankly, the content they produce is rarely good enough to bother to even install it.

Besides, nowadays you can get a DVB-T stick the size of a flash drive for less than 10€, so watching without a TV isn't exactly hard even without mobile apps.

Have you ever had personal experience of working for some time at a commercial station?

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