Comment by dewey
1 month ago
> US-based visitors to BBC.com will now have to pay $49.99 (£36) a year or $8.99 (£6.50) a month for access to most BBC News stories and features, and to stream the BBC News channel.
Only the US traffic has a paywall, there's none if you visit it from somewhere else. Understandable to charge people who don't pay for it with their taxes in my opinion, especially if you delivery videos and other expensive content for free without ads.
It should be funded as part of spreading the British viewpoint, promoting British values, culture and so on — i.e. maintaining "soft power".
I would have expected Britain to realize this and continue funding it.
The US is suing the BBC for $10bn. It is only fair for Americans to pay the cost of that.
Most of these cuts happened under the previous government, including where they restricted how revenue from BBC World Service can be recycled into its local broadcasting. You'd almost think the Conservatives were trying to get rid of it.
There are another two hundred-odd countries who also do not pay for it with their taxes. The BBC has apparently not seen fit to paywall them. This is a very confusing and inconsistent move.
> BBC.com reaches 139 million visitors globally, including almost 60 million in the US, the corporation said.
From: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vgkn7w10o
The other countries most likely don't make up such a big chunk of visits / costs.
FWIW: There's many news sources in the US (Usually regional news papers etc.) that just throw a forbidden or 402 status code right away at anyone not using a US IP.
The BBC puts ads on visitors from outside Britain. The NPV for them of having a foreigner visit the site is probably very weakly positive.