jca@abnji.UUCP (james armstrong) (02/14/85)
> In Britain the ownership of a TELEVISION set is strictly > controlled. Actually, ownership of a TV is not controlled at all. You can own as many as you want. You must buy a license to use the TV, however. This is because the BBC is supported by these fees, as well as gov't subsidy (putting a greater burden of providing the service on those that use it). The BBC as a result does not require commercials. Given a choice of paying $75/year (I beleive the present fee for a colour TV is 56 pounds) or watching 16-20 minutes of comercials/hour, I'd pay the money. PS Monty Python's Cat Dectector Van was a spoof of the TV Detector Vans in use at the time. Or so I've been told. -- Basingstoke this is Basingstoke. All change for trains to anywhere else in the universe.
al@ames.UUCP (Al Globus) (03/01/85)
> The BBC as a result > does not require commercials. Given a choice of paying $75/year (I beleive > the present fee for a colour TV is 56 pounds) or watching 16-20 minutes of > comercials/hour, I'd pay the money. If you don't like commercials you can always watch PBS - a functional equivalent of BBC. Of course, you also have 4-30 other channels to choose from here and none there ...
gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) (03/03/85)
> > The BBC as a result > > does not require commercials. Given a choice of paying $75/year (I beleive > > the present fee for a colour TV is 56 pounds) or watching 16-20 minutes of > > comercials/hour, I'd pay the money. > > If you don't like commercials you can always watch PBS - a functional > equivalent of BBC. Of course, you also have 4-30 other channels to > choose from here and none there ... Oh, I too prefer paying money to watching commercials. But I also like to have twenty or thirty channels to choose from. In fact, I'm going to have both (unless I decide that any form of TV is a waste of time). Ever heard of cable television? --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "2*x^5-10*x+5=0 is not solvable by radicals." -Evariste Galois.
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/06/85)
> If you don't like commercials you can always watch PBS - a functional > equivalent of BBC. Of course, you also have 4-30 other channels to > choose from here and none there ... Not true. Most places in the UK can get 4 channels or so. How many of the channels you can get in the US show different programs? Half-a- dozen unless you pick up satellite programs directly or have a cable service that does. Even that may be a high number except in big metropolitan areas. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt