PBS launching new UK channel today (Nov 1)

[JeeperOne]

How long before PBS UK ends up looking like BBC America?

Not gonna happen. BBC America is a commercial outlet

Cheers & 73 ;D

 

[azumanga]

How long before PBS UK ends up looking like BBC America?

Not gonna happen. BBC America is a commercial outlet

Does PBS UK have commercials (not the funding announcements that look like commercials)?

 

[mysticnitekatt]

For that reason black and white sets were still popular up until around the 1990s, not only because the set was cheaper, but also the license was cheaper -- the license fees for black and white sets were less than for colors. This ended sometime in the 1990s, when it was decided that they would have only one license rate for TVs.

No, you can still get a black and white licence- if you can find a black and white set. They are getting rarer- 212,000 at the turn of the century- now just 34,000 and falling. You can get a convertor box with a RF output that works with black and white (and older colour) sets.

Do people still cover their televisions in tinfoil hoping to elude the TV Detector Vans?

Hmm, I'm not sure if that isn't an urban myth. In any event TV licence enforcement these days is done by address on a computer. Any unlicensed addresses are visited by inspectors to see if a TV set is present. If there is, you get one warning then if you are caught a second time it is off court for a big fat fine.

Wern't the Detector vans just for "show" anyhow?

 

[BMR]

Wern't the Detector vans just for "show" anyhow?

This is something that is debated online see for example here http://www.bbctvlicence.com/Detector vans.htm

I've not seen a van for many, many years, and I've no idea if the one I did see when I was younger was the 'real thing'.

Either way, the whole thing is very 'big brother'. In the Netherlands (and the Dutch bit of Belgium) they have dropped the TV licence in favour of direct funding from income tax.

 

[azumanga]

Either way, the whole thing is very 'big brother'. In the Netherlands (and the Dutch bit of Belgium) they have dropped the TV licence in favour of direct funding from income tax.

The plus side -- no extra taxes to pay. The minus -- not everyone watches TV, or at least, watch TV in a traditional sense.

 

[BMR]

How long before PBS UK ends up looking like BBC America?

Not gonna happen. BBC America is a commercial outlet

Does PBS UK have commercials (not the funding announcements that look like commercials)?

I don't have this channel as I don't have cable. According to this thread

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1572165&page=2

yes it does, but they don't seem to have many advertisers yet.