BBC Worldwide for Non UK Users Only
August 2, 2013
This is bewildering. Because of licensing intricacies, citizens of the U.K. cannot directly access articles at BBC Worldwide. Yes, that BBC—the *British* Broadcasting Corporation. Apparently, this is not a new development, but blogger Alex Warren brings the situation to our attention in, “BBC Blocking Articles from UK Residents.”
It is important to distinguish between BBC Worldwide and the original BBC, which is funded by U.K. television-licensing fees (Yes, U.K. citizens must hold a government-issued license to operate a television. That is another article altogether.) BBC Worldwide, on the other hand, says it makes its money by marketing content to the rest of the world. Warren explains that, when he clicks on a link to a BBC Worldwide article recommended by someone from beyond his country’s borders, he gets this message:
“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.”
New programs are swell, but that doesn’t help a Brit who specifically wishes to read a particular BBC Worldwide article. I, sitting here in Virginia, can easily access more BBC content than can a citizen of the U.K., because I can directly get to either site (without paying a cent). What a deal for me! Warren opines:
“The BBC have created the world’s first anti-paywall. In the UK, we all (well, pretty much all) pay for the BBC through what is effectively a mandatory tax – so we can’t view this.
“Yeah, that makes total sense!
“I love the BBC, but this is idiocy. It may be convenient for the BBC to imagine that people in the UK are only viewing and sharing links with other people from the UK, but that’s not how the internet works.
“For now, we’ll just have to use a workaround when somebody posts a link to BBC.com. Here are a couple of options:
- Go to US Web Proxy and paste the link there
- Add nyud.net after the bbc.com in the domain name, so http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130701-why-you-feel-phantom-phone-calls/all becomes http://www.bbc.com.nyud.net/future/story/20130701-why-you-feel-phantom-phone-calls/all “
So, there are workarounds, which should help the U.K. citizens who hear about them. But that doesn’t change that this limitation is, in the words of one commenter, “bonkers.”
Cynthia Murrell, August 02, 2013
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, developer of Augmentext
Comments
One Response to “BBC Worldwide for Non UK Users Only”
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
I like the valuable info you provide in your articles.
I will bookmark your weblog and check again here frequently.
I’m quite certain I will learn a lot of new stuff right here! Best of luck for the next!