My girlfriend would gladly pay for being able to access BBC UK series, but that's apparently impossible. They've made some horrible contracts with BBC International that seem to prohibit that. It makes no sense that she has to resort to illegal streaming even though she'd love to be a paying customer.
Another problem is also that BBC International creates and distributes US productions that are far below their normal standards. So if you're looking for BBC nature documentaries, for instance, you have to manually sort out all those trashy international productions that are like National Geographic commercials. As I've said, it's a shame.
That's interesting what you have to say about international vs domestic documentaries. Could you give an example of either group?
I mean, I appreciate the BBC documentaries that I've seen for their high production quality and photography, innovative CGI and all, and I think they inspired and pushed the limits and budgets for TV documentaries worldwide. But personally, I prefer old-school quiet and scientific documentaries having extended interviews with leading scientist of a field and generally are about a scientific discourse rather than CGI-heavy interpretations of historic, cosmic, or paleo events; you know the kind where dinosaurs look up to an approaching meteorite in sorrow, or idk Alexander the Great is portrayed as a vulgar commander yelling at his men, with lots of made-up ethno kitsch and sensationalist commentary. But perhaps these latter ones are exactly the kind you're not so appreciative of.
I do as well. The BBC actually produces a lot of these types of documentaries but they are probably not sold to broadcasters outside of the UK. I presume it's because they lack the big-budget, glossy look that is attractive to bigger audiences (and to international broadcasters). Or sometimes documentaries are trimmed or edited for international audiences. (I don't know if this is the BBC editing the programme or the broadcaster who bought the programme.)
A lot of the "old-school quiet" documentaries can be found on BBC4 - a specialised channel that shows programmes on specialised or niche topics.
The production cost ratio is probably 1-100 or 1-1000, at least, between the old school, interview-an-expert type, and the dramatized CGI-heavy ones, so it is strange that so much money is put into production of documentaries with so little factual content value.
Honestly I think it has a general pro-government-of-the-day-bias - as you say, 'used to be the witty cry', indeed! Under New Labour it was still broadly speaking pro-government (generally, it's never totally uncritical, just tending towards friendliness relative to the opposition of the day), it was just a different government with different values.
But people don't notice when something stops being biased against them if they've already stopped paying attention to it because they were previously put off by their perception of its bias, so many of these older perceptions of its bias still exist. This creates the illusion that there's bias both ways, based on people's claims, and that it therefore must be 'balanced'.
Edit: it's definitely going to get worse. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/bbc-richard-s...
There is no way that anyone with that level of donation to any political party can ever pretend that they or their organisation is "impartial". Being a Brexiteer just makes it even more ludicrous and guarantees that all the ongoing problems and losses of Brexit will be hidden by the state broadcaster.
I was about to say the opposite:
https://order-order.com/2021/01/08/bbc-uses-old-picture-to-h...
Regularly watching BBC World I've yet to see the both-sideism you describe. As if on the same level? Well in relation to another bete noir, you'll likely get to see an interview with Greta T. (zero academic qualifications) while waiting interminably to hear any (usually edited) counter-position from (for instance, there are many others) Richard Lindzen (with around 200 peer-reviewed papers in atmospheric climatology, MIT emeritus professor) or Judith Curry (https://curry.eas.gatech.edu/currycv.html).
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/06/new-bbc-chairman-richard-...
The DG was also a former deputy chairman of Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party.
https://inews.co.uk/news/tim-davie-new-bbc-director-general-...
There's the Britbox streaming service, but I have no idea whether it is international. Otherwise, there's limited amounts of BBC content on Netflix. But again, that may just be the UK version.
