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Comment by GunlogAlm | Hacker News Reader

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GunlogAlm·

You pay for BBC's TV programmes; you don't pay for the BBC's online news.

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Full disclosure: I pay nothing for the BBC (I don't live in the UK).

However, the BBC news I use does appear to be funded by licence-fee payers, among other sources.

"The World Service is funded by the United Kingdom's television licence fee, limited advertising[6] and the profits of BBC Worldwide Ltd.[7] The service also gets £289 million each year (agreed up to 2020) from the UK government.[8]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC_World_Service

do they have additional expenses to produce news for foreign readers compared to British paying for this service? they would need to produce those news anyway, so no need to feel guilty about reading something paid by others, anyway these news agencies cooperate and I guess almost anyone in Europe pay for their national TV/radio/news agency which is sharing their news with other countries

Sure, more users and more languages will definitely mean more expenses. The BBC World Service's origins are visible in its original name as the Empire Service. I'm not sure they would still form the world service if the BBC were created today. It is, in my view at least, a great form of soft power for the UK and in some cases one of the only decent reporting options.

everyone i know read English site, so no need to produce anything additional for these users, it cost them just little bit if bandwidth and processing time, but zero human resources

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