Hacker News Reader

Comment by thundercleeze | Hacker News Reader

Thanks. This is a helpful tool. BBC blocking access to non-uk IP's is very annoying.

Annoying but you'd probably do the same, you categorically cannot be funding the media you're consuming when you're visiting the BBC on a non-UK IP. The ad impressions don't cover it, and BBC Worldwide take a cut before the BBC proper receives anything anyway.

The BBC proper doesn't receive anything from advertising, in fact. But that's because what most people think of as 'the BBC' actually isn't the BBC proper.

It is indeed the BBC proper (i.e. the corporation with the royal charter) that encompasses BBC News, which is the source of this article, as one of its divisions. But BBC News and the BBC proper are not the commercial organizations, i.e. BBC Studios and whatnot.

Inside the U.K., there are no advertisments on this or any BBC News article. Outwith the U.K., what people get is actually coming from a separate commercial company, BBC Global News Ltd..

> The BBC proper doesn't receive anything from advertising, in fact. But that's because what most people think of as 'the BBC' actually isn't the BBC proper.

Not only did I make this distinction in the comment you're replying to, but you're also just wrong -- the BBC takes about £5b a year from BBC Worldwide and part of that money is ad impressions. The point is that it doesn't cover the cost to supply the service.

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