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Comment by intheuk | Hacker News Reader

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intheuk·

Content is inaccessible in the UK. Can someone repost?

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http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:CV2nyQ3...

Are you telling me that BBC is not available in the UK?

Apparently so... I've never encountered pages like that on the BBC site before though:

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.

I wonder why that is an issue? Controlling the message? Feels like a PRC measure - as a UK citizen that'd make me feel very wary about public news.

No it's to do with how the main BBC and the international BBC are funded. The BBC in the UK has to be non-commercial, it's funded by TV license, and BBC Worldwide is commercially funded, so showing BBC Worldwide content in the UK would probably contravene the BBC's charter.

It is to avoid competing with paid private news companies on uneven terms, since they get funding from the gov.

It is bbc.com not .co.uk. And http://www.bbc.com/travel is not available in the UK because of licence stuff.

BBC Worldwide. Yes, that is correct, I've seen this block message before:

> "BBC Worldwide (International Site) 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."

Search it in Google and look into the cached version. Not posting a link because the cached version may/will be updated sooner or later.

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