What would you pay for quality news? [POLL]

I'm a Brit. Here, we have to buy a license to own a television. Currently, the license costs £139 (roughly $278) a year. That money goes directly (minus the minimal admin costs) to fund the BBC and a good portion of that goes to funding the BBC's news service. Although created by the British government, the BBC is proudly independent and frequently criticises the government of the day. The BBC doesn't make a profit and never has, nor does it show commercials with the exception of an equal number of commercial slots offered to the three major political parties around elections.

Now, the Beeb is imperfect, I'll be the first to admit that but their news reporting has gained a reputation for being reliable and as non-partisan as possible. Would you personally be willing to pay a TV licensing fee to fund a public service channel?

so I'm paying for quality news. I'm just not getting it, for the most part, so I rarely bother to tune those stations in.

Link TV and BBCA provide the only news worth watching.

With satellite I can receive broadcasts from outside US borders. Television news intended for US consumption is blatantly manipulative, biased way to the right, and simplistically presented, among other things. (Well, except for Stewart, Colbert, and I imagine, Democracy Now- which I don't get).

I wouldn't watch television if I couldn't watch it via satellite. I pay a fairly high price for satellite service, and it is worth every penny.:thumbsup:

and it's well worth it. Besides LinkTV and BBCA, I also get CCTV9 and a lot of Spanish language stations, all of which are much more informative in an hour than a US mainstream station is in a month.

I've been toying with the idea of getting a second dish for international broadcasts, but I can get so much of that online that I've balked at the expense.

Granted, it's not as widely viewed or as influential as BBC, but we do have it.

I wasn't aware of that.

There are similarities, but because the GOP is constantly cutting its budget, and playing games with programming, it is not entirely free from negative political influence.

The GOP are determined to turn PBS into another arm of their propaganda machine and keep people ignorant.

(EDITED TO ADD)

Oh, and the GOP even plant their crap on CSPAN covering "meetings" for the Cato Institute and the AEI.

To be fair, the Beeb would cover public announcements by a high-profile org like AEI too. The difference is that you'd then have 30-60 minutes of relentless fact-checking and analysis of it.

They were reporting on Darfur before anyone.

news for corporations or the government. Not some private burning - it must be televised, and in a stadium with reasonable prices (all of which go to the TV fund). And all other newscasters must be lined up in front of the stake, with their eyelids stapled open, and their necks braced so they cannot turn away.

and gladly pay for it by paying for satellite.

www.wearableartnow.com

:D

Obey the images on your Jesus Box.

to websites or viewer - funded stations like LinkTV. :hi: