Did it have the loathsome "HARDtalk" on?

BBC Prime show The Goodies.

*froth*

The only BBC channel to currently show The Goodies is not available in the UK.

Well, not strictly true. It is possible to subscribe to BBC Prime in the UK for 60 quid a year, from some Belgian firm. You do need specialised equipment though (digital decoder plus Viaccess CAM, unless I'm mistaken).

Is BBC Prime available in the US??

>Is BBC Prime available in the US??

Nope. They get BBC America instead. There will be a similar service for Canada too. Don't think that's launched yet though.

And BBC America is quite good.

But: no goodies, and we're still getting that "every comedian on the BBC club in, we're going to tell a joke!" advertthing...

ah - but you do get the proper (whispers)BBC Balloon idents and the thoroughly english woman saying "this, is BBC America"

cool.

>ah - but you do get the proper (whispers)BBC Balloon idents and the thoroughly english woman saying "this, is BBC America"

Is that thoroughly English woman that one off Carlton Cinema and stuff?

They really should put BBC World on in the UK - orrrr....
they could scrap news24....
put on BBC World, keep Sky as it is, keep ITN cos I like that as well,
but World is still slower than CNN - Sky, god its annoying,

BBC World you can get for free in this country, it's carried by at least 2 satellites if you point your dish the right way.. I'm reasonably sure it's free to air.

BBC Prime, on the other hand, is technically unavailable. (thanks to previous poster who mentioned Dutch company that will sell u a card!)

BBC World is freely available via satellite, as sheep says. It's very easy to receive as well, a 10-year-old Amstrad system can get it.

At this point I should mention something I'm surprised a TV forum hasn't touched on before. According to EU Law, we as European citizens have the RIGHT to view anything which we can receive. And if there is no way of obtaining a subscription, it used to be legal to obtain it via unofficial means, ie via a pirate card. The EU made the use of pirate cards illegal in May, which means that the TV companies are LEGALLY OBLIGED to sell you a card for ANY package around Europe. This INCLUDES BBC Prime. If the BBC refuse to sell you a subscription it is within your rights to sue them under EU law.

Sadly out here in Asia, it's just BBC World. A Japanese channel on cable carries the 6 O'clock news at about 4am too, but that's about it.. So - no goodies, but lots of HARDtalk.

And yes, World is very slow but they got very cocky when they realised they were the only station not messing up the US Election results.

>At this point I should mention something I'm surprised a TV forum hasn't touched on before. According to EU Law, we as European citizens have the RIGHT to view anything which we can receive. And if there is no way of obtaining a subscription, it used to be legal to obtain it via unofficial means, ie via a pirate card. The EU made the use of pirate cards illegal in May, which means that the TV companies are LEGALLY OBLIGED to sell you a card for ANY package around Europe. This INCLUDES BBC Prime. If the BBC refuse to sell you a subscription it is within your rights to sue them under EU law.

Rather intriguing yet quite understandable thing to come from the EU.

Of course things could get dodgy in the arena of TV rights if lots of people started taking up this option.

Quite Bods, but the point is that the TV companies are in the wrong here. The European Union has for a long time had the principle of "Television sans Frontieres" (sorry if my French spelling is incorrect), and the broadcasters are in breach of EU law and statute if they continue to break Europe up into its member states. This is entirely right and proper, what is the point of closer integration if this important aspect is conveniently ignored?

Example: FIFA own the rights to televising the World Cup. They license them to national broadcasters for transmission within their own countries' borders. However, if that broadcaster happens to transmit on satellite, the pictures are then viewable by anyone in Europe. The TV companies curretly can encrypt the pictures to restrict them to one country, but if this is illegal, then there's a dilemma here.

If you say the broadcasters are in the wrong, what are they to do? If they only sell decryption cards to one country, they are breaking EU law. If they allow all EU citizens to buy cards, they are breaking the terms of their contracts with the rights owners.

The real problem appears to be in rights selling - FIFA/whoever should still be able to sell the rights to individual national broadcasters, but with an allowance that each broadcaster can transmit to the whole EU. However, the TV companies would then be competing with each other across borders, which would inevitably lead to complaints from other broadcasters, without broadcast rights, to ask why they can't compete.

Basically, it's a mess. I'm not saying the broadcasters are in the right, in fact I agree that decryption cards should be sellable EU-wide, but just saying "its the broadcasters fault" isn't a solution.

Is there something obvous I'm missing?

>Is there something obvous I'm missing?

Apart from the letter 'i'

>Example: FIFA own the rights to televising the World Cup. They license them to national broadcasters for transmission within their own countries' borders. However, if that broadcaster happens to transmit on satellite, the pictures are then viewable by anyone in Europe. The TV companies curretly can encrypt the pictures to restrict them to one country, but if this is illegal, then there's a dilemma here.

Quite, and this might have something to do with the fact that I've heard the BBC channels can now be viewed through SkyDigital in the Irish Republic (though its not in the EPG). Or it could be Sky fecking up.

Related question: why is Radio 5 Live available on the web, but not on (analogue) satelite? I thought it was just for the duration of the Olympics, but the sat feed is still down.

>Related question: why is Radio 5 Live available on the web, but not on (analogue) satelite? I thought it was just for the duration of the Olympics, but the sat feed is still down.

Anag Sat feed is down permenantly afaik due to the fact that it cannot be encrypted in any useful way. The Web feed cuts out during most sports. They could, I suppose use the web feed for Anag sat, but it may not be worth it for the relatively few listeners.

>no goodies, but lots of HARDtalk.

Enough to drive anyone to suicide, that is. Ugh.

>The real problem appears to be in rights selling - FIFA/whoever should still be able to sell the rights to individual national broadcasters, but with an allowance that each broadcaster can transmit to the whole EU. However, the TV companies would then be competing with each other across borders, which would inevitably lead to complaints from other broadcasters, without broadcast rights, to ask why they can't compete.

It doesn't just restrict itself to sports - take an American imported sitcom or drama. Maybe exclusive in the UK to C4, but can also be seen on some German station...

Less extreme than sports i know but similar situation.

Yes, in sport, I would say wholeheartedly that it's nothing to do with the broadcasters - I'm sure Five Live would loved to have broadcast the Olympics across the globe but the IoC won't let them.

But there is also another issue - is all this going to put broadcasters bidding for rights, when some other station in another country could have the same rights, but with a different card - less of an issue for terrestrial channels, but not for Satalite channels.

And who will ultimatly get sued? The broadcasters who provide the service, or the rights sellers who impose these illegal conditons?

If someone sued (say) the BBC and the BBC then had to give that person a card, they could end up loosing their broadcast rights... Who wins? The person selling the rights and no one else.

>Basically, it's a mess. I'm not saying the broadcasters are in the right, in fact I agree that decryption cards should be sellable EU-wide, but just saying "its the broadcasters fault" isn't a solution.
>
>Is there something obvous I'm missing?

>It doesn't just restrict itself to sports - take an American imported sitcom or drama. Maybe exclusive in the UK to C4, but can also be seen on some German station...

But *in German*, so that's all right then.

>>It doesn't just restrict itself to sports - take an American imported sitcom or drama. Maybe exclusive in the UK to C4, but can also be seen on some German station...
>
>But *in German*, so that's all right then.

What if it's just subtitled?

Nooo, no subs on German TV (but would subbes be there, who knows...) However, there are several stations out there broadcasting FTA which do just have subtitles. OBN Sarajevo is one that instantly springs to mind, as it shows BBC comedies like Brittas and One Foot in the Grave with Croat (?) subtitles. No Goodies though :(

There's also a Georgian TV station which shows pirate movies (ones just out in the Cinema, no less) but there is a voice-over (a lecter, I think they're called) which spoils things somewhat. You can hear the original soundtrack very clearly, with this deep-voiced bloke translating over the top. Very tacky indeed, and the Polish stations do it as well, which is incredibly infuriating as they have some good 70's trash TV. I don't know why they do it that way, maybe they can't afford a full re-dub of the whole programme but too many viewers are illiterate to have subtitles on-screen. Very strange...

>>But *in German*, so that's all right then.
>What if it's just subtitled?

I find it practically impossible to ignore the subtitles long enough ot understand the english - generally they lower the volume of the speech, too. tried it with french-subtitled Ripping Yarns, but gave up.