Are there radio licenses, too?

No, but the money from the TV licence goes to pay for the BBC radio channels as well. I suspect there were radio reception licences in the early days though.

It is much, MUCH better than the alternative.. commercials every 5 minutes or less.

Cheers

Your tax dollars (assuming you pay federal taxes) fund PBS whether you own a TV or not.

federal taxes) fund PBS

Though that particular subsidy (among countless thousands in the budget) appears to be on its way out.

Oh, i in no way mean that i wouldn't support PBS unless forced... About all i ever watch is PBS actually. I'm more than happy to pay a large chunk to keep them going! I personally think the TV tax in the UK to fund the BBS is a good thing... though the way it's enforced seems a bit draconian, not that i have a better solution. I'm all for public funding of the arts.

Funding the BBS? I didn't know this BBS was that important...

A colour license for a year is £116 whilst a B&W license is roughly £40. So if you think of it in terms of how much you pay a week it's not much.

A colour license for a year is £116 whilst a B&W license is roughly £40

Which all adds up to £2.8bn a year (it gets another £1.1bn from commercial operations), I guess TV is an expensive business...

...in fact output on BBC1 costs £160,000 an hour to produce, on average...

...also discovered while googling that the BBC website serves 1.2 billion page impressions a month !

http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/report2003/pdf/facts.pdf

Wow. £2.8 billion is a fair bit! I suppose it does have a lot of stuff to fund with the licensing fee. Who maintains the transmitters dotted around the country? Is it part of the BBC?

The BBC don't run the transmitters, I think that is NTL and Crown Castle.

I seem to remember that the BBC pay about £100m a years for transmission costs.

Funding the BBS? I didn't know this BBS was that important

PBS... BBS... BBC... PBC... whateva. =]

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I seem to remember that the BBC pay about £100m a years for transmission costs.

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That figure could rise quite steeply as CC and the Beeb reach the end of their 'honeymoon' period.
I always find it amusing that whenever I go to a transmission station I'm always greeted by ex-bbc employees. A lot of the notices dotted about the place have still got BBC Transmitter Department written on them!