Here in New Jersey, I get BBC America, and it’s among my favorite channels. So I freaking LOVE that there is an entire song devoted to how awesome the BBC is:
Thank you to Nan of Bone Island Books for the link – which is actually a pretty good song, too, now that it’s stuck in my head.
Losing the BBC is the one regret I have about moving to Australia. The ABC is not in the same league.
Thank God for satellite.
Spamword: any26 – I’d take the BBC over any 26 other channels you care to name.
I’m such an anglophile that I can’t even imagine getting on without BBC America. I have no interest in cars, yet I find myself watching hours of Top Gear. As of one year ago I had never seen a single Doctor Who episode, now its my favorite show of ALL TIME. I’m down the turnpike in South Jersey and my TV is always, always tuned to BBC America. Always.
There are a lot of people here in the UK who take the BBC for granted and whinge about the licence fee – personally I think it’s a bargain. Four channels, umpteen radio stations, iPlayer and a news website so good it’s my internet homepage for £150 a year? Commercial tv can’t – and in some areas, won’t – compete.
For the most part I don’t mind not having cable tv, but MAN I wish I had BBC America. Thanks for making my morning!
(And did I mention Doctor Who?)
I feel the same way, Kelly. Adore Auntie Beeb. It’s what I call value for money.
But BBC America…someone told me they have ad breaks. Commercials. On the BBC. That’s just wrong.
The BBC is part of the fabric of my life, Mitch Benn is to be found on various shows of which my favourite is probably The Now Show on Radio Four. Just love it.
I’d be happy to appear the very significant 42 times to support the BBC
(And 42 takes me back to listening the The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy while doing the washing up after dinner when I was a teenager … on the BBC of course!)
<3 the BBC! I have around 100 cable stations and I watch CBS, FOX, ABC, USA, and TNT, and occasionally MSNBC. If only I had BBC America…I would watch so much less Law & Order and NCIS.
Yay! I love this! So many of my favorite shows are namechecked here. I don’t have BBC America unfortunately and now I really, really want it. Thank goodness for PBS.
I liked this so much I put it on facebook, with attribution to the smartbitches, of course
Cat Marsters – we do, but we suffer through them for the awesome programming (I love BBC America) But ad breaks are such a part of life I don’t know if we’d know what to do with ourselves if we sat down to watch something and it *didn’t* get interrupted. We plan our lives around ad breaks – certainly our bathroom habits, food breaks, laundry and letting out the dog. Or is that just me?
As a homesick ex-pat Brit (among other things) I find that BBC America is no substitute for the real thing: too much horrible housekeeping, what not to wear, top gear et al, and not enough Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Goodness Gracious Me, Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, Wallander, Sherlock ……
I still tune into BBC radio 2 online every so often, and I stay glued to PBS’ Masterpiece Mysteries and Classics for a taste of the old entertainment – but its not enough. sob.
opened92 – I’ve opened BBC America 92 times – and only rarely found something I wanted to watch, mostly I get ads
I watched this and thought 1) this is awesome and 2) public libraries could really use something similar. Yep, I’m a library geek – everything makes me think of them.
Cracking video ! Just worked out that I’ve probably watched or listened to about 80% of the programmes mentioned.!!!!
I lurve my Auntie Beeb
BUT any other Beeb watchers want to see “Hairy Bikers Being Human In The Night Garden ” ????? What a programming opportunity
Suagarless—I’m so institutionalised with the Beeb that when I watch quality programming like, for instance Downton Abbey which has just finished on ITV, I get really annoyed when there are ad breaks. Really, I can concentrate for longer than 15 minutes. How long until there are ad breaks when I go to the cinema? Phonecalls, dog barking, oven timer pinging: that’s what Sky+/Tivo was invented for (I bloody love Sky+. Best invention of last 10 years).
Shaheen, I sympathise re: Sherlock. Anyone missing that is really, really missing something wonderful. But for Wallander, although I enjoyed the Kenneth Brannagh ones, I’m told the original Swedish versions are much better (although haven’t seen them personally). BBC4 did have them.
And what do you mean you don’t like Top Gear? You may have been out of the country irredeemably long if you don’t get Top Gear.
Umm … Top Gear is about cars, they just aren’t that interesting, useful of course, annoying when they don’t work or get stolen, but interesting? No. And I’ve haven’t lived anywhere else apart from brief stints in the States when I was a kid.
I agree about the ad breaks in Downton Abby though so I watch it on Virgin Play It Again which kindly removes them all
The point of watching Top Gear is NOT to learn about cars, LOL! It’s to watch the guys razz each other and to see what horrible stunts they get up to (like Jackass for adults). It’s one of my favorite shows. If you can watch the episode where they have to drive across Botswana without becoming thoroughly addicted, then I’ll grant that we simply don’t share the same sense of humour.
Please let it be a Beetle . . .
Actually, I learned a lot about cars from TG. Used to watch it in the old incarnation when I was small. It’s given me a genuine love of cars. But as Isobel said, that’s not solely what it’s about, any more than Mad Men is just about advertising or Doctor Who is about aliens.
I’ve tried to fathom why it is that cars are generally a male thing and women just don’t care, but I can’t. I know plenty of women who really love cars and plenty of men who look a bit intimidated when I demonstrate the tiniest bit of knowledge.
But then, the primary function of Top Gear is to promote controversy, to be an antidote to the blandly inoffensive programs the world is full of. If there isn’t an argument about TG going on somewhere in the world, Jeremy Clarkson dies.
Hmmm and controversy is a good way of solving problems right? I don’t like any of the presenters, I don’t want to spend time with them, I don’t like the whipping up of controversy for entertainment and I don’t like the way they just plain misrepresent things. Speed cameras save life, fact; their costs are covered by the fines they take, fact; they do not however make money for the exchequer, although they do save the Exchequer maney in the NHS, emergency services and courts, fact. Boring? Maybe, but that’s life.
Have to admit I didn’t go for That’s Life either … 😉
I don’t have cable most of the time (we get it for a month or two in the summer to watch the Tour de France, long story) and I agree BBC America is not even close to the real thing (what’s up with the recent constant reruns of Star Trek TNG??? And Cash in the Attic—enough already!). But I do have something every serious or even semi-serious tele-anglophile should consider: a region-free or multi-region DVD player. That means you can pop a DVD from the UK in and it will play fine (as will your U.S. DVDs)—and you can get all the awesome shows that haven’t made it here yet like the full run of Shameless, The Thick of It, all the seasons of Steve Coogan’s brilliant Alan Partridge, etc. etc. I also happen to have friends in the UK who recommend good shows but I’m sure there are other good sources of this info. Long live the Beeb!
Okay, I don’t like Top Gear either (neither do I get the whole NASCAR thing – sorry!), but the BBC should have it. Like the other Brit-based poster above, I think £150 a year for the huge breadth of output on BBC to be tremendous value. So great there’s such a fan base in the US (and with Smart Bitches no less!) Go BBC! For me, it’s all about Alan Partridge, or the Thick of It, or…I could go on and on!