07-03-2023, 07:40 PM
(07-03-2023, 05:34 PM)Newsroom Wrote: I stumbled across this from 2001 when back then and it was deemed almost essential to let viewers know they were watching a 'joint service' - and it's not the only example of course.The organisational arrangements behind BBC World have changed about half-a-dozen times since then, so the rules have probably been written and rewritten several times. I guess one of the main things is that in the early-2000s there was a lot of worry from certain quarters about BBC World, which was loss-making at the time, being unfairly subsidised by the licence fee. Given that World had to be pay domestic a 'fair' usage fee for any UK-produced material used (and vice versa), it may have been the case that extraordinary joint programming had to be flagged so that nothing got under the radar.
So what exactly has changed 'commercially' internally that it is not so important now? Because it was most certainly important in 2001 to let people know what they were watching.
Today, the channels are not just more integrated administratively, but BBC World News is now a profit-making enterprise so there is less worry about it being over-generously treated. Plus, for various reasons, the government has become less bothered about the relationship between the BBC's public service and commercial enterprises (e.g., the 2015 reforms around BBC Studios now mean that the commercial BBC is involved in the day-to-day of public service BBC anyway).