Why I'm giving up on the BBC

[Emrys]

24. There's been a rot in the BBC's news service for some time now

It's more apparent in its UK domestic coverage (I'm particularly affected by its coverage of Scottish events and politics, which is often very skewed and Anglocentric), and can be linked to efforts under the last Tory government to install politically friendly placepeople at its helm and in its upper management.

Nevertheless, there is still much of value there, as you've found, the BBC World Service's coverage of international affairs being a key example - it should be possible to find a stream of it via the oldfashioned airwaves, if not online. Beyond news, I value some of the BBC's other output - especially environmental and wildlife coverage - even though its domestic news coverage often grates on me nowadays (Channel 4 News is usually superior, though not without its own editorial faults).

Producing all this takes money, and the major source of funding for the BBC is the UK licence fee. I'm willing to pay it because there's much about its output (more on radio nowadays than TV) I enjoy, but many in the UK have decided not to pay up. In theory that's a prosecutable offence if you view the BBC's output in the UK at time of broadcast, but lots of folks risk it and escape consequences.

Many of us in the UK are also feeling the pinch economically, so it seems unreasonable to expect us to effectively subsidize others beyond ours shores' news sources. There are few breaking stories that aren't covered adequately by sources other than BBC News, and if it's a bona fide scoop, other outlets will pick it up and run with it. Occasionally some of its documentary work is exceptional (that's one of the things a subscription will buy access to), but that's a crowded field nowadays.