harold
I like the BBC because there are no adverts. I also watch the other main channels but the adverts are really, really annoying during dramas.
Exactly, Harold. The BBC has an income of around £5bn (2020 numbers) with £3.5bn coming from the licence fee. Of the remainder, more than £1.3bn came through BBC Studios, a commercial branch that generates money by selling BBC content to international distributors and other ventures.
An alternative is advertising which would likely lead to a reduction in the diversity of programming and a reliance on popular programmes which draw in more viewers.
The current colour licence fee costs £159, just over £3 a week, less than half the price of most digital apps which have nowhere near the quantity of programmes and breadth of coverage. I count in this live TV, live radio, the extensive range of catch up material for both including the fantastic archive (which some may not have heard of) that is the BBC Genome project.
genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/