Calculate what the BBC costs you
David T Breaker | Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 | 1 Comment »
It’s been announced that the BBC “licence fee” is to go up 2%, which takes it to £145.50 per year. Just a decade ago it was £104, making a 43% increase in ten years! Doing the maths – where did I put that calculator? – that equates to 40p a day. But I don’t watch the BBC every day – I might watch Sky or ITV or a DVD, I might be on holiday or out or suffering a powercut – which got me thinking: how much does the BBC cost me per hour? I did the maths.
With the assumption this last week was a normal week, I have watched the following programmes:
Seven Ages of Britain (BBC1)
Country House Rescue (C4)
The Mentalist (Five)
I watch Sky News because the BBC News is inferior, and never listen to BBC Radio. I watch a programme on BBC4 probably once a month or so on average, recently Indian Hill Railways and – as there was nothing else on – a documentary about Skippy the Bush Kangeroo, these being the only things I’ve watched on BBC4 for upwards of six months. I watch New Tricks and Spooks when they have new series. So this week I’ve watched 1 hour of the BBC, but adding in these I probably average 2.
So 2-hours of BBC1 costs me a mandatory £145.50 a year, or £1.40 per hour watched. Click, click, click… What’s that Skippy, you think it’s a rip off?
[...] bent. This article by the hopelessly unfunny David Mitchel falls under all three categories. Having earlier calculated that the BBC costs me £1.40 per hour watched, I’m not feeling that sympathetic to the Beeb, but this article really takes the [...]