No preaching, no guilt, just sound practical advice

"Maybe it's because I am a londoner, that I love the BeeeBeeeCeeee." There's a song in there somewhere...

Joking aside, I do love the BBC. Really it's a modern-day miracle, succeeding in the face of much commercial competition and adversity. Take a look at the funding model:

• It's government run (that's a reason for it to be a flop) with all the baggage a quango brings
• it's funded from an "antique" business model which requires all TV watchers to procure a "TV License" in order to watch anything

And yet, in spite of this "burden" the value returned is astonishing...

• the BBC is the world's largest broadcasting corporation
• a license costs about $20 per month which makes it WAY better value than any cable company i have experience of
• the BBC provides 8 interactive TV channels which include almost all major sporting events
• 10 radio networks
• more than 50 local TV and radio services
• the BBC's website bbc.co.uk (a diamond for sport and world news)
• and the on-demand TV service, BBC iPlayer (which is not made available to non-license payers i.e. anyone living outside the UK and Northern Ireland)

That should impress most folks but it gets better. None, and I mean NONE of the above media feature adverts. it's all pure quality! Which to many would be reason enough to love the BeeB. But still there are other reasons. The good folks of the BBC are switched on. For such an age-old firm the team is bright, creative, and liberal. That's why i almost always do breakfast with www.bbc.co.uk

Which brings me all the way back to my granola the other morning. As I sat down to tuck in to my cereal i booted up my laptop and double-clicked on Internet Explorer. And there it was, a most compelling headline with a photograph featuring a massive box of light bulbs. So i clicked and read...

It seems that UK retailers have agreed - without government legislation - to start slowly removing incandescent light bulbs from their shelves in order to phase out the most inefficient. 150W are already just a bad memory. 100W are vanishing fast. 60W are next and 40W will follow.

Together the retailers - which normally compete bitterly with each other - are collaborating on a grand scale to help reduce waste and to guide the whole country towards improved energy efficiency. Of course there are detractors, change is a scary thing for some. But i defy anyone to knock the way the retailers are rallying and collaborating to help us improve our environment and reduce our carbon footprint.

The light bulb story was of course a news piece, but BBC web properties don't stop there. BBC.co.uk also plays host to a broader range of web properties which extend far beyond the usual news and sport pages. Take a look at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bloom/ and you will see what i mean. "Bloom" is a compelling and fun site which aims to educate through examples in the most relevant way to you, the surfer. Their tag line quite perfectly sums up their mission; "No preaching, no guilt, just sound practical advice."

For my money (when i used to pay it) that just about sums up the whole of the BeeB.

Cheers

JC

<< Previous Blog Entry       |      Next Blog Entry >>