UK public broadcaster, the BBC is adding advertising to broadband delivered video news service when it is delivered outside the UK.
We have been suggesting for four years that the shift to online delivery of video could make a huge difference to the BBC, which is paid for entirely by an annual public levy of around $270 per household across the 24 million or so TV homes in the UK, reaping over $5 billion in annual income.
Given the amount of quality programming that the BBC carries and shows around the world, by either offering it on a subscription basis, or selling its own adverts to people outside of the UK, Faultline has calculated that this income might one day grow to subsidize the majority of the license fee. This of course is highly politically sensitive given that the BBC wants to have both the license fee and the advertising revenue, and it is banned from accepting advertising inside the UK, under threat of losing its government charter.
So far the company has only said that it will add the advertising to its news, but other programs are likely to follow. This has been made possible by recent advances in geo identity software which can distinguish which country each web viewer is viewing from.