[Football] BBC World Service

ShandyH · Oct 8, 2021

Has anyone lived around the world and listened to the BBC World Service and been transported back home, listening to the football on a Sunday afternoon? Where were you listening?

Surely this was the forerunner that helped propel the Premier League across the globe and build the foundations for the worldwide appeal of the league today.

We used to listen in Oman. Loved those moments of feeling like you're at home but have just stepped in from the cooled pool in March! COOLED!

RexCathedra · Oct 8, 2021

Yep. 70s and 80s in eastern US. Can still rattle off the frequencies for the Sackville, New Brunswick relay station.

GT49er · Oct 8, 2021

Is it still going? How wonderful! I used to listen to it a lot (the radio on all night helped me sleep, plus I'm sure I gained buckets of subliminal learning) but I sort of drifted away from it. Note to self - will try to find it again (not so easy now radios/laptops/computers don't have dials!)

Eeyore · Oct 8, 2021

BBC World Service in Russia is great. They try the clipped accent. They were once talking about a yachting club and pronounced it 'Yo-ting'. I thought the French police officer from 'Allo 'Allo ! had got a job there.

swindonseagull · Oct 8, 2021

Was the only way we could get football results on Ascension Island in pre internet days.

Twiddling with the short range tuning dial found loads of interesting state broadcasters.

Is it PotG? · Oct 8, 2021

Remember sitting in an undersized bath in Prague, listening to a whiney, fluctuating broadcast of a game one Saturday afternoon.

Then the internet came along and ruined it all.

Cheshire Cat · Oct 8, 2021

You can get it on digital radio these days here, or through the BBC sounds.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_world_service

I was devastated when they dropped Lillibulero as the signature tune.

Official Old Man · Oct 8, 2021

This is London.
Living in Spain in the 80's it's hard now to think there was no contact with the outside world. My shortwave radio tuned in on some crackly frequency with the sound coming and going. It's incredible to think that now I can watch live TV anywhere in the world.

Charlies Shinpad · Oct 8, 2021

A few hundred feet underwater and we could get World Service.
They always said if the World Service went off standby for war

Sent from my CPH2195 using Tapatalk

RexCathedra · Oct 8, 2021

https://youtu.be/ssw7cn2TbF0

cunning fergus · Oct 8, 2021

Brighton Lines said:
BBC World Service in Russia is great. They try the clipped accent. They were once talking about a yachting club and pronounced it 'Yo-ting'. I thought the French police officer from 'Allo 'Allo ! had got a job there.

Of course it is great, anything free usually is.

Let those that want to listen to it pay for it……that will be the true test of greatness.

clapham_gull · Oct 8, 2021

cunning fergus said:
Of course it is great, anything free usually is.

Let those that want to listen to it pay for it……that will be the true test of greatness.

A (not unexpected) complete misunderstanding and confusion regarding the history of the BBC World Service as opposed to the other BBC.

The BBC World Service is technically the "state broadcaster" answerable to the Foreign Office and autonomous from the rest of the organisation.

Until the 40s it was known as the "Empire Service".

It's only recently it been funded from the licence fee, but still gets huge grants from the Government to broadcast the UK point of view into foreign countries.

The BBC World Service isn't there for a UK audience and never has been.

"Let those that want to listen to it pay for it"

Take that up with the Foreign Office. I'm sure they will very sympathetic to your view that the Chinese and Russian audiences should pay for it.

cunning fergus · Oct 8, 2021

clapham_gull said:
A (not unexpected) complete misunderstanding and confusion regarding the history of the BBC World Service as opposed to the other BBC.

The BBC World Service is technically the "state broadcaster" answerable to the Foreign Office and autonomous from the rest of the organisation.

Until the 40s it was known as the "Empire Service".

It's only recently it been funded from the licence fee, but still gets huge grants from the Government to broadcast the UK point of view into foreign countries.

The BBC World Service isn't there for a UK audience and never has been.

"Let those that want to listen to it pay for it"

Take that up with the Foreign Office. I'm sure they will very sympathetic to your view that the Chinese and Russian audiences should pay for it.

A Pavlovian response, I am aware of the difference……..however what’s the difference between a U.K. tax payer or a U.K. licence fee payer?

The money paid by licence fee payers to the BBC is no different to the money paid by tax payers to HM Govt.

If either of those organs of the establishment choose to spend UK tax payers/licence fee payers money to the benefit of those outside the U.K. there is an eminently sensible challenge to whether that benefits those paying the money.

Just like foreign aid……….an evident indulgence that should end in these days of financial apocalypse at home.

clapham_gull · Oct 8, 2021

cunning fergus said:
A Pavlovian response, I am aware of the difference……..however what’s the difference between a U.K. tax payer or a U.K. licence fee payer?

The money paid by licence fee payers to the BBC is no different to the money paid by tax payers to HM Govt.

If either of those organs of the establishment choose to spend UK tax payers/licence fee payers money to the benefit of those outside the U.K. there is an eminently sensible challenge to whether that benefits those paying the money.

Just like foreign aid……….an evident indulgence that should end in these days of financial apocalypse at home.

Little England, we get it. But if you think these foreign media services are analogous to foreign aid, you are as confused politically as you are historically.

"The money paid by licence fee payers to the BBC is no different to the money paid by tax payers to HM Govt."

Clearly very, very different.

Weststander · Oct 8, 2021

Genuine story. On a family holiday around New England in summer 1979, in Portland Maine a young US waiter in a Denny’s or similar turned out to be an Albion fanatic. He knew more about Mullery, Horton and Wardy than us. All from listening to BBC World Service.

RexCathedra · Oct 8, 2021

Weststander said:
Genuine story. On a family holiday around New England in summer 1979, in Portland Maine a young US waiter in a Denny’s or similar turned out to be an Albion fanatic. He knew more about Mullery, Horton and Wardy than us. All from listening to BBC World Service.

I wonder if that was our Portlander....

cunning fergus · Oct 8, 2021

clapham_gull said:
Little England, we get it. But if you think these foreign media services are analogous to foreign aid, you are as confused politically as you are historically.

"The money paid by licence fee payers to the BBC is no different to the money paid by tax payers to HM Govt."

Clearly very, very different.

Tax in any form is tax, and we know what the outcome would be if there was a referendum on whether U.K. tax payers money, or as it actually is that the U.K. govt should borrow billions of pounds underwritten by the U.K. tax payer which is simply spaffed overseas to indulge the egos of the U.K. political class.

The irony is that the genesis of the little Englander trope is what imperialists referred to liberals that opposed the 2nd Boer war………the world turns doesn’t it?

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