I’d have serious issues if Americans were charged a “television tax” to fund public programming. But, I do have to admit that the BBC produces some very useful resources for self learners. Luckily, BBC’s online courses and educational material are freely available to everyone, including us non-taxed Americans.
If you haven’t explored their site yet, take a look. A good place to start is their material on history. They have easy-to-follow lessons on everyone from Ancient History to the the World Wars. To check out other BBC material (including some well-made foreign language tutorials), take a look at this site’s list of free BBC courses.
* For those wondering, British citizens must pay a yearly television license tax for owning a t.v. or other t.v. viewing device.
January 15th, 2008 at 10:18 am
The television licence subsides or pays for an awful lot of non-tv culture in the UK. Even on television, a lot of shows would be impossible without the fee. Still, it would be better if they called it a culture levy and struck down copyright restrictions.
Tax isn’t a terrible thing, you know.