No, ITV’s revenue comes entirely from advertising. Nonetheless, a TV licence is required to watch it, as it is for all channels. Until the many other digital, cable etc channels appeared in the last decade or so, the BBC and ITV pursued a relentless ratings war, which ITV won more often that not. This was not competition in an uncontrolled market, but competition it undoubtedly was. For the BBC, success in the ratings war was vital if it were to preserve its privileged status in the next Royal Charter/Licence Fee cycle. The fact that viewers in their millions chose so often to switch to ‘the other side’, as it was then called, shows that they were anything but an audience captive to the BBC: although the market available to them was, of course, limited.
Thanks for that additional information, Winniesboy. I now understand the situation much better. So instead of a monopoly marketplace in TV, the British (like the US) went from an oligopolistic marketplace to a more open market with the advent of cable/satellite.
In the US for many years the BBC was the international version of the New York Times — a medium of record and of undoubted veracity. And perhaps it was such when a previous generation of journalists were behind BBC’s microphones. But then I began to contrast BBC’s coverage, especially on the Middle East, and found it skewed.
Now it seems as if the BBC is reduced to Dan Rather style trickster journalism to shore up ratings. Misrepresenting the Queen on national TV takes real chutzpah (the reversed sequence of the photo session drama).
De-charter the BBC.
And on a closing note Winniesboy, I hear “Winnie” no longer warrants mandatory mention in British pedagogy. Perhaps the British anti-smoking campaign has gone too far this time. {:-)