I love the BBC, well, more specifically, I love BBC radio 4. I've just listened to the latest In our time episode which covered the "measurement problem in physics" (essentially, the problem of resolving the quantum weirdness we observe at the macro level to the newtonian mechanics which are understandable). The programme was deep, complex, thought-provoking, and suprisingly comprehensible. I do have an A-level physics qualification, but we barely covered quantum malarkey. Melvyn Bragg presented it and I was suprised how well he refereed the eminent guests (eg. Roger Penrose) despite his (probable) lack of knowledge on the subject.

That Auntie can even attempt to broadcast this in primetime to millions of listeners (Radio 4 is one of the largest radio stations in the UK) is a superb example of why you need independent broadcasters that don't depend on advertising revenues. I'm trying to think of an example of where you'd get such rich deep content without it, but I can't.

Radio 4 is pretty much unique. It's a news/spoken word radio station, it's top or close enough to being the number one listened to radio station in the UK. It doesn't do sport (unlike most other talk radio) except of course, for the incomparable test match special. It presents radio plays (eg. Douglas Adams' The Hitchiker's Guide), comedy that is either brilliant on radio permanently (I'm sorry I haven't a clue, The Now Show, etc) or can be transposed to TV too (eg. Goodness gracious me, The Frost Report which spawned Monty Python, etc), or documentaries and debate shows like the one I'm praising today. Worth the licence fee on its own!