I have become aware of the widespread and somewhat irritating presence of advertisements on the BBC website.
It’s too easy to drift from a news article into an advert.
One moment you’re reading about Greenland and Denmark, for example, the next moment as you scroll down, you’re reading about how to transfer your pension into Canada.
I’ll obviously check out whether these adverts go away when I’m next back in the UK, but does anybody else experience this situation ?
My understanding (which may not be correct) is that the BBC puts adverts onto their web pages in countries other than the UK. TBH that doesn’t seem unreasonable.
Yes, I was wondering if that might be the case.
For the most part, I have become used to them and can avoid them.
I find it very difficult to watch a film on TV when it’s on a commercial station, as I find the length and frequency of adverts impossible to endure. So while I’m grateful for the BBC here, I do find the adverts they run in between programmes very tedious. It’s just that these are adverts for other BBC radio and TV programs and other services, so it seems they can drone on for as long as they like.
You are entirely correct, no adverts if you using a British registered IP address. Note this is a British and NOT UK address as it covers certain crown dependencies like Isle of Man, and Channel Islands, which of course are not part of the UK.
In the U.K. though we pay the licence fee for ad free TV and website.
It would be nice if when signing in overseas the website and iPlayer were ad free and available respectively but I guess it would be so open to abuse and hard to police, it seems they have no real workable option.
Even worse in the States. I’ve no idea how folks can watch anything on terrestrial TV there, it’s not even as though there is some kind of warning before the ads blast in!
Laughable that a half hour slot for a US tv show on Ch4 say, actually has only 20 minutes of content.
Despite migrating from the UK to New Zealand, I continue to read the BBC news online. The blast of annoying adverts seems to be a very recent thing and certainly didn’t occur until a few months ago. I guess something has changed but it is a complete pain
Does Admuncher work?
Not using this app, since my Mac seems fine. Just seems to be when accessing BBC News on the iPhone
You might well be correct about this advert thing only starting a few months ago.
Earlier this year I was unaware of it. Doesn’t really confirm that the BBC website was ad-free, but this is the first time I have really noticed it.
Not familiar with this one ?
The BBC has used adverts as funding sources outside the UK and Crown Dependencies for many years.
It used to make me smile when you connected from south of France or Spain, the adverts nearly always seemed to be targeted to ex pat retired British people.
You will probably be redirected to www.bbc.com instead of www.bbc.co.uk as well if your source IP address is not a British (UK and CD) address.
Does anyone else remember the early days when bbc.com belonged to a company whose initials were BBC (I think a US resources or manufacturing firm), and the Beeb only had bbc.co.uk. When you accidentally went to .com, their front page was dominated by a banner saying something like “We are the B… B… C… company, if you want the British Broadcasting Corporation please go to bbc.co.uk”.
It’s quite a good advert blocker for PC - not sure what other platforms it works on. Other ad blockers are available, but I’ve found this one to be very good.
Yes I do 
I wish the B.B.C would advertise more, directly or using Product placement. Then it might be funded by such adverts and give me the chance to not be ‘obliged’ to have a licence. I suspect I am not alone in that line of thought either…
I would hate it if they advertised. One of the great joys of watching BBC TV is not getting shouted at by stupid and irrelevant commercials. Similarly on their website - not jumping, shaking, leaping and distracting adverts. Sublime.
I agree, I find the proliferation of adverts on some web sites a real turn off, and I tend to avoid such sites.
As a consequence sites like the BBC in the UK and CD are a breeze to use, uncluttered and easy to follow without distracting applets and imaging. For some reason I find advertising on the web far more intrusive than I do as with physical media.
This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.