BBC America

This is a really quick question for the Americans on the forum: Does BBC America have adverts on it? I know that a lot of your screentime is almost dominated by adverts, but I wondered if that affected the good old BBC, which of course over here is free of them. Of course, part of me thinks that, but another part of me says that the only reason it's clean here is because it's part of the TV license, and I don't think it would be the case across the pond.

I just did a quick Google search and apparently yes, there are ads on BBC America. The BBC by law cannot use money gained by British TV Licensing Fees to fund channels outside of the UK so they need to use adverts. It's rather unfortunate really as they need to cut down special episodes which are longer than usual to be able to fit adverts in.

The adverts for Doctor Who Toys are put out by Underground Toys Not CO... As to paying for our great programing accross the pond BBC America is a Cable / Satalie channel... More over BBC america is not a Basic Cable Channel so in order for me to get it I have to pay about 20% more on my cable bill than otherwise...

Well that's very interesting…thanks guys!

So, they cut out chucks of episodes to put adverts in there? That's interesting. I would that thought they would have just spread the episodes out more, ie put a 45 minute episode in an hour-long slot, with 15 mins for adverts. That's what I remember them doing on channels like GOLD when they broadcast old episodes occasionally. Then again, I imagine there's a lot more pressure on BBC America. The BBC must need to squeeze all of the best content of all of its channels into one, so I imagine time is of the essence.

How much ad time do you get then? Is it around the standard for channels over the pond, more or less?

BBC America does, indeed, have adverts---which is annoying, especially when I'm trying to watch Top Gear and there's a bloody countdown clock for the Season Premiere of Copper in the lower right hand corner of the screen.