"Free" TV/Radio

One of the valuable aspects of living somewhere else is the opportunity to evaluate some hidden value statements about your culture. So, that's the lead in to a short story ...

The other day our door bell rang. I answered the door and there were two men that asked me if I had a TV or a radio in the flat? I said that I did (mind you, the tv provided by the owner of the flat is an ancient thing and we only get 2 channels on it). They then asked me my name, which I told them. They checked their clipboard and they said that our tv was not registered. To which I replied, "you have to register your tv? Why?" The answer to "why" is that it's the law, but "why is it the law that I have to register my tv?" Well, instead of dragging you threw the entire conversation, I'll skip to the punch line.

You register you tv/radio here because "free" tv (what you get on your tv without cable or any other service) is what we refer to in the US as "public television." And like, PBS in the US, there are no commercials on the "free" tv stations here (we had noticed that). The kids watch some children's programming and we're always bewildered by the start times because shows are about 20 minutes each instead of 30 minutes, so the start times seem pretty random. Of course, this is because of the lack of commercials and the programming was adapted from "commercial tv" (some from the US, some from France, some from Germany, etc.) And by the way, the content of our "free" tv here seems to be somewhere between PBS and commercial tv in the US (they carry news, sports programs, kids programs, dramas, etc., but somehow it doesn't seem exactly like commercial tv in the US -- we assume when you get cable, you get stations like that).

Anyway, which system would you like best? Commercial tv at home for anyone to watch for free if they have a tv, but loaded with commercials? Or, commercial-free tv that you HAVE to pay for no matter how much you watch (you can't just avoid donating to PBS here!)?

So, we'll pay the 24 euros a month for the last 6 months we are here to watch two stations about 30 minutes a day. We're not mad, because at least we are getting a story out of it :-)

Russ