Channel surfing on the BBC…

One of the things that I've always had a secret admiration about is the better programming the British have over the US.  The shows have always been able to have just that extra little bite that US censors would typically not allow in prime time or the quality not found in a typical US production.  The BBC, UK's major TV network, has been much more progressive about getting their content online and viewable from your computer. 

However, they also put a filter on who could view the content based on a user's computer location.  When a computer connects to the internet, that computer is assigned what's called an IP address – similar to a digital social security number – in that it's unique to your computer.  Countries are assigned blocks of numbers, so based on your IP address you can determine what country a computer user is from.

Well I was finally able to get past this by using what is called a proxy server.  The idea is that you use a second computer to be your face to the internet.  So if a server or website wants to know what country your from, say the BBC's verification server, the proxy server is what is shown as your IP address.  So last night I must have spent 3 or 4 hours just channel surfing the BBC.  It almost made me sick the quality of programming that I found in 4 hours on the BBC over the programming I've seen the past 3 or 4 months on the US.  It's no wonder the US television networks are having so many problems.