I find this stuff fascinating.
As an aside, I’d be interested to know how well the BBC content works outside the UK. There’s been a political move to restrict free access to BBC material to UK residents, and I don’t know how much that affects the rest of the world.
I watch and read a lot of BBC and have no problem accessing it. The only change I see is the same as many news outlets,they ask you to sign up for a free account. Perhaps they are gauging the feasibility of a possible paid access.
I wonder if these news agencies realize that many of us prefer to have multiple sources to pull info from. I would never consider a paid subscription to all of them.
The thing is, here in the UK, everyone who has a TV is required by law to buy a yearly licence. The money pays for the BBC (theoretically, the BBC is free - it’s the TV you pay to use). This has become something of a political hot potato. People who never watch the BBC don’t see why they should pay. Subscription TV channels say it’s unfair competition, and Conservatives complain that BBC product can be accessed in other countries, who don’t pay, because our licence law doesn’t apply there. Liberals, on the other hand, tend to the view that BBC material should be freely available, precisely because it was created as a public service, and it’s already been paid for in full.
Up until a few years ago, all BBC broadcast content was available free to anyone able to receive it, but that’s no longer the case. Because of political pressure, some of their product is only available behind a subscription paywall, some is still free, but requires a registration and password, and some is just free (as in free beer). As a UK licence payer, I don’t see any of the global restrictions, so it’s hard to know what people can see.
I read BBC news and am able to watch most of their video clips from other EU countries. They ask if me want to create a free account but don’t block me if I say no. (It’s not clear to me what benefits an account would have.) I often get 30 sec ads but at least they are tasteful and not advertising ponzi schemes. 
It’s similar in Germany /Switzerland / Austria, the public stations are paid by a “contribution” by the locals.
There’s some logic to the conservative argument here… The content might have been paid for, but the bandwidth and the infrastructure have not. And those can be significantly more expensive if you let the whole world see it rather than just your country, depending on the demand.
With a TV broadcast, it was mostly the receivers problem how they were going to get it. If they could get it somehow, it didn’t mean additional costs for the broadcaster. In the internet, it totally does.
Meanwhile, not exactly a space mission, but the us air force is shooting down UFOs left and right these days. I sure wonder what the hell that is about. I don’t think it’s little green men, something tells me if they managed to get here they wouldn’t be so easy to take down. But something weird seems to be cluttering US airspace these past few days, and they’re flying somewhat too high to just be random drones. Whatever can fly stable at this altitude is either a balloon or represents a not insignificant expenditure of moneys, and balloons aren’t this difficult to identify…
According to what I have seen, most of these objects are 20-40k feet in altitude. Typically, spy balloons are around 60k feet. It is quite likely they are shooting down weather balloons. I figure a huge weather event will brew up and meteorologists won’t have the info needed to see it coming. 
It really makes no sense. It’s not like spy balloons have not been around for ages. And I am certain weather balloons and any other science related balloon projects are logged someplace. But fighter jocks get so few opportunities to shoot things down, I guess they just jump at every opportunity? 
Most likely it is just political posturing. The US got caught with their pants down. China has been flying spy balloons over quite a few countries over the last number of years and apparently no one noticed or cared.
Now China is claiming the US is flying balloons over their airspace…like a bunch of brats in a playpen.
Just don’t go up in any hot air balloons
"US Northern Command Commander General Glen VanHerck said that there was no indication of any threat.
“I’m not going to categorise them as balloons. We’re calling them objects for a reason,” he said.
“What we are seeing is very, very small objects that produce a very, very low radar cross-section,” he added.
Speculation as to what the objects may be has intensified in recent days.
“I will let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out,” Gen VanHerck said when asked if it was possible the objects are aliens or extra-terrestrials.
“I haven’t ruled out anything at this point.”"
Weather balloons. I think they need to retighten their parameters. 
General VanHerck can’t rule out extraterrestrials. That pretty much confirms it for me. Head for the sewers!
Seriously, you can make radar as sensitive as you need. The trouble is, the sky is full of stuff you’re not interested in - birds, wind blown plastic bags, hailstones, toy balloons, witches, Dorothy’s house, (well, OK, the last two are maybe a bit dubious - but you get the idea).
Military, security, and civil aviation radar are concerned with threats - threats to civil aircraft (or from civil aircraft), threats from hostile aircraft, missiles, and the like. They tend to be quite large.
So for maximum effect, you set your radar to detect big stuff, but to ignore the small stuff. Otherwise you’ll be overwhelmed with useless information about flying junk.
Have you ever noticed, on a sail boat, at the top of the mast, there’s a curious metal object, geometric, and about the size of a shoe box? It’s a radar reflector. It’s there because a sail boat, being mostly wood, canvas, and fibreglass, hardly shows up on radar at all. Organic materials don’t reflect radio waves very well. A balloon, being no more than a bag of gas, similarly has a very low radar signature. If anything is going to show up on radar, it will be the payload dangling from the balloon, not the balloon itself.
My point is, people could have been sending these balloons flying round the globe for the last 25 years, and nobody noticed. It’s only when you start actively looking for them, that you discover they’re all over the place.
99 Düsenflieger, jeder war ein grosser Sieger, hielten sich für Captain Kirk, und es gab ein grosses Feuerwerk…
Heute zieh’ ich meine Runden
Seh’ die Welt in Trümmern liegen
Hab’ 'n Luftballon gefunden
Denk’ an dich und lass’ ihn fliegen
Ok. So now I must go listen to it. I have not heard it in ages. 
etc
I’m generally not a fan of adaptations. I seldom find the Film of the Book is as good as the original.
However, there’s a line in the English translation of 99 Luftballons - she looks out at the devastation of 100 years of nuclear war, and says:
“I wish I had a souvenir, just to prove the world was here…”
It’s kind of frightening just how appropriate this song is for this moment in time.
I have a sudden urge to release 99 balloons. Anyone want to join me?
Xi Jinping says he’ll join in. He’s very enthusiastic about it.
He put me on hold. Then someone asked me a bunch of questions. Sheesh. What do they think I am? A spy?
Hold on. Someome is ringing my doorbell. BRB…
Ok. It is sokay. Everything is ok. I think of taking trip now. Maybe cruise at sea. Maybe gone for a few years, no weeks. I see you later. Have much fun while I gone. Take lots of cameras to show when I return. Goodbye.