I'm at the library in 1998 remembering reading the weekly Variety magazine they got and reading about 'exclusive territories' and that international viewers had to wait for things just because of 'international media rights' and how stupid that was, and feeling relief that the Internet would finally kill that stupid rights model.
In 2026, today, I had to create a throwaway BBC account and use a VPN just to listen to a Holly Humberstone appearance on a BBC Radio 2 show...and it's just behind that pointless Geoblocking wall because the BBC got convinced by American idiots that 'you have to block access to things and add Taboola scrolls to your website because we need to license things properly and we can't have international fans listening to music from the UK! They should listen to American stations!'
LOL, you think Audacy or iHeart is going to license BBC Radio content so we can listen here?! They're too busy having some guy in LA play Bruno Mars to multiple markets and the only two people working at the pop station in Milwaukee (that is it!) are in the morning and half-ass the show to get free shit. They don't care. And meanwhile when someone outside of London cares about BBC Radio, we have a firewall stopping us from listening because someone wants the BBC to monetize and restrict their American audience onto the same type of hellsite of ad 'subscribe to our newsletter' and AI health quackery ads that infected my local TV station sites.
Geoblocking is stupid and isn't needed in 2026. Yet, we go on, and children's rights are on the back burner because the Moms for Liberty won't read a fucking FAQ about how to use the EXISTING TV, video game and movie ratings systems or use any parental controls because 'uwu too hard to read I just want to stick my kid on Poppy Playtime and Roblox and shut them up, so they're trying to make governments do this for them punitively.
