beware kylmaene, dont get sucked into the whole 'freeview' thing their advertising on the bbc (the one where you buy a digital box for £100 & pay no more for some extra channels). it's absolute baloni, & a total waste of money!
& we pay the tv license to fund the british boardcasting company (the bbc) to make television programs for us, & in return we dont have any commercials interrupting our programs.
theres nothing more annoying than commercials in the middle of ITV film premiers (independent channel, funded on advertising).
down side though, theres only 5 channels, so if theres something not very good on, theres less of a chance theres something else on another channel (daytime TV in UK is dreadful, think 5 old women sitting around a table swooning over leo di caprio).