What POD would be necessary for BBC America to have debuted in the late 1970's or early 1980's while cable television was still fairly brand new?
I suppose you could do it with a PoD in the 18th century, in which the American colonies remain loyal somehow but BBC still comes about. BBC America is then the regional division for British North America. But that's not really what you were after.
In order to get it to work, you have to solve two problems:
*In the US, until 1981 Time-Life held the rights to BBC programming, which means this was a familiar sight on PBS stations airing British TV shows. In 1981, the deal with Time-Life expired, leaving it to a different company (which the BBC ended up purchasing in the late 1980s), Lionheart Television. So once the Time-Life deal expires, the BBC is going to need an alternate arrangment. Which leads to:
*The Canada factor. By the late 1970s/early 1980s, cable TV was already ubiquitous (indeed, in Canada cable television was not brand new, having been active since the '50s primarily to rebroadcast American stations to paying subscribers) and Pay TV was starting to become a thing, mainly through grey-market subscriptions to desired channels (i.e. HBO, CNN) which were seen by the Canadian government as a threat to its national sovereignty. It was also during the '70s that CanCon regulations for television were fully implemented by the CRTC. Of course, this did not prevent the few educational broadcasters (TVOntario, Radio-Québec, Alberta's ACCESS, and BC's Knowledge Network) from airing British programming, as long as it fulfilled some sort of educational value (in the case of Radio-Québec, if it fulfilled and helped advance Québécois cultural values).
If you get both of those solved, then it should be easy to get an earlier BBC America - whether it overcomes its OTL reputation as a minor niche channel that few people watch is another matter. For example - it could be possible, if the Time-Life deal expires as per OTL, to have a joint venture of public and educational broadcasters on both sides of the border (WGBH/Boston, WNET/New York City, CBC/Radio-Canada, TVOntario, Radio-Québec, and ACCESS) along with the BBC itself, primarily for distributing BBC programmes (maybe even ITV as well, if some contractors are interested?) but also Canadian programming, primarily from the CBC and the NFB/ONF. As part of an effort to maximize distribution potential, a BBC television channel for North America is proposed. However, to satisfy Canadian regulators, BBC America is based in Canada (with significant support from its joint partners) and thus has to show some Canadian programming alongside the BBC fare - this is already true OTL. This is actually not as bad as it sounds - in OTL, the CBC made a proposal for a second TV channel which would feature programming from the CBC and provincial broadcasters, which the CRTC denied; a similar proposal, called "TV Canada", was brought up towards the end of the decade in the Caplan/Sauvegeau Report. So it can be done, and at the same time it could also induce the other partners in the joint venture (such as, well, the BBC) to invest in Canadian programming and thus spread the costs of producing programming which otherwise would be expensive. Also, to reach to a Francophone audience, a separate French-language channel, SRB (after the French-language acronym of the CBC, SRC - for Société Radio-Canada), would also air, not only providing French-language dubs of BBC programming but also serving a similar idea to both Radio-Canada Télé-2 and Unis, a TV channel dedicated to French-Canadians living outside of Québec.
This BBC America channel would also be distributed in the US, where it would not only provide encore presentations of programming already distributed to the public TV stations but also additional programming that the BBC would choose not to distribute through the normal channels but solely through its own channel. It would also rebroadcast BBC News content, and in return the BBC - both through the World Service and its own domestic news - would get enhanced North American coverage from its partners (primarily the CBC for Canada and WNET - one half of the original production team for the then-MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour - for the US) in addition to its own work. Apart from that - who knows?
That's one way of going about it, which provides a neat solution (IMO) to both problems. Others will have differing opinions and suggestions, and those should be heard. But this is my 2¢ to fit the OP.
Good analysis.
Where would you say this alternate BBC America be headquartered? Toronto with additional offices in Los Angeles and New York perhaps?
With licences for British programmes like Danger Mouse, or the Cosgrove Hall catalog, or some of Aardman's output, could the children's programming of an alternate BBC America be a worthy competitor for Nickelodeon, the Disney Channel and eventually the Cartoon Network?
Not really, the dominions had their own broadcasters not divisions of the BBC
Does it have to be BBC America in its OTL form? If not a BBC World Television Service could be started in the 1970s as part of an Alternative British Space Programme thread where there is a series of Reith satellites based on the Skynet military communications satellites.
It would have to be paid for by the British Government rather than the licence fee or the profits of BBC Enterprises. Though I think this would be the sort of thing that would appeal to Lew Grade. He might contribute to the satellite so he could use it for an ITC television channel broadcasting Crossroads to the rest of the world. It might have been more profitable than his disastrous venture into feature films.
Yes they did. They made the Muppet Show together.Didn't Lord Grade have a partnership with Jim Henson at one point?