The Latest British Invasion: BBC World News

Think that cable news is all talking heads, sensationalism and opinionated  blather?  If so, Comcast and the BBC have welcome news: the BBC World News channel will soon be available to Comcast subscribers in many U.S. cities.

A commercially-supported cousin of the BBC that's supported by British taxpayers in the U.K., BBC World News is already available to about six million viewers in the New York and Washington, D.C., areas, where it has a loyal, even fanatical, following.

What's appealing about the BBC, other than the accents, is that it emphasizes international news, downplays sensationalism and celebrity gossip.  It also eschews injecting opinions into its coverage, a change many viewers find welcome after being put off by the open editorializing of MSNBC and Fox.

The Comcast deal calls for the Beeb channel to be available early next year in some Comcast homes in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, Minneapolis and other markets, The New York Times reported. More markets will be added later in the year for a total of nearly 15 million homes by the end of 2012, the newspaper reported.

Also popular in the Washington area is Al Jazeera, the cable news channel based in Qatar.  Many D.C. journalists and policymakers find Al Jazeera's coverage of the Middle East to be highly authoritative and less tainted by opinion than other outlets.  The chances of Al Jazeera going national are, however, slim.