Brits love their TV programs, and apparently some love them enough to forego life in a foreign land and return home to the UK.
Results of a recent survey conducted by a UK-based relocation company showed that 15% of British expat respondents named British TV as a reason for moving back to the UK — the third most important reason behind missing family and friends (40%) and food (18%).
According to Emigrate, this subset of respondents “couldn’t adjust to the programmes provided in their host countries.”
One could infer, then, that the difficulty in adjusting is due to a foreign language in which they aren’t fluent, content that doesn’t appeal to British sensibilities, and/or an insufficient access British TV shows, despite the fact that the UK is currently the second largest exporter of television programs around the world. (How many and which territories import them is another matter.)
Also noted in the Emigrate piece is that British expats tend to stay longer in Australia and New Zealand (two years on average) and the US and Canada (five or more years) — countries where the predominant language is English and a significant amount of British TV is imported for broadcast and streaming.
Of them, the US is the biggest importer, with programmers having plucked down nearly $800 million (£475 million), roughly 40% of total international Brit TV sales, in 2012, according to Pact. Australasia was the second largest, with nearly $175 million (£103 million) spent on British TV programs the same year.
So, while Yanks with a penchant for Brit TV might get miffed about long wait times for some UK programs to arrive on this side of the pond and others not being screened here at all, expat Brits can have it worse.
—————————