Changes to live BBC radio streams

[Nutul]

(...) they are trying to do here is restrict it back to people who can reasonably be assumed to have paid the fee.

So basically they:
1. got rid of the old, expensive infrastructure needed for traditional broadcasting
2. broadcast by other means to the whole world, instead of just the UK
3. still want to gather money, despite their expenses have now dropped to the floor (and surely have other means of doing it, such as cable-tv or the like)

UK is a weird thing: they "will change, when the whole world changes" (cit. - can't-remember-from-who-though)