I look forward to that points of view episode.
I will be willing to present it for free.
You could throw in the occasional "now do fuck off" too. It would be spectacular.
The BBC Is Screwed
- Thread starter Bob The Skutter
- Start date
You could throw in the occasional "now do fuck off" too. It would be spectacular.
The papers seem to want the BBC to show up to date and gripping programming while simultaneously being the nation's maiden aunt. The BBC need to say 'we're not Watch with Mother anymore. If there's bad language or an off colour joke after the watershed on an adult channel, get over it.'
Exactly. There's a group of people who seem to think the BBC should stick to nothing but documentary, current affairs and niche programming, but those exact same people turn around and attack it for being "out of touch" "stuffy" "boring" "not relevant" or "not worth paying for" if it doesn't have edgy drama and comedy and appeal to the masses.
Interestingly I read an interview with Bill Bailey the other day and he said he thought there was too much comedy that just revolved around nastiness and bullying of people, and he cited the whole Brand/Ross thing.
I'm not saying that comedy shouldn't ever be edgy, but saying fuck a lot and doing nothing but insulting people isn't always funny (sometimes, but not always).
As for the watershed, should it really make that much of a difference? I mean if you stuck Jim Davidson or Cubby Brown on at midnight, does it make their brand of comedy any less offensive than if they's been on at 8pm? Seriously?
I probably sound like a prude now, which I'm really not, I just think sometimes we've gone too far towards offensive= funny.
I'm not saying that comedy shouldn't ever be edgy, but saying fuck a lot and doing nothing but insulting people isn't always funny (sometimes, but not always).
As for the watershed, should it really make that much of a difference? I mean if you stuck Jim Davidson or Cubby Brown on at midnight, does it make their brand of comedy any less offensive than if they's been on at 8pm? Seriously?
I probably sound like a prude now, which I'm really not, I just think sometimes we've gone too far towards offensive= funny.
I'm personally of the opinion anything can be funny, it's the way it's handled whether it actually is or not. offensive can be very funny if it's a well done joke, but in the hands of someone who's just being offensive for the sake of it it's no longer funny.
9/11 jokes, child molestation jokes, sexist, disabled, racist, all can be funny but more often than not they're childish and stupid.
Brand/Ross was just childish and stupid, and not funny. But when it comes down to it it did Sach's career well, and he seems to basically say get over it to the press. He's the person it effected and he said it's done. That should be the main thing there. It should have been dropped because he wasn't really bothered by it.
I find often it's people who aren't effected by it who have the most to say. Often jokes about disabled people make disabled people laugh, but you get uptight "do-gooders" complaining on behalf of the disabled, and it's really not all that offensive but by taking it in to the media spotlight it magnifies it and makes it much worse than it ever was.
This has just happened with topgear.
http://www.thedrum.co.uk/news/2010/10/26/16301-bbc-apologises-for-clarkson-s-special-needs-joke/
OFCOM regularly receive only a handful of complaints and act on them. Their argument is that it doesn't matter how many people complain about something if they have a legitimate case. While there is some truth to that, it only works if OFCOM decisions are relentlessly based in verifiable fact and quality investigation. Instead, they tend to be knee-jerk and based heavily on the opinion of their handful of complainants. So the result is that a couple of retired busybodies have an enormous say in how TV is monitored in this country.
i love that song.
especially how Who gets THREE mentions...
(shame they didn't get in Torchwood and SJA...)
especially how Who gets THREE mentions...
(shame they didn't get in Torchwood and SJA...)
Well i cant say I'm unhappy to see the ever increasing licence fee being capped, better in my pocket than theirs.
^I don't mind capping the licence fee after the extra expenditure of the digital switchover is finished, because it was given an extra increase to fund that, but to cap it while that is still on going then add the funding of about 5 other extra very expensive things on top seems like trying to cripple them.
i'd rather the fee simply went up in line with inflation than be frozen.
I do think that the Beeb should consider advertising. RTE, the Irish state broadcaster, is funded by a mixture of licence fee and advertising. They don't show adverts on the likes of Christmas Day.
BBC is full of adverts for its radio services, I-player and other programmes and they virtually never let end credits go by without an interruption for 'coming next' puffs. A few minutes of commercials a day would make little difference, IMHO.
BBC is full of adverts for its radio services, I-player and other programmes and they virtually never let end credits go by without an interruption for 'coming next' puffs. A few minutes of commercials a day would make little difference, IMHO.
Completely disagree. One of the biggest draws of the BBC is the ability to watch TV without being interrupted every 10 minutes for inane people peddling junk. It's one of the BBC's strengths and not one that should be compromised, imho.
They could look at limited advertising - not during programmes but between programmes. As I say, the space between programmes is invariably filled by ads for some BBC product or other. Why not for other products?
You get a voiceover on the credits and one perhaps two trailers between programmes, there's no way that significant revenue could be generated by commercial advertising in those gaps without extending them significantly. ITV, Sky et. al don't have ads every 5 seconds because they want to, it's the reality of commercially supported TV. The BBC wouldn't make nearly enough from doing it just between programmes to make it worth the inevitable loss of some licence fee funds as soon as they became commercial.
Also, BBC one being the most popular channel on British television would command significant advertising rates, and if they included a few ads it would take away revenue from all other commercial channels, and would damage the commercial sector while putting the BBC under much more scrutiny and giving those who argue for it much more credence for them becoming an advertising or subscription funded service.
