The BBC Is Screwed

[Bob The Skutter]

^You're wrong about that. No money goes to C4 or 5. They pay licences and in return are granted transmission space others have to pay for and guaranteed prime EPG slots, it's not money but it saves them a few million a year, if I remember rightly.
The problem with your solution is how much it'd cost to run the subscription/encryption services to make it possible, while vastly reducing the BBC's operating budget, to get anything like the choice and quality now the subscription fees would likely be a hell of a lot higher than the licence fee is and you'd get less for it and the entire industry would suffer for it,

 

[JiNX-01]

Exactly. They slap a nearly 20% cut on the corporation and will use the inevitable drop in output to call the BBC 'worthless' in 4 years time.

Pandering to Murdoch. Disgusting.

Great. I thought it was just U.S.

 

[stoneroses]

What a shame the BBC is is treated in this way. i think if they have to take the world service they should be allowed to advertise on the foreign service as they do with the foreign version of their website.
In Germany the equivalent station shows ads till around 6pm or sometime in the early evening then it becomes lime the BBC again they pay a licence fee about the same as the one in the UK.

 

[Holdfast]

... i think if they have to take the world service they should be allowed to advertise on the foreign service as they do with the foreign version of their website.

On that last point, I agree 100%.

^You're wrong about that. No money goes to C4 or 5. They pay licences and in return are granted transmission space others have to pay for and guaranteed prime EPG slots, it's not money but it saves them a few million a year, if I remember rightly.

Even better then! Let them manage in a proper market environment too and let them pay proper rates. If the Independent can remain a daily newspaper, C4 can try to find enough advertisers and/or subscribers to be a viable channel on its own merits.

The problem with your solution is how much it'd cost to run the subscription/encryption services to make it possible, while vastly reducing the BBC's operating budget, to get anything like the choice and quality now the subscription fees would likely be a hell of a lot higher than the licence fee is and you'd get less for it

Other channels manage a subscriber/encryption model just fine by charging a true market rate for their services. If the BBC is valued as highly by people as they claim I'm sure they'll be happy to pay the real costs of providing the service. The bottom line is that the BBC (and thus, entertainment in general in this country as the BBC leviathan distorts the rest of the market) is essentially a subsidised industry and I don't see why entertainment ought to be given that kind of special protection. It's just not a core government function.

the entire industry would suffer for it

Why should the entertainment industry be subsidised at all though?

Of course, at the end of the day, it's not possible for us to agree since we approach the issue from diametrically opposite political positions on this topic, and I think we're already at the "going round in circles" stage.

I'll leave the discussion at this stage since I think I've aired my thoughts sufficiently and more would be unproductive for both of us, though if a genuinely new angle to the discussion emerges, I'll probably dive back in. Thanks for a good discussion about it all.

 

[cultcross]

All broadcast news, whether state or private, is under the same regulatory framework re: impartiality. That's why I exempted Sky News from the rest of the Murdoch empire in my previous post. Sky News is bound by those rules, just like the BBC. And that regulatory framework can still be there regardless of whether the BBC exists or not.

The difference is that Sky News pretty much ignores them - are you seriously suggesting you don't see the Fox News Lite aspects of Sky News? The gloves came completely off during the election, for one.

Besides, there's no such thing as an impartial channel, regardless of whether the regulation exists or not. All media is biased.

Well everybody and everything has bias. That can't be avoided. God knows I get irritated by the anti-police sentiment in my dear left wing media . But the BBC is the closest thing to an impartial news organisation in the country, and possibly up there in world terms. Sure, they tend to lean slightly left, which is hardly surprising as they come under constant attack from the right wing, but overall their content is balanced. In many ways, their flaw is trying too hard for impartiality and ending up giving excess coverage to minority views so as not to be seen to be disadvantaging anyone.

If people manage it already with newspapers, why can't they do it with TV?

That's kind of my point. We don't manage it with newspapers. People pick their paper and absorb opinions-disguised-as-news daily or weekly. Those with the critical thinking skills to separate fact from opinion in the printed media are few and far between and even they are subject to be drawn up in it when the paper matches their political leaning. Personally, I'd rather there were news outlets that at least made an effort to be impartial. The print media gave up on that years ago. ITS A SCANDAL IN RIP OFF BRITAIN, I tell ya

 

[Tulin]

The government is punishing the BBC for a) being so pro-Labour when they were in opposition; b) being so pinko all the time c) bias d) huge fees for talentless oiks and e) a lack of political objectivity. Did I miss anything?

I work with a large amount of Jewish people and they are constantly saying the BBC is anti-semitic. Has anybody seen evidence of this?

 

[bigdaddy]

As long as Doctor Who continues i really don't care what they have to do, just keep Doctor Who going.

 

[captcalhoun]

The government is punishing the BBC for a) being so pro-Labour when they were in opposition; b) being so pinko all the time c) bias d) huge fees for talentless oiks and e) a lack of political objectivity. Did I miss anything?

I work with a large amount of Jewish people and they are constantly saying the BBC is anti-semitic. Has anybody seen evidence of this?

they could be accussed of being anti-Israeli, but not anti-Semitic. but given the fact that Israel keeps acting like a buncha fucking Nazis, it's pretty hard not to look anti-Israeli when you're reporting on people living in Palestinian refugee camps being mortared, bombed and shot by the IDF.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^You're wrong about that. No money goes to C4 or 5. They pay licences and in return are granted transmission space others have to pay for and guaranteed prime EPG slots, it's not money but it saves them a few million a year, if I remember rightly.

Even better then! Let them manage in a proper market environment too and let them pay proper rates. If the Independent can remain a daily newspaper, C4 can try to find enough advertisers and/or subscribers to be a viable channel on its own merits.

They receive those privileges in return for their public service output, you could argue that neither ITV nor C5 deserve them since their public service output is negligible. If they won't be be entirely commercial channels drop the incentives and allow them to be is fine by me. Channel 4 does have a decent publc service level to them though, from their news output to their film funding and their documentary and current affairs output.

The problem with your solution is how much it'd cost to run the subscription/encryption services to make it possible, while vastly reducing the BBC's operating budget, to get anything like the choice and quality now the subscription fees would likely be a hell of a lot higher than the licence fee is and you'd get less for it

Other channels manage a subscriber/encryption model just fine by charging a true market rate for their services. If the BBC is valued as highly by people as they claim I'm sure they'll be happy to pay the real costs of providing the service. The bottom line is that the BBC (and thus, entertainment in general in this country as the BBC leviathan distorts the rest of the market) is essentially a subsidised industry and I don't see why entertainment ought to be given that kind of special protection. It's just not a core government function.

the entire industry would suffer for it

Why should the entertainment industry be subsidised at all though?

Of course, at the end of the day, it's not possible for us to agree since we approach the issue from diametrically opposite political positions on this topic, and I think we're already at the "going round in circles" stage.

I'll leave the discussion at this stage since I think I've aired my thoughts sufficiently and more would be unproductive for both of us, though if a genuinely new angle to the discussion emerges, I'll probably dive back in. Thanks for a good discussion about it all.

The problem with advertising as a form of funding is there's only a certain size pot in this country, and the advertising money follows the most popular medium, for instance ITV makes around a billion, but Google over took them in this country for advertising spend and now ITV is second, C4/5 second. If the BBC became advertising funded it would then make the pot available for ITV and C4/5 even smaller as well as the BBC funding being smaller, and the spend for other advertising smaller too. So it would in the end damage everything because the same amount of money would have to then be shared between 3 giants, BBC, Sky and ITV, 2 big broadcasters, Channel 4 and 5, the print media, and all of the little channels and radio stations. Also a smaller BBC means less production, less production means less money for the indies, less money means few jobs, fewer jobs less taxes, etc.

How exactly do you think people would manage to pay the "true cost" of the BBC? I for example love the BBC, but being on benefits can't afford to be paying £30 a month or more for them. I don't have Sky for the same reason, I would like to have access to Syfy, FX, Sky One and Atlantic and the HD channels but I can't afford to. It's fair enough saying can't afford it, don't have it, but that brings back the point of the market only providing what you can afford and it not necessarily being good.

You're right about us being at opposing ends in this, and you probably won't shift me much and I won't shift you either, but it seems to me even from your market based view the BBC is a good thing, it encourages what would otherwise be the mediocre broadcasters of any other European country to try harder because they have big and quality competition. Which makes them make higher quality in return and brings a market to us that other countries don't share, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Canada all have TV production, but none near our level, none making the millions and perhaps billions ours makes in foreign sales.

 

[Deckerd]

Would the foreign sales not cover the shortfall in licence fees?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Would the foreign sales not cover the shortfall in licence fees?

Foreign sales are already a part of the BBC's budget, BBC Worldwide make around £500m a year I believe, with the £140m or so profits returning to the BBCs budget.
But to encourage them to make up the budget cuts with overseas profits encourages them to make more commercial series which is what the other broadcasters already complain about as it is.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Four of my points were identical Bob. FWIW calling the Beeb biased when the alternative is Murdoch is like calling a frog a brontosaurus.

Also, I don't think it will last 4 years before they relent. Time will tell.

Various ministers have already said over the last couple of weeks that the cuts might be rethought if they don't work or whatever, so the backtracking has already potentially started...

As for this news- I'm actually surprised that the BBC didn 't fund the World Service, so I think it's probably fair enough that they do. Then again, I'm probably just going easy on account of being relieved that they're not being forced to fund the free licences for over-75s, which would *really* fuck up their budgeting...

 

[Captaindemotion]

The government is punishing the BBC for a) being so pro-Labour when they were in opposition; b) being so pinko all the time c) bias d) huge fees for talentless oiks and e) a lack of political objectivity. Did I miss anything?

I work with a large amount of Jewish people and they are constantly saying the BBC is anti-semitic. Has anybody seen evidence of this?

they could be accussed of being anti-Israeli, but not anti-Semitic. but given the fact that Israel keeps acting like a buncha fucking Nazis, it's pretty hard not to look anti-Israeli when you're reporting on people living in Palestinian refugee camps being mortared, bombed and shot by the IDF.

Plus the BBC is so running scared of the pro-Israeli lobby that it refused to broadcast non-political appeals for aid for Gaza, following last year's bombardment, censures or apologises for respected journalists like Jeremy Bowen etc. It's totally cowtowed by the anti-semitic charge.

 

[Deckerd]

Jeremy Bowen is a puffed up gobshite. "Middle East expert" my arse.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

You know, when you're getting accused of bias by both sides they say you're doing something right...

 

[captcalhoun]

this is true.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Just one more thing that this appalling government is going to screw up for no good reason.

 

[Starkers]

You know, when you're getting accused of bias by both sides they say you're doing something right...

Yeah that's always my view of the BBC too.

Can't say this is surprising, I'm with Lonemagpie though, I somehow figured the licence fee already paid for some of these things, so it strikes me that by making the Beeb now pay for them it saves money elsewhere, and lets face it if its good enough for the MOD its good enough for the BBC.

I think everyone always seems to fall on the side that if the BBC had to compete they'd die. I think its only Andrew MArr who suggested they'd actually likely wipe the floor with Murdoch if the playing field was levelled. Seriously if you were Audi (or whoever) where would you advertise, the BBC or Sky?

Not that I'd ever like to see ads on the BBC (though at times it would be handy for loo breaks!).

I love the BBC and would hate for it to cease to exist, but few could argue it hasn't become something of a leviathan of late, and like everywhere else in or around the public sector probably does employ too many people/waste too much money--seriously I sometimes lose count of how many political editors they have, and things like the no name news presenter who earned about 30% more than the MP she was grilling about his expenses don't help.

I don't want to lose the BBC, same as I don't want to lose the NHS, but that doesn't mean I don't think both could be run better than they are.

As for the BBC and Israel...they don't help themselves when they refuse to release the Balen Report which brings me to another point, the BBC is the only public body with lots of handy get outs of the FOI Act (not counting the govt's veto obviously!)

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^I think the problem is they're expected to do a lot to justify the licence fee, but then they're accused of "Empire building" when they do. So they have to do more because it's part of their remit to push advancement but when they do they get trouble for it.

I'm not going to argue in favour of high wages, but I do think it's daft to expect them to compete for talent without paying near the market rate for it. A lot of people working at the BBC already do so below market rate, so it's hard to complain about them paying too much when they pay less than others in the same field.

You are right though, there's always improvements that could be made.

 

[cultcross]

I'm not going to argue in favour of high wages, but I do think it's daft to expect them to compete for talent without paying near the market rate for it. A lot of people working at the BBC already do so below market rate, so it's hard to complain about them paying too much when they pay less than others in the same field.

I've always found this interesting too - the BBC, if it wants to retain any household names for its shows (or any established actors over 25), needs to pay something approximating market rate for them - OK, their name and exposure level carries a lot of weight and so people are likely to forgive them a slightly lower pay packet than say Sky could offer, but they can't take the piss with it.
It is standard practice that public sector workers earn less than an equivalent job in the private sector. That's something everyone gets on board with when they sign up, but it does mean that when publicly funded institutions like the BBC have to instigate pay cuts, their general non-famous staff, who were already paid below the going rate, suffer even more and the gap between public and private widens still further. You can only ask for so much altruism before the talented staff start leaving.