American TV is chock full of documentaries - Animal Planet, Discovery and History Channel has plenty of them. I've never thought of documentaries as "unprofitable" at all. 
"The BBC's activities and ambitions are chilling"
- Thread starter Bob The Skutter
- Start date
Animal Planet co-owned by BBC Worldwide, Discovery has a lot of BBC documentaries and co-productions.American TV is chock full of documentaries - Animal Planet, Discovery and History Channel has plenty of them. I've never thought of documentaries as "unprofitable" at all.
The BBC has been around a long time, it started out as the only broadcaster in the UK, then ITV came along and it became about providing public service TV along with educating and entertaining.
Nowadays we may have hundreds of channels with niche channels providing documentaries and music and news and kids TV, but most of it is rubbish, repeated beyond belief and on cable and satellite pay tv platforms. But the BBC is about the masses not the niche. And commercial TV broadcasters here are going on about cutting down on childrens tv production because it's unprofitable, and regional news, and various other things. All the kids channels provide are imported shows and cable news is either international or Sky News which is more sensationalist... basically commercial in the UK is either making excuses or failing, unless it's paid TV, then it's just mostly rubbish.
^Besides, Discovery mostly show reality TV shows nowadays with the occasional documentary thrown in.
I was wrong BBC Worldwide don't own any of the US Animal Planet any more it's just 50% of the UK one.
And haven't all three channels (History included) basically started going for more sensationalist stuff and drama rather than being straight up documentaries?
I was wrong BBC Worldwide don't own any of the US Animal Planet any more it's just 50% of the UK one.
And haven't all three channels (History included) basically started going for more sensationalist stuff and drama rather than being straight up documentaries?
Someone from ITV was pissing and whining recently (in essentially a plea to the Tories on the assumption that they'll win the next election) that unless they get a cut of the licence fee, they'll have to stop doing regional news and childrens' programming because it's "unprofitable".
Seems to me that's an argument for the continued existence of the BBC and the licence fee in its current form right there: so that programming that's worthwhile but not necessarily a money-maker can continue to be produced.
Seems to me that's an argument for the continued existence of the BBC and the licence fee in its current form right there: so that programming that's worthwhile but not necessarily a money-maker can continue to be produced.
Producing shows that wouldn't necessarily be profitable for a greater social good is something we have in the United States too. However, PBS occurs on a much smaller scale in the U.S. than the big 4 networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, & NBC); as opposed to the BBC in the U.K., which seems to be one of the biggest if not THE biggest network over there. PBS focuses almost exclusively on unprofitable programming. (Just about the only original scripted programming on PBS is kids shows like Between the Lions, Clifford the Big Red Dog, George Shrinks, Ghost Writer, Martha Speaks, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, & Wishbone.) I suspect the BBC produces a great deal of shows that would enjoy equal success on a commercial network.
I'm not saying the BBC should be abolished. However, if the government were looking to downsize, they might try looking into shifting their focus to exclusively unprofitable programming and let the commercial networks air the popular, profitable shows. But, hey, it's your country. Do what you like. (Although, I'd advise tarring & feathering any politician who advocates giving public monies to commercial TV stations.)
^Sure the BBC make shows that would survive on commercial broadcasters, but the point of those is that they are supposed to serve all licence payers, hence they have to do popular drama and programming as well as niche stuff. As for PBS, aren't most of its other shows BBC shows?
The government are looking for way to have a plurality of local news and children's programming because ITV is trying to get out of providing those because they say they're not profitable. So they want to take some of the licence fee to pay for it, they also want to take some of it to help provide a national broadband network, basically they want to take licence money and use it for stuff it was never intended for, and never levied for. While they BBC are saying they think any under spend should be given back in the form of a licence fee price cut.
Stupid thing is the government are saying the last settlement was for the price to continue to rise so that's what'll happen, when they could be returning the money... I think basically the government are looking for ways to turn the licence in to another form of general taxation, rather than solely used to fund the BBC and the upkeep of the broadcast network.
The government are looking for way to have a plurality of local news and children's programming because ITV is trying to get out of providing those because they say they're not profitable. So they want to take some of the licence fee to pay for it, they also want to take some of it to help provide a national broadband network, basically they want to take licence money and use it for stuff it was never intended for, and never levied for. While they BBC are saying they think any under spend should be given back in the form of a licence fee price cut.
Stupid thing is the government are saying the last settlement was for the price to continue to rise so that's what'll happen, when they could be returning the money... I think basically the government are looking for ways to turn the licence in to another form of general taxation, rather than solely used to fund the BBC and the upkeep of the broadcast network.
Like I said in an earlier post, almost all of PBS's adult scripted programming is British imports, either from the BBC (MI-5, obnoxious sitcoms about old people) or ITV (Inspector Lewis, Prime Suspect, Sherlock Holmes). The only exceptions to that I can think of are The Red Green Show (a Canadian import) and occasionally Masterpiece Mystery will have an adaptation of a Tony Hillerman novel rather than a British crime drama. The remainder of PBS's programming is unscripted stuff-- American Experience, Antiques Roadshow, Bill Moyers Journal, Charlie Rose, Frontline, History Detectives, Nature, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, New Yankee Workshop, Nightly Business Report, Nova, P.O.V., Rick Steves' Europe, Scientific American Frontiers, Tavis Smiley, This Old House, Ken Burns documentaries, etc.
I don't know about local news. (We're choking on it here in the U.S.; we have so much. Most of it's rubbish anyway; just the daily mayhem of city life, murders, car crashes, etc.) But I think the American government mandates a certain amount of children's educational programming each week from the commercial networks. Even if it's not profitable, they don't have much of a choice. (Ah, the wonders of unfunded mandates...)
^Local news, children's TV and public service programming are mandated on the networks here too. In return for that they're "gifted" the broadcast spectrum they use and are given privileged numbers on EPGs 1-5 or 101-105, but ITV says that it's not worth it in the digital world, and if they don't cut back on those mandates it will hand back its broadcast licence and become a digital/cable channel.
They've already cut back on the amount of children's TV they show and reduced the amount of regional news centres they have and the government have basically just let them have their way and are now even looking at how to fund them to do it.
If they want to fund PSB then they should find other ways to do it besides using the licence fee, because the BBC are the ones who do all of those things they're asking for and more, and they've already undergone budget cuts and belt tightening so to reduce their budget further would harm the BBC in favour of propping up commercial broadcasters which is wrong in my opinion.
They've already cut back on the amount of children's TV they show and reduced the amount of regional news centres they have and the government have basically just let them have their way and are now even looking at how to fund them to do it.
If they want to fund PSB then they should find other ways to do it besides using the licence fee, because the BBC are the ones who do all of those things they're asking for and more, and they've already undergone budget cuts and belt tightening so to reduce their budget further would harm the BBC in favour of propping up commercial broadcasters which is wrong in my opinion.
Let 'em! It's up to private companies to make the best business choices they can, not to the government to give them free money.
^ I think they should, but as I said the government want to maintain "A plurality" of local news provision, etc. and they think the best way is to maintain the status quo with handouts. I disagree, as do the BBC and quite a few others. At one point even ITV and Five were saying they would both rather go entirely digital than receive the handouts. I don't know if they're still saying that.
I'd suspect that if too many other networks fled to digital/cable to escape bothersome government regulation, the government would just follow them into the new medium and again force them to do the "right" thing.
(Personally, I'm concerned about the insistence on educational children's programming. Pretending any TV is educational for children is a step towards abdicating responsibility for genuine, responsible child rearing.)
(Personally, I'm concerned about the insistence on educational children's programming. Pretending any TV is educational for children is a step towards abdicating responsibility for genuine, responsible child rearing.)
It's not necessarily educational. BBC and Channel 4 air educational programming which is for schools in general but just good quality children's TV in general.
They banned junk food advertising during children's programming, so ITV are saying children's programming just cannot be profitable without those advertising £s.
Television is a fantastic educational medium. To ignore that, or starve it of funding would be pure folly.
There's a difference between the type of educational programming you're talking about and the CITV/CBBC type programming this is talking about funding though, isn't there?
A former BBC Governer is having is not to happy with how the BBC is run at the moment.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/621...ays-corporation-neglects-classical-drama.html
As for ITV i say let them go to cable i do not want any of the licence fee going to them.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/621...ays-corporation-neglects-classical-drama.html
As for ITV i say let them go to cable i do not want any of the licence fee going to them.
In the U.S., there's some specific regulations that it must be in some way educational. That's the reason why they crammed cheesey science lessons into every episode of the Back to the Future cartoon. That's also why they tucked a cheesey moral into every episode of Stargate Infinity, like lessons about responsibility, taking care of pets, and not telling lies about people. One station got into trouble for designating reruns of The Flintstones as children's programming. While The Flintstones is appropriate for and appealing to children, it was not educational in the manner intended by the regulation.
If we're not talking about educational children's programming, why is it so important that other networks besides the BBC provide it? Isn't a dearth of children's programming a good thing? Like it'll make them run around outside more or something?
I think their stance is basically that they don't want the BBC to be the sole provider of anything, they want to make sure there's choice and competition in the market I suppose.
I would argue that perhaps the BBC should be the sole provider of everything that it provides. The purpose of a government institution should be to provide things that the free market is unwilling or incapable of providing. If the free market has found a way to provide something, an additional government source of that something is superfluous at best and a wasteful use of public money at worst.
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