"The BBC's activities and ambitions are chilling"

[Captain Shaw]

Do we have anyone from Scotland here?
Just wondered wtf is going off with the Scottish version of ITV i heard English Itv is going to sue the Scottish version because they have stopped showing there shows.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Not Scottish but as far as I can figure STV think they better serve their audience, and can make/save more money with more local productions in prime time rather than ITV's prime time drama. And if they aren't broadcasting them they don't think they need to pay their share of the production cost.
ITV on the other hand think they're in a network agreement so they owe the money regardless of whether they broadcast or not.

 

[Captain Shaw]

I do not know which is worst x factor or what usually passes for local TV.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^It's stuff like Doc Martin, Lewis and The Bill they're opting out of.

 

[Captain Shaw]

Till today i thought all of the different versions of ITV had joined up to become one company.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Till today i thought all of the different versions of ITV had joined up to become one company.

All but STV and UTV I think.

 

[_r_]

STV have to pay a licence fee of sorts, to pay for ITV programming. Funnilly, this is more expensive than producing cheap watchable television, it's neither here nor there if it's local or not. Thank the cheapness, to cheap editing and digital film method, so us in Scotland, really watch little more than hot air. However, the original programming is sparse, and for any new content, which by all intents, can not be let go, such as X factor, they negotiate directly with the production companies.

It is a fascinating story, the two companies have become at logger-heads over the last year, and there is really corrosive language between the two of them. Companies, wages, and identity are at risk. The story is more fascinating, ironically, than anything on STV these days.

I'm sure anyone on this thread will enjoy the recent output by STV (In an ironic way Scotland at War: Talking heads talking about Scottish soldiers in the Spanish civil war, "New Episodes" of South Park: Season 8 The Hour: some 5'o'clock magazine show...

If anyone has Sky, they can check it out at the back of the EPG.

 

[Pingfah]

^It's stuff like Doc Martin, Lewis and The Bill they're opting out of.

Understandable.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

Yeah, TV Gambling was illegal here until not too long ago. To do anything like it they had to pretend it was a competition of skill and ask dumb questions like "What is the name of the famous superhero, is it A. Superman, B. Uberman, or C. Fatman" and get you to ring lines costing £1 a minute or something. But they relaxed the rules lately.

What are the laws in the U.K. regarding regular casino gambling? Like I said, here in the U.S. it's illegal everywhere except for Nevada, parts of New Jersey, & on Indian reservations (which are supposedly sovereign nations, which is why you can buy cigarettes with no sales tax there. But I guess they can't be that sovereign because the federal government still won't let them legally grow hemp).

That's kinda what's the problem in the industry at the minute though, people are finding ways to avoid the advertising so their business model is broken and they don't know how to evolve to suit the new tech.

product placement is part of this, and will be a huge help for ITV, who will be able to take a large % of the money spent on Product Placements in the UK.

Well the government are planning on applying the CRR cap to product placement too, so ITV can't over charge and take a disproportionate amount of advertising money. So it might not help as much as you think.

Hi. Ignorant American again: What is the CRR cap? What is "a disproportionate amount of advertising money"? And I know we touched on this briefly before but exactly what is supposed to be so bad about product placement in the first place?

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Yeah, TV Gambling was illegal here until not too long ago. To do anything like it they had to pretend it was a competition of skill and ask dumb questions like "What is the name of the famous superhero, is it A. Superman, B. Uberman, or C. Fatman" and get you to ring lines costing £1 a minute or something. But they relaxed the rules lately.

What are the laws in the U.K. regarding regular casino gambling? Like I said, here in the U.S. it's illegal everywhere except for Nevada, parts of New Jersey, & on Indian reservations (which are supposedly sovereign nations, which is why you can buy cigarettes with no sales tax there. But I guess they can't be that sovereign because the federal government still won't let them legally grow hemp).

product placement is part of this, and will be a huge help for ITV, who will be able to take a large % of the money spent on Product Placements in the UK.

Well the government are planning on applying the CRR cap to product placement too, so ITV can't over charge and take a disproportionate amount of advertising money. So it might not help as much as you think.

Hi. Ignorant American again: What is the CRR cap? What is "a disproportionate amount of advertising money"? And I know we touched on this briefly before but exactly what is supposed to be so bad about product placement in the first place?

Gambling is legal in the UK, has been for a long time, but it's only recently casinos with really large(or Vagas style as they've been described) jackpots have been legalised. I think it was the same time TV gambling was legalised.

The CRR is Contract Rights Renewal, it's a restriction the competition commission put in place when the regional "Channel 3" licence holders merged in to ITV plc. It was designed to stop the unified ITV from charging advertisers a fee over what they charged as separate entities for their regional advertising.

As for product placement, nothing wrong per se, but it's done badly in a lot of cases. Focusing on the product for too long distracting from the show, etc. Plus this is ITV, the people who came up with the technology/idea of an automated system to place logos/ads in to any blank space on videos, whether that blank space be sky, or a wall in the back ground of a show. Which they weren't allowed to do... I really don't think they'd be subtle about it.

 

[payndz201]

To put it in a simpler test: To the British users on this forum, when was the last time any of you watched ITV? Compare that to the times, you watched the BBC or even a niche channel on Freeview.

That's actually a good question. I worked out that it was either last year's Brazilian Grand Prix or an episode of Law & Order: UK, whichever was most recent. The Beeb, on the other hand, has offered me Doctor Who, Top Gear, Newswipe, F1, Torchwood: Children Of Earth and an assortment of documentaries and current affairs specials, plus News 24. Anecdotal evidence, sure, but the BBC produces more shows that appeal to me than any of the commercial channels.

Even with F1, which as a sporting event really only requires the cameras to be pointed the right way for an hour and a half, the BBC have made much more out of it than ITV did; it's no longer just "here are a few interviews and a quick history of the track before the race". (And not interrupting the race with adverts helps!)

 

[Starkers]

I dont like this "either/or" sitution we have going with ITV & licence fee money, sure no one wants ITV to have that money, but that does not mean it can have other things, like the removal of CRR and Product Placement, at which point does the thread of ITV taking some of Licence Fee money come off the table?

the competition commission have ruled that the CRR should not be removed, so I tend to side with them on that, where else can an advertise reach 10 million viewers any night if the week?

whilst I dont support Product Placement, it maybe the best option for ITV.

The bigger question is, why do we nee to prop up ITV? why is ITV not allowed to go out of business? even to the point where Licence Fee money could be spent to keep it open? where on the Channel 3 Licence (which ITV wilfully disregards) does it say, that holding the licence ensures the company's survival?

Well letting ITV just die a death is always an option. Personally I wound't mind propping them up, but only if they went back to making decent programs of the kind I like.

 

[Deckerd]

I think some companies are going to disappear or be amalgamated before this is over.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

I think some companies are going to disappear or be amalgamated before this is over.

Maybe ITV, C4 and Five can be merged in to Channel V?

 

[wamdue]

I dont like this "either/or" sitution we have going with ITV & licence fee money, sure no one wants ITV to have that money, but that does not mean it can have other things, like the removal of CRR and Product Placement, at which point does the thread of ITV taking some of Licence Fee money come off the table?

the competition commission have ruled that the CRR should not be removed, so I tend to side with them on that, where else can an advertise reach 10 million viewers any night if the week?

whilst I dont support Product Placement, it maybe the best option for ITV.

The bigger question is, why do we nee to prop up ITV? why is ITV not allowed to go out of business? even to the point where Licence Fee money could be spent to keep it open? where on the Channel 3 Licence (which ITV wilfully disregards) does it say, that holding the licence ensures the company's survival?

Well letting ITV just die a death is always an option. Personally I wound't mind propping them up, but only if they went back to making decent programs of the kind I like.

I think giving ITV Product Placement was the right thing to do, however should they want some licence fee money they need to do MORE PSB programs than they do, not less or the same.

 

[Captain Shaw]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/sep/24/bbc-news-tories-jeremy-hunt?CMP=AFCYAH
Have you guys seen this?

The shadow culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said today that the BBC should recruit more Tories to its news division in order to counter an "innate liberal bias"

I really do think the Tories are going to go after the BBC after they get in to power.

 

[wamdue]

the Tories attitude towards the BBC is really making me think twice about voting for them.

 

[payndz201]

the Tories attitude towards the BBC is really making me think twice about voting for them.

Only that?

Actually, without getting too political, the current smug, amorphous vagueness about what all the major parties stand for - the patronising, PR-happy "vote for us and we'll make everything all right; no need to ask about the specifics, just trust us" - is disgusting and dispiriting. I loathed Thatcher's Tories, but at least I knew exactly where they stood. Cameron and Brown, and to a certain extent Clegg, are just constantly swirling around some fuzzy-edged, slightly-right-of-centre blob on the political map without ever setting down a flag.

Another reason why I (and I suspect a lot of other Brits) trust the BBC over any government.

 

[wamdue]

im sure there are other good reasons not to, cant say I really want to vote for any of the 3 parties, chances are ill vote for some no name party trying to avoid the single issues, racist & liberal ones.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

You don't want to vote for a liberal party? So Lib-Dems are out just for the fact they're Liberal?

I guess it's best to avoid turning this in to a political thread though. So back to BBC, today the trust launched a public consultation in to BBC TV (One, Two, Four).

https://consultations.external.bbc....eview-of-television/consultation/consult_view