Who would like to abolish the BBC Licence fee?

[Sasaferrato]

It is one of the largest news organisations on the planet though, so that headcount isnt excessive.

Why though?

 

[mauvais]

Why though?

DGMT has about 10,000 people, about 2,700 of which work for the Mail and related publications, so perhaps you can show your working as to how many people it takes to run a news organisation.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Why though?

They have to produce a lot of news content, across TV, radio & the website - including specific content for the nations & regional TV outlets, nations & local radio services, the BBC World Service (radio) in shedloads of various languages, and BBC World News (TV).

 

[Sasaferrato]

They have to produce a lot of news content, across TV, radio & the website - including specific content for the nations & regional TV outlets, nations & local radio services, the BBC World Service (radio) in shedloads of various languages, and BBC World News (TV).

Ah this leftist bollocks of projecting soft power via the BBC World Service.

I would like to drive a Maserati, I don't though, because I cannot afford to. I drive a ten year old Hyundai. BBC take note, what you would like, and what people are prepared to pay are not the same thing.

To add insult to injury, the fuckers are now part of a streaming service, asking you to pay again for things you paid for in the first place.

The BBCs day is done, and they have brought it on themselves.

 

[mauvais]

To add insult to injury, the fuckers are now part of a streaming service, asking you to pay again for things you paid for in the first place.

This isn't actually true, although it may look this way.

 

[Sasaferrato]

DGMT has about 10,000 people, about 2,700 of which work for the Mail and related publications, so perhaps you can show your working as to how many people it takes to run a news organisation.

I suspect the days of such huge staffs are on the way out.

List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Sasaferrato]

This isn't actually true, although it may look this way.

You work for the BBC don't you? I feel that there may be a trace of unconscious bias in your answers.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Ah this leftist bollocks of projecting soft power via the BBC World Service.

TBF, the World Service has always been more a government project, just operated by the BBC, but fully funded by a foreign office grant until a few years ago, that grant money has been reducing & ends this year, when it will fully funded from the licence fee. That's not the BBC's choice, that's government policy.

To add insult to injury, the fuckers are now part of a streaming service, asking you to pay again for things you paid for in the first place.

They have sold old content for years, early days on video tapes, then DVD, more recently to UKTV (now wholly owned by the BBC), and other streaming services such as Netflix, without doing so, this content would no longer be available.

I can't see much difference in them being part of Britbox, when it should produce a better return on old content, and profits from the commercial operations get used to keep the licence fee low & produce new content.

Worth noting, the BBC will keep stuff on the iPlayer for a year before it appears on UKTV channels (with commercials) or Britbox (no commercials), whereas ITV will only offer their stuff on the ITV hub for 30 days.

 

[mauvais]

You work for the BBC don't you?

Yes, I told you this.

Britbox is not content you've already paid for any more than DVDs ever were. As a licence fee payer, you pay for the right to watch live broadcasts and, for a period of time, for the same content to be made available on catchup TV. The BBC in turn pays for limited rights on the content that it produces or acquires, allowing it to be made available for typically between 30 days and a year; it often doesn't own perpetual rights. Britbox, which exists mostly for ITV's benefit, is therefore additional to the TVL.

 

[mauvais]

I suspect the days of such huge staffs are on the way out.

List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

These are figures for print newspaper. There's the small matter of online.

 

[kabbes]

Yes, I told you this.

Britbox is not content you've already paid for any more than DVDs ever were. As a licence fee payer, you pay for the right to watch live broadcasts and, for a period of time, for the same content to be made available on catchup TV. The BBC in turn pays for limited rights on the content that it produces or acquires, allowing it to be made available for typically between 30 days and a year; it often doesn't own perpetual rights. Britbox, which exists mostly for ITV's benefit, is therefore additional to the TVL.

“We can make these shows thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded...”

In terms of the PR war, the BBC laid its own land mine field by telling us all for years to be proud of the content we were paying to make.

 

[mauvais]

“We can make these shows thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded...”

In terms of the PR war, the BBC laid its own land mine field by telling us all for years to be proud of the content we were paying to make.

I don't really see the two statements as contradictory. It makes content that may not otherwise exist, and which it can be proud of, but in order to be cost-effective it has to be made conditionally such that it's only temporarily held. It's a shame in many ways that this is the case, not least negating the possibilities for public archive, but I can't imagine you're clamouring to pay whatever multiple factor more that it would cost for outright ownership of productions.

 

[kabbes]

I don't really see the two statements as contradictory. It makes content that may not otherwise exist, and which it can be proud of, but in order to be cost-effective it has to be made conditionally such that it's only temporarily held. It's a shame in many ways that this is the case, not least negating the possibilities for public archive, but I can't imagine you're clamouring to pay whatever multiple factor more that it would cost for outright ownership of productions.

That wasn’t the message of their adverts though, regardless of the reality. The message wasn’t, “this is a service you are paying for on a limited access basis. The message was, “this is yours.” If they didn’t mean people to get that message, they shouldn’t have put it in those terms.

 

[mauvais]

That wasn’t the message of their adverts though, regardless of the reality. The message wasn’t, “this is a service you are paying for on a limited access basis. The message was, “this is yours.” If they didn’t mean people to get that message, they shouldn’t have put it in those terms.

I don't know what this is or when it's from, so difficult to comment. I think e.g. ten years ago the ownership/licensing situation was very different, somewhat more in favour of permanent rights, although I'm no expert. Also, in addition to the economics of rights management, Ofcom were and are another limiting factor on how long things could be made available, for competition reasons, so it was legally necessary. They've only recently allowed 12 months and that agreement itself produced Britbox as a concession.

However, more generally, if you're going to criticise the way the confusing or contradictory way the org presents itself, have at it.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

That wasn’t the message of their adverts though, regardless of the reality. The message wasn’t, “this is a service you are paying for on a limited access basis. The message was, “this is yours.” If they didn’t mean people to get that message, they shouldn’t have put it in those terms.

The message to me has always been "this stuff simply would not exist at all without the licence fee". It would definitely be great if it would then be available forever to licence fee payers, but that isn't a simple thing, and I've never felt it was part of it.

We are both old enough to remember the BBC considerably pre-internet-video and it wasn't an issue then.

 

[weltweit]

I like the BBC's output, I watch BBC News, comedy and some factual programming. Plus I listen to BBC radio a lot, mainly radio four but also recently radio two when I am driving and bored with R4.

I know the BBC is being reviewed at the moment, even though the licence fee is agreed for quite a few years to come.

Personally I wouldn't like to see advertising, commercial advertising, on the BBC channels. I accept that the BBC advertises its own programmes across its network, but this is not the same as wider commercial advertising.

ITV and channel four etc just don't provide programming that attracts me in the way that BBC channels do.

 

[DexterTCN]

Currently, in Scotland.

 

[andysays]

Currently, in Scotland.

OMG!!!1!

Abolish the BBC immediately

(I still think it should be funded from general taxation, BTW)

 

[DexterTCN]

OMG!!!1!

Abolish the BBC immediately

(I still think it should be funded from general taxation, BTW)

I never said it should be abolished, the thread is about abolishing the license fee. And I didn't think many here would give a shit about the editing of history either.

People who want it should pay for it.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I never said it should be abolished, the thread is about abolishing the license fee. And I didn't think many here would give a shit about the editing of history either.

An article appears to have been updated with new information & some old irrelevant information has been removed, where's the problem?

 

[DexterTCN]

An article appears to have been updated with new information & some old irrelevant information has been removed, where's the problem?

The bridge had to close a couple of days back because of the weather. The tories used this to attack the SNP because it was funded by Scotland (this is why it came in on time and under budget).

bbc scotland yesterday updated a three year old item, changed the headline and removed the expert's statement (that said it would only close in exceptional circumstances...like for instance the recent weather which has resulted in deaths and huge damage, closures all over the UK...that would be exceptional).

They changed the headline to 'the bridge that should never close', which they made up, this week, to attack the Scottish government. Have you ever heard of a bridge that shouldn't close? Ever? Think on it.

I think, I'm not sure, the main bbc place in England has a statue of George Orwell outside the building. He may be crying.

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

I watch sod all BBC and any live telly at all. Don't even use catch up for anything other than Dr who, and I can live without that. If Murdoch becomes the director general I'm 100% pulling out my aerial and ditching the licence fee.

 

[mauvais]

The bridge had to close a couple of days back because of the weather. The tories used this to attack the SNP because it was funded by Scotland (this is why it came in on time and under budget).

bbc scotland yesterday updated a three year old item, changed the headline and removed the expert's statement (that said it would only close in exceptional circumstances...like for instance the recent weather which has resulted in deaths and huge damage, closures all over the UK...that would be exceptional).

They changed the headline to 'the bridge that should never close', which they made up, this week, to attack the Scottish government. Have you ever heard of a bridge that shouldn't close? Ever? Think on it.

I think, I'm not sure, the main bbc place in England has a statue of George Orwell outside the building. He may be crying.

Have you actually read this article?

Queensferry Crossing: The bridge that should never close

The Queensferry Crossing was billed as the bridge that would never shut, but it has. So what's the problem?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[cupid_stunt]

The bridge had to close a couple of days back because of the weather. The tories used this to attack the SNP because it was funded by Scotland (this is why it came in on time and under budget).

bbc scotland yesterday updated a three year old item, changed the headline and removed the expert's statement (that said it would only close in exceptional circumstances...like for instance the recent weather which has resulted in deaths and huge damage, closures all over the UK...that would be exceptional).

They changed the headline to 'the bridge that should never close', which they made up, this week, to attack the Scottish government. Have you ever heard of a bridge that shouldn't close? Ever? Think on it.

I think, I'm not sure, the main bbc place in England has a statue of George Orwell outside the building. He may be crying.

Have you read the article?

The opening paragraph says, "Before the Queensferry Crossing opened in August 2017, its designers claimed it would not be closed by high winds and they have been correct. Instead, an unexpected problem has been detected with ice."

The whole article basically goes on to explain why it's so much better than the old one, which would have been closed on around 30 occasions, compared to once for this one, since it opened.

Before it opened, bridge operators said the wind shields should "almost entirely eliminate the need for closures" and that has been the case until now.

The Forth Road Bridge, in contrast, was often closed to high-sided vehicles and HGVs.

You paranoid fruitcake.

 

[mauvais]

I mean, anyone reading that will surely mostly come away thinking 'interesting engineering problem' rather than 'fuck the SNP', but it takes all sorts I suppose.

I don't want to inadvertently typecast myself as the BBC's U75 shill, but if you're going to have a pop at the news, there must be countless stories where they really did fuck things up good and proper, so maybe find those?

 

[DexterTCN]

Not getting into it, I was only replying (politely) to stunt, who called me a paranoid fruitcake.

The commission that designed the bridge was headed by a scots tory.

And I don't 'have a pop at the news'...I boycott the bbc, refuse to pay the license and do without all the related services such as any other normal tv, recordings etc etc.

I've done this for years. Why should they get to steal it from me through taxes?

 

[mauvais]

I mean, I boycott schools by not having kids or the fire service by not currently being on fire, but I don't suppose anyone's going to let me off paying for those, the thieves.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Not getting into it, I was only replying (politely) to stunt, who called me a paranoid fruitcake.

You replied to me, with complete nonsense, before I responded by calling you a paranoid fruitcake, you paranoid fruitcake.

 

[DexterTCN]

You replied to me, with complete nonsense, before I responded by calling you a paranoid fruitcake, you paranoid fruitcake.

Don't worry. Won't happen again

 

[chilango]

Fuck the BBC.

...and if that means fuck television then so be it.