BBC Shakeup

[Zarniwoop]

So with the Government looking to mess with the BBC funding again what does this mean for public TV?

The BBC has produced some wonderful original material that other more commercial channels would not have gone anywhere near. The changes could mean the BBC concentrates more on this kind of thing or it could mean that they will only go with safer bets like other channels.

I guess it will mean more of these ridiculous 3 episode series which is barely more than an extended pilot and episode 1....

Wish I knew what the answer is but if you want innovation in TV/Radio it will be harder to achieve without the BBC having the means to experiment with new technology or systems. Maybe they should be allowed to be more commercial with selling training/Technology or systems.

Maybe it is just the case that the BBC model of broadcasting does not fit the modern way people view Film/TV with the rise of streaming services and the decline of watching you favourite show at the same Day/Time each week on a certain channel!..

[PM]

OK I'm completely biased as I work for the BBC.

The Unions are running a campaign called "Love It or Lose It" and I've posted some their blurb below.

Fundamentally if the public aren't willing to pay for the BBC (somehow by whatever replaces the TV Licence) it will go the way of the Dodo.

In NZ the state service has been dismantled and is now only one radio station (a bit like 5Live) and one TV channel (with adverts) and any profits it make go back to the government instead of making programs.
SKY are now totally dominant and decide what shows reach their shores and when.

Can you imagine a world without the BBC?

The BBC makes a rich range of programmes with something for everyone, from award winning dramas & documentaries to sit–coms & soaps. The BBC is watched and listened to by 96% of the UK population. Two thirds of all UK adults listen to BBC Radio and half of all UK adults use BBC Online each week.

It’s good value as the BBC licence fee costs under 40p per day (£145.50 a year) for 9 TV channels, 10 national radio stations, a network of local radio stations and an internationally acclaimed website as well as the internationally loved World Service.

The top packages from Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk cost more than £1,000 a year. The BBC produces thousands of hours of original programming while Sky, on an income nearly double that of the BBC, makes only a tiny amount.

Only on the BBC can children watch their favourite programmes uninterrupted by advertising. The BBC is free from shareholder pressure and advertiser influence with a mandate to make programmes for all interest groups.

The licence fee is the single biggest investment in UK arts and creative industries with over half spent in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English Regions. Every £1 of licence fee spent by the BBC, generates £2 of economic activity.

BBC News is the largest broadcast news gathering operation in the world. The BBC is the public face of Britain abroad and has a weekly global audience of 308m.

The whole world wishes they had the BBC – you have it, don’t let them kill it off!

[Zarniwoop]

I'm still prepared to pay the licence fee but what I feel should happen is that the pay-to-view services should also be "reviewed" as part of this to assess whether they also truly represent value for money.

All too often certain companies re-jig their packages trying to convince their subscribers they are reducing their costs by allowing them to choose what they pay for. The reality is that often the "popular" channels are spread amongst those packages so that once again to watch the content you prefer you end up buying more than you need!

There has been no real significant investment in additional cabling in some years so we have no real competition to the Satellite channels in some areas of the UK. That said Freesat/Freeview is certainly making headway and the streaming services are getting stronger and producing original programming.

There has to be a happy medium here but I can see in these harsh economic times why people are looking at the licence fee as a huge drain on their family budget. However, the Tories are proving why the coalition Government worked and their Government is running fast and loose without the Lib-Dems to reign then back onto the sensible path.

[EvilGinger]

I fear the slash and burn tendencies of the current government will do no end of harm both here and else where its even worse that there seems a mad need to catchup for lost time and do all the reckless stuff the coalition prevented. Still we will weather the storm I am sure

 Ginger

[PM]

I think that what does help the BBC is that although everyone can think of something it does that they say is a waste of money, but it's a different thing for each person.
Therefore it's quite hard to find something that enough people agree should go. (eg. 6Music, Asian Network, BBC Three is only going due to a lack organisation by it's fans(15-25's))
The downside is when it's decided that it should carry on doing everything but with a lot less money.
The BBC needs to be stronger at saying "OK cut our budget, but you also need to tell us what we have to stop doing." That question normally results in a big silence.

[slug]

I am finding an increasing trend here in the US to move away from scheduled programming.
We subscribe to cable and get hundreds of channels of diverse content. I pay for a middle of the range package (no extra sports or movies but some extra kids and overseas content) and it is over $100 per MONTH.
I am looking at cutting the cable as several people I know have done, we already subscribe to Netflix and there are fewer and fewer programs that I think I must watch in a weekday. If I know I can wait a few days and watch it from another source that will do me fine.
Couple this with some free to air channels and I would be OK with this, having to wait a year for the "latest" series of the Walking Dead is something I could learn to live with, just got to make sure I tune out the "last nights TV" conversations at work.
Just about all of our channels have advertising here, even public broadcasting advertise their own product to raise money. I don't know what will happen to advertising if people have the ability to fast forward through it, possibly the awful shows will die as they cannot sell them to other countries and with zero advertising income there is no viable way they could be made. I think Darwin had a theory about this.
Embrace the future