National News Gary Lineker intervenes

SteMerritt said:
There is a thing called 'Britbox' which does exactly what you suggest, but it hasn't made a splash here. The problem I believe is most of the content is skewed towards the older demographic, but they don't want to pay for what effectively is a repeats package.
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We got britbox for a while, mainly to watch line of duty. It’s a mix of bbc itv and ch4.
 
Essexyellows said:
Whilst I am vehemently opposed to the way the current licence fee is implemented on us, the British Broadcasting Corporation produces a lot of good & important programming.

The "do you watch live telly" is a model that is dying rapidly. A lot of people now watch what they want, when they want via the web, iPlayer, Netflix, etc etc.

How that is "licenced" whilst retaining a National broadcaster is a tricky one.
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Tax - ABC costs taxpayers ~gbp50 p.p.p.a.
 
tonyw said:
Oh, the US networks are equally doomed. Their viewership numbers are declining precipitously, and have been for years. There's only two things keeping them going for now - Sport & the fact that they're mostly owned by big entertainment conglomerations that also own and operate one or more streaming services.

The data is clear on both sides of the Atlantic - the younger the demographic slice you take, the less time (proportionally) that group spends watching traditional broadcast TV, in favour of streaming services (both your Netflixes and Amazons, and your YouTubes). But in Britain, everyone still gets taxed the same for it. The young have already been screwed by the older generations on Brexit, on the environment, on the housing market etc. - and now, as a kick in the teeth, they have to subsidize their entertainment as well!

What I would be doing (in some order):
- Scrap the license fee. Make the BBC an independent non-profit corporation, but no longer state controlled
- Seriously improve iPlayer. The BBC has the greatest back catalog of TV shows of any broadcaster anywhere. As soon as you can recover the licenses (I know the BBC have licensed some content to e.g. Netflix in the US; don't know if that's true at home), get all the best shows you've ever made up there, and put everything new you make on there immediately too. And do it worldwide.
- Charge anyone who wants to subscribe to the new, improved iPlayer with vastly more content £11.99 per month for the privilege (so a little cheaper than British license fee payers are currently charged)
- Keep the broadcast channels on the air for a while yet for that declining section of the population that doesn't have a way of accessing streaming services, or doesn't want to. But sell a limited amount of advertising time if you need to. Sell advertising space on BBC websites as well
- Crunch the numbers, and create as much new content as you can afford on each medium given these adjusted revenue streams

Depending on how many subscribers sign up at home and across the world, you may or may not have to scale down some operations. But it will be so much fairer. And we would stop getting into these dumb arguments about whether the BBC is impartial and/or biased.
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That step is very much occurring with iPlayer. Gone are the days of you having to watch anything in 30 days and there are plenty of back catalogue shows on it now. Of all the free platforms, iPlayer is superior in content and design.

As @ZeroTheHero says, be careful what you wish for in seeing the end of the BBC. Yes, a TV license seems anachronistic and they’ll always be targeted more than most for criticism because ‘my TV licence pays for this’ as a terrible episode of Doctors airs and Doris and Ken don’t like it, but compare and contrast with the main competitors and ask yourself ‘do I really want the BBC becoming like ITV?’. Endless adverts, ‘Love Island’ twice a year, ‘celebrity’ versions of everything. ITV were once the network that brought you University Challenge. Now look at it.

Maybe I’m old school but I stick with Freeview. Having a baby I have barely a moment to sit and watch anything with a plot so catch up on freebie stuff on iPlayer and the like plus watch a few things live. I ditched Netflix last year after more time scrolling on it than watching anything and haven’t really missed it. There are so many streaming networks now that you could comfortably end up spending a tonne of cash subscribing to them all. Sky have got to watch out as the streamers start to encroach on their patch.

I think what rankles most of the salty, red-faced types who get angry about the Beeb is that you have to make a separate, one-off payment for your TV licence every year. Simply move that £159 into your regular tax and would anyone notice? I believe Australia has a similar system for funding ABC (@chuckbert can probably give the details for this).
 
unification said:
That step is very much occurring with iPlayer. Gone are the days of you having to watch anything in 30 days and there are plenty of back catalogue shows on it now. Of all the free platforms, iPlayer is superior in content and design.

As @ZeroTheHero says, be careful what you wish for in seeing the end of the BBC. Yes, a TV license seems anachronistic and they’ll always be targeted more than most for criticism because ‘my TV licence pays for this’ as a terrible episode of Doctors airs and Doris and Ken don’t like it, but compare and contrast with the main competitors and ask yourself ‘do I really want the BBC becoming like ITV?’. Endless adverts, ‘Love Island’ twice a year, ‘celebrity’ versions of everything. ITV were once the network that brought you University Challenge. Now look at it.

Maybe I’m old school but I stick with Freeview. Having a baby I have barely a moment to sit and watch anything with a plot so catch up on freebie stuff on iPlayer and the like plus watch a few things live. I ditched Netflix last year after more time scrolling on it than watching anything and haven’t really missed it. There are so many streaming networks now that you could comfortably end up spending a tonne of cash subscribing to them all. Sky have got to watch out as the streamers start to encroach on their patch.

I think what rankles most of the salty, red-faced types who get angry about the Beeb is that you have to make a separate, one-off payment for your TV licence every year. Simply move that £159 into your regular tax and would anyone notice? I believe Australia has a similar system for funding ABC (@chuckbert can probably give the details for this).
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He already did :)
 
unification said:
That step is very much occurring with iPlayer. Gone are the days of you having to watch anything in 30 days and there are plenty of back catalogue shows on it now. Of all the free platforms, iPlayer is superior in content and design.

As @ZeroTheHero says, be careful what you wish for in seeing the end of the BBC. Yes, a TV license seems anachronistic and they’ll always be targeted more than most for criticism because ‘my TV licence pays for this’ as a terrible episode of Doctors airs and Doris and Ken don’t like it, but compare and contrast with the main competitors and ask yourself ‘do I really want the BBC becoming like ITV?’. Endless adverts, ‘Love Island’ twice a year, ‘celebrity’ versions of everything. ITV were once the network that brought you University Challenge. Now look at it.

Maybe I’m old school but I stick with Freeview. Having a baby I have barely a moment to sit and watch anything with a plot so catch up on freebie stuff on iPlayer and the like plus watch a few things live. I ditched Netflix last year after more time scrolling on it than watching anything and haven’t really missed it. There are so many streaming networks now that you could comfortably end up spending a tonne of cash subscribing to them all. Sky have got to watch out as the streamers start to encroach on their patch.

I think what rankles most of the salty, red-faced types who get angry about the Beeb is that you have to make a separate, one-off payment for your TV licence every year. Simply move that £159 into your regular tax and would anyone notice? I believe Australia has a similar system for funding ABC (@chuckbert can probably give the details for this).
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The answer is nobody would notice

The majority probably pay more than that in council tax every month.
 
I guess the problem with funding the BBC through direct taxation is that some might suggest it is unduly influenced by the Government of the day and not independent and impartial.....
 
Marked Ox said:
The BBC remit would have to change as well on that basis so local radio, education/niche shows and channels (S4c and BBC Alba) would need to be dropped. Specialist shows they are required to do aimed at small viewership but are for inclusion (See Hear) etc would likely need to go as well as the BBC would be chasing ratings/subscribers and these wouldn't make economic sense.

Edit: Also, the UK potentially loses a form of 'soft' power internationally.
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This is an important point - it's obviously not just mainstream programming and online, it's the World Service, the specialist language and regional programming, local radio and even the impact BBC national radio has.

Britain is still one of only three global net exporters of music and the exposure that new music gets through the BBC is vital, even in the online streaming age. I appreciate someone will post saying, 'I'm in my 20's and none of my mates listen to BBC radio' but listening figures have held-up remarkably well, even if much of that daytime listening is relatively passive. XFM is one of the few commercial alternatives to a 6 Music and what they play and what new music they expose is very compromised!

Commercial local radio is getting sucked up by national broadcasters such as Heart and Magic - how much room do you think they have for localised sports coverage and football commentary of League One, Two and National League Clubs?

In spite of many people complaining about bias, recent research shows that the BBC news sites are still generally trusted and the only bigger UK site globally is the Mail Online, which isn't a new site by any measure

Yes, how the BBC is funded will have to change but be careful what you wish for.
 
Essexyellows said:
I guess the problem with funding the BBC through direct taxation is that some might suggest it is unduly influenced by the Government of the day and not independent and impartial.....
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You can still have an independent charter despite the politics of the government. In Oz politics comes into it when the right wing want to reduce the ABC budget. That leads to the potential for coercive direction (“be nicer to us or we’ll cut your funding”) rather than affecting independence directly.
 
So basically ( sweeping statements I know ) we want the bbc, we don’t want to pay a licence fee for it but we’re quite happy to pay for it through additional taxation.
We don’t want political influence in funding or editorial…

So the option means a set price that’s in place for a long period of time ( 10 /20 years) that’s inflation linked, and set by a committee and not a government department.

Not that I think any political party would get behind it….. but that seems sensible to me.
 
chuckbert said:
In Oz politics comes into it when the right wing want to reduce the ABC budget. That leads to the potential for coercive direction (“be nicer to us or we’ll cut your funding”) rather than affecting independence directly.
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Our right-wing Tory government would never do that...... Oh.

12ft

12ft.io
 
SteMerritt said:
Our right-wing Tory government would never do that...... Oh.

12ft

12ft.io
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I do love it when Jacob Rees-Fcuking-Useless-Streak-Of-P**s (to give him his full sextuple-barreled name) gets all pissy about stuff :ROFLMAO:

You know sanity is prevailing when he crawls out from under his inheritance to utter some plummy horseshit.
 
Sheik djibouti said:
I do love it when Jacob Rees-Fcuking-Useless-Streak-Of-P**s (to give him his full sextuple-barreled name) gets all pissy about stuff :ROFLMAO:

You know sanity is prevailing when he crawls out from under his inheritance to utter some plummy horseshit.
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He'd like the new fangled picture box thingy to be got rid of as it isn't from 1850s anyway.
 
Marston Road yellow said:
So basically ( sweeping statements I know ) we want the bbc, we don’t want to pay a licence fee for it but we’re quite happy to pay for it through additional taxation.
We don’t want political influence in funding or editorial…

So the option means a set price that’s in place for a long period of time ( 10 /20 years) that’s inflation linked, and set by a committee and not a government department.

Not that I think any political party would get behind it….. but that seems sensible to me.
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Go the whole hog and do the same with water, gas, electric, NHS, trains, roads........................... :)
 
Marked Ox said:
He'd like the new fangled picture box thingy to be got rid of as it isn't from 1850s anyway.
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I think you'll find he calls it "The Magic Lantern" :ROFLMAO:

It's also just a little amusing that he is holding up the American example as a way to go.

Really??

Has news of the scandal currently engulfing Fox not reached the underside of the stone under which he resides?

I mean, a huge Right wing network that has been caught with it's pants down spreading lies and disinformation because it decided that's what it's audience and more importantly it's backers wanted to hear?

Two of it's biggest Anchors (rhyming slang if you will) in Carlson and Hannitty willfully downplaying Jan 6th (even though the former at least had the sense to say how much he despises Trump "privately").

Does he really want a media so easily swayed to the extent that it is a tool for mass manipulation for political ends.

Oh wait....of course he does- silly me!
 
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unification said:
That step is very much occurring with iPlayer. Gone are the days of you having to watch anything in 30 days and there are plenty of back catalogue shows on it now. Of all the free platforms, iPlayer is superior in content and design.

As @ZeroTheHero says, be careful what you wish for in seeing the end of the BBC.
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I'm not calling for an end to the BBC - I'm calling for a switch to the funding model whereby people sign up to pay for it by choice, rather than have it forced upon them by taxation. And allow them to raise some additional money via advertising, if they so choose.

iPlayer's interface is decent, but (at least for the version in the US) it's almost completely lacking old content. Just tried searching on a few old classics, and I can't watch Fawlty Towers on it or Monty Python or classic mini-series like Alec Guiness' Smiley or Edge of Darkness or State of Play. And the only Blackadder I can watch is the one they commission for the Millenium Dome.

Why is that? The reason that Netflix got such a foothold was partly because people loved their new shows but also because they got all the streaming rights to old 'comfort TV' (particularly for Americans) like Friends, Frasier or The Office, and all the Disney back catalog. Losing all that to their competitors is a big reason why they've started haemorrhaging subscribers post-pandemic.

Get all that old classic BBC content in one place, add all the new quality content that they're producing, and you've got the best streaming service available anywhere, period.
And if you can't sell enough subscriptions to that at home and worldwide to make it a sustainable entity (when coupled with advertising revenue)......then firstly, I don't think you're much good at running an entertainment business, but secondly I don't see a real justification for taxing everyone in the country to enforce its continued existence.
 
Bloody lefties...taking over . . . .

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