National News The BBC

bashamwonderland said:
Someone did make a good point earlier in praising BBC Oxford's football content and I must say I agree with that. So I can understand people have a fondness for it.

As an exile though it angers me that I have to theoretically pay twice for BBC Oxford if I'm outside of Oxfordshire 😅. I don't get that - we pay for BBC Oxford, just for them to give it to Ifollow to whack a further charge on?

Stuff like that just keeps me from having any level of warmth towards it.
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Completely agree with you on that - the only radio I own is in the car, everything else is digital - where the commentary is blocked as soon as the game begins. Annoys the hell out of me as well.
 
I work for a company owned by an international media group and see a lot of media research and analysis, specifically a recent BARB/Advant Edge survey . As the public discourse (evident here) seems to be dominated by discussion of younger viewers, audience fragmentation and online subscription services, it's easy to forget the significant proportion of TV owners who lack the means, or do not wish, to pay for any TV service beyond the licence fee.

"Included in this predominantly older group are some of the most vulnerable in society: 3 million of these live alone, 4 million belong to the C2DE socio-economic group and nearly 1.8m have a disability. Despite having no access to pay-TV or on -demand services, these viewers watch around 5 hours of TV per day, which is over 2 hours more than the average viewers. They spend twice as much time as the rest of the TV viewing population watching the BBC.

Over 65s spend about 73% of their viewing time watching public service broadcasters and surprisingly, under 34s about 28%. Given that the BBC has a wide remit, it maintains near universal accessibility and and broad viewership across diverse groups - unlike the streaming services who are very demographically focused."

I'm not suggesting the finding model doesn't need looking at, but as the research conclusion states: "free-to-air TV is one of the only media offerings still capable of bridging widening cultural, social and demographic divides, regularly providing shared national experiences and reaching those in society that need it most".

Apologies if this seems a bit dry, but when most of the discourse here is 'me, me, me' based, I think these are interesting stats.
 
Big Ron said:
I work for a company owned by an international media group and see a lot of media research and analysis, specifically a recent BARB/Advant Edge survey . As the public discourse (evident here) seems to be dominated by discussion of younger viewers, audience fragmentation and online subscription services, it's easy to forget the significant proportion of TV owners who lack the means, or do not wish, to pay for any TV service beyond the licence fee.

"Included in this predominantly older group are some of the most vulnerable in society: 3 million of these live alone, 4 million belong to the C2DE socio-economic group and nearly 1.8m have a disability. Despite having no access to pay-TV or on -demand services, these viewers watch around 5 hours of TV per day, which is over 2 hours more than the average viewers. They spend twice as much time as the rest of the TV viewing population watching the BBC.

Over 65s spend about 73% of their viewing time watching public service broadcasters and surprisingly, under 34s about 28%. Given that the BBC has a wide remit, it maintains near universal accessibility and and broad viewership across diverse groups - unlike the streaming services who are very demographically focused."

I'm not suggesting the finding model doesn't need looking at, but as the research conclusion states: "free-to-air TV is one of the only media offerings still capable of bridging widening cultural, social and demographic divides, regularly providing shared national experiences and reaching those in society that need it most".

Apologies if this seems a bit dry, but when most of the discourse here is 'me, me, me' based, I think these are interesting stats.
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Very good points. I guess the counter to that would be if the BBC went to an advertising-supported model, they would still be available on the 'free-to-air' platform, as it would only be the funding and not the delivery method that is changed. ITV, C4, and C5 are all 'free-to-air' and ad-supported.

The problem for me is I just can't see how you can keep the breadth of services the BBC operates going using either an ad-supported model or a subscriber model. The numbers just aren't there for going to a subscriber model. There are only, what, 20 million households or so in the UK maximum? Netflix has around 200 million subscribers. As for advertising, there isn't suddenly going to be a larger pot to call upon, the BBC would be fighting for deals against ITV, C4, and C5 - somebody would have to lose out.
 
SteMerritt said:
Very good points. I guess the counter to that would be if the BBC went to an advertising-supported model, they would still be available on the 'free-to-air' platform, as it would only be the funding and not the delivery method that is changed. ITV, C4, and C5 are all 'free-to-air' and ad-supported.

The problem for me is I just can't see how you can keep the breadth of services the BBC operates going using either an ad-supported model or a subscriber model. The numbers just aren't there for going to a subscriber model. There are only, what, 20 million households or so in the UK maximum? Netflix has around 200 million subscribers. As for advertising, there isn't suddenly going to be a larger pot to call upon, the BBC would be fighting for deals against ITV, C4, and C5 - somebody would have to lose out.
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I think you're right on the funding issue but one of the points I was trying to make is that an advertising or subscription service would instantly change the nature of what the BBC tries to do - the universality would have to be replaced by appealing to specific demographics and much of the public service element would be difficult to justify. For instance, local radio and local interest broadcasting - including lower division match commentaries.

It's also easy to forget how much revenue the BBC generates for the independent production sector in the UK and how much positive influence the BBC, nationally and locally, has on our music business, traditionally a massive export plus for the UK. The last time I made that point one of younger contributors completely rubbished that on the basis that everyone has a streaming account or consumes via Youtube but radio is still a vitally important cog in any launch or promotional campaign.
 
MarkG said:
Not the BBC, but I notice that whenever the Guardian mention Tommy Robinson, they always put for instance "Robinson, 37, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon". Whereas I have rarely seen that they do it for anyone else who goes by a different name. eg Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta" or "Boris Johnson, whose real name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson".

Of course they are trying to expose that TR has adopted an anglo-saxon sounding working class name rather than a double-barrelled name.
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They read this place.... its now "Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, known as Tommy Robinson"
www.bbc.co.uk

Tommy Robinson pursued by creditors for an estimated ÂŁ2m

People owed money by the English Defence League founder have appointed an independent insolvency expert.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
MarkG said:
Not the BBC, but I notice that whenever the Guardian mention Tommy Robinson, they always put for instance "Robinson, 37, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon". Whereas I have rarely seen that they do it for anyone else who goes by a different name. eg Lady Gaga, whose real name is Stefani Germanotta" or "Boris Johnson, whose real name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson".

Of course they are trying to expose that TR has adopted an anglo-saxon sounding working class name rather than a double-barrelled name.
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Is it just the guardian who does this?

And by “trying to expose” do you mean “calling out”?
 
Jerome'SAle said:
Is it just the guardian who does this?

And by “trying to expose” do you mean “calling out”?
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Expose / call out, whatever. Same thing really.
Strange that the BBC has adopted EXACTLY the same phrasing as The Guardian that I quoted earlier up the page.
"Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,"
Almost as if there is some sort of political bias ...
 
MarkG said:
Expose / call out, whatever. Same thing really.
Strange that the BBC has adopted EXACTLY the same phrasing as The Guardian that I quoted earlier up the page.
"Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,"
Almost as if there is some sort of political bias ...
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Nope. Don’t get your point. You comparison with lady gags and BJ are different. Unless you are suggesting the Tommy Robinson is his stage name, or that it is a slightly shorter version of SYL.
I’d be interested to see examples of any other pseudonyms of this type that aren’t also spelled out. I can’t think of anyone offhand. Pele maybe, except that’s obviously a nickname.
 
MarkG said:
Expose / call out, whatever. Same thing really.
Strange that the BBC has adopted EXACTLY the same phrasing as The Guardian that I quoted earlier up the page.
"Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,"
Almost as if there is some sort of political bias ...
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Is his legal issues under the name of Stephen Yaxley-Lennon or Tommy Robinson as that may explain this?
 
MarkG said:
Expose / call out, whatever. Same thing really.
Strange that the BBC has adopted EXACTLY the same phrasing as The Guardian that I quoted earlier up the page.
"Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon,"
Almost as if there is some sort of political bias ...
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Well you can add the following to your list of 'bias'...

Independent
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GB News
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Daily Mail
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Daily Express
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chuckbert said:
Nope. Don’t get your point. You comparison with lady gags and BJ are different. Unless you are suggesting the Tommy Robinson is his stage name, or that it is a slightly shorter version of SYL.
I’d be interested to see examples of any other pseudonyms of this type that aren’t also spelled out. I can’t think of anyone offhand. Pele maybe, except that’s obviously a nickname.
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"Muhammad Ali, whose real name is Cassius Clay" - never gets said. Ok it's a different reason than hiding your birth name
"Tony Benn, whose real name was Anthony Wedgwood Benn". De-"poshing" his name, Probably quite a few others out there, but generally people keep somewhat similar to their real names. James Blunt (Blount)

Or the prisoner "Charles Bronson" - can't remember his real name.

Yes I get that stage names for actors and tv personalities are different, and footballers with nicknames or short versions of their names.

Even our very own Chairman, Tiger, whose real name is Sumrit Thanakarnjanasuth.

I am just wondering why the media are obsessed with repeating that he is S Y-L every time. Everyone knows who is meant by Tommy Robinson, I don't see why it's necessary to spell it out.
 
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MarkG said:
"Muhammad Ali, whose real name is Cassius Clay" - never gets said. Ok it's a different reason than hiding your birth name
"Tony Benn, whose real name was Anthony Wedgwood Benn". De-"poshing" his name, Probably quite a few others out there, but generally people keep somewhat similar to their real names. James Blunt (Blount)

Or the prisoner "Charles Bronson" - can't remember his real name.

Yes I get that stage names for actors and tv personalities are different, and footballers with nicknames or short versions of their names.

Even our very own Chairman, Tiger, whose real name is Sumrit Thanakarnjanasuth.

I am just wondering why the media are obsessed with repeating that he is S Y-L every time. Everyone knows who is meant by Tommy Robinson, I don't see why it's necessary to spell it out.
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I've seen Muhammad Ali mentioned like that in plenty of articles about him. Likewise Tony Benn is just a shortening of his actual name.
 
The Artist Formerly Known as Prince was always spelled out when he went through that phase. They did however sometimes use AFKAP for short.

And especially when he changed it to a squiggle that nobody could print, let alone knew how to pronounce it :ROFLMAO:
 
MarkG said:
"Muhammad Ali, whose real name is Cassius Clay" - never gets said. Ok it's a different reason than hiding your birth name
"Tony Benn, whose real name was Anthony Wedgwood Benn". De-"poshing" his name, Probably quite a few others out there, but generally people keep somewhat similar to their real names. James Blunt (Blount)

Or the prisoner "Charles Bronson" - can't remember his real name.

Yes I get that stage names for actors and tv personalities are different, and footballers with nicknames or short versions of their names.

Even our very own Chairman, Tiger, whose real name is Sumrit Thanakarnjanasuth.

I am just wondering why the media are obsessed with repeating that he is S Y-L every time. Everyone knows who is meant by Tommy Robinson, I don't see why it's necessary to spell it out.
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Out of all of those examples, the only one who is vaguely similar is Charles Bronson. Nice company for TR to keep.
Tony Benn, really? Why not complain about Tony Blackburn? James Blunt is a stage name. Tiger is a nickname because the British typically struggle with Thai names and if I Google “tiger Oufc”, all of the media results come up with “Sumrith 'Tiger' Thanakarnjanasuth”.

I don’t think there is anything political about the press spelling out SYL. It is because it is a weirdly unusual thing for him to do.
 
MarkG said:
"Muhammad Ali, whose real name is Cassius Clay" - never gets said. Ok it's a different reason than hiding your birth name
"Tony Benn, whose real name was Anthony Wedgwood Benn". De-"poshing" his name, Probably quite a few others out there, but generally people keep somewhat similar to their real names. James Blunt (Blount)

Or the prisoner "Charles Bronson" - can't remember his real name.

Yes I get that stage names for actors and tv personalities are different, and footballers with nicknames or short versions of their names.

Even our very own Chairman, Tiger, whose real name is Sumrit Thanakarnjanasuth.

I am just wondering why the media are obsessed with repeating that he is S Y-L every time. Everyone knows who is meant by Tommy Robinson, I don't see why it's necessary to spell it out.
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It’s probably because the story’s about Bankruptcy. Presumably all his creditors will be pursuing money owed in his real name.
 
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