United Kingdom V: Son of a beach

[wakka]

Why is there this endless appetite for dismantling every kind of state run service? Without the license fee we wouldn't get all the weird, cool, stuff-for-people-who-aren't-total-thickos that gets put on BBC4 and Radio 4. Well worth the money. Even if they do apparently completely bum the Tories (which I don't even totally buy, but w/e).

[MartyG]

And YouTube is an absolute toilet

It's not a complete toilet - my channel is pretty decent

(And the Royal Institute put stuff out like this - where else would you ever get that kind of programming?)

[prinnysquad]

Getting rid of state-funded cultural output is an irreversibly bad idea. It’s like Thatcherism on steroids. All niche markets would suffer, or disappear altogether. A plethora of radio channels, superb documentaries, the websites.

For all their bias, the Beeb can’t hold a candle to the parochial tubthumping of other news outlets. There’s a lot to lose. TMS not covering overseas games is a nightmare - it’s absolute toss on Talk****e. Imagine the websites chocca with adverts? Urgh. The educational stuff would be ditched. BBC bitesize, clips, sounds, etc. CBeebies I personally find to be excellent. Andrew Davenport and Anne Wood are geniuses. They produce well-researched, educationally-backed preschool programmes that my lad absolutely adores. We are now balancing Night Garden with Moon and Me. It’s quiet, perfect tv for tots. Other channels are full of noisy panda-pop sugary dross.

I know the comedy and drama output isn’t anywhere near the creative powerhouse it once was, but for all the other stuff alone, the organisation needs to be protected and preserved, even if through direct taxation. To hell with the market and commercialism. Some things transcend populist money-making. Libraries, museums, parks, galleries - all preserve the cultural heritage and fabric of our society and should be protected. It doesn’t matter if you don’t use it. Hopefully I won’t use the fire service either. Or most museums. But it doesn’t mean they should be thrown to the dogs of capitalism. Ive watched tv in Canada and Germany and it is frigging horrible.

[Hirst]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree - I'm completely 100% against dismantling public services generally, but I think the BBC needs to be looked at. The licence fee is not an insignificant amount and I'm not the most enormously fussy viewer in the world. For all is said about the intelligent and thought-provoking shows, any time I turn BBC on it seems to be either a talent contest, a panel show or some twerp on a brightly-coloured sofa promoting their new film.

I will say though that however it is funded, I think it is enormously important that there is a non-commercial broadcaster for at least things like news/education purposes. And for all is said about BBC bias, I've never seen a broad consensus on which way it is biased. I've heard people saying it glorifies the right wing and others saying it's a bunch of liberal nonsense. All said and done, the BBC news website is pretty good compared to any equivalent.

[prinnysquad]

You’re looking at the wrong channels mate. Go to BEEB4. Ironically, Pebbles made me watch a shedload of random documentaries on that channel that would never in a million years have been made on a commercial channel.

[Hirst]

You’re looking at the wrong channels mate. Go to BEEB4. Ironically, Pebbles made me watch a shedload of random documentaries on that channel that would never in a million years have been made on a commercial channel.

That doesn't sound like him, I don't think he's ever turned it over from that Talking Pictures channel since it started.

[wakka]

For all is said about the intelligent and thought-provoking shows, any time I turn BBC on it seems to be either a talent contest, a panel show or some twerp on a brightly-coloured sofa promoting their new film.

Look at BBC4 and Radio 4. You would never get stuff like that from a commercial broadcaster. That's the gold.

At the same time, the BBC needs to be a broad church in order to survive. If it was only interesting documentaries and gameshows where clever people work out difficult puzzles and don't even win any cash or holidays, then it really would die off fast. The One Show and Top Gear are literally children's programmes masquerading as entertainment for adults, but they provide the broader appeal needed for the organisation to stay relevant to as many audiences as possible.

I'm repeating myself, but I just don't get the eagerness to kill it off. Once it's gone, it's gone. It'll never come back. And it would be a real crying shame.

[Brad]

Thing is we say all this because it’s already there. There is a massive deficit of software engineers in this country so there should be a new license fee that everyone pays to help out with that too.

The comparison with the NHS isn’t a fair one; I know I’ll need the nhs, as will all my friends and family and there are people who will need it who cannot afford anything else. I’m happy to pay in for all those reasons. None of those people need the bbc. If they want the bbc then they pay for it. I’m not happy to contribute so people can listen to Greg James in the morning though.

Tying the tv license fee up with ALL broadcast tv means that now all commercial broadcasters are missing out on ad revenue from me. I feel like the BBC’ are having their cake and eating it by receiving license fee money AND being able to get money elsewhere; does that not have an impact on the programs they make? Maybe there’s some separation there, I don’t know?

[wakka]

Thing is we say all this because it’s already there. There is a massive deficit of software engineers in this country so there should be a new license fee that everyone pays to help out with that too.

That's just whataboutism though. Just because there are other things we also need doesn't mean we kill off the BBC.

[prinnysquad]

Neo-liberalism has enabled society to judge the price of everything and understand the value of nothing. Culturally, it’s the envy of the world. And yet we want to throw it to the vultures of the market. It’ll be a sad day when it goes under, or exists solely as a lowest common denominator mouthpiece.

[Anpanman]

My kids haven't watched BBC or any other broadcast TV for about 7 years. They only watch Netflix or YouTube for entertainment

Aye daughter only watches YouTube and would like Netflix.

And YouTube is an absolute toilet, just to pick up the point that kids will watch YouTube and Netflix instead. Netflix, on the other hand, is wonderful but they are so far into debt that their viability remains something to be proven. Relying on those right now and letting BBC go could be a terrible decision for future generations because, once dismantled or sold off, it will be next to impossible to reverse.

I've no interest in NF, daughter wants it and the wife would like it, I watch a lot of YT though, I watch everything the NFL and it's associate channels put out and aside from all the bollocks if you have an interest in something there are some great channels on it.

You’re looking at the wrong channels mate. Go to BEEB4. Ironically, Pebbles made me watch a shedload of random documentaries on that channel that would never in a million years have been made on a commercial channel.

BB4 is good, I used to watch a few of the documentary's, Lucy Worsley has some good stuff but now I really only watch the foreign drama's like Montelbano and Spiral.

I can see us stopping the licence as it's not worth it for us for the amount we consume, I would pay for the stuff we watch via a system I think Marty was alluding to though.

What pissed me off about the Beeb is that they kept moving the goalposts to keep everyone ensnared in their web, at first you could get out of paying if you didn't watch basically the free to air channels, then they moved it to any live telly and now even anything recorded on the iPlayer - or something like that.
So basically if you watched the French Open final live on Eurosport either by TV or internet you have to fork over £150 dabs to the Beeb - this is if I understand it correctly, if so then no wonder people are having a right old moan about it.

[Brad]

That's just whataboutism though. Just because there are other things we also need doesn't mean we kill off the BBC.
[/COLOR]

I’m not saying kill off the bbc. I just don’t want to have to pay the bbc to watch channel 4. And calling it whataboutism doesn’t mean it isn’t true. They have very special, unique privileges and I don’t see the value in it. Not in the way it’s currently implemented. Make it like sky or Netflix in that if you want it you pay for it but don’t paywall ALL broadcast TV behind a payment to bbc.

[MartyG]

I can see us stopping the licence as it's not worth it for us for the amount we consume, I would pay for the stuff we watch via a system I think Marty was alluding to though.

No, I was suggesting that the content the BBC will produce with no licence fee will be similarly targetted to how the AAA game industry now operates - lowest common denominator chasing the money (the microtransactions), because commercially catering for the few that watch the great BBC4 content are just too few in number to make it financially viable.

It certainly seems to me the the BBC is being framed similarly to how the EU as been portrayed in recent years, maybe we should be asking the wider question of why that is.

[Neon Ignition]

The funding really is a big sticking point for the BBC when it comes to younger audiences. The concept that someone who buys a TV and watches non-BBC content is still required to pay a license fee (which is these days equated to being a mandatory subscription fee) whereby the BBC solely gets the money from it and that the individual may be fined or at most imprisoned for non-payment is increasingly alien and unjustified to a generation that will later be the one deciding the BBC's charter.

To then explain that the BBC is able to make a further 25% of revenue on top through private ventures muddies the waters yet again. I always got the idea of how the BBC covers areas and aspects that commercial programming can't but it can't escape that times are changing against it as steadfast as many still hold it there's no escaping that it's nowhere near as important as other public services.

Another half measure I could imagine is that in time the government might force the BBC to reduce the license fee and to ringfence some of its services. So in essence the license fee would drop and pay to fund things like BBC1, BBC2, Radio 1, Radio 2, 3, 4 etc and then the BBC's private arm would be tasked with funding additional services such as the Radio Xtra stations, regional small stations, regional tv channels and iplayer much like how the BBC can't use the license fee for stuff like UKTV

[vanpeebles]

Now they have their own subscription service people can buy that if they like the BBC so much. I stopped listening to football on five live, the coverage was appalling, just a mass of interruptions.