United Kingdom VII: Taking Pride in Your Success

[Lebowski]

I get what people are saying, that the BBC should basically be Netflix and you should only pay for it if you specifically want what the BBC is offering - or that it should fund its unprofitable programmes by putting adverts in its profitable ones - but I think once you do either of those things, you fundamentally change what the BBC is. In either case it becomes beholden primarily to what will generate cash, either increasing subscriber figures and reducing churn, or growing advertising revenue.

The BBC can only do some of the stuff that it does because it is funded by what is effectively simply a tax, not an optional subscription. I think that's really unique and valuable. It's far from perfect, but for me it's worth defending. While we have it, it can be reformed and improved. If it goes, it'll be gone forever. And I really think that would be a great loss.

The thing is it already has to chase viewing figures like every other channel, that's why we see so much lowbrow TV clogging up its scheduled adding a few adverts isn't going to fundamentally change strictly or Top Gear now is it.

[MartyG]

Yes, that's exactly what it'd do, fundamentally change things.

[wakka]

The thing is it already has to chase viewing figures like every other channel, that's why we see so much lowbrow TV clogging up its scheduled adding a few adverts isn't going to fundamentally change strictly or Top Gear now is it.

I’m not an expert on the TV industry, but while the BBC has a mandate to produce a broad range of programmes (including populist junky entertainment ones), I don’t think it does have to simply chase viewing figures like every other channel. That’s the whole point of being funded by the public. Which means it can make the stuff that isn’t Top Gear and Strictly, too.

So I don’t agree I’m afraid. By putting adverts on the BBC I think you would fundamentally change it. Even if those adverts were only on Strictly, the imperative for survival would then become to simply make more Strictlys and more Homes Under The Hammer, and certainly not to make anything that might not be an actual revenue driver.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd fundamentally change the budget for Doctor Who so it doesn't look like the sets are designed by Blue Peter anymore. That it looks worse now than it did 15 years ago is boggling.

[Brad]

[MENTION=5490]wakka[/MENTION] - Disclaimer: I'm also not a TV expert so this is a genuine question rather than me opposing your view. Lots of BBC stuff makes its way to other countries, who pay for it (I think I read they make several hundred million £ a year doing this) , so there must surely be an incentive to make programmes that will appeal abroad no? Which is sort of like chasing viewing figures I reckon.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I'd fundamentally change the budget for Doctor Who so it doesn't look like the sets are designed by Blue Peter anymore. That it looks worse now than it did 15 years ago is boggling.

Doctor Who needs a full restart with an actual budget and a team of good writers. It seems like it's still trying to be the old 60s cardboard cutout program. It's utterly wasted. I can't watch it because it's just embarrassing.

[wakka]

@wakka - Disclaimer: I'm also not a TV expert so this is a genuine question rather than me opposing your view. Lots of BBC stuff makes its way to other countries, who pay for it (I think I read they make several hundred million £ a year doing this) , so there must surely be an incentive to make programmes that will appeal abroad no? Which is sort of like chasing viewing figures I reckon.

Yeah, that's true, and that must be an incentive as you say. I guess it depends whether we're talking about having ads and the license fee, or just ads.

Because at the moment they've got the foreign licensing money, and the license fee. So the foreign license money is nice to have, but not essential, so they're not beholden to it.

I think if you had ads and license fee, people would (understandably) ask what they were paying the license fee for. So I think it would be a tricky balancing act to pull that off.

[MartyG]

The BBC has had to suppliment the licence fee income through sales of programmes - there is less money in the BBC budget now in real terms than there was in the 2000s, due to increasing things BBC has had to fund (to the tune of several 100 million, like funding S4C, the World Service, Local Media and Monitoring) and a real terms reduction in licence fee income due to it being capped (if it had increased with inflation, it would be closer to £200 a year).

[Brad]

The BBC has had to suppliment the licence fee income through sales of programmes - there is less money in the BBC budget now in real terms than there was in the 2000s, due to increasing things BBC has had to fund (to the tune of several 100 million, like funding S4C, the World Service, Local Media and Monitoring) and a real terms reduction in licence fee income due to it being capped (if it had increased with inflation, it would be closer to £200 a year).

Understandable then that they'd have to sell stuff to make up the difference. This must have an impact on their choice of programming though; it simply has to. They have to take into account their ability to sell abroad. In effect the people who caused the BBC to have insufficient funding to perform their remit have undermined the integrity they used to have. Not the BBC's fault by the sound of it but their integrity has been undermined. Like a youtuber who used to be happy with the pennies they got from viewing figures and subscriber who now has turned it into their main source of income and is reliant on sponsorship has to serve additional masters now.

[Lebowski]

I’m not an expert on the TV industry, but while the BBC has a mandate to produce a broad range of programmes (including populist junky entertainment ones), I don’t think it does have to simply chase viewing figures like every other channel. That’s the whole point of being funded by the public. Which means it can make the stuff that isn’t Top Gear and Strictly, too.

Thing is they cant just make what they want they as they have to be shown to be using their funding responsibly and by doing that they have to chase viewership's their only difference between the bbc and a commercial provider is their not aloud to show bias towards political party's or show preferential treatment to products or brands.

Yet and here's the issue the current ruling party has far to much leverage over the BBC as their the people that decide on if its funded and by how much surely this breads in Bias.The old adage don't bite the hand that feeds comes to mind and i think this is why we see things like the below happening.

Take Laura Kunsberg the bbc's chief political editor has been shown over and over again to be heavily bias towards the conservative party. she is a close personal friend of Boris Johnson, defended Dominic Cummings road trip and has been shown in an independent study to massively favor posting even the most unsubstantiated rubbish without checking sources, shes like the 23 member of Johnson's cabinet.

Then theirs Question Time its been caught out multiple times misrepresented Tory councilors as normal members of the public and seems to give most of its airtime to angry red faced men, That famous clip of Corbyn being shouted down for not wanting to be the first person to push a button and bring about nuclear Armageddon had me completely dumbfounded in how stupid the argument was.

Still don't believe me on the bias the current chair of the board has donated over £400,000 to the Conservative Party since 2001, its rotten from the top down and needs a massive overhaul.

[wakka]

I do believe you (no need to shout btw, I feel like you got shouty at the end). In the past few years it's no secret that it's become massively biased towards the Tories. And I hate the Tories, so, naturally, I think that's a bad thing.

The thing is, I'm arguing from a position of not really having that much information at the end of the day, so I'm probably best leaving it here. I just think that a lot of the BBC's best output, were it to become commercial, would go away. And there's no guarantee that the new, commercial BBC would be any less right wing. They'd be hardly likely. to start pushing a socialist agenda to go with their new reliance on sponsorship from major corporations.

I think we're better off with it than without it, all things considered, and that the tax required to fund it is hardly onerous. That's my perspective.

[Lebowski]

I do believe you (no need to shout btw, I feel like you got shouty at the end). In the past few years it's no secret that it's become massively biased towards the Tories. And I hate the Tories, so, naturally, I think that's a bad thing.

The thing is, I'm arguing from a position of not really having that much information at the end of the day, so I'm probably best leaving it here. I just think that a lot of the BBC's best output, were it to become commercial, would go away. And there's no guarantee that the new, commercial BBC would be any less right wing. They'd be hardly likely. to start pushing a socialist agenda to go with their new reliance on sponsorship from major corporations.

I think we're better off with it than without it, all things considered, and that the tax required to fund it is hardly onerous. That's my perspective.

lol i was typing a bit faster not shouting honest

i don't know what a fully commercial BBC would be like but from my point of view we already have a politically compromised broadcaster that dose has its eye on chasing profits by looking at what shows they can sell on and tailoring these shows to those markets.

[Brad]

I'd rather the BBC got fixed than commercialised. I want the BBC as it's supposed to be.

[Neon Ignition]

Easy option then is to cut its services and focus things wiser.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/30/global-treaty-needed-to-protect-states-from-pandemics-say-world-leaders

Senior international politicians call for a global treaty on forming a universal response effort for the inevitability of the next pandemic