BPX039: Looking After Auntie

[Anpanman]

We don't watch much Beeb at all, mostly news with Strictly and Wimby plus the NFL output which we could get elsewhere. I do visit the website regularly though and rarely use the iPlayer as well. The website is very handy when you have a VPN and are overseas but that's another matter.

I don't like having to pay for what is effectively a tax for stuff I don't use, I accept the Beeb make quality stuff but that quality stuff seems to be done in conjunction with others like National Geo or Canal+ and if I want to watch the latest Attenborough or Lucy Worsley it's far more cost effective to buy the DVD and then sell on later.
Add to the fact we get our telly via Richard and Usain's company we are effectively paying for it all twice.

I think the older pensioner's should still get the licence for nowt, (I took part in the survey by the way) as I believe a lot of those over seventy-five are not in the personal or company pension bracket yet. That of course will change as time goes on and by the time I'm that age things may have swung significantly - of course if the younger people don't get their pensions sorted early, by the time they get to seventy-five (and are still working of course) we might have to look at giving free licences to them as the probable £6k a year cost of the fee by then might be a bit too much for them to afford!

Joking aside future funding must come from adverts, the Beeb already do a form of it already in the deadspace between programs, after the One Show for example you'll get 'adverts' for upcoming dramas and so on, adverts for 'apps' or reminders to pay your licence, BBC World use this time for real adverts.
Our daughter doesn't use the BBC at all, BBC3 is aimed at younger people but probably a fair portion of those watching the channel do so at mum and dad's so aren't contributing to the licence fee income, our daughter would opt out of paying the licence which is something we aim to do at some point, certainly I'm never going to pay £200 a year so once that point comes I'm gone.

[cutmymilk]

Netflix have Attenborough now, it seems. BBC shat the bed for me when they let go of F1.

[Dogg Thang]

Digging up this thread because a figure in this article really hit me (https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...-bonkers-world). Those of you with young kids might have some idea just how excellent CBeebies is. It is an absolute world leader by far in terms of quality for young kids - this is no exaggeration, it is fact. It is entertaining, engaging, safe, warm and educational too.

The entire CBeebies budget for 2016-2017 was £28 million. To put that into perspective, just 6 episodes of Game of Thrones cost more than £71 million.

What you get from CBeebies is nothing short of miraculous and that needs to be protected.

[Cassius_Smoke]

Yep, agreed. And the Iplayer Kids app.
When the BBC do something right they really hit the nail on the head. Sport, most radio stations (baring the Radio2 ****fest), kids TV, horizon documentaries. Its all the dramas and chuff that let it down.

[Neon Ignition]

I feel that point but then I don't think any kids content has ever bored my kids more than CBeebies output. I can kind of see why as well, a lot of it is very cheap, slow and dull with too much emphasis on budget saving repetition. One source of constant fascination though is the bedtime story guests, they pull of some impressive catches at times.

[Dogg Thang]

too much emphasis on budget saving repetition..

Cool, so we should be lobbying to increase their budget. Totally with you on that.

[QualityChimp]

That's because you probably showed your kids advert-laden epilepsy-inducing channels too early.

My son didn't know there were toy adverts for yeeeears!

[Dogg Thang]

Yep, we also restricted the other channels for many of the early years. In spite of what SF's own kids might feel, CBeebies is brilliant and serves up wonderful content to massive numbers of kids and families and really is a world leader. There is almost nowhere like it globally. And yeah, it would be amazing to think of what they could do with even greater budget allocations. They do a lot with a little over there.

[Neon Ignition]

I'd be all for them having a greater budget if it would improve the quality and quantity. It's pretty hard for any kid these days to have to subject to adverts, if they go through a phase of being into Show X it's all to easy to line that up in the era on online services and sub services meaning BBC don't have the edge on that they once did. The BBC clearly keeps things on there to such a shoe string level hence why episodes of stuff like Night Garden, Twirlywoos, Teletubbies etc comprise of such a high percentage of reused footage.

I'm kind of sceptical that Cbeebies being a separate channel ever was the best thing for it. The BBC is in a hard position on that front but I think being a channel means they have to sustain too much with too little in too demanding an era.

[Dogg Thang]

The BBC clearly keeps things on there to such a shoe string level hence why episodes of stuff like Night Garden, Twirlywoos, Teletubbies etc comprise of such a high percentage of reused footage.

This is incorrect. These shows are instead some of the highest budget shows not only coming from the BBC but compared with most other media made for the same audience. The reason for the repetition is much simpler: it works for kids. And the shows you mention are also some of the most popular in their age groups so it works.

Splitting out onto CBeebies has worked wonders for them and they would have been lost otherwise. Most parents have systems that group things into the children's channels and they stay there. Without that presence, the BBC's children's output would have been lost. As it is, all children's channels have been hit over the last decade due to the changes in media and yet the BBC manages to come out on top pretty consistently and has done for a very long time.

Edit: related, this seems like a fantastic initiative by the BBC for children: https://twitter.com/CBeebiesHQ/statu...23985949319168

[prinnysquad]

I feel that point but then I don't think any kids content has ever bored my kids more than CBeebies output. I can kind of see why as well, a lot of it is very cheap, slow and dull with too much emphasis on budget saving repetition. One source of constant fascination though is the bedtime story guests, they pull of some impressive catches at times.

They must take after their dad, who is the Armond White of Bordersdown

[Neon Ignition]

Pretty much. I suppose the Beeb can invest a high budget into Night Garden when they get to run the same eps for over a decade at no additional cost

[Cassius_Smoke]

To be fair, Night Garden can F off.

[Dogg Thang]

Pretty much. I suppose the Beeb can invest a high budget into Night Garden when they get to run the same eps for over a decade at no additional cost

This also is not how it works!

[Anpanman]

With kids stuff the Beeb was great when I was young but wasn't massively impressed for our daughter, we got her plenty of Japanese output like wanan utan and the production values and stuff that gets taught was better than the BBC programmes.
However Japanese adult telly must be the worst in the developed world.