On the tennis betting, so as expected Djoko bets were voided by betfair exchange and a new market formed without him. Therefore I also expected the equivalent of a Rule 4 deduction on bets matched on other players prior to the withdrawal. A chunky one too since the 'horse' pulled out was a short price. But it's not the case. No adjustment was made. Great for me as a backer - of Zverev and Sinner if you're interested - but I'd feel rather pissed off if I had lay bets.
I've been left with a tenner on Nadal at 14 (now 7).
A gift. And my Sinner is 30 instead of 60.
So in fact the whole premise of your first point was wrong. The prices did indeed adjust.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
Including funding out of general taxation? Are they strongly opposed to that?
I'd support funding from general taxation I think - we can't have a system when some pay and some don't and get away with it. If general taxation - the big salaries would have to be capped.
There's always the risk of greater state interference with funding it from general taxaton, though.
That is often voiced but need this necessarily be the case?
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
But less than a week ago you were saying that those opposed to plan B measures would stick with the Conservatives because they have nowhere else to go. Now it seems they don't have the Conservatives either.
Masking is not a small practical measure, it is a) pointless theatre which does little or nothing to stop spread of omicron, and b) economically and societally damaging.
And no matter what polling on the matter says, I don't believe it is popular or beneficial for the government. When given the choice, most people don't mask. If they genuinely supported masking, voluntary masking would be much more prevalent.
Masking appears to be more effective against Omicron that against Delta.
How is masking economically and societally damaging? I can see big debates over lockdowns or vaccine passports or compulsory vaccination, but masking produces big benefits at pretty minimal costs.
Economically: because people don't do stuff when they have to wear masks to do so. Societally: because it's pretty dystopian to have everyone walking around hidden by a face mask. It does no good for levels of trust or communication. It's damaging to children. It's bad news for the deaf. It contributes to the climate of fear, which does the country no good.
I find it bizarre that some people continue to believe that masks are non-damaging and have to have this explained to them. If you support masking as a transmission mitigation, fine. That's arguable. But recognise that it's imposition that has major trade-offs.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
'“It’s not just about Boris Johnson the individual,” she said. “It’s about a Conservative Party that enabled and facilitated somebody like Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister in the first place.
“It’s not as if these character flaws that people are now seeing very clearly in Boris Johnson weren’t known about before.
“So yeah, Douglas Ross has now called for his resignation. But Douglas Ross enthusiastically supported Boris Johnson in his attempt to become leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.”
Back in 2019, during the Tory leadership election, Ross announced he would be voting for Johnson in the second round of the contest. His preference in the first round was Mark Harper, who was eliminated after securing support from just 3.2% of MPs.
Ross said in a tweet: “Since the first round result I've spoken with many of the candidates and decided, with the breadth of support they have across the party and their vision for the future of our country, today I will @BackBoris."
He also wrote for the Scotsman setting out how Johnson would "strengthen the Union by delivering Brexit".'
But it's a good point already made by some on PB as regards the Tories generally. Cock crowing thrice, and all that, except for a few loyalists.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
But less than a week ago you were saying that those opposed to plan B measures would stick with the Conservatives because they have nowhere else to go. Now it seems they don't have the Conservatives either.
Masking is not a small practical measure, it is a) pointless theatre which does little or nothing to stop spread of omicron, and b) economically and societally damaging.
And no matter what polling on the matter says, I don't believe it is popular or beneficial for the government. When given the choice, most people don't mask. If they genuinely supported masking, voluntary masking would be much more prevalent.
Masking appears to be more effective against Omicron that against Delta.
How is masking economically and societally damaging? I can see big debates over lockdowns or vaccine passports or compulsory vaccination, but masking produces big benefits at pretty minimal costs.
Economically: because people don't do stuff when they have to wear masks to do so. Societally: because it's pretty dystopian to have everyone walking around hidden by a face mask. It does no good for levels of trust or communication. It's damaging to children. It's bad news for the deaf. It contributes to the climate of fear, which does the country no good.
I find it bizarre that some people continue to believe that masks are non-damaging and have to have this explained to them. If you support masking as a transmission mitigation, fine. That's arguable. But recognise that it's imposition that has major trade-offs.
There is a group of people who believe that masks are harmless what's all the fuss about it doesn't affect me at all so everyone should keep on wearing them, just in case (ie beyond the need to "protect" the NHS).
I find it interesting that possibly the two most respected, admired, established institutions in the UK (apart from the Monarchy) - the NHS and the BBC both really do need major change in what they do, what they can be expected to do and how it’s paid for.
The problem is that the one party that seems to actively want to make the necessary changes is the Tory party however by virtue of it being the Tory party it creates an almost reflexive resistance to change from anyone on the other side who might realise that both institutions are far from perfect but cannot demand change because it’s Tory.
Somewhat amusing that Tories are the “conservative” party who are supposed to value the status quo more than the progressives who should be tearing up the status quo to improve life for the masses!
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Idle pondering: how many "cases" of the flu occur each year.
Nobody knows, because we don't test for influenza. Asymptomatic flu is, however, a thing ISTR.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 2h Epi to English translation:
"Without a new lockdown there'll be at least 3k deaths/day" = With a bit of WFH advice & masking, we can tough it out
"If schools open there'll be 2k-7k hospitalisations/day" = Do nothing & hospitalisations will peak at ~1k/day - it'll be no problem+
There are tentative signs cases might turn soon" = Cases started falling a week ago & are now dropping 20%/week
"If numbers carry on like this for another week I'll be hopeful the wave has turned" = Case have been falling for several weeks & are now dropping 45%/week
It's hard to understand how these SAGE figures think they're helping by denying reality - the bottom 2 examples here are going on right now and it just makes them look ridiculous. Combined with the top 2, it doesn't make them look like honest brokers of facts and advice.
Their response is to say that the 3k deaths/day was a worst case scenario. They will say that the models were right and point to the current situation as included as their best case scenario. They will avoid discussing why the current situation was not closer to their central case.
Page 8 says that, under their most optimistic scenario (low immune escape, high booster efficacy), and no further control measures beyond the initial Plan B measures, the 95% confidence interval of deaths from December 2021 - April 2022 would be 19,500–28,700. That assumes no reduction in severity being Delta and Omicron, beyond the fact that much more of the population now has immunity.
We are currently at around 6k deaths from 1 December, running at just over 200/day, which will probably peak soon and then decline.
Let's assume: - next two weeks: 350 per day over the peak of the wave (5k total) - February: similar to first half of wave, 150 per day on average (4k total) - March/April: attritional rate of say 50 per day (3k total)
That is 18k total. So, it would be simple for the modellers to argue that the current situation was (just about) included in their model, allowing for say a 10% reduction in actual underlying severity.
The "most optimistic scenario" median estimate of 2.4k hospitalisations per day currently looks bang on.
The problem is, that they modelled four different possible scenarios for immune escape and booster efficacy, and we had no way of knowing which one was "right". When you merge together all four confidence intervals, you get something like a peak of hospitalisations of anything from 1,760 to 10,040 - or less than half the previous record to more than double it. With such a massive range of possible outcomes, the modelling is essentially useless for decision making, unless you take the view that you must assume the worst reasonable case scenario. This is effectively what the press did, and it seems what some figures in the DoH did as well.
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
You wear a mask primarily to prevent infecting others. It was always available. As evidenced by the bizarre if quaint sight of Japanese tourists for the past X years walking around in masks.
I find it interesting that possibly the two most respected, admired, established institutions in the UK (apart from the Monarchy) - the NHS and the BBC both really do need major change in what they do, what they can be expected to do and how it’s paid for.
The problem is that the one party that seems to actively want to make the necessary changes is the Tory party however by virtue of it being the Tory party it creates an almost reflexive resistance to change from anyone on the other side who might realise that both institutions are far from perfect but cannot demand change because it’s Tory.
Somewhat amusing that Tories are the “conservative” party who are supposed to value the status quo more than the progressives who should be tearing up the status quo to improve life for the masses!
I think there is also a big public misunderstanding about the reality of both of these organisations.
I think most people think that the BBC produces most of its own programmes in house, that it never runs any adverts nor owns a commercial ad funded network of channels. When in fact it outsources most of the production, it has a vast commercial arm already, runs ads on its website for overseas visitors and owns UKTV.
As we found out yesterday somebody popped up and said well look the BBC make Call the Midwife, they wouldn't do that if the BBC was commercial, and then it was pointed out, it isn't made by the BBC at all.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
I think you would also need the Government to throw some money in to the initial funding but yep - the plan should be to offer a BBC subscription streaming service worldwide.
The name alone would give it a fighting chance of surviving but it will need the content of Britbox and others to provide a core critical mass of content to compensate for the recent shows that are currently licensed / shown elsewhere abroad.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than to become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 2h Epi to English translation:
"Without a new lockdown there'll be at least 3k deaths/day" = With a bit of WFH advice & masking, we can tough it out
"If schools open there'll be 2k-7k hospitalisations/day" = Do nothing & hospitalisations will peak at ~1k/day - it'll be no problem+
There are tentative signs cases might turn soon" = Cases started falling a week ago & are now dropping 20%/week
"If numbers carry on like this for another week I'll be hopeful the wave has turned" = Case have been falling for several weeks & are now dropping 45%/week
It's hard to understand how these SAGE figures think they're helping by denying reality - the bottom 2 examples here are going on right now and it just makes them look ridiculous. Combined with the top 2, it doesn't make them look like honest brokers of facts and advice.
Their response is to say that the 3k deaths/day was a worst case scenario. They will say that the models were right and point to the current situation as included as their best case scenario. They will avoid discussing why the current situation was not closer to their central case.
The spectator data tracker is of interest. Looking at it with severity of omicron at 50% of delta it looks ridiculous. Flick to 10% and its a different story - pretty good match for cases. However for deaths, its still too high even at 10%. Now you can argue that lots of other mitigations happened because of the fear/worry over omicron, and thats true to a point. But realistically the modelling in this case was extremely poor.
I think you're looking at the "Warwick model", which is clearly total crap, and nothing to do with SAGE. The LHSTM is the one on which the SAGE modelling is based.
Edit: I'm no longer sure SAGE were not looking at the Warwick model as well. If they were, that's a... problem.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
You wear a mask primarily to prevent infecting others. It was always available. As evidenced by the bizarre if quaint sight of Japanese tourists for the past X years walking around in masks.
Not where I live, actually. Don't ever remember that in Edinburgh (apart from an American visitor during the anthrax scare). Maybe a London thing?
On the tennis betting, so as expected Djoko bets were voided by betfair exchange and a new market formed without him. Therefore I also expected the equivalent of a Rule 4 deduction on bets matched on other players prior to the withdrawal. A chunky one too since the 'horse' pulled out was a short price. But it's not the case. No adjustment was made. Great for me as a backer - of Zverev and Sinner if you're interested - but I'd feel rather pissed off if I had lay bets.
I don't think a new market has been formed. Just the old market with Djokovic removed and bets refunded as per their rules.
Per the rules, yes, and quite a loophole as I see it. If Djok had started the other prices wouldn't have moved much because they were quoted on the basis he would start. It was a complete market, all runners quoted 'with a run'. So, you could have gone in and backed all the contenders where there was decent liquidity, lose little or nothing if Djok won his 2nd appeal, but if he lost it - which was close to a certainty - end up with a raft of juicy longs that could be closed or traded to taste. I failed to deduce this upfront. I've benefited because of the 2 bets I had made but I do feel I've missed a trick.
Before we all celebrate the Death of Covid, maintain a mild frown - but no more than that - as you stare in the direction of Denmark, where they have the new sub-variant, Omicron FFS, AKA Omicron BA2:
Meanwhile #Denmark sets a new all-time record and its 7-day infection rate hits 4,000 AD/M for the first time. France + Ireland are the only other major countries to reach this level.
28,780 new #Covid19 cases today, almost exactly double last Monday. 11 more have died. The figures from #Denmark obviously concerning as we watch the BA.2 strain of #Omicron.
I also have to report the number of Danish #Covid19 patients hospitalised is now at its highest level for almost exactly a year (18 Jan 2021) A rise of 68 today to 802 But in ICU just 52 (-7)
#Denmark's rise in #Covid19 hospitalisations could well be in line with the increase and rapid growth of infections in the wider community. So people needing treatment for something else, happen to test positive.
If BA2 became dominant 2 weeks ago it's good ICU numbers are low"
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
It can't though because the BBC cannot afford to purchase content outright anymore. See for instance the number of Netflix and Amazon co-productions that the BBC have to do to avoid a program looking cheap.
Were we to go back 10 years Around the World in 80 days would look brilliant, now we can spot the areas in which shortcuts were taken to save money - just compare it to a Netflix / Amazon / HBO production.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
Of course the option was available. You've been able to buy medical facemasks since the Year Dot.
I've always though Mordaunt has been one to watch. She's just immediately obviously different in style, even before knew her backstory below as paratrooper's daugter, teenage caregiver, and magician's assistant.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
They also sold it at a whopping great loss because the world moved on and travel guides shifted to the internet with crowd sourced data updated in real time rather than year old books printed on paper.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
You wear a mask primarily to prevent infecting others. It was always available. As evidenced by the bizarre if quaint sight of Japanese tourists for the past X years walking around in masks.
Not where I live, actually. Don't ever remember that in Edinburgh (apart from an American visitor during the anthrax scare). Maybe a London thing?
Yep was certainly a London thing (is the only experience I have of seeing it). Not rare at all if not uniformly for every Japanese tourist.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
As @MaxPB suggests, you end up with a small and focussed public service broadcaster funded by taxation, showing news, arts, religious, childrens, regional etc; and a larger entertainment organisation funded by a combination of subscription, advertising, the back catalogue, share issues or any other way they care to raise cash.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
They also sold it at a whopping great loss because the world moved on and travel guides shifted to the internet with crowd sourced data updated in real time rather than year old books printed on paper.
Oh yes they balls up royally, again. My point was they try to ride these two horses, while saying but no we are the BBC, we are above being comprised by such grubby things as adverts or having to work with brands to make any money.....as I flick over to Dave, where some panel show is in association with Cobra beer or whoever they have doing product placement these days.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
It can't though because the BBC cannot afford to purchase content outright anymore. See for instance the number of Netflix and Amazon co-productions that the BBC have to do to avoid a program looking cheap.
Were we to go back 10 years Around the World in 80 days would look brilliant, now we can spot the areas in which shortcuts were taken to save money - just compare it to a Netflix / Amazon / HBO production.
I agree on the funding points, but this also presupposes that budget, and the power to purchase resources outside, is by far the most important, or only, criterion to success. In the BBC's heyday, in fact it wasn't. It obviously helps enormously, but there's much more.
OT Amazon seems to have suspended its planned cancellation of Visa credit cards.
I only learnt of this possibility on here. If Amazon had been serious, they'd have been informing customers (they weren't) and telling them they needed another way to pay. Given many are wedded to their bank and credit cards, it simply would've meant losing nearly half their customer base.
If I was VISA, I'd have simply called their bluff.....
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
Including funding out of general taxation? Are they strongly opposed to that?
It would make them dependent on the state for their funding.
This was the last poll I can find. The license fee is supported by less than a quarter of all people but the other alternatives aren’t massively supported either.
It would. But they are now really. The govt sets and enforces the LF. But I was just picking up on your comment that the BBC itself is opposed to anything but the LF. And wondering if that meant they - the BBC not the public - were opposed to being funded out of general taxation. Maybe they would be. Not so much because of state interference, imo, but because they don't like to think of themselves as public sector.
I see on the previous thread that @HYUFD has now switched his support the retention of masking, because he has read that that is the government's plan.
Is they guy even capable of independent thought?
No I have always supported masking. It is just a small practical measure to contain the spread of Covid in winter on public transport and crowded shops.
Further restrictions on the vaccinated in terms of closing pubs, restaurants and large events and nightclubs is what I am opposed to
So if compulsory masks on trains are scrapped next week, you'll be writing to your MP to complain?
They can be moved in Spring from compulsory to voluntary
Why not now? Masking does very little and numbers of positives are declining precipitously: it would appear we are past the peak of hospitalisations too.
Now, I'm pretty fundamentally against masks for the reasons @pigeon spells out - but I recognise most people have a more conditional approach to them. At what level of which indicator would you support this?
I think Nick P - who is more up the cautious end of the spectrum - suggested a level of daily positives o around 20,000 at which he'd be happy with this (apologies if I'm misrepresenting you, @NickPalmer ) - what is your level?
Indeed that's Nick's position (I double checked with him yesterday).
As it happens, we are now in a situation where Nick is more liberal on restrictions than the current rules – he confirmed yesterday that he's abolish masking in theatres and cinemas right now.
I think its not a good idea to peg it to a number of positive tests, as this is dependent on other factors than just how much covid is out there. If you had to peg it to something, then hospital admission for covid (not with) would maybe work, or total covid patients. Just doing it for cases make no sense if the idea is to protect the hospitals.
Well, I agree - I was just trying to coax from HYUFD what metrics he'd use to decide when he would no longer support masking. Nick suggested 20,000 positive tests, but I think largely from a position of 'that sort of level' - I expect he would also have a similar gut feeling about what level of hospitalisations if that metric was thought better.
Masking is not really to protect hospitals though, that would be another lockdown or mandatory vaxports.
Masking is just a way to help reduce case spread, as case rates will always be highest in winter
So would you be keen for masks every winter? Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
Yep. Anyone who didn't wear a mask during the winter in years gone by and perhaps even not and continued "as is" when they had a flu previously is a glaring hypocrite in calling for masks now (and forever).
Option wasn't available then, in real life (but staying at home when one had flu certainly was, and some of us did that).
You wear a mask primarily to prevent infecting others. It was always available. As evidenced by the bizarre if quaint sight of Japanese tourists for the past X years walking around in masks.
Not where I live, actually. Don't ever remember that in Edinburgh (apart from an American visitor during the anthrax scare). Maybe a London thing?
Yep was certainly a London thing (is the only experience I have of seeing it). Not rare at all if not uniformly for every Japanese tourist.
Not Japan - all of East Asia
I've seen them for many years in Singapore, HK, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, richer bits of China. It is viewed as common courtesy that, if you think you have a cold or flu or some other respiratory bug, you mask up, so you don't cough or sneeze your germs over everyone else. As you should, frankly
It is one of several ways in which they are simply more civilised than us.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than to become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
Why can't it do both? The largest buyer of UK made TV is currently Netflix (American), the largest seller of UK made TV is currently Sony (Japanese). That's pretty shameful.
On the tennis betting, so as expected Djoko bets were voided by betfair exchange and a new market formed without him. Therefore I also expected the equivalent of a Rule 4 deduction on bets matched on other players prior to the withdrawal. A chunky one too since the 'horse' pulled out was a short price. But it's not the case. No adjustment was made. Great for me as a backer - of Zverev and Sinner if you're interested - but I'd feel rather pissed off if I had lay bets.
I don't think a new market has been formed. Just the old market with Djokovic removed and bets refunded as per their rules.
Per the rules, yes, and quite a loophole as I see it. If Djok had started the other prices wouldn't have moved much because they were quoted on the basis he would start. It was a complete market, all runners quoted 'with a run'. So, you could have gone in and backed all the contenders where there was decent liquidity, lose little or nothing if Djok won his 2nd appeal, but if he lost it - which was close to a certainty - end up with a raft of juicy longs that could be closed or traded to taste. I failed to deduce this upfront. I've benefited because of the 2 bets I had made but I do feel I've missed a trick.
The prices were formed on the basis that the contenders may or may not start, with provision in the rules that if they didn't then those bets would be voided. This is why Djokovic's price was in my view a tad too high, because his start was in doubt and some punters hadn't read the rules and didn't realise that the bets would be voided if a no show.
This meant that the value was in backing Djokovic at a good price in the knowledge you would get your money back if he didn't start. Which is what I did.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Hmm interesting. Sky and GBN both being free (but of course the former subsidised by Sky subscriptions). Is the reach of those really comparable? I'm not sure there is a Sky Cambridgeshire, for example. There would imo be plenty of people happy to pay a fiver a month for a trusted non-aligned news broadcaster. And how is Sky radio doing these days.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
It can't though because the BBC cannot afford to purchase content outright anymore. See for instance the number of Netflix and Amazon co-productions that the BBC have to do to avoid a program looking cheap.
Were we to go back 10 years Around the World in 80 days would look brilliant, now we can spot the areas in which shortcuts were taken to save money - just compare it to a Netflix / Amazon / HBO production.
I agree on the funding points, but this also presupposes that budget is by far the most important criterion to success. In the BBC's heyday in fact it wasn't.
The problem is now actors, producers, writer, etc etc etc have competition who they can go to for big bucks. So a lot of bigger names who still do BBC work are doing it as a favour around their "proper" work.
The problem is that the one party that seems to actively want to make the necessary changes is the Tory party
If the Tories wanted necessary change that would be one thing.
Their track record though suggests the only change they actually want is privatisation.
It's no coincidence that the institutions the Tories hate the most are Nationalised
The only institutions left to privatise really are the BBC and the NHS and Network Rail after Thatcher, Major and Cameron privatised the rest.
The NHS is untouchable and the Tories are not going to do down a US style private insurance model. The latter only became Network Rail as the privatised Railtrack was such a disaster.
So that only leaves the BBC to privatise and fund by ads and subscription, ending the licence fee, certainly exclusive to the BBC
'“It’s not just about Boris Johnson the individual,” she said. “It’s about a Conservative Party that enabled and facilitated somebody like Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister in the first place.
“It’s not as if these character flaws that people are now seeing very clearly in Boris Johnson weren’t known about before.
“So yeah, Douglas Ross has now called for his resignation. But Douglas Ross enthusiastically supported Boris Johnson in his attempt to become leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.”
Back in 2019, during the Tory leadership election, Ross announced he would be voting for Johnson in the second round of the contest. His preference in the first round was Mark Harper, who was eliminated after securing support from just 3.2% of MPs.
Ross said in a tweet: “Since the first round result I've spoken with many of the candidates and decided, with the breadth of support they have across the party and their vision for the future of our country, today I will @BackBoris."
He also wrote for the Scotsman setting out how Johnson would "strengthen the Union by delivering Brexit".'
But it's a good point already made by some on PB as regards the Tories generally. Cock crowing thrice, and all that, except for a few loyalists.
All of this is spot on. Last week it was a real eye-opener for me, and really precipitated a realisation, on my part, that it'll now take a lot more than offing Boris for me to come back to the Conservatives. The party is riddled with people who supported him. That's not something that can easily be forgotten or forgiven.
Sue Gray is totally independent, so it is entirely up to her whether or not she wants to become Baroness Sue Gray in the near future. #BorisJohnsonResign
The attacks on Sue Gray's integrity are unwarranted
How many gallons of whitewash has she ordered is the question
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
I think the proposal being made is essentially to flip the power situation. So at the moment, BBC Studios is a subsidiary (and UKTV a subsidiary of Studios). So it is producing content for the public service arm (and others) and monetising content produced by the public service arm either outside the UK or at later date after first broadcast (re-runs on Dave and so on).
But the proposal from Max is, essentially, to spin off Studios through flotation with a deal for a period with BBC public service but essentially a private concern with commercial revenues through ads and subs. So, rather like Ocado being spun off by Waitrose but no longer acting for them, in ten years time you essentially have a rump BBC doing minority stuff.
I think it's deeply flawed for many reasons. These include that spinning off tends to immediately destroy value in Studios (i.e. not a very attractive investment without the public service side link), that the revenues are lost to public service broadcasting (Dave ad revenues do in fact help pay for BBC services), and that the BBC itself becomes a husk if it just does a bit of netball and news local news (much of the argument for the BBC is you can slip people a bit of this precisely because they are watching for the popular shows). In reality, I think it is two proposals masquerading as one - firstly slash BBC funding and, secondly, spin off a production company raising a few quid and recreating some of the momentary drama and excitement of "tell Sid" for those of a certain age.
However, I see that it is different from the current commercial arm arrangements.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
As @MaxPB suggests, you end up with a small and focussed public service broadcaster funded by taxation, showing news, arts, religious, childrens, regional etc; and a larger entertainment organisation funded by a combination of subscription, advertising, the back catalogue, share issues or any other way they care to raise cash.
I have no particular objection to that - I just think that the BBC is probably good value atm although I am a fully signed up member of the it shouldn't be compulsory club.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
OT Amazon seems to have suspended its planned cancellation of Visa credit cards.
I only learnt of this possibility on here. If Amazon had been serious, they'd have been informing customers (they weren't) and telling them they needed another way to pay. Given many are wedded to their bank and credit cards, it simply would've meant losing nearly half their customer base.
If I was VISA, I'd have simply called their bluff.....
They for sure were informing customers, they bullied me into substituting a debit card.
Ahhhh. That might be why then. We don't (my wife or I) have credit cards. I'd misread it as any VISA cards (debit cards included).
Mine is a Visa debit and I got shedloads of e-mails, and I also had a mastercard on to boot so totally unecessary
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than to become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
Why can't it do both? The largest buyer of UK made TV is currently Netflix (American), the largest seller of UK made TV is currently Sony (Japanese). That's pretty shameful.
I agree. But the BBC still needs to most fundamentally remain a British public service, somehow. Otherwise there's no justification for government help.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Hmm interesting. Sky and GBN both being free (but of course the former subsidised by Sky subscriptions). Is the reach of those really comparable? I'm not sure there is a Sky Cambridgeshire, for example. There would imo be plenty of people happy to pay a fiver a month for a trusted non-aligned news broadcaster. And how is Sky radio doing these days.
Sky News is free on Freeview and YouTube, I'm not sure about GBN as I've never watched it or tried to.
I think you're missing my point, there's no money in local news or local radio, it's a market that is completely propped up by the licence fee payer and is why the commercial aspects of BBC productions are utterly incapable of competing with the firepower that Netflix, Sony or Disney have got. They can't expand their revenue lines easily, they have got very high fixed costs for what is essentially perpetually loss making TV and radio production and they also have a public which wants to be wowed by production quality that we see in The Crown or The Witcher.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
Regardless of the rights/wrongs of the Nadine Dorries BBC announcement, it should have been made to Parliament first - not via the Mail and a tweet.
I expect yet another bollocking for the Tories from the Speaker.
The problem is that the punishment for announcing outside Parliament isn't serious enough.
A 10 day suspension from Parliament would be the minimum required to stop a minister from performing such a trick and even that only works at times like this where the consequences would be a successful recall petition.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Not against this in theory, but some reservations:
* News at Six is still regularly in the 10 most-watched live broadcasts. It's a mistake to think that people no longer bother. By contrast, Sky, GBTV etc have small audiences. * How confident are we that the part covered by general taxation (presumably news, Panomara etc.) would not be stripped back if it was perceived as being critical? Even if the government was utterly scrupulous, might it not have a chilling effect? * Just personally, I think BBC programming is vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of stuff on Sky. I'm not sure why - perhaps they just cater for my old-fashioned taste. But I'd worry that commercialing would lead them into the same (IMO) pit of crapness.
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 2h Epi to English translation:
"Without a new lockdown there'll be at least 3k deaths/day" = With a bit of WFH advice & masking, we can tough it out
"If schools open there'll be 2k-7k hospitalisations/day" = Do nothing & hospitalisations will peak at ~1k/day - it'll be no problem+
There are tentative signs cases might turn soon" = Cases started falling a week ago & are now dropping 20%/week
"If numbers carry on like this for another week I'll be hopeful the wave has turned" = Case have been falling for several weeks & are now dropping 45%/week
It's hard to understand how these SAGE figures think they're helping by denying reality - the bottom 2 examples here are going on right now and it just makes them look ridiculous. Combined with the top 2, it doesn't make them look like honest brokers of facts and advice.
Their response is to say that the 3k deaths/day was a worst case scenario. They will say that the models were right and point to the current situation as included as their best case scenario. They will avoid discussing why the current situation was not closer to their central case.
The spectator data tracker is of interest. Looking at it with severity of omicron at 50% of delta it looks ridiculous. Flick to 10% and its a different story - pretty good match for cases. However for deaths, its still too high even at 10%. Now you can argue that lots of other mitigations happened because of the fear/worry over omicron, and thats true to a point. But realistically the modelling in this case was extremely poor.
I think you're looking at the "Warwick model", which is clearly total crap, and nothing to do with SAGE. The LHSTM is the one on which the SAGE modelling is based.
Edit: I'm no longer sure SAGE were not looking at the Warwick model as well. If they were, that's a... problem.
Your edit is surely correct. I note that a certain Mike Tildesley is both a Warwick epidemic modeller and on SAGE...
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than to become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
Why can't it do both? The largest buyer of UK made TV is currently Netflix (American), the largest seller of UK made TV is currently Sony (Japanese). That's pretty shameful.
I agree. But the BBC still needs to most fundamentally remain a British public service, somehow. Otherwise there's no justification for government help.
Keeping UK production studios in UK ownership is a pretty big public service, it's going to be a £20bn industry that is entirely foreign owned in the next 5 years. I think people need to start separating the public service aspect of what the BBC does from the commercial "ratings" aspect. The licence fee is never going to be enough for the BBC to do both, not in the long term. The fixed costs of the public service part of what they do is rising and eating up the licence fee income and basically can't be cut but the "ratings" bit is rising even faster and can be cut. So what we end up with is the BBC eventually going the way I'm saying anyway, with a husk of an organisation which does a few glitzy shows but is basically just churning out local news, radio and sports coverage that a lot of people don't care about anyway.
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Hmm interesting. Sky and GBN both being free (but of course the former subsidised by Sky subscriptions). Is the reach of those really comparable? I'm not sure there is a Sky Cambridgeshire, for example. There would imo be plenty of people happy to pay a fiver a month for a trusted non-aligned news broadcaster. And how is Sky radio doing these days.
Sky News is free on Freeview and YouTube, I'm not sure about GBN as I've never watched it or tried to.
I think you're missing my point, there's no money in local news or local radio, it's a market that is completely propped up by the licence fee payer and is why the commercial aspects of BBC productions are utterly incapable of competing with the firepower that Netflix, Sony or Disney have got. They can't expand their revenue lines easily, they have got very high fixed costs for what is essentially perpetually loss making TV and radio production and they also have a public which wants to be wowed by production quality that we see in The Crown or The Witcher.
This totally misunderstands how BBC produces content NOW. Well over half of network hours are externally produced and under a quarter are BBC public service productions (the balance is "contestable" content which could be externally produced but where the work is won by BBC Studios as the commercial arm).
Regardless of the rights/wrongs of the Nadine Dorries BBC announcement, it should have been made to Parliament first - not via the Mail and a tweet.
I expect yet another bollocking for the Tories from the Speaker.
That’s a fair point. Policy announcements should be always be made to Parliament first, even though every government since 1997 has been terrible at doing so.
The Speaker needs to censure ministers who do this, irrespective of the nature of the announcement or what we personally think of it.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
That at least is more coherent that anything Mad Nad has proposed.
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Wiki
And I remember her doing SPLASH!
Being a rare attractive politician also doesn't do any harm either. Male favourites Rory Stewart and Ivan Massow have departed the scene for now, and she doesn't seem to have any female challengers for that crown, although Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy seem to be popular with some voters on that basis.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Hmm interesting. Sky and GBN both being free (but of course the former subsidised by Sky subscriptions). Is the reach of those really comparable? I'm not sure there is a Sky Cambridgeshire, for example. There would imo be plenty of people happy to pay a fiver a month for a trusted non-aligned news broadcaster. And how is Sky radio doing these days.
Sky News is free on Freeview and YouTube, I'm not sure about GBN as I've never watched it or tried to.
I think you're missing my point, there's no money in local news or local radio, it's a market that is completely propped up by the licence fee payer and is why the commercial aspects of BBC productions are utterly incapable of competing with the firepower that Netflix, Sony or Disney have got. They can't expand their revenue lines easily, they have got very high fixed costs for what is essentially perpetually loss making TV and radio production and they also have a public which wants to be wowed by production quality that we see in The Crown or The Witcher.
Worth saying that for local commercial radio - local radio stations are now local for breakfast and evening rush hours only with a single national broadcast the rest of the time.
There isn't even enough money in local advertising to pay for more than 6-8 hours of local content a day.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
The BBC recipes online are very often excellent, easily accessible and easy to read. Unlike the bullshit videos on YouTube which are ad-ridden talky vehicles for wannabe chefs and which are frequently a faffy nightmare to actually cook from.
Video, generally, is a pain. Give me a recipe book or simple printed recipe any bloody day.
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Wiki
And I remember her doing SPLASH!
Being a rare attractive politician also doesn't do any harm either. Male favourites Rory Stewart and Ivan Massow have departed the scene for now, and she doesn't seem to have any female challengers for that crown, although Angela Rayner is popular with some voters on that basis.
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
She is, I think, pretty anti-Boris despite being pro-Brexit. I remember her face when the result of the leadership contest was announced when Boris won - she had a front row seat at the declaration. Looked like she'd swallowed a wasp. She was then summarily sacked as Defence Secretary, her dream job, despite having only being in post for a few weeks. Has been rehabilitated a bit since, by being made Paymaster General. If Rishi blows up she is certainly a very interesting alternative - much more presentable than Liz Truss. One to watch.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
But the purpose of the BBC, most fundamentally, is also to meet the needs of the British pubic, rather than to become the largest possible global corporation. It can also continue to do that, and raise revenue from some new sources, without becoming as large as netflix.
Why can't it do both? The largest buyer of UK made TV is currently Netflix (American), the largest seller of UK made TV is currently Sony (Japanese). That's pretty shameful.
I agree. But the BBC still needs to most fundamentally remain a British public service, somehow. Otherwise there's no justification for government help.
Keeping UK production studios in UK ownership is a pretty big public service, it's going to be a £20bn industry that is entirely foreign owned in the next 5 years. I think people need to start separating the public service aspect of what the BBC does from the commercial "ratings" aspect. The licence fee is never going to be enough for the BBC to do both, not in the long term. The fixed costs of the public service part of what they do is rising and eating up the licence fee income and basically can't be cut but the "ratings" bit is rising even faster and can be cut. So what we end up with is the BBC eventually going the way I'm saying anyway, with a husk of an organisation which does a few glitzy shows but is basically just churning out local news, radio and sports coverage that a lot of people don't care about anyway.
It's a nettle that should have been grasped up to a decade ago. But the Tories have been more interested in degrading the organisation than developing it. (And, to be fair, the opposition haven't offered much in the way of constructive thought beyond 'save the BBC.)
I wonder how lifelong labour activists on the candidates list and his shadow cabinet feel about that.
What a ridiculous thing to say. He’s hardly proven as a political campaigner or a politician. He’s just another blue tick spouting crap on twitter for likes and retweets. People,left and right do it all the time.
Agreed, Gary Neville was happy to not be a Labour member under Ed Miliband and Corbyn when Labour were losing. Hard working local Labour party activists and councillors were. Now Labour look like winning it seems he will be on the Labour candidate list as Starmer starts his version of Cameron's pre 2010 A list.
Neville is just a glory hunter, much like fans of his old club, Manchester United in the late 1990s and 2000s
Its a political party not a football team
His actions point in that direction. He has been making increasingly political comments for months and it has been clear he is left-wing in his leanings. But he never thought to join the Labour Party under Starmer.
Then, lo and behold, literally one or two weeks into when the polls turn decisively against the Govt and a Labour Govt looks more likely post the next GE, he declares he is joining Labour and then there is the talk of him becoming a MP.
He has probably looked at Rashford and thought "he's made a lot of money by pushing his causes, what's my equivalent?" He obviously can't do the adverts side because who is going to hire a middle-aged white man to push a message of inclusion and diversity. Plus he's got his money already and is not at the same stage of his career. Politics is the next best thing.
Could this be jaundiced drivel masquerading as bracing 'man of the world' wisdom?
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Not against this in theory, but some reservations:
* News at Six is still regularly in the 10 most-watched live broadcasts. It's a mistake to think that people no longer bother. By contrast, Sky, GBTV etc have small audiences. * How confident are we that the part covered by general taxation (presumably news, Panomara etc.) would not be stripped back if it was perceived as being critical? Even if the government was utterly scrupulous, might it not have a chilling effect? * Just personally, I think BBC programming is vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of stuff on Sky. I'm not sure why - perhaps they just cater for my old-fashioned taste. But I'd worry that commercialing would lead them into the same (IMO) pit of crapness.
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
As I've suggested, I'd split the BBC into two, one which is taxpayer funded out of general taxation and covers news, some sports, local news, local radio and a few other bits and bobs which aren't commercially viable. BBC News gets high ratings by virtue of its channel position, if you stuck GB News in at the number 1 slot for that 30 mins it would also get very high ratings and I'm also not proposing to change that BBC Public Service gets the first channel slot, BBC Commercial gets slot 2 for as long as it wants it.
As for your personal tastes, that's fine but at the same time I'd be pretty sure that what you're watching on the BBC isn't in fact made by them, they just licence the UK broadcasting rights. Line of Duty is the one that people get really confused by, it's made by ITV, so was The Bodyguard, The Fall was a subsidiary of EndemolShine. It's actually very rare for any high end BBC show to actually be made in house these days. The Bake Off was the one where people actually discovered it. A programme that the whole nation associated with the BBC was actually made by some outside company that wasn't the BBC.
My final comment on this increasingly boring subject: I'd leave the Beeb as it is but find it from general taxation and hypothecate its funding. No point faffing around with a licence fee which is a) regressive and b) harder to enforce.
I may have answered differently had the woeful Laura K decided to stick around.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I must confess I'm fairly agnostic about all of this.
I do detect a hint of political "revenge" from many on the Right (the BBC has never been "one of us") but to be fair the Left also feels habitually wronged by the Beeb and part of me thinks if you are annoying both sides you're doing a good job.
I presume the problem is the enforced annual subscription known as the licence fee. Unfortunately, that looks a relic of a bygone age. Television is as much a commodity as anything else. You can have as much or as little tv as you want or are willing to pay for.
Perhaps we should treat television like the Health Service - basically free at point of viewing but with a few extra channels available (call it BUPA-vision) for those who want to pay. As long as we have a basic entitlement of entertainment, education and information available to all free of charge, those who want the frills or thills of Netflix or Racing TV and the like can pay.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
Including funding out of general taxation? Are they strongly opposed to that?
I'd support funding from general taxation I think - we can't have a system when some pay and some don't and get away with it. If general taxation - the big salaries would have to be capped.
Wonder what's left that can be handed out for free, now that bicycles, baby-boxes, tuition fees, prescriptions, etc, are all available at no cost (at least, to the recipients). Hypodermics, perhaps?
Wonder what's left that can be handed out for free, now that bicycles, baby-boxes, tuition fees, prescriptions, etc, are all available at no cost (at least, to the recipients). Hypodermics, perhaps?
My guess is that diabetes sufferers already avail themselves of this method of insulin delivery, yes.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
BBC Good Food magazine/website is owned by Immediate Media and has a licence to use the BBC brand from BBC Worldwide.
That might represent a blurred line about the use of the brand.. but it isn't (nor I think has it ever been) subsidised from the licence fee.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I must confess I'm fairly agnostic about all of this.
I do detect a hint of political "revenge" from many on the Right (the BBC has never been "one of us") but to be fair the Left also feels habitually wronged by the Beeb and part of me thinks if you are annoying both sides you're doing a good job.
I presume the problem is the enforced annual subscription known as the licence fee. Unfortunately, that looks a relic of a bygone age. Television is as much a commodity as anything else. You can have as much or as little tv as you want or are willing to pay for.
Perhaps we should treat television like the Health Service - basically free at point of viewing but with a few extra channels available (call it BUPA-vision) for those who want to pay. As long as we have a basic entitlement of entertainment, education and information available to all free of charge, those who want the frills or thills of Netflix or Racing TV and the like can pay.
The crux of the problem I keep coming back to, the licence fee itself is totally unenforceable in this modern age. It is only total idiots who get caught watching tv without, they can't check anything, and Capita have no real powers. This idea of connecting a licence to a physical property that receives a signal is totally outdated.
And that before you get onto the totally outdated idea that I have to buy one even if I don't want to watch any of the BBC output rather the 100s of other channels, but on the flipside I don't need one to watch all non-live "tv" except iPlayer.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Not against this in theory, but some reservations:
* News at Six is still regularly in the 10 most-watched live broadcasts. It's a mistake to think that people no longer bother. By contrast, Sky, GBTV etc have small audiences. * How confident are we that the part covered by general taxation (presumably news, Panomara etc.) would not be stripped back if it was perceived as being critical? Even if the government was utterly scrupulous, might it not have a chilling effect? * Just personally, I think BBC programming is vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of stuff on Sky. I'm not sure why - perhaps they just cater for my old-fashioned taste. But I'd worry that commercialing would lead them into the same (IMO) pit of crapness.
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
I am buggered if I can tell any qualitative difference between the BBC and Sky in terms of "crapness". They are equally crap, in general, but Sky has more choice and can sometimes be great
Tonight on BBC one: The One Show, Britain's Killer Roads, Eastenders, Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure, Who Do You Think You Are, News
So: mediocre magazine pap, ludicrous "documentary", really awful badly acted soap opera, mad shit trying to copy Jeremy Clarkson, tired formulaic personal history, news
ie Not a single thing here that I will ever ever watch, apart from maybe the News but only IF there is a major national/international news story, but even then I would watch it on the BBC 24 News Channel immediately, or Sky News, or Fox, or CNN, or Al Jazeera, or wherever, I won't "wait for News at Ten"
Sky no longer has a premium channel like BBC One, it is split into multiple channels you can stream, and I can find sad old repeats, more old repeats, some good repeats, but also Sky Comedy, Sky Nature, Sky History, Sky Arts, with a billion programmes of which I could certainly tolerate a couple of dozen
This is the thing. It is only old or incurious people who still "tune into BBC One" and settle down to watch it. Most people just don't do that anymore. I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV and "selected BBC One". It is not how I consume TV any more, and no one under 40 even understands the idea of channel selection
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Wiki
Mmm... Certainly tough compared with Johnson, Sunak, Rees-Mogg, and most of the other Tory patricians, but more like the experience of many from the summary above. Hard for any child to lose a parent so young. Not sure about the "paying her way through sixth-form college" - no fees at that time.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I must confess I'm fairly agnostic about all of this.
I do detect a hint of political "revenge" from many on the Right (the BBC has never been "one of us") but to be fair the Left also feels habitually wronged by the Beeb and part of me thinks if you are annoying both sides you're doing a good job.
I presume the problem is the enforced annual subscription known as the licence fee. Unfortunately, that looks a relic of a bygone age. Television is as much a commodity as anything else. You can have as much or as little tv as you want or are willing to pay for.
Perhaps we should treat television like the Health Service - basically free at point of viewing but with a few extra channels available (call it BUPA-vision) for those who want to pay. As long as we have a basic entitlement of entertainment, education and information available to all free of charge, those who want the frills or thills of Netflix or Racing TV and the like can pay.
There is a legitimate "conservative" argument for the BBC. Great, national, unifying institution. Also important for "soft" power projection given its unimpeachable reputation for journalistic integrity. And, somehow, intrinsically, British. Whether that's an argument for the licence fee is moot, but care for its future is important. It's a significant national asset.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
BBC Good Food magazine/website is owned by Immediate Media and has a licence to use the BBC brand from BBC Worldwide.
That might represent a blurred line about the use of the brand.. but it isn't (nor I think has it ever been) subsidised from the licence fee.
No, you are confusing two things. BBC Good Food and BBC Food....
I mentioned this exact fact down thread....people think BBC Good Food is the BBC, it isn't. At one point it was a BBC worldwide owned operations, but they sold it....
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
BBC Good Food magazine/website is owned by Immediate Media and has a licence to use the BBC brand from BBC Worldwide.
That might represent a blurred line about the use of the brand.. but it isn't (nor I think has it ever been) subsidised from the licence fee.
But you can - or you could - just go on the BBC website and download any BBC Good Food recipe. That's the point
So cooking magazines were fucked. Of course you could argue they were fucked anyway by free content on the internet, but the BBC happily accelerated that process
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
Wonder what's left that can be handed out for free, now that bicycles, baby-boxes, tuition fees, prescriptions, etc, are all available at no cost (at least, to the recipients). Hypodermics, perhaps?
Wonder what's left that can be handed out for free, now that bicycles, baby-boxes, tuition fees, prescriptions, etc, are all available at no cost (at least, to the recipients). Hypodermics, perhaps?
My guess is that diabetes sufferers already avail themselves of this method of insulin delivery, yes.
Not for druggies, who get oral methadone. Though not allowing them to buy the things was how an Edinburgh police chief started the HIV epidemic in that city in the Trainspotting 1 era. One could get them from a little medical supplies shop in the Pubic Triangle until boss polis leant on the shop, AIUI.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
The thing is the BBC have already basically set this structure up with BBC Studios and UKTV....its just they don't like to shout about it, in case somebody might suggest your approach...
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
I knew the BBC had a stake in UKTV but didn’t realise it was wholly one owned by the BBC. It explains why they premiere some new stuff on the channel.
The BBC have a long history of this sort of thing e.g. they bought the Lonely Planet publisher.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
BBC Good Food is another prime example
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
Yes that's a good example where the BBC eat others lunch....so they have in the past hollowed out any competition by getting into sectors they really shouldn't be in.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
BBC Good Food magazine/website is owned by Immediate Media and has a licence to use the BBC brand from BBC Worldwide.
That might represent a blurred line about the use of the brand.. but it isn't (nor I think has it ever been) subsidised from the licence fee.
But you can - or you could - just go on the BBC website and download any BBC Good Food recipe. That's the point
So cooking magazines were fucked. Of course you could argue they were fucked anyway by free content on the internet, but the BBC happily accelerated that process
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Wiki
Mmm... Certainly tough compared with Johnson, Sunak, Rees-Mogg, and most of the other Tory patricians, but more like the experience of many from the summary above. Hard for any child to lose a parent so young. Not sure about the "paying her way through sixth-form college" - no fees at that time.
Be fantastic if someone neutralised Truss's "I'm a woman, remind you of anyone?" shtick.
On the tennis betting, so as expected Djoko bets were voided by betfair exchange and a new market formed without him. Therefore I also expected the equivalent of a Rule 4 deduction on bets matched on other players prior to the withdrawal. A chunky one too since the 'horse' pulled out was a short price. But it's not the case. No adjustment was made. Great for me as a backer - of Zverev and Sinner if you're interested - but I'd feel rather pissed off if I had lay bets.
I've been left with a tenner on Nadal at 14 (now 7).
A gift. And my Sinner is 30 instead of 60.
So in fact the whole premise of your first point was wrong. The prices did indeed adjust.
But no adjustment to the price of matched bets on other players prior to Djoko's withdrawal. This is the point I'm making.
Incidentally, I fear the failure to make good decisions might prove fatal for the BBC, if the licence fee ends and their attempted alternative is a catastrophe.
That's why talk of the licence fee ending (from the Government) is stupid until they and/or the BBC have conceived of a well-considered alternative.
However, given the political class' answer to Scottish nationalism has seen the union come within a whisker of being destroyed at the ballot box I am not confident such a thing will happen.
When it has previously been raised with the BBC they have never been willing to consider any alternative though. Other means of extra funding but the license fee had to stay.
An Audiovisual Tax is probably the best approach because it can be graduated according to income and is already used elsewhere. Yes, it means another tax but, given the licence fee is regressive, there is a good argument for it.
Split off BBC Public Service and BBC Commercial Limited. The former can be funded out of general taxation and covers radio, local news and sports coverage that isn't football, cricket or rugby. BBC Commercial becomes a the primary owner of all BBC content ever produced and all of the current relationships and is floated on the LSE with the state holding a parliamentary bound golden share (as in, it would need an act of parliament to sell it) to prevent a foreign takeover. BBC Commercial Limited becomes a subscription and advertising funded company, it also gives up BBC1 to the public service channel which doesn't have adverts and can show select BBC Commercial shows for a period of 10 years for a fixed fee (shit like EastEnders that no one would pay to watch but is still fairly popular). BBC Commercial Limited keeps all of the funds from the IPO and uses it to buyout scads of UK production companies it's already partnered with and from then on it reserves global rights to all of its shows to put on a globally facing streaming service, all existing rights that have been sold piecemeal are allowed to expire so 4-6 years from now iPlayer is able to have a standard offering of all BBC content like Disney+ across the whole world.
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Split it up into modules:
News & traffic Weather Sport Childrens Light Entertainment & drama Natural History Radio Arts etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
No, that's never going to work. It needs to be a catch all service like Netflix. Local news/weather/sport/radio can be funded out of general taxation. Everything should be done commercially and not limited by the licence fee.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
I don't see why it shouldn't become a smaller, more focused entity. There is no divine right to have a state broadcaster. Its news would be worth perhaps £4.99/month of anyone's money.
The issue is that you're still thinking in the same outmoded way that the BBC is. A £4.99/m service would be competing with Sky News which is free and GB News which is also free. Are we really saying that people will pay up £4.99 on their Sky bill just to get BBC News? I find that extremely unlikely.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
Not against this in theory, but some reservations:
* News at Six is still regularly in the 10 most-watched live broadcasts. It's a mistake to think that people no longer bother. By contrast, Sky, GBTV etc have small audiences. * How confident are we that the part covered by general taxation (presumably news, Panomara etc.) would not be stripped back if it was perceived as being critical? Even if the government was utterly scrupulous, might it not have a chilling effect? * Just personally, I think BBC programming is vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of stuff on Sky. I'm not sure why - perhaps they just cater for my old-fashioned taste. But I'd worry that commercialing would lead them into the same (IMO) pit of crapness.
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
I am buggered if I can tell any qualitative difference between the BBC and Sky in terms of "crapness". They are equally crap, in general, but Sky has more choice and can sometimes be great
Tonight on BBC one: The One Show, Britain's Killer Roads, Eastenders, Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure, Who Do You Think You Are, News
So: mediocre magazine pap, ludicrous "documentary", really awful badly acted soap opera, mad shit trying to copy Jeremy Clarkson, tired formulaic personal history, news
ie Not a single thing here that I will ever ever watch, apart from maybe the News but only IF there is a major national/international news story, but even then I would watch it on the BBC 24 News Channel immediately, or Sky News, or Fox, or CNN, or Al Jazeera, or wherever, I won't "wait for News at Ten"
Sky no longer has a premium channel like BBC One, it is split into multiple channels you can stream, and I can find sad old repeats, more old repeats, some good repeats, but also Sky Comedy, Sky Nature, Sky History, Sky Arts, with a billion programmes of which I could certainly tolerate a couple of dozen
This is the thing. It is only old or incurious people who still "tune into BBC One" and settle down to watch it. Most people just don't do that anymore. I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV and "selected BBC One". It is not how I consume TV any more, and no one under 40 even understands the idea of channel selection
Agree generally. But Who do you Think you are? Is one of my guilty pleasures. At its best it is random social history. Often on topics no one would ever commission a programme about.
Comments
That's how I would restructure the BBC. One commercial channel, pushing everyone to streaming as much as possible and eventually even getting rid of the one broadcast channel.
Or is there a level of prevalence of covid at which you would support demasking?
The trade minister is backed by multiple Tories elected in 2019 amid a belief she can unify the party
An ally says she's "focused on doing her job"...
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/penny-mordaunt-emerges-as-dark-horse-candidate-to-succeed-boris-johnson
Most people I talk to have no idea that UKTV is 100% owned by the BBC, many don't even have a clue the BBC have any ownership of the likes of Dave.
And then you have the opposite, some things branded BBC aren't BBC at all. BBC Good Food isn't the BBC.
News & traffic
Weather
Sport
Childrens
Light Entertainment & drama
Natural History
Radio
Arts
etc
And charge a monthly sub per module - a pick and mix.
Of an AYCE at the current license fee level.
The BBC needs to be able to get to £10bn in revenue in 5 years time, that's a 2.5x per year increase from today. The licence fee or keeping its current structure with some modular basis won't work. If it can't do that it becomes a small inwardly facing producer of EastEnders and Strictly Come Dancing.
Ms Sturgeon being rather unkind to poor Mr Ross:
'“It’s not just about Boris Johnson the individual,” she said. “It’s about a Conservative Party that enabled and facilitated somebody like Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister in the first place.
“It’s not as if these character flaws that people are now seeing very clearly in Boris Johnson weren’t known about before.
“So yeah, Douglas Ross has now called for his resignation. But Douglas Ross enthusiastically supported Boris Johnson in his attempt to become leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.”
Back in 2019, during the Tory leadership election, Ross announced he would be voting for Johnson in the second round of the contest. His preference in the first round was Mark Harper, who was eliminated after securing support from just 3.2% of MPs.
Ross said in a tweet: “Since the first round result I've spoken with many of the candidates and decided, with the breadth of support they have across the party and their vision for the future of our country, today I will @BackBoris."
He also wrote for the Scotsman setting out how Johnson would "strengthen the Union by delivering Brexit".'
But it's a good point already made by some on PB as regards the Tories generally. Cock crowing thrice, and all that, except for a few loyalists.
The collective noun for such people is: selfish.
The problem is that the one party that seems to actively want to make the necessary changes is the Tory party however by virtue of it being the Tory party it creates an almost reflexive resistance to change from anyone on the other side who might realise that both institutions are far from perfect but cannot demand change because it’s Tory.
Somewhat amusing that Tories are the “conservative” party who are supposed to value the status quo more than the progressives who should be tearing up the status quo to improve life for the masses!
https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_23_dec_2021.pdf
Page 8 says that, under their most optimistic scenario (low immune escape, high booster efficacy), and no further control measures beyond the initial Plan B measures, the 95% confidence interval of deaths from December 2021 - April 2022 would be 19,500–28,700. That assumes no reduction in severity being Delta and Omicron, beyond the fact that much more of the population now has immunity.
We are currently at around 6k deaths from 1 December, running at just over 200/day, which will probably peak soon and then decline.
Let's assume:
- next two weeks: 350 per day over the peak of the wave (5k total)
- February: similar to first half of wave, 150 per day on average (4k total)
- March/April: attritional rate of say 50 per day (3k total)
That is 18k total. So, it would be simple for the modellers to argue that the current situation was (just about) included in their model, allowing for say a 10% reduction in actual underlying severity.
The "most optimistic scenario" median estimate of 2.4k hospitalisations per day currently looks bang on.
The problem is, that they modelled four different possible scenarios for immune escape and booster efficacy, and we had no way of knowing which one was "right". When you merge together all four confidence intervals, you get something like a peak of hospitalisations of anything from 1,760 to 10,040 - or less than half the previous record to more than double it. With such a massive range of possible outcomes, the modelling is essentially useless for decision making, unless you take the view that you must assume the worst reasonable case scenario. This is effectively what the press did, and it seems what some figures in the DoH did as well.
Even by @MrEd 's bizarre standards that one stood out.
Certainly not stockbrokers and Eton
"Mordaunt was born on 4 March 1973 in Torquay, Devon. The daughter of a former paratrooper, one of twins, she was named after the Arethusa-class cruiser HMS Penelope.[10] Her father, John Mordaunt, born at Hilsea Barracks, served in the Parachute Regiment before retraining as a teacher. Mordaunt has two brothers: James and a younger brother, Edward.[11]... Mordaunt was educated at Oaklands Roman Catholic Academy School [state, co-ed]
"When Mordaunt was 15 her mother died of breast cancer. Mordaunt's twin brother left school, so she became Edward's prime caregiver. The following year her father was diagnosed with cancer, from which he recovered. To pay her way through sixth-form college, Mordaunt became a magician's assistant to Portsmouth magician Will Ayling, who was once president of The Magic Circle.[15]"
Wiki
I think most people think that the BBC produces most of its own programmes in house, that it never runs any adverts nor owns a commercial ad funded network of channels. When in fact it outsources most of the production, it has a vast commercial arm already, runs ads on its website for overseas visitors and owns UKTV.
As we found out yesterday somebody popped up and said well look the BBC make Call the Midwife, they wouldn't do that if the BBC was commercial, and then it was pointed out, it isn't made by the BBC at all.
The name alone would give it a fighting chance of surviving but it will need the content of Britbox and others to provide a core critical mass of content to compensate for the recent shows that are currently licensed / shown elsewhere abroad.
Their track record though suggests the only change they actually want is privatisation.
It's no coincidence that the institutions the Tories hate the most are Nationalised
Edit: I'm no longer sure SAGE were not looking at the Warwick model as well. If they were, that's a... problem.
"Tim White
@TWMCLtd
Meanwhile #Denmark sets a new all-time record and its 7-day infection rate hits 4,000 AD/M for the first time. France + Ireland are the only other major countries to reach this level.
28,780 new #Covid19 cases today, almost exactly double last Monday. 11 more have died.
The figures from #Denmark obviously concerning as we watch the BA.2 strain of #Omicron.
I also have to report the number of Danish #Covid19 patients hospitalised is now at its highest level for almost exactly a year (18 Jan 2021)
A rise of 68 today to 802
But in ICU just 52 (-7)
#Denmark's rise in #Covid19 hospitalisations could well be in line with the increase and rapid growth of infections in the wider community. So people needing treatment for something else, happen to test positive.
If BA2 became dominant 2 weeks ago it's good ICU numbers are low"
https://twitter.com/TWMCLtd/status/1483065330939437058?s=20
Were we to go back 10 years Around the World in 80 days would look brilliant, now we can spot the areas in which shortcuts were taken to save money - just compare it to a Netflix / Amazon / HBO production.
That's all fine, but it makes a mockery of well we couldn't possibly run any ads or be involved in commercial activities, it would compromise our integrity.
The channels are going the way of the dodo, the TV is primarily becoming the household's main streaming device after years of mobiles and tablets eating into its share. TVs getting bigger is a huge part of this and again, the modern TV watcher with a 55" or 65" one wants content that will wow them and they are willing to pay £12 per month to Netflix to get it. The reality where the BBC is still bound to produce news or sports coverage on a commercial basis doesn't exist, there's just no money in it without live sport.
The public service element can be stripped back to bare essentials and funded from general taxation, the commercial parts should be able to properly use commercial avenues to compete.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=hvLcYUXBBuc
I've seen them for many years in Singapore, HK, Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, richer bits of China. It is viewed as common courtesy that, if you think you have a cold or flu or some other respiratory bug, you mask up, so you don't cough or sneeze your germs over everyone else. As you should, frankly
It is one of several ways in which they are simply more civilised than us.
Cf bum guns
This meant that the value was in backing Djokovic at a good price in the knowledge you would get your money back if he didn't start. Which is what I did.
The NHS is untouchable and the Tories are not going to do down a US style private insurance model. The latter only became Network Rail as the privatised Railtrack was such a disaster.
So that only leaves the BBC to privatise and fund by ads and subscription, ending the licence fee, certainly exclusive to the BBC
But the proposal from Max is, essentially, to spin off Studios through flotation with a deal for a period with BBC public service but essentially a private concern with commercial revenues through ads and subs. So, rather like Ocado being spun off by Waitrose but no longer acting for them, in ten years time you essentially have a rump BBC doing minority stuff.
I think it's deeply flawed for many reasons. These include that spinning off tends to immediately destroy value in Studios (i.e. not a very attractive investment without the public service side link), that the revenues are lost to public service broadcasting (Dave ad revenues do in fact help pay for BBC services), and that the BBC itself becomes a husk if it just does a bit of netball and news local news (much of the argument for the BBC is you can slip people a bit of this precisely because they are watching for the popular shows). In reality, I think it is two proposals masquerading as one - firstly slash BBC funding and, secondly, spin off a production company raising a few quid and recreating some of the momentary drama and excitement of "tell Sid" for those of a certain age.
However, I see that it is different from the current commercial arm arrangements.
I expect yet another bollocking for the Tories from the Speaker.
When the BBC was thinking of axing it everyone said OH no, how can they do that, these evil Tories where will they stop.......
Until it was pointed out that BBC Good Food was handed out "free" (actually not free, of course, but funded by almost every taxpayer in the land whether we like it or not) AND meanwhile, because it was "free" BBC Good Food was driving paid-for cooking magazines out of business, so seriously damaging the ecosystem and destroying journalistic jobs
It is bollocks like this that needs to be sorted FIRST
I think you're missing my point, there's no money in local news or local radio, it's a market that is completely propped up by the licence fee payer and is why the commercial aspects of BBC productions are utterly incapable of competing with the firepower that Netflix, Sony or Disney have got. They can't expand their revenue lines easily, they have got very high fixed costs for what is essentially perpetually loss making TV and radio production and they also have a public which wants to be wowed by production quality that we see in The Crown or The Witcher.
The problem now of course that model is changing itself. YouTube allows people to do global cooking and it very popular. So the BBC have in the past put a load of other people out of business, now they are continuing to ask for money to fund this vast empire for "public good", when I can go on YouTube and find everybody from Gordon Ramsey to a bloke from Weston Super Mare showing me how to cook recipes. There is no need for BBC to be doing free recipes.
A 10 day suspension from Parliament would be the minimum required to stop a minister from performing such a trick and even that only works at times like this where the consequences would be a successful recall petition.
* News at Six is still regularly in the 10 most-watched live broadcasts. It's a mistake to think that people no longer bother. By contrast, Sky, GBTV etc have small audiences.
* How confident are we that the part covered by general taxation (presumably news, Panomara etc.) would not be stripped back if it was perceived as being critical? Even if the government was utterly scrupulous, might it not have a chilling effect?
* Just personally, I think BBC programming is vastly superior to the overwhelming majority of stuff on Sky. I'm not sure why - perhaps they just cater for my old-fashioned taste. But I'd worry that commercialing would lead them into the same (IMO) pit of crapness.
Declasration of interest - I sub to Netflix at £5.99, and watch their stuff occasionally. Their range is generally downmarket too, though that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2019/1/contents
The Speaker needs to censure ministers who do this, irrespective of the nature of the announcement or what we personally think of it.
There isn't even enough money in local advertising to pay for more than 6-8 hours of local content a day.
Video, generally, is a pain. Give me a recipe book or simple printed recipe any bloody day.
She is, I think, pretty anti-Boris despite being pro-Brexit. I remember her face when the result of the leadership contest was announced when Boris won - she had a front row seat at the declaration. Looked like she'd swallowed a wasp. She was then summarily sacked as Defence Secretary, her dream job, despite having only being in post for a few weeks. Has been rehabilitated a bit since, by being made Paymaster General. If Rishi blows up she is certainly a very interesting alternative - much more presentable than Liz Truss. One to watch.
I think the government will be delighted by this.
(And, to be fair, the opposition haven't offered much in the way of constructive thought beyond 'save the BBC.)
Another few years and it will be too late.
PENNY MORDAUNT is the topic du jour
#johnsonout
As for your personal tastes, that's fine but at the same time I'd be pretty sure that what you're watching on the BBC isn't in fact made by them, they just licence the UK broadcasting rights. Line of Duty is the one that people get really confused by, it's made by ITV, so was The Bodyguard, The Fall was a subsidiary of EndemolShine. It's actually very rare for any high end BBC show to actually be made in house these days. The Bake Off was the one where people actually discovered it. A programme that the whole nation associated with the BBC was actually made by some outside company that wasn't the BBC.
6,221 Cases
Only 2300 are PCR tests.
OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT FIGURES are going to very rapidly show Scotland with zero covid at this rate.
I may have answered differently had the woeful Laura K decided to stick around.
I do detect a hint of political "revenge" from many on the Right (the BBC has never been "one of us") but to be fair the Left also feels habitually wronged by the Beeb and part of me thinks if you are annoying both sides you're doing a good job.
I presume the problem is the enforced annual subscription known as the licence fee. Unfortunately, that looks a relic of a bygone age. Television is as much a commodity as anything else. You can have as much or as little tv as you want or are willing to pay for.
Perhaps we should treat television like the Health Service - basically free at point of viewing but with a few extra channels available (call it BUPA-vision) for those who want to pay. As long as we have a basic entitlement of entertainment, education and information available to all free of charge, those who want the frills or thills of Netflix or Racing TV and the like can pay.
https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/1483035105098616832?s=20
That might represent a blurred line about the use of the brand.. but it isn't (nor I think has it ever been) subsidised from the licence fee.
And that before you get onto the totally outdated idea that I have to buy one even if I don't want to watch any of the BBC output rather the 100s of other channels, but on the flipside I don't need one to watch all non-live "tv" except iPlayer.
Tonight on BBC one: The One Show, Britain's Killer Roads, Eastenders, Kelvin's Big Farming Adventure, Who Do You Think You Are, News
So: mediocre magazine pap, ludicrous "documentary", really awful badly acted soap opera, mad shit trying to copy Jeremy Clarkson, tired formulaic personal history, news
ie Not a single thing here that I will ever ever watch, apart from maybe the News but only IF there is a major national/international news story, but even then I would watch it on the BBC 24 News Channel immediately, or Sky News, or Fox, or CNN, or Al Jazeera, or wherever, I won't "wait for News at Ten"
Sky no longer has a premium channel like BBC One, it is split into multiple channels you can stream, and I can find sad old repeats, more old repeats, some good repeats, but also Sky Comedy, Sky Nature, Sky History, Sky Arts, with a billion programmes of which I could certainly tolerate a couple of dozen
This is the thing. It is only old or incurious people who still "tune into BBC One" and settle down to watch it. Most people just don't do that anymore. I can't remember the last time I turned on the TV and "selected BBC One". It is not how I consume TV any more, and no one under 40 even understands the idea of channel selection
I mentioned this exact fact down thread....people think BBC Good Food is the BBC, it isn't. At one point it was a BBC worldwide owned operations, but they sold it....
However, https://www.bbc.co.uk/food is the BBC.
So they eat other lunch, then spun off the BBC Good Food brand. But they also eat try to eat others lunch with the BBC website food.
The problem is that both are getting eaten by the likes of YouTube.
So cooking magazines were fucked. Of course you could argue they were fucked anyway by free content on the internet, but the BBC happily accelerated that process
But Who do you Think you are? Is one of my guilty pleasures.
At its best it is random social history. Often on topics no one would ever commission a programme about.