Boris Johnson prizes loyalty to him above all else. And as he is the least loyal person, in every conceivable way, that public life has ever known, only the very stupidest people would ever be loyal to him. And this is where it ends. https://twitter.com/NewStatesman/status/1463856383598735362
We saw that (the idiocy of being loyal) during the pandemic. No surer sign was there that a policy would be continued/rescinded than a minister coming on to the radio that morning saying it would be rescinded/continued.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
Channel4, or whichever incarnation it is of it - All4, etc, has the most extraordinary (and currently free, albeit with ads) back catalogue of mini-series. I'm sure there will be a plan by a private owner further to monetise that beyond ad revenue. Or perhaps the ad revenue is very healthy.
There was a time when it was very healthy and, as part of the provisions of the terrible broadcasting act, they ended up giving a chunk to ITV.
I wonder just how much of the channel 4 back catalogue is their property and able to be exploited by them or any new owner and quite how they would exploit it. Sell it to streaming services like Netflix perhaps.
Looking through their portfolio on all4 makes me feel a little sad as, It’s a Sin aside, there’s really little of any merit there from recent times.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
Cathy Newman interviewing Jordan Peterson now has 37 million views!
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source?
@BartholomewRoberts is your man for that. He looks at everything but the Beeb for everything.
Since the pandemic, I've made every effort to avoid the BBC for news. The only interaction I have with it is news bulletins on radio 6 - even then I switch over as often as not. Even before the pandemic, I can't remember the last time I went out of my way to watch broadcast news. And I'm someone who is quite interested in news.
Yep same here - if I need an update on the news then I come to PB (and also perhaps the occasional bbc news website browse first thing in the morning).
Maybe attitudes will start to change as nearly 20,000 body bags come back to Russia, or maybe Putin can gloss over that too.
The majority of KIAs will be from backwards shitholes in places like Dagestan and Ingushetia with dirt roads and a donkey for mayor. It won't matter a fucking jot.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
The thing is, Channel 4 News doesn't only have a periodic left-wing slant, but also, very often and in many different types of contexts, too, a clear upmarket and in-depth, analytical slant, compared to virtually every other current news programme on British TV ( this wasn't the case 25 years ago). That also costs money ; Newsnight is a shadow of its former self since the huge cuts to its budget, for instance, and this money will probably be the first to go under privatisation.
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
Maybe attitudes will start to change as nearly 20,000 body bags come back to Russia, or maybe Putin can gloss over that too.
The majority of KIAs will be from backwards shitholes in places like Dagestan and Ingushetia with dirt roads and a donkey for mayor. It won't matter a fucking jot.
I’m sure their wives and mothers might notice them not coming back, especially to a small village.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
The 25 year olds I know get most news via social media. So it is all kinds of mainstream news TV snippets, YouTube, viral vids, memes, daily mail articles, you name it - but filtered through the prism of Facebook, TikTok, insta, etc etc etc
I don’t know a 25 year old that “sits down to watch the BBC News at Ten”. But then the group of 25 year olds I know might be *self selecting*
Incidentally Twitter is excellent for news gathering. You simply type in the search bar what news topic you want to explore - “US government UFOs”, “wokeness”, “lab leak Covid” - to take three random examples - and you get a superb curated stream of the latest/most important news on that subject. It’s brilliant. It’s the one reason I don’t entirely leave Twitter (which can otherwise be toxic)
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
Maybe attitudes will start to change as nearly 20,000 body bags come back to Russia, or maybe Putin can gloss over that too.
The majority of KIAs will be from backwards shitholes in places like Dagestan and Ingushetia with dirt roads and a donkey for mayor. It won't matter a fucking jot.
And Putin has reimposed the ban on sending conscripts to fight, so the teenage sons of Russian mothers won't be the ones coming back with the odd limb missing.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
So I’m just over a quarter of the way into my trek to Figueres (9 miles in, 23 to go) and stopped for my first break. It feels a tad early to have my first beer of the day, but it’s the only drink I’ve got with me and the riverside seemed a nice place to sit down for a few minutes. I’ve been looking out for wildlife, but so far just seen a couple of burros.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
Then I read articles from multiple points of view, not just what some suit at a TV network thinks I'm allowed to know.
Looks about right for Labour TBH although looks far too high for the SNP (they probably won't get more than 35-38%) and a bit too low for the Tories. Greens and LDs probably also underestimated.
Good morning. The news about onshore wind is profoundly depressing. It seems we will wean ourselves off foreign fossil fuels by doing, erm, pretty much the same as we have always done.
I take it there's no major expansion.
That is indeed bad news.
i. It's the quickest form of energy generation, onshore wind can be put up in 6 months to a year iirc. ii. It's the cheapest at ~ 4p/kwh production, even with backup diesel it only goes to 5p or so. iii. It's green, not that I could really give a shit at this point - but it helps in the good old court of public opinion and all that. iv. No existential danger unlike nuclear. v. We've made loads of turbines so it's a very known tech.
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
We've been having quite a few 6 per cent figures for the SNP anyway of late - but like the other subssamples it is about
With both @Jeremy_Hunt and @TomTugendhat now coming out in opposition to privatisation of @Channel4, it's a reminder the PM has to take his party with him to any pass legislation. Q now is whether the numbers are there. https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1511245649379049473 They asked for ‘a debate’; 90% of submissions in that debate said it was a bad idea. But still they go ahead. Why do they want to make the UK’s great TV industry worse? Why? It makes no business, economic or even patriotic sense.
Because it's Nadine Dorries and she cannot understand complex ideas from beyond the 1950s.
Nads is just in a huff because C4 hasn't televisualised her filth.
Please don't do that. I'm not even past the coffeeshed.
Happy memories of Mary Whitehouse-certified Red Spot films on C4 in my bachelor shared house days ... a call to get the cider and sit on the sofa, at least for those of us with an artistic mind.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
Sometimes it sucks to be the government. Wars and pandemics are beyond their control, but people will still be upset at the inflation.
For extra shooting-themselves-in-the-foot points, trying and failing to regulate domestic energy prices leaves themselves responsible for the rises, in the eyes of many consumers.
Maybe attitudes will start to change as nearly 20,000 body bags come back to Russia, or maybe Putin can gloss over that too.
The majority of KIAs will be from backwards shitholes in places like Dagestan and Ingushetia with dirt roads and a donkey for mayor. It won't matter a fucking jot.
And Putin has reimposed the ban on sending conscripts to fight, so the teenage sons of Russian mothers won't be the ones coming back with the odd limb missing.
Its the poor, uneducated and those from ethnic minorities who are most easily coerced into converting from conscript to 'contrakti' status. The only difference between conscript/non-conscript is a bit of paper.
Good morning. The news about onshore wind is profoundly depressing. It seems we will wean ourselves off foreign fossil fuels by doing, erm, pretty much the same as we have always done.
Yes. I am disappointed.
The emphasis on nuclear doesn't make much sense in the context of making a rapid response to either the Russian crisis, the current crisis in high fossil fuel costs, or the climate crisis. They take too long to build.
With tidal still absent it means that we're relying completely on rapidly expanding offshore wind - which is fine, but can only take us so far on its own.
It had looked as though the urgency of the moment would overcome opposition, but unfortunately not.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
One of your weaker arguments.
Indeed.
Hurray for channels.
I go to my telly and in a split second can watch what I like in 4K/HD without faffing around with computers / ‘devices’.
My four tellies are all linked so I can record on one and watch on another. I can screen on demand, through my TVs.
Telly is far better than computer ‘apps’ - I have them if I need them. I rarely use them.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
Then I read articles from multiple points of view, not just what some suit at a TV network thinks I'm allowed to know.
Fair enough, you've changed my mind. (How often do you see THAT on PB?)
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
There have been quite a few 6% scores for the SNP in recent polls - including the one just posted below. But subsamples and rounding ... about as useful for measuring as an elastic tapemeasure.
On Channel 4, unless I'm mistaken Dorries made the announcement that it is to be privatised straight after Parliament stood down for the Easter recess.
The Speaker will not be happy. And nor should anybody who thinks, like me, that a major announcement about the future (or lack of future) of a public service broadcaster should be made to the House of Commons in the first instance.
Maybe attitudes will start to change as nearly 20,000 body bags come back to Russia, or maybe Putin can gloss over that too.
The majority of KIAs will be from backwards shitholes in places like Dagestan and Ingushetia with dirt roads and a donkey for mayor. It won't matter a fucking jot.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
And the things that can be done to soothe some of the pain at the edges for the worst-hit are unlikely to happen because that's not how this government rolls.
But it's not really the government's fault, bad stuff happens and the government can't stop it, because stuff is too big. It's why "Take Back Control" was both so potent and so dishonest a slogan.
It's also why "events, dear boy" is one of the wisest bits of political wisdom out there.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
Sometimes it sucks to be the government. Wars and pandemics are beyond their control, but people will still be upset at the inflation.
For extra shooting-themselves-in-the-foot points, trying and failing to regulate domestic energy prices leaves themselves responsible for the rises, in the eyes of many consumers.
Indeed. The polls are going to be terrible for the government probably right up until the start of the election campaign.
At which point SKS has to find something to offer that is better - and believable.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
Channel4, or whichever incarnation it is of it - All4, etc, has the most extraordinary (and currently free, albeit with ads) back catalogue of mini-series. I'm sure there will be a plan by a private owner further to monetise that beyond ad revenue. Or perhaps the ad revenue is very healthy.
There was a time when it was very healthy and, as part of the provisions of the terrible broadcasting act, they ended up giving a chunk to ITV.
I wonder just how much of the channel 4 back catalogue is their property and able to be exploited by them or any new owner and quite how they would exploit it. Sell it to streaming services like Netflix perhaps.
Looking through their portfolio on all4 makes me feel a little sad as, It’s a Sin aside, there’s really little of any merit there from recent times.
Oh I don't know - yes there are plenty that would have a smaller audience but looking down the 277 "Box Sets" there are some cracking series in there (This is England, Shameless, Queer as Folk, Skins, etc).
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
One advantage of broadcast news is that it is bounded. Except in rare circumstances the length of the bulletin is invariant. This means you can watch the news, you are informed (to an extent) and then it is over and you can do other things.
There have been some times recently when I've spent a lot of time looking at the latest twitter updates, etc, and there's no end to it. So when I find myself stuck like that I try to limit myself to just the broadcast news for a bit.
Though how long will it be before Bulgaria are actually flying those F16s ? Could be years. (And they’ve been negotiating this deal for a long time.)
Poland is a far more likely candidate for such a swap as it already flys F16s.
F-16 deliveries have been disrupted by shifting the production line from Fort Worth, TX to Greenville, NC to make room for more F-35 production in Texas. The next in the queue for new build Block 70s are Bahrain, then Taiwan, Morocco, Slovakia and Bulgaria. So it's Bahrain who would have to be convinced to give up their delivery slots.
The F-16 will have been in continuous production for 50 years when Bulgaria get theirs.
Romania did it the smart way. They spent a lot less on ex-Norwegian F-16s which will have spent most of their lives sitting QRA sheds and equally lightly used Portuguese examples.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
The thing is, Channel 4 News doesn't only have a periodic left-wing slant, but also, very often and in many different types of contexts, too, a clear upmarket and in-depth, analytical slant, compared to virtually every other current news programme on British TV ( this wasn't the case 25 years ago). That also costs money ; Newsnight is a shadow of its former self since the huge cuts to its budget, for instance, and this money will probably be the first to go under privatisation.
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
CH4 works fine. It's an asset to the broadcasting landscape, a public good, costs the taxpayer nothing. There's no problem to fix other than the one they're actually trying to fix - they don't like its politics. The 'cultural vandalism' charge stacks up imo.
So I’m just over a quarter of the way into my trek to Figueres (9 miles in, 23 to go) and stopped for my first break. It feels a tad early to have my first beer of the day, but it’s the only drink I’ve got with me and the riverside seemed a nice place to sit down for a few minutes. I’ve been looking out for wildlife, but so far just seen a couple of burros.
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
There was literally a full scotland poll out yesterday (by Survation no less). SNP were on 45% at Westminster.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
Then I read articles from multiple points of view, not just what some suit at a TV network thinks I'm allowed to know.
Fair enough, you've changed my mind. (How often do you see THAT on PB?)
The great thing about PB (or a carefully-curated Twitter feed, although the algorithm makes that harder) is that articles from multiple points of view will usually be posted. It's why I try to read all comments even when I can't post.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
Good morning. The news about onshore wind is profoundly depressing. It seems we will wean ourselves off foreign fossil fuels by doing, erm, pretty much the same as we have always done.
We need a mix. Onshore wind is more easily maintained but the powered generation capacity is lower than offshore. We should build the tidal lagoons in South Wales and think about the Solway firth to have a time offset for tidal capacity. We should rapidly develop the micro nuclear capability and build the long term nuclear waste storage repository. Quite a few of these schemes would flow money into the north and help local economies and jobs there. Also look at offshore wind to power seawater cracking to make hydrogen. There’s lots we should do and start now.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
The 25 year olds I know get most news via social media. So it is all kinds of mainstream news TV snippets, YouTube, viral vids, memes, daily mail articles, you name it - but filtered through the prism of Facebook, TikTok, insta, etc etc etc
I don’t know a 25 year old that “sits down to watch the BBC News at Ten”. But then the group of 25 year olds I know might be *self selecting*
Incidentally Twitter is excellent for news gathering. You simply type in the search bar what news topic you want to explore - “US government UFOs”, “wokeness”, “lab leak Covid” - to take three random examples - and you get a superb curated stream of the latest/most important news on that subject. It’s brilliant. It’s the one reason I don’t entirely leave Twitter (which can otherwise be toxic)
To take your 3 random examples; something must have made you pick them initially in the first place otherwise they are self selecting i.e they are only important because you are picking them not because they are actually important or relevant. So what made you focus in on these or any other topic.
In favour of Macron is Le Pens voters tend to have lower turnout and since 2017 she has underperformed her polling however the race is far too close for comfort .
The key polls will those taken after the 1st round . This is where we’ll see whether her support holds up . There’s one thing telling a pollster you’ll vote for her in the second round when that’s a more abstract concept .
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
I have never really watched their news. Their despatches used to be okay but I do have the second part of the Jeremy Kyle documentary to watch today as well. The first was okay.
Proof of concept for what is possibly the most quickly achievable way of building a commercial fusion plant to generate electricity.
Now, that is quite exciting. The laser approaches have looked promising, but this is an interesting alternative take.
Also, what a fun project to be working on. Sometimes I wish I'd stuck with physics (I had an interest in fusion at one point, but observed a jaded lecturer who'd spent most of his career at JET and had come to the conclusion that fusion would be forever just out of reach).
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
We are living in extremely dark times. I see no cause for optimism at all in this world
I realise this can appear to annoy people, but this is precisely why I've stopped looking at the News after my morning catch-up. Even then I only take a cursory look now. Too much hatred, violence, disrespect, nastiness, anger etc.
In my brief exchange I had with JJ this time yesterday I suggested that we can, to an extent, make our own reality. Or rather there are multiple realities. We can choose to live in a way that is happier and less stressed but it requires disengaging from a lot of modern particularly western life. At some points of my life I've lived in extremely remote locations, freed from the encumbrances of modern life. They were blissful times.
I think JJ inferred that this was escapism but I find no greater Reality than when I'm in contemplative meditation embedded in Mother Nature.
As I say, I accept that this is alternative but it works for me.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
The thing is, Channel 4 News doesn't only have a periodic left-wing slant, but also, very often and in many different types of contexts, too, a clear upmarket and in-depth, analytical slant, compared to virtually every other current news programme on British TV ( this wasn't the case 25 years ago). That also costs money ; Newsnight is a shadow of its former self since the huge cuts to its budget, for instance, and this money will probably be the first to go under privatisation.
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
Yep, I always liked it as 'grown up' news. Getting a bit of depth in an issue, rather than explaining all the basics every time like the BBC News (I understand why the BBC does that, it's important to be accessible, but C4 gave more for those who knew the basics already).
I didn't think C4 News had a left-wing slant particularly; I would acknowledge that it has a liberal slant. In recent years, that has often meant it has been somewhat in opposition to Conservative governments, but it also gave Labour a hard time over ID cards and the terror legislation.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
The thing is, Channel 4 News doesn't only have a periodic left-wing slant, but also, very often and in many different types of contexts, too, a clear upmarket and in-depth, analytical slant, compared to virtually every other current news programme on British TV ( this wasn't the case 25 years ago). That also costs money ; Newsnight is a shadow of its former self since the huge cuts to its budget, for instance, and this money will probably be the first to go under privatisation.
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
CH4 works fine. It's an asset to the broadcasting landscape, a public good, costs the taxpayer nothing. There's no problem to fix other than the one they're actually trying to fix - they don't like its politics. The 'cultural vandalism' charge stacks up imo.
Yes, making Nadine Dorries Minister for Culture is no more sensible than making Boris Minister for Fidelity, for example.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
As I posted earlier, 5 live business this morning made very difficult listening and the problems with war in Europe and the commodity shortages seem insurmountable without a very real loss of living standards for most everyone
Governments will become very unpopular very quickly as the scale of the crisis is beyond them, though I can see a time when rationing comes back and a national campaign for communities to gather together to help those in real need, and not just food banks but clothing and provision of heat and warmth
I really do not fear Starmer and labour winning in 24 as they will face the same problems with little or no money and taxation already at high levels
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
But how do tell the 100 who do know about something from the thousands who think they do but don't.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
If the Tory objections are partly party politics, then you have to say Channel 4 only have themselves to blame. You can predict with 100% accuracy which way they will come down on a story - and their gotcha! interviews mean nobody wants to go on their news output.
A somewhat more nuanced approach occasionally might have paid better dividends.
Of course, they might survive with a blatant left-wing slant in a commercial sphere. Might.
The thing is, Channel 4 News doesn't only have a periodic left-wing slant, but also, very often and in many different types of contexts, too, a clear upmarket and in-depth, analytical slant, compared to virtually every other current news programme on British TV ( this wasn't the case 25 years ago). That also costs money ; Newsnight is a shadow of its former self since the huge cuts to its budget, for instance, and this money will probably be the first to go under privatisation.
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
CH4 works fine. It's an asset to the broadcasting landscape, a public good, costs the taxpayer nothing. There's no problem to fix other than the one they're actually trying to fix - they don't like its politics. The 'cultural vandalism' charge stacks up imo.
I agree. I'd keep it, but also restore the funding link that was so dogmatically cut with ITV in the 1990's, too, by the overzealous market ideologues of the time who thought that deregulation was a cure-all. That was how Channel 4 was originally planned and actually set up to function, so you'd quickly see the best of the old Channel 4 beyond its news and current affairs documentaries returning, too, with the original creative freedom to be interesting.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
The 25 year olds I know get most news via social media. So it is all kinds of mainstream news TV snippets, YouTube, viral vids, memes, daily mail articles, you name it - but filtered through the prism of Facebook, TikTok, insta, etc etc etc
I don’t know a 25 year old that “sits down to watch the BBC News at Ten”. But then the group of 25 year olds I know might be *self selecting*
Incidentally Twitter is excellent for news gathering. You simply type in the search bar what news topic you want to explore - “US government UFOs”, “wokeness”, “lab leak Covid” - to take three random examples - and you get a superb curated stream of the latest/most important news on that subject. It’s brilliant. It’s the one reason I don’t entirely leave Twitter (which can otherwise be toxic)
To take your 3 random examples; something must have made you pick them initially in the first place otherwise they are self selecting i.e they are only important because you are picking them not because they are actually important or relevant. So what made you focus in on these or any other topic.
It was quite clearly a joke. I am sometimes accused of being obsessive on these (and other) issues
I use Twitter to read about all kinds of news. Ukraine, recently, has been paramount. More points in favour of Twitter - it is very good at immediate real time news. Major events unfolding right now: Twitter gives you on the spot live updates, citizen journalism, video feeds. Also, Twitter is THE social media for pro journalists, so there’s a lot of expertise
And as @edmundintokyo says, Twitter gives you incredible access to the people who really know.
Take the covid “lab leak” argument. Via Twitter you can talk to Stuart Neil, a professional UK virologist who is passionately skeptical, or Richard Ebright, an esteemed US scientist who is certain lab leak happened. I know you can talk to them coz I’ve done it. You can even chat with Peter Daszak, the man who co-ran the Wuhan lab. He chats back. I’ve done that too. It’s a magnificent, unprecedented resource
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
Sometimes it sucks to be the government. Wars and pandemics are beyond their control, but people will still be upset at the inflation.
For extra shooting-themselves-in-the-foot points, trying and failing to regulate domestic energy prices leaves themselves responsible for the rises, in the eyes of many consumers.
Indeed. The polls are going to be terrible for the government probably right up until the start of the election campaign.
At which point SKS has to find something to offer that is better - and believable.
The government will be hoping that, two years from now, war and pandemic are distant memories, and that the world has managed to sort out its supply chains in the wake of recent events. With luck there will be new jobs and investment, as global business diversify manufacturing away from Asia towards consumption markets in the West.
But yes, the Opposition will need to have something that looks like a plan, that doesn’t revolve around the idea that a tiny number of wealthy people can contribute a significant amount to the public finances without changing their behaviour.
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
Fair point.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
Fair point.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
I think someone somewhere called the war the "middle class war" which was also a key motivating factor for public opinion.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I first started using twitter as a serious source during the pandemic. I found it, if anything, less useful than the BBC. There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
Proof of concept for what is possibly the most quickly achievable way of building a commercial fusion plant to generate electricity.
Now, that is quite exciting. The laser approaches have looked promising, but this is an interesting alternative take.
Also, what a fun project to be working on. Sometimes I wish I'd stuck with physics (I had an interest in fusion at one point, but observed a jaded lecturer who'd spent most of his career at JET and had come to the conclusion that fusion would be forever just out of reach).
What is the target material?
Secret sauce, as far as I can see
(May be papers out there on early work as it's an Oxford spin off, it seems, but things may have changed and they may not have published at all if someone spotted the commercial potential early on. Material important, I expect, but the clever bit seems to be cavity shaping.)
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
As I posted earlier, 5 live business this morning made very difficult listening and the problems with war in Europe and the commodity shortages seem insurmountable without a very real loss of living standards for most everyone
Governments will become very unpopular very quickly as the scale of the crisis is beyond them, though I can see a time when rationing comes back and a national campaign for communities to gather together to help those in real need, and not just food banks but clothing and provision of heat and warmth
I really do not fear Starmer and labour winning in 24 as they will face the same problems with little or no money and taxation already at high levels
The party identity of the UK government in the face of the approaching storm will be roughly as important, in influencing events, as the gender of the next monarch
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I first started using twitter as a serious source during the pandemic. I found it, if anything, less useful than the BBC. There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
It's not designed to if you are using the none default timeline feed but human nature doesn't help as it's when you dive into detail that the conspiracy theory rabbit holes appear.
I’ve finally got covid and resolved to do what I always do when I have a cold. Make a fragrantly hot Thai curry. Need to check I have the ingredients for a paste as will need to deploy son to fetch missing stuff.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
Channel4, or whichever incarnation it is of it - All4, etc, has the most extraordinary (and currently free, albeit with ads) back catalogue of mini-series. I'm sure there will be a plan by a private owner further to monetise that beyond ad revenue. Or perhaps the ad revenue is very healthy.
There was a time when it was very healthy and, as part of the provisions of the terrible broadcasting act, they ended up giving a chunk to ITV.
I wonder just how much of the channel 4 back catalogue is their property and able to be exploited by them or any new owner and quite how they would exploit it. Sell it to streaming services like Netflix perhaps.
Looking through their portfolio on all4 makes me feel a little sad as, It’s a Sin aside, there’s really little of any merit there from recent times.
Oh I don't know - yes there are plenty that would have a smaller audience but looking down the 277 "Box Sets" there are some cracking series in there (This is England, Shameless, Queer as Folk, Skins, etc).
They are good series but most of these are over a decade old.
I think plenty of their back catalogue could find an outlet. Some of it has been shown on GOLD and other channels
We have lots of issues to deal with, domestically. The ownership of Channel 4 doesn't even come into the top 250. And yet this is what the Tories are focusing on.
This frivolous approach to governance is why they should lose the next election.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
But how do tell the 100 who do know about something from the thousands who think they do but don't.
I can't quite describe a process but I think you can do it. (Or I can do it anyhow.) If there's some overlap with something you know about (like I do IT security which bleeds into cybersecurity which bleeds into national security) you get to see who's RTed by people who overlap, and work along the chain of expertise that way. If you don't know a subject well you can bootstrap it by starting with stuff that gets retweeted by other people you follow and looking at their credentials. Once you've got a basis like that in people with credentials you can see how they talk to people who don't have credentials, which will help you bring in people who are smart and knowledgeable but without known credentials, and weed out engagement-hunting idiots.
If anyone's interested this is who I'm following right now on Ukraine - it's not a *brilliant* list since it hasn't been going on for long and I don't have much overlapping knowledge, but I'm sure it's better than what you'd normally get on telly. https://twitter.com/i/lists/1511146914472898560
Another thing that's important is to make sure you have some people who make you annoyed or uncomfortable - for instance my list has Tom Fowdy, who is an insufferable Chinese government apologist. But the value he's adding is that he's retweeting "Russia is winning" angles, which are definitely something that pro-Ukraine accounts are playing down - for example, there was a lot of stuff on social media and I think here about the heroic Ukrainian defence of Hostomel Airport, later some more stuff about the Ukrainian recapture of Hostomel Airport, but for that to happen there must at some intermediate point have been a Ukrainian *loss* of Hostomel Airport, which we didn't hear as much about.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I first started using twitter as a serious source during the pandemic. I found it, if anything, less useful than the BBC. There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
Yeah no value there imo that a more considered google wouldn't unearth.
For me twitter is really only of use for discrete events, eg a terrorist event. There it is invaluable in providing footage following the incident, or sometimes of the incident if it was caught or is ongoing.
That and seeing what tim is saying about the Labour Party, of course.
We have lots of issues to deal with, domestically. The ownership of Channel 4 doesn't even come into the top 250. And yet this is what the Tories are focusing on.
This frivolous approach to governance is why they should lose the next election.
Drunk driver's fallacy. People can do more than one thing at once. Large organisations can do thousands of different things at once. It is Nadine's time being taken up by this not Ben Wallace's.
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
Fair point.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
I think someone somewhere called the war the "middle class war" which was also a key motivating factor for public opinion.
Polls show that Africans, Latin Americans and south Asians don’t really give a fuck about the Ukraine war. Hence their neutrality. “It’s just a bunch of white Europeans bombing each other, far away in Europe”
In which case, why should Europeans give a fuck about wars in Africa Asia or South America? “It’s just a bunch of Asians killing each other”
This is human nature. Ukraine is happening to people like us. Near us. We care more. It’s not racism it’s reality
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
The 25 year olds I know get most news via social media. So it is all kinds of mainstream news TV snippets, YouTube, viral vids, memes, daily mail articles, you name it - but filtered through the prism of Facebook, TikTok, insta, etc etc etc
I don’t know a 25 year old that “sits down to watch the BBC News at Ten”. But then the group of 25 year olds I know might be *self selecting*
Incidentally Twitter is excellent for news gathering. You simply type in the search bar what news topic you want to explore - “US government UFOs”, “wokeness”, “lab leak Covid” - to take three random examples - and you get a superb curated stream of the latest/most important news on that subject. It’s brilliant. It’s the one reason I don’t entirely leave Twitter (which can otherwise be toxic)
To take your 3 random examples; something must have made you pick them initially in the first place otherwise they are self selecting i.e they are only important because you are picking them not because they are actually important or relevant. So what made you focus in on these or any other topic.
It was quite clearly a joke. I am sometimes accused of being obsessive on these (and other) issues
I use Twitter to read about all kinds of news. Ukraine, recently, has been paramount. More points in favour of Twitter - it is very good at immediate real time news. Major events unfolding right now: Twitter gives you on the spot live updates, citizen journalism, video feeds. Also, Twitter is THE social media for pro journalists, so there’s a lot of expertise
And as @edmundintokyo says, Twitter gives you incredible access to the people who really know.
Take the covid “lab leak” argument. Via Twitter you can talk to Stuart Neil, a professional UK virologist who is passionately skeptical, or Richard Ebright, an esteemed US scientist who is certain lab leak happened. I know you can talk to them coz I’ve done it. You can even chat with Peter Daszak, the man who co-ran the Wuhan lab. He chats back. I’ve done that too. It’s a magnificent, unprecedented resource
Thanks for the feedback. Yes I knew it was a self depricating joke and I enjoyed it. The question was valid though (note I said any other topic) as I was genuinely interested after all the world and twitter is full of topics and I wondered how you selected on twitter.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
One thing I should have mentioned: Turn off the algorithms. Click the little star icon at the top right, switch to "Latest". If you have the default Home screen that'll optimize for engagement, and we don't want engagement, we want information.
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
They can't. It is beyond the reach of any government. 'Stuff' is more expensive - because there is a war on, because we have spent the last two years paying people not to work, because of demographics, because the cheapness of 'stuff' was always illusory. This is true of every country in the world. The stuff which government can do over the top of all this is pretty marginal.
As I posted earlier, 5 live business this morning made very difficult listening and the problems with war in Europe and the commodity shortages seem insurmountable without a very real loss of living standards for most everyone
Governments will become very unpopular very quickly as the scale of the crisis is beyond them, though I can see a time when rationing comes back and a national campaign for communities to gather together to help those in real need, and not just food banks but clothing and provision of heat and warmth
I really do not fear Starmer and labour winning in 24 as they will face the same problems with little or no money and taxation already at high levels
The party identity of the UK government in the face of the approaching storm will be roughly as important, in influencing events, as the gender of the next monarch
Not necessarily, expanding fracking and shale and nuclear power, using more Saudi oil, even opening a few more coal mines as was proposed in Cumbria etc not just using renewables would all make a big difference to reducing the cost of living.
Labour however would oppose most of the above. Labour are also more likely to impose more restrictions if another new Covid variant emerged, with the economic damage that could do too. The Tories would likely only do so now if a new variant proved vaccine immune
If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
Their pitch appears to be what cost of living crisis / look at all the towns fund money (you haven't had yet) / anyone successful is doing well so if you're not its your fault / we need to let energy bills go up so hat they can go down in future / SQUIRREL / beware cock-wielding woke "women" trying to molest your wives and daughters.
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
There was literally a full scotland poll out yesterday (by Survation no less). SNP were on 45% at Westminster.
It'll take another electoral cycle (at least) and the departure of Sturgeon to really impact on SNP numbers. She is given a lot of credit for Covid Management and then there's the contrast with Boris to be exploited. They may not do brilliantly in May but will still be significantly ahead.
The interesting party to watch is Scottish Labour, and whether they can establish themselves in second place, and start looking like a credible alternative. My guess is that Tories will pip them in May in terms of councillors elected.
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
Fair point.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
I think someone somewhere called the war the "middle class war" which was also a key motivating factor for public opinion.
Polls show that Africans, Latin Americans and south Asians don’t really give a fuck about the Ukraine war. Hence their neutrality. “It’s just a bunch of white Europeans bombing each other, far away in Europe”
In which case, why should Europeans give a fuck about wars in Africa Asia or South America? “It’s just a bunch of Asians killing each other”
This is human nature. Ukraine is happening to people like us. Near us. We care more. It’s not racism it’s reality
This can't be. Aren't we told that for example with immigration we'd as soon have an Indian as a German coming over here?
Good morning. The news about onshore wind is profoundly depressing. It seems we will wean ourselves off foreign fossil fuels by doing, erm, pretty much the same as we have always done.
I take it there's no major expansion.
That is indeed bad news.
i. It's the quickest form of energy generation, onshore wind can be put up in 6 months to a year iirc. ii. It's the cheapest at ~ 4p/kwh production, even with backup diesel it only goes to 5p or so. iii. It's green, not that I could really give a shit at this point - but it helps in the good old court of public opinion and all that. iv. No existential danger unlike nuclear. v. We've made loads of turbines so it's a very known tech.
No expansion at all it seems. Tory NIMBYS on the prowl.
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I first started using twitter as a serious source during the pandemic. I found it, if anything, less useful than the BBC. There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
It's not designed to if you are using the none default timeline feed but human nature doesn't help as it's when you dive into detail that the conspiracy theory rabbit holes appear.
I found you were only ever two clicks away from someone with furiously insane views, you were actively channeled in their direction, and all voices appeared to support them. On here, where people express extreme views, they tend to get challenged. They don't get filtered out but they have to be pretty convincing before they come to be accepted.
If F1 does nothing else, it encourages a bunch of seriously intelligent people to train for STEM careers.
(Ignore the couple of billion quid it adds directly to the UK economy, plus hundreds of millions more in associated and related industries that grow up around it, the soft power projected worldwide by the sport, the thousands of jobs created, the university centres of excellence…)
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
Pretty much any English-speaker whose job it is to know about stuff is on Twitter, so although you may not have the 100 best-informed people, you'll have way more than the 5 you'd get from a random sample of the earth's population. It probably doesn't work if you want to know about the opinions of sub-saharan subsistence farmers, although you might find someone who polled them.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
But you’re completely wrong
The Covid lab leak example proves it. Nearly all the major players in this story from Daszak at Wuhan to Kristian Andersen (the guy who wrote the hugely influential Nature “proximal origins” paper) to the DRASTIC team who unearthed the cover-up, are on Twitter and they have been arguing their case there. Vividly. Sometimes to each other, directly
Twitter has been THE theatre where this globally important story has unfolded. And anyone can walk on stage and join in
If Twitter has a problem as a news source it is a mild bias to the west, and to the English language. It certainly does not lack for REAL and serious experts. Twitter is where you find them: and from there you can proceed to deeper sources, articles, podcasts, papers, YouTube etc
We have lots of issues to deal with, domestically. The ownership of Channel 4 doesn't even come into the top 250. And yet this is what the Tories are focusing on.
This frivolous approach to governance is why they should lose the next election.
Well, that's one reason why you have a bunch of different ministers with different portfolios.
If (obviously big if) selling off C4 is a good thing to do then it's not obvious to me what else a Culture Minister would have to do that would be more important.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
One thing I should have mentioned: Turn off the algorithms. Click the little star icon at the top right, switch to "Latest". If you have the default Home screen that'll optimize for engagement, and we don't want engagement, we want information.
They keep making it more difficult to do so, but using Twitter not logged in makes for a much better experience.
We have lots of issues to deal with, domestically. The ownership of Channel 4 doesn't even come into the top 250. And yet this is what the Tories are focusing on.
This frivolous approach to governance is why they should lose the next election.
So the government is only allowed to work on its top priority?
For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
It is always harrowing to bring it down the individual. That is a great and valid example of the way that Ukraine is also winning the social media war.
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
Fair point.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
I think someone somewhere called the war the "middle class war" which was also a key motivating factor for public opinion.
Polls show that Africans, Latin Americans and south Asians don’t really give a fuck about the Ukraine war. Hence their neutrality. “It’s just a bunch of white Europeans bombing each other, far away in Europe”
In which case, why should Europeans give a fuck about wars in Africa Asia or South America? “It’s just a bunch of Asians killing each other”
This is human nature. Ukraine is happening to people like us. Near us. We care more. It’s not racism it’s reality
Most Latin American countries voted to condemn Putin's invasion at the UN even if most South Asian and many African and Middle Eastern nations did not.
Japan and South Korea also condemned it even if China and North Korea did not
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
Channel 4 is several channels including all4, more4 and E4. Channel 4 seem better than the beeb at realising linear channels are on the way out too.
I cannot see any reason why it should be state owned.
As a broadcaster it’s okay. It’s hardly a bastion of high quality tv. It has some good stuff and plenty of pap on it. Like any other broadcaster. I’ve not heard one good objection to it being privatised.
In the long term it is too small, too niche, and hard to see who it will appear to in future.
I suspect the Tory objections are partly party politics.
Channel4, or whichever incarnation it is of it - All4, etc, has the most extraordinary (and currently free, albeit with ads) back catalogue of mini-series. I'm sure there will be a plan by a private owner further to monetise that beyond ad revenue. Or perhaps the ad revenue is very healthy.
There was a time when it was very healthy and, as part of the provisions of the terrible broadcasting act, they ended up giving a chunk to ITV.
I wonder just how much of the channel 4 back catalogue is their property and able to be exploited by them or any new owner and quite how they would exploit it. Sell it to streaming services like Netflix perhaps.
Looking through their portfolio on all4 makes me feel a little sad as, It’s a Sin aside, there’s really little of any merit there from recent times.
Oh I don't know - yes there are plenty that would have a smaller audience but looking down the 277 "Box Sets" there are some cracking series in there (This is England, Shameless, Queer as Folk, Skins, etc).
They are good series but most of these are over a decade old.
I think plenty of their back catalogue could find an outlet. Some of it has been shown on GOLD and other channels
Improbably, my current package doesn't give me Gold. Which is a pity, because I wanted to give Newark, Newark a go. Gold actually has a good line in low-key but very satisfying comedies it produces itself (I think?). Sandylands was the sort of comedy which in previous decades would have attracted a small but devoted following. And the various murder mysteries starring Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson were very good old-fashioned telly.
There is so much telly nowadays that a lot of good stuff which might attract a following gets a bit lost.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I find Twitter users' faith in the power of the platform bizarre. There are 8 billion people in the world, but only 397 million people on Twitter, and only 206 million use it daily. So if there are 100 people in the world who know a lot about a topic, Twitter will maybe let you find out what five of them think - provided that they have posted about that topic, of course; I'd be surprised if more than two of those five would respond to unsolicited DMs or being tagged on a topic. And, of course, Twitter's algorithms are more likely to serve you tweets from the 10% of users who make 92% of the tweets, than the five users who know anything about the topic.
Pretty much any English-speaker whose job it is to know about stuff is on Twitter, so although you may not have the 100 best-informed people, you'll have way more than the 5 you'd get from a random sample of the earth's population. It probably doesn't work if you want to know about the opinions of sub-saharan subsistence farmers, although you might find someone who polled them.
I don’t believe @Chelyabinsk has ever been on Twitter
The government is broke. If selling Channel 4 would make us all £1bn, then sell it
How on earth would it change, if sold? It will still be just another tv channel with advertising. I don’t know a single programme which I watch “because it’s on Channel 4”. And I never ask myself “ooh, what’s on Channel 4?” - because I don’t use TV like that any more. I pick and choose from online, streaming etc
And there’s the rub. The idea of “channels” is dying. Which means that soon C4 will be almost worthless - just a brand and some buildings. Worth ten million
Sell it now when we can make real money
I must admit I'm finding that a bit persuasive. While C4 has a youthful, challenging air, there's no guarantee that it always will, and conversely a buyer may think it in their commercial interest to retain that aspect of the brand.
I do know a lot of people who simply put the TV on when they feel like watching something, and then flip through the channels for something they like. But like you and most younger people, I tend to pick things to watch by theme and convenient time for me, rather than because they're broadcast at a particular time.
The exception is the news, and the last poll I saw showed that's still a common exception, with BBC1 at 6 still dominant. I wouldn't even know how to follow the news by looking for it on YouTube or Twitter - do many people do that as their primary source? Understanding of what's happening does seem pervasive - at least, polling gets opinions on all sorts of news items reather than a wall of "don't knows" - so those who don't watch news live are getting it somewhere. How does a typical 25-year-old follow what's happening?
Nick I couldn't tell you the last time I watched a news programme on TV. Someone else's house perhaps.
I read the headlines online, I read here, I have Twitter. That's enough for me; even though I watch hours and hours of YouTube, I don't need it for news.
The idea of watching a news bulletin just seems so antiquated to me. I have PB, I have Twitter, I have breaking news alerts.
Interesting - but according to the polling, not that typical. But I've not seen an age breakdown.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
The thing about Twitter is that it can be incredibly informative, but you're in control of your own stream, so if you're not working hard at making it informative, you can turn it into a tool to misinform yourself.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
I first started using twitter as a serious source during the pandemic. I found it, if anything, less useful than the BBC. There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
It's not designed to if you are using the none default timeline feed but human nature doesn't help as it's when you dive into detail that the conspiracy theory rabbit holes appear.
I wonder whether the low SNP figure in the Survation Scottish subsample (yes, I know, I’ll probably be banned!) is showing the first signs of dissatisfaction among SNP voters? The ferry crisis has got through to Scots voters in the same way that partygate has got through to UK voters generally. The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
There was literally a full scotland poll out yesterday (by Survation no less). SNP were on 45% at Westminster.
It'll take another electoral cycle (at least) and the departure of Sturgeon to really impact on SNP numbers. She is given a lot of credit for Covid Management and then there's the contrast with Boris to be exploited. They may not do brilliantly in May but will still be significantly ahead.
The interesting party to watch is Scottish Labour, and whether they can establish themselves in second place, and start looking like a credible alternative. My guess is that Tories will pip them in May in terms of councillors elected.
Evening finding an Alba candidate will be a challenge. They're standing just 7 candidates in 19 wards in Aberdeenshire. SCon are standing 33, SNP 26, SLib 19, SGreen 12, SLab 11. Other assorted shitheads are available.
Comments
I wonder just how much of the channel 4 back catalogue is their property and able to be exploited by them or any new owner and quite how they would exploit it. Sell it to streaming services like Netflix perhaps.
Looking through their portfolio on all4 makes me feel a little sad as, It’s a Sin aside, there’s really little of any merit there from recent times.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54
The Channel 4 News and Current Affairs budget is huge - £660 million, largely as a figleaf to to fulfil the public service remit it no longer does elsewhere, since the 1990's Broadcasting Act stopped it being helped by ITV's advertising funding stream to be more ambitious.
Not being patronising as you obviously know the issues very well, but how do you get deeper insight than headlines and tweets and the odd post here? Say you want to have an informed view on whether we should expand nuclear power - where would you expect to hear/see the arguments? I get a lot of it by online press articles, but I'm not sure how common that is either.
I don’t know a 25 year old that “sits down to watch the BBC News at Ten”. But then the group of 25 year olds I know might be *self selecting*
Incidentally Twitter is excellent for news gathering. You simply type in the search bar what news topic you want to explore - “US government UFOs”, “wokeness”, “lab leak Covid” - to take three random examples - and you get a superb curated stream of the latest/most important news on that subject. It’s brilliant. It’s the one reason I don’t entirely leave Twitter (which can otherwise be toxic)
The figure for Others seems to be high as well. SNP voters thinking about switching to Labour or Alba? The May elections will be interesting!
A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
Please explain
Greens and LDs probably also underestimated.
That is indeed bad news.
i. It's the quickest form of energy generation, onshore wind can be put up in 6 months to a year iirc.
ii. It's the cheapest at ~ 4p/kwh production, even with backup diesel it only goes to 5p or so.
iii. It's green, not that I could really give a shit at this point - but it helps in the good old court of public opinion and all that.
iv. No existential danger unlike nuclear.
v. We've made loads of turbines so it's a very known tech.
For extra shooting-themselves-in-the-foot points, trying and failing to regulate domestic energy prices leaves themselves responsible for the rises, in the eyes of many consumers.
The emphasis on nuclear doesn't make much sense in the context of making a rapid response to either the Russian crisis, the current crisis in high fossil fuel costs, or the climate crisis. They take too long to build.
With tidal still absent it means that we're relying completely on rapidly expanding offshore wind - which is fine, but can only take us so far on its own.
It had looked as though the urgency of the moment would overcome opposition, but unfortunately not.
Hurray for channels.
I go to my telly and in a split second can watch what I like in 4K/HD without faffing around with computers / ‘devices’.
My four tellies are all linked so I can record on one and watch on another. I can screen on demand, through my TVs.
Telly is far better than computer ‘apps’ - I have them if I need them. I rarely use them.
The Speaker will not be happy. And nor should anybody who thinks, like me, that a major announcement about the future (or lack of future) of a public service broadcaster should be made to the House of Commons in the first instance.
But it's not really the government's fault, bad stuff happens and the government can't stop it, because stuff is too big. It's why "Take Back Control" was both so potent and so dishonest a slogan.
It's also why "events, dear boy" is one of the wisest bits of political wisdom out there.
Zemmour's 80-1 is ludicrous seeing as he's 13% or so behind Le Pen. I've been selling my Le Pen holdings too recently.
Emmanuel Macron
£78.59
Marine Le Pen
£187.07
Eric Zemmour
-£560.62
Valerie Pecresse
-£291.99
Jean-Luc Melenchon
£76.32
Les autres
-£222.12
A cost of living crisis is coming, to us all. Worldwide.
eg I am in Izmir, Turkey. Inflation in Turkey has just touched 61%. That’s not a typo
https://think.ing.com/snaps/turkey-annual-cpi-inflation-surpassed-60/
Some economists think Turkey is headed for hyper-inflation. If so, hold on to yer hats. That’s a lot of unrest and suffering
The paradox is that Turkey is still cheap for the visitor: the Turkish lira has almost halved in value against the £ in a year
At which point SKS has to find something to offer that is better - and believable.
There have been some times recently when I've spent a lot of time looking at the latest twitter updates, etc, and there's no end to it. So when I find myself stuck like that I try to limit myself to just the broadcast news for a bit.
The F-16 will have been in continuous production for 50 years when Bulgaria get theirs.
Romania did it the smart way. They spent a lot less on ex-Norwegian F-16s which will have spent most of their lives sitting QRA sheds and equally lightly used Portuguese examples.
Used right, you have direct access to domain experts about any topic in the known universe without a media filter which would try to cram everything into some preexisting news template, and if you're wondering about something you can just ask them, and you'll often get a useful answer. It's just an incredible thing to be able to do: There's something in the news on a planet of 8 billion people, there are say 100 people in the world who know a lot about it, and anyone, with no particular power or connections, can just... talk to them.
Surely that last one should be "le champ"?
The key polls will those taken after the 1st round . This is where we’ll see whether her support holds up . There’s one thing telling a pollster you’ll vote for her in the second round when that’s a more abstract concept .
Not many Nikon D850s in Fallujah, by way of contrast.
I didn't think C4 News had a left-wing slant particularly; I would acknowledge that it has a liberal slant. In recent years, that has often meant it has been somewhat in opposition to Conservative governments, but it also gave Labour a hard time over ID cards and the terror legislation.
Governments will become very unpopular very quickly as the scale of the crisis is beyond them, though I can see a time when rationing comes back and a national campaign for communities to gather together to help those in real need, and not just food banks but clothing and provision of heat and warmth
I really do not fear Starmer and labour winning in 24 as they will face the same problems with little or no money and taxation already at high levels
Macron 54%
Le Pen 46%
Macron 58%
Melenchon 42%
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511261296645357570?s=20&t=UfR2mbyTWodwepxRFBV-PQ
I use Twitter to read about all kinds of news. Ukraine, recently, has been paramount. More points in favour of Twitter - it is very good at immediate real time news. Major events unfolding right now: Twitter gives you on the spot live updates, citizen journalism, video feeds. Also, Twitter is THE social media for pro journalists, so there’s a lot of expertise
And as @edmundintokyo says, Twitter gives you incredible access to the people who really know.
Take the covid “lab leak” argument. Via Twitter you can talk to Stuart Neil, a professional UK virologist who is passionately skeptical, or Richard Ebright, an esteemed US scientist who is certain lab leak happened. I know you can talk to them coz I’ve done it. You can even chat with Peter Daszak, the man who co-ran the Wuhan lab. He chats back. I’ve done that too. It’s a magnificent, unprecedented resource
But yes, the Opposition will need to have something that looks like a plan, that doesn’t revolve around the idea that a tiny number of wealthy people can contribute a significant amount to the public finances without changing their behaviour.
I just found it very moving - thinking how would I feel in a similar situation?
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=33&LAB=40&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=3&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=18.3&SCOTLAB=20.2&SCOTLIB=6.6&SCOTReform=0.9&SCOTGreen=3&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
This for example after a random google.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/when-middle-class-white-people-are-being-bombed-we-pay-attention-1.4818479
There was a lot of good stuff on there. Far more detailed than the BBC, far more informed. But it seems almost designed to send you down conspiracy theory rabbit holes.
(May be papers out there on early work as it's an Oxford spin off, it seems, but things may have changed and they may not have published at all if someone spotted the commercial potential early on. Material important, I expect, but the clever bit seems to be cavity shaping.)
I think plenty of their back catalogue could find an outlet. Some of it has been shown on GOLD and other channels
This frivolous approach to governance is why they should lose the next election.
If anyone's interested this is who I'm following right now on Ukraine - it's not a *brilliant* list since it hasn't been going on for long and I don't have much overlapping knowledge, but I'm sure it's better than what you'd normally get on telly.
https://twitter.com/i/lists/1511146914472898560
Another thing that's important is to make sure you have some people who make you annoyed or uncomfortable - for instance my list has Tom Fowdy, who is an insufferable Chinese government apologist. But the value he's adding is that he's retweeting "Russia is winning" angles, which are definitely something that pro-Ukraine accounts are playing down - for example, there was a lot of stuff on social media and I think here about the heroic Ukrainian defence of Hostomel Airport, later some more stuff about the Ukrainian recapture of Hostomel Airport, but for that to happen there must at some intermediate point have been a Ukrainian *loss* of Hostomel Airport, which we didn't hear as much about.
For me twitter is really only of use for discrete events, eg a terrorist event. There it is invaluable in providing footage following the incident, or sometimes of the incident if it was caught or is ongoing.
That and seeing what tim is saying about the Labour Party, of course.
In which case, why should Europeans give a fuck about wars in Africa Asia or South America? “It’s just a bunch of Asians killing each other”
This is human nature. Ukraine is happening to people like us. Near us. We care more. It’s not racism it’s reality
https://mobile.twitter.com/gpq1971/status/1511247799362506757
Difficult to put into words. I left #F1 6 years ago dreaming of this day. Well done team
@FLFusion !
Labour however would oppose most of the above. Labour are also more likely to impose more restrictions if another new Covid variant emerged, with the economic damage that could do too. The Tories would likely only do so now if a new variant proved vaccine immune
The interesting party to watch is Scottish Labour, and whether they can establish themselves in second place, and start looking like a credible alternative. My guess is that Tories will pip them in May in terms of councillors elected.
https://mobile.twitter.com/AlexTaylorNews/status/1511205766576971781
My goodness, this must be the mother of all Freudian slips - by the Russian ambassador to the UN just now 👇
"The corpses in Boutcha that didn't exist before the Russian troops arrived ... er, er, left, sorry - before they left ..."
Tory NIMBYS on the prowl.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/05/boris-johnson-blows-cold-on-onshore-wind-faced-with-100-plus-rebel-mps
On here, where people express extreme views, they tend to get challenged. They don't get filtered out but they have to be pretty convincing before they come to be accepted.
(Ignore the couple of billion quid it adds directly to the UK economy, plus hundreds of millions more in associated and related industries that grow up around it, the soft power projected worldwide by the sport, the thousands of jobs created, the university centres of excellence…)
The Covid lab leak example proves it. Nearly all the major players in this story from Daszak at Wuhan to Kristian Andersen (the guy who wrote the hugely influential Nature “proximal origins” paper) to the DRASTIC team who unearthed the cover-up, are on Twitter and they have been arguing their case there. Vividly. Sometimes to each other, directly
Twitter has been THE theatre where this globally important story has unfolded. And anyone can walk on stage and join in
If Twitter has a problem as a news source it is a mild bias to the west, and to the English language. It certainly does not lack for REAL and serious experts. Twitter is where you find them: and from there you can proceed to deeper sources, articles, podcasts, papers, YouTube etc
If (obviously big if) selling off C4 is a good thing to do then it's not obvious to me what else a Culture Minister would have to do that would be more important.
Japan and South Korea also condemned it even if China and North Korea did not
Gold actually has a good line in low-key but very satisfying comedies it produces itself (I think?). Sandylands was the sort of comedy which in previous decades would have attracted a small but devoted following. And the various murder mysteries starring Johnny Vegas and Sian Gibson were very good old-fashioned telly.
There is so much telly nowadays that a lot of good stuff which might attract a following gets a bit lost.
Other assorted shitheads are available.