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Sunday’s French election is getting very tight – politicalbetting.com

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  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046
    Scott_xP said:

    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 No surer sign was there that a policy would be continued/rescinded than a minister coming on to the radio that morning saying it would be rescinded/continued.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,044
    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    edited April 2022

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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!

    https://youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046
    Cookie said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    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).
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,776
    Sandpit said:


    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.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited April 2022

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:


    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.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Leon said:

    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)
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 5,061
    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!
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,736
    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 28,422
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:


    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.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    edited April 2022
    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
    To useless nousless SKS?

    Please explain
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • Gary_BurtonGary_Burton Posts: 737
    edited April 2022
    Alistair said:

    @TheScreamingEagles still awaiting poundage indication and now council polling has dropped

    https://twitter.com/BallotBoxScot/status/1511248760915038211

    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.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,476

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
    But who to? You keep telling us Starmer is a dud with no chance of beating Corbyn's 2017 performance, don't you?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,411
    edited April 2022
    dixiedean said:

    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.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,363

    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
    IshmaelZ said:

    eek said:

    Scott_xP said:

    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.


    https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/apr/04/nadine-dorries-to-press-ahead-with-plan-to-privatise-channel-4

    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.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,776

    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:


    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.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,661
    I've cashed in my Le Pen. I think she's short enough now and I think Macron will, push to shove, be reelected fairly comfortably.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909
    dixiedean said:

    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.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    edited April 2022
    Well I have finally joined the covid club.
    Jonathan said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • Channel 4 will be sold off and destroyed, just as BT was for a long time
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,568
    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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?)
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 43,363

    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.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803
    Dura_Ace said:

    Sandpit said:


    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.
    It did to those South Ossetians who deserted.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,457
    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 78,411
    edited April 2022
    kinabalu said:

    I've cashed in my Le Pen. I think she's short enough now and I think Macron will, push to shove, be reelected fairly comfortably.

    There's probably a touch of value in Melenchon at current prices.

    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

  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    If the Tories don't get a grip on the Cost of Living Crisis they will lose the next GE
    That’s like asking King Cnut to get a grip on the tide by London Bridge

    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
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    Sandpit said:

    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046
    Taz said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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).
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909
    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,776
    Nigelb said:

    State Department signs off on $1.6B sale of eight F-16s to Bulgaria.

    Bulgaria has 11 MiG-29s and 8 Su-25s.

    Biden getting the planes delivered to Ukraine after all?

    https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1511062310869159944

    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.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,661

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    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.


    Lovely
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    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.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379

    Applicant said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • TheWhiteRabbitTheWhiteRabbit Posts: 12,454
    Pulpstar said:

    kinabalu said:

    I've cashed in my Le Pen. I think she's short enough now and I think Macron will, push to shove, be reelected fairly comfortably.

    There's probably a touch of value in Melenchon at current prices.

    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

    After a bad start, I've closed my position for the time being at nil.

    Surely that last one should be "le champ"?
  • dixiedean said:

    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.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,945
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,277
    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 .
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,044

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    Selebian said:

    FPT:

    Nigelb said:

    UK’s First Light Fusion demonstrates fusion with its kinetic impact method.
    https://firstlightfusion.com/media/fusion

    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?
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,326
    Taz said:

    Heathener said:

    Taz said:



    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.

    Have a nice day :)
    @Leon called it doom scrolling.

    I also found out this weekend my father has six months left.

    Life’s crap.
    Really sorry to hear that. All my best to you.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    A Ukrainian woman mourns the death of her husband who was killed in Bucha

    The dead are dead and can feel no more pain. It's the living who miss them who are now suffering.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,476
    edited April 2022
    kinabalu said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 63,641
    edited April 2022
    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 26,803

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,260
    edited April 2022
    kinabalu said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    edited April 2022
    Ipsos French runoff polls

    Macron 54%
    Le Pen 46%

    Macron 58%
    Melenchon 42%

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511261296645357570?s=20&t=UfR2mbyTWodwepxRFBV-PQ
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    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
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004
    Applicant said:

    Sandpit said:

    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,805
    TOPPING said:

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    Electoral calculus gives Labour 313 seats and Conservatives 247 on those numbers after the boundary changes

    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
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046

    TOPPING said:

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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.

    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
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    HYUFD said:

    Ipsos French runoff polls

    Macron 54%
    Le Pen 46%

    Macron 58%
    Melenchon 42%

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511261296645357570?s=20&t=UfR2mbyTWodwepxRFBV-PQ

    The PB Le Pen rampers won’t be happy.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,078

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.

  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 8,832

    Selebian said:

    FPT:

    Nigelb said:

    UK’s First Light Fusion demonstrates fusion with its kinetic impact method.
    https://firstlightfusion.com/media/fusion

    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 :wink:

    (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.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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
  • eekeek Posts: 28,591
    Cookie said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    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.
  • TazTaz Posts: 15,044
    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916

    HYUFD said:

    Ipsos French runoff polls

    Macron 54%
    Le Pen 46%

    Macron 58%
    Melenchon 42%

    https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1511261296645357570?s=20&t=UfR2mbyTWodwepxRFBV-PQ

    The PB Le Pen rampers won’t be happy.
    Still 12% higher than she got in the 2017 runoff, even on that poll
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708
    edited April 2022

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • ChelyabinskChelyabinsk Posts: 502

    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.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046
    Cookie said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Cyclefree said:

    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.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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.

    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
    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
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,212
    Who said F1 was pointless ?

    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 !
  • kjhkjh Posts: 11,945
    Leon said:

    kjh said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708

    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.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    edited April 2022
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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
  • Scott_xP said:

    🚨New Westminster Voting Intention🚨

    📈Labour 7pt lead

    🌳Con 33 (-2)
    🌹Lab 40 (+1)
    🔶LD 11 (=)
    🎗️SNP 5 (=)
    🌍Green 4 (+1)
    ⬜️Other 8 +1)

    2,220 UK adults, 1-3 April

    (chg from 25-27 March) https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1511257309070114816/photo/1

    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.
  • BurgessianBurgessian Posts: 2,812
    Alistair said:

    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.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,212
    Some people just aren't very good at lying.

    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 ..."
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,046
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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.

    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
    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?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,475
    Pulpstar said:

    dixiedean said:

    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.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/05/boris-johnson-blows-cold-on-onshore-wind-faced-with-100-plus-rebel-mps
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,078
    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Farooq said:

    Nigelb said:

    Who said F1 was pointless ?

    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 !

    F1 is pointless
    What he said
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,708

    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.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    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

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,909
    Cyclefree said:

    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.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 55,004

    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.
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    Cyclefree said:

    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?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 123,916
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    For some reason I found this picture even more upsetting than the terrible photos of dead bodies:

    image

    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.

    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
    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
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,078
    Taz said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    TOPPING said:

    Taz said:

    Leon said:

    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.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 56,606

    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
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    eek said:

    Cookie said:

    Applicant said:

    Leon said:

    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.
    You get a better class of conspiracy theory rabbit hole on reddit because it is ruthlessly segregated into subreddits, so https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/ if you want UFOs https://www.reddit.com/r/woke/ if you want woke. No dedicated lab leak subreddit but a search of covid origins throws up https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/ which is quite entertaining in its own right
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 72,212

    dixiedean said:

    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.
    Onshore wind is way quicker and cheaper to build, though.
    The drastic political limitations on it in the UK are the efforts if Tory nimbies.

    Over two thirds of those polled on the issue support its expansion. A figure which might well now be even higher since energy prices rocketed.

    There is no such thing as rapid deployment of nuclear, and its costs are uncertain - but certainly not cheap.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,476
    Deleted, sorry.
This discussion has been closed.