I wish I shared Rochdale's view about the grip of the left on the Labour party. Unfortunately I think we're going to be out in the wilderness for quite some time. I think many of the people who got into leftist politics in the last four years haven't yet developed the grit to deal with spending most of their time out of power, out of party-political influence and out of mainstream attention. Hopefully we'll adapt to the new reality soon and find ways to be productive outside of electoral politics, until we can find a way back in.
My sense of things broadly accords with this. I fear we could be marching back to tinkerism. Nevertheless I would like to win the next election and I think it's crucial that we do. A 5th defeat in a row - especially if it comes against a backdrop of poor economic performance (which I think is inevitable) - would make me start to question the purpose of the party.
I'd prefer Starmer's Labour to win the next election, and I'd prefer Biden to win in the US. Neither prospect fills me with much excitement though.
I get you.
Stateside, though, I despise Trump and all things Trump to such an extent that if Nov 3rd goes as I think it will - a thumping loss for him - I will be punching the ceiling and making odd guttural sounds and all of that.
And in this case - unlike (say) GE19 over here - I have my betting aligned with my preferred outcome, i.e. what I expect to happen is the same as what I want to happen. Which will be quite nice (touch wood!).
Give us this day unexciting politicians. Can they just please be considered, not driven by dogma and above all competent at what they have been elected to do, please Lord. Amen.
I can see the attraction - especially at this time when basic competence in government appears to have become something not even aspired to.
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
I'm not sure people's beliefs can be categorised so simply. According to one of those FB quizzes I am a "libertarian socialist" - so not sure how I fit in.
I think they can. I had you down as a strong collectivist.
I doubt it. I am a big believer in individual freedoms. Collectivist makes me sound like I want everyone to put on Hessian peasant dress and toil all day on the collective farm. My belief in individual freedom comes first. You can't exercise your freedom if you lack the material resources, good health, equality under the law and a good education, or if you have to work for the man seven days a week. Socialism is necessary for real freedom to flourish. Classical liberalism is the freedom of the plantation owner.
Yes, that's classical liberalism, closer to libertarianism than what is now called liberalism.
I think you've put your finger on a large part of why I am both a liberal and a socialist. I think that socialism is the way to achieve the goals of liberalism: equality of opportunity, individual freedom within that constraint, plus a safety net for all (the latter of which Stocky did not regard as part of liberalism, but I do).
It is a very woolly sort of socialism that I think is needed for that. e.g. Scandinavian countries get a lot (not everything) right. And maybe that's why people object to the word. But it's still socialism.
To roughly quote Mrs T, the problem with socialism is that they (socialists) always run out of other peoples' money. This may yet prove to be the problem with Johnsonian populism too.
Harold Wilson's Government bequeathed a Budget Surplus to the Tories in 1970 - no Tory Government has managed to do that re-its successor.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
I don't think your demographic would care that much. Others might.
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
I'm not sure people's beliefs can be categorised so simply. According to one of those FB quizzes I am a "libertarian socialist" - so not sure how I fit in.
I think they can. I had you down as a strong collectivist.
I doubt it. I am a big believer in individual freedoms. Collectivist makes me sound like I want everyone to put on Hessian peasant dress and toil all day on the collective farm. My belief in individual freedom comes first. You can't exercise your freedom if you lack the material resources, good health, equality under the law and a good education, or if you have to work for the man seven days a week. Socialism is necessary for real freedom to flourish. Classical liberalism is the freedom of the plantation owner.
Yes, that's classical liberalism, closer to libertarianism than what is now called liberalism.
I think you've put your finger on a large part of why I am both a liberal and a socialist. I think that socialism is the way to achieve the goals of liberalism: equality of opportunity, individual freedom within that constraint, plus a safety net for all (the latter of which Stocky did not regard as part of liberalism, but I do).
It is a very woolly sort of socialism that I think is needed for that. e.g. Scandinavian countries get a lot (not everything) right. And maybe that's why people object to the word. But it's still socialism.
To roughly quote Mrs T, the problem with socialism is that they (socialists) always run out of other peoples' money. This may yet prove to be the problem with Johnsonian populism too.
Harold Wilson's Government bequeathed a Budget Surplus to the Tories in 1970 - no Tory Government has managed to do that re-its successor.
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
I'm not sure people's beliefs can be categorised so simply. According to one of those FB quizzes I am a "libertarian socialist" - so not sure how I fit in.
I think they can. I had you down as a strong collectivist.
I doubt it. I am a big believer in individual freedoms. Collectivist makes me sound like I want everyone to put on Hessian peasant dress and toil all day on the collective farm. My belief in individual freedom comes first. You can't exercise your freedom if you lack the material resources, good health, equality under the law and a good education, or if you have to work for the man seven days a week. Socialism is necessary for real freedom to flourish. Classical liberalism is the freedom of the plantation owner.
Yes, that's classical liberalism, closer to libertarianism than what is now called liberalism.
I think you've put your finger on a large part of why I am both a liberal and a socialist. I think that socialism is the way to achieve the goals of liberalism: equality of opportunity, individual freedom within that constraint, plus a safety net for all (the latter of which Stocky did not regard as part of liberalism, but I do).
It is a very woolly sort of socialism that I think is needed for that. e.g. Scandinavian countries get a lot (not everything) right. And maybe that's why people object to the word. But it's still socialism.
To roughly quote Mrs T, the problem with socialism is that they (socialists) always run out of other peoples' money. This may yet prove to be the problem with Johnsonian populism too.
Harold Wilson's Government bequeathed a Budget Surplus to the Tories in 1970 - no Tory Government has managed to do that re-its successor.
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
I'm not sure people's beliefs can be categorised so simply. According to one of those FB quizzes I am a "libertarian socialist" - so not sure how I fit in.
I think they can. I had you down as a strong collectivist.
I doubt it. I am a big believer in individual freedoms. Collectivist makes me sound like I want everyone to put on Hessian peasant dress and toil all day on the collective farm. My belief in individual freedom comes first. You can't exercise your freedom if you lack the material resources, good health, equality under the law and a good education, or if you have to work for the man seven days a week. Socialism is necessary for real freedom to flourish. Classical liberalism is the freedom of the plantation owner.
Yes, that's classical liberalism, closer to libertarianism than what is now called liberalism.
I think you've put your finger on a large part of why I am both a liberal and a socialist. I think that socialism is the way to achieve the goals of liberalism: equality of opportunity, individual freedom within that constraint, plus a safety net for all (the latter of which Stocky did not regard as part of liberalism, but I do).
It is a very woolly sort of socialism that I think is needed for that. e.g. Scandinavian countries get a lot (not everything) right. And maybe that's why people object to the word. But it's still socialism.
To roughly quote Mrs T, the problem with socialism is that they (socialists) always run out of other peoples' money. This may yet prove to be the problem with Johnsonian populism too.
Harold Wilson's Government bequeathed a Budget Surplus to the Tories in 1970 - no Tory Government has managed to do that re-its successor.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
You listed 11 categories. Netflix covers 6, that's a majority.
It does those six far better than Netflix in my humble opinion.
I don't think the BBC is value for money no and were I not obliged by law to pay for it I doubt I would.
@Philip_Thompson stepping away from the concept of “the BBC” for a second, how do you feel about the concept of the Government funding programming that would not get made in the free market? Stuff in Scottish Gaelic for example.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
Stateside, though, I despise Trump and all things Trump to such an extent that if Nov 3rd goes as I think it will - a thumping loss for him - I will be punching the ceiling and making odd guttural sounds and all of that.
And in this case - unlike (say) GE19 over here - I have my betting aligned with my preferred outcome, i.e. what I expect to happen is the same as what I want to happen. Which will be quite nice (touch wood!).
The danger always referenced is that people bet on what they want to happen, but what you want should always be irrelevant. And that doesn't mean backing what you don't want to happen as frequently gets pushed. Bet where the evidence is, and the evidence as I see it points to Trump losing in November.
Yes, my bias (which I try very hard to beat) works that 2nd way - I will tend to scour around for reasons why what I really want to happen will not happen. Innate pessimist. Which just goes to show how confident I am about the Trump loss. I'm actually MORE confident than I appear to be.
As for evidence, yes. But also no. It depends. If you always stick to public domain evidence you can easily end up being a "consensus" bettor and that loses over time. Sometimes you have to get ahead of the pack using intuition - this will pay off big time if you are blessed with intuition which is above average and you can separate the genuine article from "just a hunch".
@Philip_Thompson stepping away from the concept of “the BBC” for a second, how do you feel about the concept of the Government funding programming that would not get made in the free market? Stuff in Scottish Gaelic for example.
I'm not keen on it.
If people want stuff in Scottish Gaelic then they should pay for it. Or they should donate to a charity that wishes to pay for it.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
You can live stream Parliament online. There's no need to pay the BBC to do so.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
@Philip_Thompson stepping away from the concept of “the BBC” for a second, how do you feel about the concept of the Government funding programming that would not get made in the free market? Stuff in Scottish Gaelic for example.
I'm not keen on it.
If people want stuff in Scottish Gaelic then they should pay for it. Or they should donate to a charity that wishes to pay for it.
What about things like BBC Bitesize that provides revision and learning materials to children for free? Is that worthy of governmental expenditure?
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
You listed 11 categories. Netflix covers 6, that's a majority.
It does those six far better than Netflix in my humble opinion.
I don't think the BBC is value for money no and were I not obliged by law to pay for it I doubt I would.
So you would not subscribe to any of the the "non six" categories? Not news, sport or weather? None? You don't have to take them all, just any. And you are saying you wouldn't?
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
The BBC also buys in programmes as well as making them and always has done.
The BBC makes more original content now than it did in the late eighties and early nineties.
Removing the license fee is not illogical. It’s a perfectly valid and sensible standpoint. As is retaining it.
If it doesn’t happen in this parliament there will come a time if the BBC loses more and more of it’s reach to the general public that the license fee becomes completely untenable.
Except he didn’t did he? He offered a tiny amount of money.
Hundreds of billions so far this year.
OK but what has that got to do with yesterday?
Yesterday's expenditure was a part of the package not the whole package.
That is the problem with spendaholic lefties like you. Money gets committed and you bank it then demand more and nothing is ever enough. So instead of saying "the government is spending hundreds of billions" you say "the spending is £5 billion".
When you look at overall what the government has done this year, including the furlough scheme etc, absolutely it is comparable to FDR.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
You are making my argument for me. If the BBC produces things that people want to pay for then they should be allowed to do that. That's all I'm saying.
I am just observing that it is likely imo that people in aggregate would subscribe to enough of the individual services so as to reach that £14.50 per capita equivalent pretty quickly.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Your idea of splitting it up is quite good as a practical exercise.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
You are making my argument for me. If the BBC produces things that people want to pay for then they should be allowed to do that. That's all I'm saying.
I am just observing that it is likely imo that people in aggregate would subscribe to enough of the individual services so as to reach that £14.50 per capita equivalent pretty quickly.
Then we are on the same page. Abolish the licence fee and let people choose.
I highly doubt that it will considering £5.99 per capita is the going rate for covering a majority of those services - and those are the most popular of the services! I'm not sure where you're expecting the trebling of the price to be justifiable from.
And I see you didn't respond on original programming budgets. Are you sure you want to claim the BBC does better than Netflix on original programming?
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
I'm not sure people's beliefs can be categorised so simply. According to one of those FB quizzes I am a "libertarian socialist" - so not sure how I fit in.
I think they can. I had you down as a strong collectivist.
I doubt it. I am a big believer in individual freedoms. Collectivist makes me sound like I want everyone to put on Hessian peasant dress and toil all day on the collective farm. My belief in individual freedom comes first. You can't exercise your freedom if you lack the material resources, good health, equality under the law and a good education, or if you have to work for the man seven days a week. Socialism is necessary for real freedom to flourish. Classical liberalism is the freedom of the plantation owner.
Yes, that's classical liberalism, closer to libertarianism than what is now called liberalism.
I think you've put your finger on a large part of why I am both a liberal and a socialist. I think that socialism is the way to achieve the goals of liberalism: equality of opportunity, individual freedom within that constraint, plus a safety net for all (the latter of which Stocky did not regard as part of liberalism, but I do).
It is a very woolly sort of socialism that I think is needed for that. e.g. Scandinavian countries get a lot (not everything) right. And maybe that's why people object to the word. But it's still socialism.
To roughly quote Mrs T, the problem with socialism is that they (socialists) always run out of other peoples' money. This may yet prove to be the problem with Johnsonian populism too.
It's a major issue with many forms of socialism, I agree.
But where socialism has produced arguably the most successful political systems in the world (the Scandinavian countries) its opponents get around this inconvenient fact by pretending that it isn't really socialism.
In this, they are aided by many socialists who disown the Scandinavian model for its lack of ideological purity. So maybe the problem with socialism is socialists, just as the real problem with liberalism is liberals, and the problem with conservatism is conservatives. But of the three, socialists are the only ones who disown their own success stories!
Much of the Scandinavian model is built upon cooperation between employers and trade unions, to the mutual benefit of all. Ditto toothless monarchies; broad pension agreements; defence and many other cross-party compromises. But like all mutually beneficial agreements and compromises, each interested party has to give something. That’s why it wouldn’t work in England, where the end objective is to ultimately smash your opponent.
Cuba is socialist, Scandinavia is social democrat at most, Iceland and Norway arguably not even that
HY: our in-house expert on Scotland and now Iceland and Norway. Is there any subject you do not master?
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Your idea of splitting it up is quite good as a practical exercise.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
You listed 11 categories. Netflix covers 6, that's a majority.
It does those six far better than Netflix in my humble opinion.
I don't think the BBC is value for money no and were I not obliged by law to pay for it I doubt I would.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
The article, to me, is the sort of thing where the BBC is overreaching itself. The content is of little interest to me but this is more a magazine feature. The BBC website competes directly with commercial competitions who don’t have the luxury of a fee that is taken from people for the Pleasure of live TV. Many of its magazine articles on its website seem to be directly targeted at a younger demographic that clearly makes sense as it needs to retain them to justify its existence going forward. But it also puts it at odds with the commercial entities and, quite frankly, I understand their concern.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
No it is investing in growth, like Amazon did for a very long time.
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
Conservatism. (Glad you`re taking notes by the way.)
By the way, I don`t think you are a lost cause, kinabalu, as far a liberalism is concerned. Phew ... There could, I suggest, be a liberal fighting to get out? Not with this woke stuff though. Never with that.
My greatest PB.com moment came a few weeks ago when a poster described you as "a pretty crap woke bloke."
How I chuckled.
Conservatism is the absence of an ideology. We can't include that!
I am a bit liberal in fact - pls last post see where I have a go at "doing" me.
As for that "woke" exchange, I was trying to reclaim the word. Define it as somebody who is rather than let it be defined by people who aren't.
And if you want to see what society would look & feel like if the "antiwokes" were to prevail, check out this site after 8 pm of an evening. It's not pretty. It goes very very golf club.
You are wrong, conservativism is most definitely an ideology.
I think he`s being tongue-in-cheek.
I apologise if you're right but I think he might actually believe it.
Not totally TiC but I suppose I was more thinking of the party - the Conservative Party - rather than the small c ideology of conservatism. I am struggling with it though. I would have to accept your definition of what it is. Must mean more than "resistance to change", I imagine. Perhaps it is close to what I think of as "reactionary".
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
The BBC also buys in programmes as well as making them and always has done.
The BBC makes more original content now than it did in the late eighties and early nineties.
Removing the license fee is not illogical. It’s a perfectly valid and sensible standpoint. As is retaining it.
If it doesn’t happen in this parliament there will come a time if the BBC loses more and more of it’s reach to the general public that the license fee becomes completely untenable.
Yes that is true. And I agree with your point about it's valid to want to abolish or retain the license fee.
I think also that, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the BBC buys in plenty of programmes from "Production Companies" set up for one tax reason or another whereas in another environment they would own that company.
"politicians need to demand and encourage more independence of thought, more bodies embedded in Whitehall which think the unthinkable and which are empowered to challenge.
There is a consensus that the civil service needs a far wider diversity of thinking but replacing the present system by more political appointees would not address the failure of the political culture. In fact, it would simply reinforce it."
What are the Liberal Democrats for? Once we know the answer to that the answer of who they should choose to lead them may become a little clearer.
For me, Liberal Democrats reflect at their best a healthy scepticism of the world. So they like a helping State but are suspicious of an overpowering state. They like personal freedom but they also respect the rights of others not to be insulted or hurt (arguably too much so). They don't like austerity but they are not keen on debt either being willing to have higher taxes than the Tories to bridge the difference. They like localism and have a general preference for bottom up than top down solutions. They don't like dogma or fixed positions being more pragmatic in their approach (the EU arguably being an exception to a few of these positions). They like internationalism and international co-operation (which in fairness their EU position was consistent with).
Personally, I find a lot of these positions instinctively attractive. I think that we need a rational party focused on what works and pragmatism. They missed a chance when Corbyn was in charge of Labour by focusing their fire on the Tories. Labour under Sir Kneel are going to be more of a challenge for them.
I don't know enough about Moran's politics to make a definitive view but it seems to me that Davey is pretty much the epitome of this kind of politics.
Labour under "Sir Kneel" as you cringingly call him is an absolute opportunity for them. Traditional moderate Tories like myself will feel very happy lending our vote to the LDs when the worst that can happen is a Labour government under the premiership of someone that looks and sounds professional. I don't particularly want a Labour government, but if I have to pay that price to rid the Conservative Party of the cancerous affliction of Johnson and Cummings that is a price worth paying.
That's a fair point that I hadn't thought of. Starmer is much less of a "must be stopped" candidate than Corbyn was.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
You are making my argument for me. If the BBC produces things that people want to pay for then they should be allowed to do that. That's all I'm saying.
I am just observing that it is likely imo that people in aggregate would subscribe to enough of the individual services so as to reach that £14.50 per capita equivalent pretty quickly.
Then we are on the same page. Abolish the licence fee and let people choose.
I highly doubt that it will considering £5.99 per capita is the going rate for covering a majority of those services - and those are the most popular of the services! I'm not sure where you're expecting the trebling of the price to be justifiable from.
And I see you didn't respond on original programming budgets. Are you sure you want to claim the BBC does better than Netflix on original programming?
The last point I addressed in a second post. It is irrelevant largely. You might think the BBC does things better than Netflix; others would think otherwise.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Your idea of splitting it up is quite good as a practical exercise.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
You’d have to pay extra to get it without adverts
Why? There's no adverts on Netflix. That's kinda the point
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Except he didn’t did he? He offered a tiny amount of money.
Hundreds of billions so far this year.
OK but what has that got to do with yesterday?
Yesterday's expenditure was a part of the package not the whole package.
That is the problem with spendaholic lefties like you. Money gets committed and you bank it then demand more and nothing is ever enough. So instead of saying "the government is spending hundreds of billions" you say "the spending is £5 billion".
When you look at overall what the government has done this year, including the furlough scheme etc, absolutely it is comparable to FDR.
I wasn’t the one who declared that “Boris went FDR New Deal yesterday”.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Your idea of splitting it up is quite good as a practical exercise.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
Fair enough. It would be interesting to see what the broad British public would do. Perhaps those more tech savvy (everyone on here) would pay less for things they knew they could access elsewhere, while those less tech savvy might be happy for the BBC to act as aggregator.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
What are the Liberal Democrats for? Once we know the answer to that the answer of who they should choose to lead them may become a little clearer.
For me, Liberal Democrats reflect at their best a healthy scepticism of the world. So they like a helping State but are suspicious of an overpowering state. They like personal freedom but they also respect the rights of others not to be insulted or hurt (arguably too much so). They don't like austerity but they are not keen on debt either being willing to have higher taxes than the Tories to bridge the difference. They like localism and have a general preference for bottom up than top down solutions. They don't like dogma or fixed positions being more pragmatic in their approach (the EU arguably being an exception to a few of these positions). They like internationalism and international co-operation (which in fairness their EU position was consistent with).
Personally, I find a lot of these positions instinctively attractive. I think that we need a rational party focused on what works and pragmatism. They missed a chance when Corbyn was in charge of Labour by focusing their fire on the Tories. Labour under Sir Kneel are going to be more of a challenge for them.
I don't know enough about Moran's politics to make a definitive view but it seems to me that Davey is pretty much the epitome of this kind of politics.
Labour under "Sir Kneel" as you cringingly call him is an absolute opportunity for them. Traditional moderate Tories like myself will feel very happy lending our vote to the LDs when the worst that can happen is a Labour government under the premiership of someone that looks and sounds professional. I don't particularly want a Labour government, but if I have to pay that price to rid the Conservative Party of the cancerous affliction of Johnson and Cummings that is a price worth paying.
That's a fair point that I hadn't thought of. Starmer is much less of a "must be stopped" candidate than Corbyn was.
Given that many of the contributors here were saying last autumn that "Corbyn must be stopped" I would have thought this was 'bleedin' obvious.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
No it is investing in growth, like Amazon did for a very long time.
They are making an operating profit.
Absolutely. It's a risky game. But then so would it be for the BBC if they went subscription.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Thank goodness for that
lol.
I rather envy you. I yearn for the innocent days when I didn't understand the term "Woke".
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
It is the modern business model. There was a great article that someone on here posted ( @rcs1000? ) about just that. Of course people get the customers in and then look to monetise the subscriber base.
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Uber only lost $3bn last quarter with a revenue of $3.5bn.
That's actually really close to profitability if you have several advanced degrees in finance and are being handsomely paid to believe in a business proposition. Plus they're laying off 14% of their workforce, another good sign.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Uber is a hard one to call. It's a brilliant idea, but it may be overtaken by events - the plague - and by tech change.
The future is surely small electric driverless vehicles, or air craft, that you can summon with an app *like* Uber. But it might not be THE Uber doing it, though they are having a go:
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Uber only lost $3bn last quarter with a revenue of $3.5bn.
That's actually really close to profitability if you have several advanced degrees in finance and are being handsomely paid to believe in a business proposition. Plus they're laying off 14% of their workforce, another good sign.
Truly the good times are just around the corner.
The bizarre thing is that Uber should actually be a model where you reach profitability fast, at least for their core rider business. You are merely take a share of revenues from each ride - you are not employing people (though that has now been challenged), paying for vehicles etc etc.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Thank goodness for that
In fact you are in the majority. There is a gaping disconnect between the actual happenings out there in the flesh & blood world and that same world as it is imagined in corners of the internet.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
It is the modern business model. There was a great article that someone on here posted ( @rcs1000? ) about just that. Of course people get the customers in and then look to monetise the subscriber base.
It is, however, risky.
What Amazon and Uber are doing are very different.
Amazon is keeping it's profitability and investment in infrastructure about equal. So every time they look like making a big profit, investment goes up and prices go down.
Uber is banking on getting self driving cars to work and then generating profit off zillions of customers they are currently paying to keep.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
It is the modern business model. There was a great article that someone on here posted ( @rcs1000? ) about just that. Of course people get the customers in and then look to monetise the subscriber base.
It is, however, risky.
Extremely risky. Most will fail, by definition, taking an awful lot of value with them
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Uber is a hard one to call. It's a brilliant idea, but it may be overtaken by events - the plague - and by tech change.
The future is surely small electric driverless vehicles, or air craft, that you can summon with an app *like* Uber. But it might not be THE Uber doing it, though they are having a go:
Uber is an awful idea. Venture capitalist subsidised mini-cabs is an awful pitch.
And that was their pitch. I've seen their original pitch deck. Their idea was luxury limousines summoned as a mini-cab rather than hired for a whole evening.
There was absolutely nothing there about autonomous vehicles or clever AI or any of that nonsense. They literally pitched themselves as an up market minicab firm.
They have lost vast sums of money on their minicab operation whilst researching autonomous vehicles. It would have been better for them if they didn't run a massive loss making minicab firm and were just a research outfit.
And even if they get to autonomous vehicles they still don't have a path to profitability
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
Netflix is £5.99 but then how many of your categories do you think it covers? You seem to be implying it only covers one for some reason.
Thats without considering the fact it covers many of those categories an order of magnitude better than the BBC does, because that's a very subjective debate but you seem to be trying to argue different categories matter without saying which categories justify the BBC charging nearly three times the price.
I didn't say Netflix only covers one. I said that the BBC covers more.
Of the categories I listed above, would you subscribe to any from the BBC?
Netflix doesn't charge per category though, it charges £5.99 in total for all categories - and it covers the majority of your categories.
I'm not sure what the minority of categories the BBC offers that Netflix doesn't that justifies trebling its price.
Have I missed something? Where is the national, international and regional news on Netflix? Or weather? Or coverage of Parliament? Or...
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
When your justification for the TV licence is reduced to spluttering "but... but... what about the coverage of parliament" - which is literally just pointing a camera at boring people talking in parliament - then you know your argument is in trouble.
I don't have an argument. As I said, I am ambivalent about the BBC licence fee. But in order to compare like for like you need to split it up into its component parts and services and assign a subscription fee to each and see what the take up is.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
Your idea of splitting it up is quite good as a practical exercise.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
Fair enough. It would be interesting to see what the broad British public would do. Perhaps those more tech savvy (everyone on here) would pay less for things they knew they could access elsewhere, while those less tech savvy might be happy for the BBC to act as aggregator.
The BBC could change into the British DW ... a German 'soft power' exercise I think, like the World Service was when the FO funded it. Anyway you appear to get a channel of good TV programmes, in English, accessible even if you live in say Canada or New Zealand
Sorry, what was your 4th - liberal, libertarian, collectivist and ??
Conservatism. (Glad you`re taking notes by the way.)
By the way, I don`t think you are a lost cause, kinabalu, as far a liberalism is concerned. Phew ... There could, I suggest, be a liberal fighting to get out? Not with this woke stuff though. Never with that.
My greatest PB.com moment came a few weeks ago when a poster described you as "a pretty crap woke bloke."
How I chuckled.
kinabalu is definitely not a lost caused as I find I agree with him far too often for that to be the case, with the added bonus of always finding his posts entertaining.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
Uber have no route to profitability. Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Uber is a hard one to call. It's a brilliant idea, but it may be overtaken by events - the plague - and by tech change.
The future is surely small electric driverless vehicles, or air craft, that you can summon with an app *like* Uber. But it might not be THE Uber doing it, though they are having a go:
Uber is an awful idea. Venture capitalist subsidised mini-cabs is an awful pitch.
And that was their pitch. I've seen their original pitch deck. Their idea was luxury limousines summoned as a mini-cab rather than hired for a while evening.
There was absolutely nothing there about autonomous vehicles or clever AI or any of that nonsense. They literally pitched themselves as an up market minicab firm.
They have lost vast sums of money on their minicab operation whilst researching autonomous vehicles. It would have been better for them if they didn't run a massive loss making minicab firm and were just a research outfit.
And even if they get to autonomous vehicles they still don't have a path to profitability
I know their history. And yes they started as the luxe offering you describe.
But THEN they realised that in an era of ubiquitous smartphones with detailed real-time maps, showing location, you could have a universal instant ride-hailing service, with automatic payment and no cash or cards involved. It is brilliant.
And it IS the future, as owning cars becomes an unnecessary extravagance. Owning your own car in the future will be like owning a horse now, whereas once owning horses was extremely common.
What's more, you could argue that their model becomes more valid post-Covid: there's no exchange of money or cards (less infection), fewer people will want to use trains (increase in passengers) and if they get their Holy Grail of driverless vehicles then that's probably the ideal way to move around, if you want to stay bug-free
HOWEVER I agree they are right on a knife edge because they haven't crushed the competition yet, they have regulatory issues (just like Airbnb) and they are still spending billions with no profit.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Thank goodness for that
lol.
I rather envy you. I yearn for the innocent days when I didn't understand the term "Woke".
Well, yes. But I would maintain you understand "woke" in the sense that my dad understands "grime".
For example, Stormzy at Glasto last year, he (my dad) watched it intently, was very interested, and I got an email from him with his thoughts. Many observations but with a common theme - Stormzy might be all the rage but if this sort of thing caught on it was goodbye proper music. And as for that union jack "stab vest", that was celebrating violence and therefore disgusting.
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
They used to say the same about amazon. "Look, it's never made a profit!!
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
It is the modern business model. There was a great article that someone on here posted ( @rcs1000? ) about just that. Of course people get the customers in and then look to monetise the subscriber base.
It is, however, risky.
What Amazon and Uber are doing are very different.
Amazon is keeping it's profitability and investment in infrastructure about equal. So every time they look like making a big profit, investment goes up and prices go down.
Uber is banking on getting self driving cars to work and then generating profit off zillions of customers they are currently paying to keep.
Amazon almost always made a profit on an operational level, it just reinvested it all to allow it to continually expand.
Uber and most of the other gig companies are subsidising almost every sale in the hope that when they reach critical mass they can increase their prices. I've never seen how that plan works.
Except he didn’t did he? He offered a tiny amount of money.
Hundreds of billions so far this year.
OK but what has that got to do with yesterday?
Yesterday's expenditure was a part of the package not the whole package.
That is the problem with spendaholic lefties like you. Money gets committed and you bank it then demand more and nothing is ever enough. So instead of saying "the government is spending hundreds of billions" you say "the spending is £5 billion".
When you look at overall what the government has done this year, including the furlough scheme etc, absolutely it is comparable to FDR.
I wasn’t the one who declared that “Boris went FDR New Deal yesterday”.
What are the Liberal Democrats for? Once we know the answer to that the answer of who they should choose to lead them may become a little clearer.
For me, Liberal Democrats reflect at their best a healthy scepticism of the world. So they like a helping State but are suspicious of an overpowering state. They like personal freedom but they also respect the rights of others not to be insulted or hurt (arguably too much so). They don't like austerity but they are not keen on debt either being willing to have higher taxes than the Tories to bridge the difference. They like localism and have a general preference for bottom up than top down solutions. They don't like dogma or fixed positions being more pragmatic in their approach (the EU arguably being an exception to a few of these positions). They like internationalism and international co-operation (which in fairness their EU position was consistent with).
Personally, I find a lot of these positions instinctively attractive. I think that we need a rational party focused on what works and pragmatism. They missed a chance when Corbyn was in charge of Labour by focusing their fire on the Tories. Labour under Sir Kneel are going to be more of a challenge for them.
I don't know enough about Moran's politics to make a definitive view but it seems to me that Davey is pretty much the epitome of this kind of politics.
Labour under "Sir Kneel" as you cringingly call him is an absolute opportunity for them. Traditional moderate Tories like myself will feel very happy lending our vote to the LDs when the worst that can happen is a Labour government under the premiership of someone that looks and sounds professional. I don't particularly want a Labour government, but if I have to pay that price to rid the Conservative Party of the cancerous affliction of Johnson and Cummings that is a price worth paying.
That's a fair point that I hadn't thought of. Starmer is much less of a "must be stopped" candidate than Corbyn was.
Given that many of the contributors here were saying last autumn that "Corbyn must be stopped" I would have thought this was 'bleedin' obvious.
But I take @Nigel_Foremain's point that wibbly, dribbly Tories like him may be more inclined to vote Lib Dem next time because the alternative government is less appalling than it was in 2019. It is a good answer to my point that the complete unelectability of Labour in 2019 was an opportunity missed for the Lib Dems.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Thank goodness for that
lol.
I rather envy you. I yearn for the innocent days when I didn't understand the term "Woke".
Well, yes. But I would maintain you understand "woke" in the sense that my dad understands "grime".
For example, Stormzy at Glasto last year, he (my dad) watched it intently, was very interested, and I got an email from him with his thoughts. Many observations but with a common theme - Stormzy might be all the rage but if this sort of thing caught on it was goodbye proper music. And as for that union jack "stab vest", that was celebrating violence and therefore disgusting.
I know their history. And yes they started as the luxe offering you describe.
But THEN they realised that in an era of ubiquitous smartphones with detailed real-time maps, showing location, you could have a universal instant ride-hailing service, with automatic payment and no cash or cards involved. It is brilliant.
And it IS the future, as owning cars becomes an unnecessary extravagance. Owning your own car in the future will be like owning a horse now, whereas once owning horses was extremely common.
What's more, you could argue that their model becomes more valid post-Covid: there's no exchange of money or cards (less infection), fewer people will want to use trains (increase in passengers) and if they get their Holy Grail of driverless vehicles then that's probably the ideal way to move around, if you want to stay bug-free
HOWEVER I agree they are right on a knife edge because they haven't crushed the competition yet, they have regulatory issues (just like Airbnb) and they are still spending billions with no profit.
Either minicab drivers (or autonomous car owners) own the cars or Uber does. Currently the model is that Uber doesn't own jack shit - they have out sourced their capital costs to the drivers.
If you are imagining a future where Uber own the vehicles then Uber has to spend a few more billion buying all the vehicles and the storage and maintenance facilities.
Uber currently have absolutely no skills at any of that. It would be a whole new avenue for them to fail at.
And once again this only works if they exclusively get autonomous vehicle tech. The thing about operating a minicab firm is that it is really easy and cheap to get started. Uber can never "crush the competition" because they can always be challenged by small local competitors who don't have the massive overheads of pretending to be a technology company rather than a minicab firm.
Uber only is where it is in terms of market dominance because it is selling $11 dollar taxi rides for $8.50. The evidence is that whenever it raises its fares to it's break even (or god forbin profitability) in a market they lose ridership to local competitors. The taxi user pool is massively price sensitive. No fancy app beats that.
Done some rough and ready fag packet maths, reckon I'm at about 24 pence per mile all amortised for my current car. I can't see how a cab company can ever compete with that.
Very narrow victory, but none-the-less impressive in Deep Red country. Rural counties rejected OK State Question 608, but it passed due to strong support in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and college towns.
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
As someone in that article says, it is mainly a way for white people to refer to everyone else without feeling awkward.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
Cancelled?
Yesterday you said you didn't understand the word "woke" and only found it here.
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Thank goodness for that
lol.
I rather envy you. I yearn for the innocent days when I didn't understand the term "Woke".
Well, yes. But I would maintain you understand "woke" in the sense that my dad understands "grime".
For example, Stormzy at Glasto last year, he (my dad) watched it intently, was very interested, and I got an email from him with his thoughts. Many observations but with a common theme - Stormzy might be all the rage but if this sort of thing caught on it was goodbye proper music. And as for that union jack "stab vest", that was celebrating violence and therefore disgusting.
Who is this "Stormzy"?
He’s a decent guy who makes music that other people like.
I know their history. And yes they started as the luxe offering you describe.
But THEN they realised that in an era of ubiquitous smartphones with detailed real-time maps, showing location, you could have a universal instant ride-hailing service, with automatic payment and no cash or cards involved. It is brilliant.
And it IS the future, as owning cars becomes an unnecessary extravagance. Owning your own car in the future will be like owning a horse now, whereas once owning horses was extremely common.
What's more, you could argue that their model becomes more valid post-Covid: there's no exchange of money or cards (less infection), fewer people will want to use trains (increase in passengers) and if they get their Holy Grail of driverless vehicles then that's probably the ideal way to move around, if you want to stay bug-free
HOWEVER I agree they are right on a knife edge because they haven't crushed the competition yet, they have regulatory issues (just like Airbnb) and they are still spending billions with no profit.
Either minicab drivers (or autonomous car owners) own the cars or Uber does. Currently the model is that Uber doesn't own jack shit - they have out sourced their capital costs to the drivers.
If you are imagining a future where Uber own the vehicles then Uber has to spend a few more billion buying all the vehicles and the storage and maintenance facilities.
Uber currently have absolutely no skills at any of that. It would be a whole new avenue for them to fail at.
And once again this only works if they exclusively get autonomous vehicle tech. The thing about operating a minicab firm is that it is really easy and cheap to get started. Uber can never "crush the competition" because they can always be challenged by small local competitors who don't have the massive overheads of pretending to be a technology company rather than a minicab firm.
Uber only is where it is in terms of market dominance because it is selling $11 dollar taxi rides for $8.50. The evidence is that whenever it raises its fares to it's break even (or god forbin profitability) in a market they lose ridership to local competitors. The taxi user pool is massively price sensitive. No fancy app beats that.
And yet, it is still a brilliant idea, and extremely popular. Uber has 3.5m riders in London alone. Everyone I know used it - pre-Covid- all the time. It is just incredibly convenient
But yes they have big problems with rivals, and regulation, and their bid to dominate driverless looks doomed: they have extremely powerful competitors
Well whether or not the BBC is good or not really is not the issue. The issue is really it is fair and reasonable to expect people to have to pay for it for the right to watch live TV broadcasts. To me this is less and less tenable as time goes by
But you do pay for live TV (and on-demand etc) one way or the other. Do you want all of that funding collected and administered by unaccountable media and communications corporations or do you want a small part of it to come from the public and spent in a manner that is (however imperfectly) accountable to the public?
We can discuss the minutiae of how to make the BBC more accountable and whether non-payment of the license fee should be a criminal offence or just treated like any other failure to pay taxes and levies ... but the core principle is whether as a country we want public service broadcasting as a component of our media.
I am undecided as to whether the BBC is a good thing. In my opinion you have to split it up into its component parts. You can't just say "what about Netflix.."
So you could have the following subscription services:
1. News (regional subsets thereof) 2. Sport (regional subsets thereof) 3. Weather (regional subsets thereof) 4. Comedy 5. Drama 6. Documentaries 7. Natural History 8. Children's programmes 9. Radio (subsets thereof) 10. Politics 11. Films 12. etc
If you think that a bog standard Netflix sub is £5.99/month and the BBC license fee is £14.50/month then even if you priced the above individually at something low (£3.99/month?) enough people would take enough of them to allow the BBC to make no changes.
Of course it's as likely that for most people it thereby becomes more expensive and the BBC's revenue increases, while some will choose to get their news and weather from the internet or Netflix.
The BBC could lose news, sport, weather and politics and no one would care that much.
That's literally all that differentiates it TV-wise from Netflix though.
Ultimately if the BBC is great value for money people will be prepared to pay for it from free choice. The only reason people are so horrified about the idea of it being a free choice is they're aware that many people won't find it good value for money.
Um, Netflix buys in made programmes and has only recently begun to produce "Netflix Original Series" and films. The BBC makes programmes. As well as everything else.
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
Good for the BBC to be producing something. If it produces stuff that people wish to pay for then they should be free to do so. Free choice, I'm a big advocate of that.
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
And as for spending. Look at Netflix's cashflow.
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
No it is investing in growth, like Amazon did for a very long time.
They are making an operating profit.
Absolutely. It's a risky game. But then so would it be for the BBC if they went subscription.
Subscription would kiill the BBC.. A much reduced service for Guardian readers and the other woke minded people.
The rest of us are better off not having to pay for WokEnders and the like..
Pronunciation might even improve a bit if people are not watching Woke TV.
There has long been the view that you create the scale, get the customer base, and only THEN think about making it profitable.
That isn't totally wrong - there are a lot of now very profitable businesses where the route from scale to profitability was never very clear, but where they found a way.
However, the regulatory challenges are very large for Uber compared with, say, Just Eat, which is ultimately getting a cut from existing (regulated) restaurants and takeaways for pushing business their way. The Uber drivers aren't part of an existing regulated business which inevitably gives Uber employment law and safety obligations... whereas if I order from the local Indian restaurant via Just Eat, it's not Just Eat I do (or should) blame if I get food poisoning, and nor is it Just Eat hiring and firing the chef.
Thinking about BBC a bit more while I was just out, I think @TOPPING 's original programming jibe at Netflix shows the real, real danger that the BBC is in for the long-term.
In the past the BBC has relied upon its incumbency and its history of original programming but its losing both of those, fast. My generation and younger generations are simply not that bothered by the BBC anymore and that isn't a "young are liberal, old are conservative" idea - it is simply we've grown up with choice and that is not going away.
People are growing up with more channels and used to streaming and YouTube and multi-channel TVs. The idea of simply having the BBC on and seeing whatever is on next is rapidly fading into history.
And then when it comes to content the BBC used to be famed for its content. Emphasis is used to be. The era of Monty Python etc ended a long time ago, now increasingly the most talked about TV is Netflix and that is only going to continue.
The problem is that the era of the BBC is dying. It can't compete on original programming, it can't compete on cost. People increasing simply don't care for it and fondness for it is dying away.
Change has to come - and the problem is like a 'bricks and mortar' store failing to see the threat Amazon provides to their existence, the longer the BBCs fans live in denial about this fact the weaker and weaker the BBC will be when it is finally dealt with.
Years ago when digital was rolling out had the BBC been made a subscription service it would have had near universal uptake. Now that's going to be technologically hard to achieve and it won't be. The longer this is ignored, the worse it is for the long-term future of the BBC.
Done some rough and ready fag packet maths, reckon I'm at about 24 pence per mile all amortised for my current car. I can't see how a cab company can ever compete with that.
Though I doubt they'll need to. I suppose with the cost of parking in cities it'll be more for your own car to run there...
Done some rough and ready fag packet maths, reckon I'm at about 24 pence per mile all amortised for my current car. I can't see how a cab company can ever compete with that.
Though I doubt they'll need to. I suppose with the cost of parking in cities it'll be more for your own car to run there...
We don't all live in cities. Parking is free at most places.
This is why I was banging on about the number of people tested not being included in the daily figures being a bad sign. We attained the volume, which was great but there seems to be disorganisation with the numbers internally.
LadyG, just wanted to thank you for reviving my Louisiana memories. Hope you made it to Cafe du Monde in French Quarter, it not, something for next visit,
Wonder if you picked up on local New Orleans ("Nawlins") accent. Once spoken by many local Whites ("yats") but probably more prevalent today in its Black varient.
Classic is "My brotha Oil works on an earl well." Very similar to old-school Brooklyn accent. One thing that always tickled me was way many NO Black folks pronounce "orange" - "What kind of soft drink do you want? Coke, root beer or erngh drink." Whites in city tend to more standard Deep South "ahhhng".
Done some rough and ready fag packet maths, reckon I'm at about 24 pence per mile all amortised for my current car. I can't see how a cab company can ever compete with that.
Though I doubt they'll need to. I suppose with the cost of parking in cities it'll be more for your own car to run there...
The absence of hassles around parking is a part of Uber's appeal.
Basically, in London, Uber is like having a personal chauffeur in his own car always waiting two minutes around the corner, ready to pick you up and drop you off wherever you like (or do the same for friends) no cash or cards needed, no annoying rants about politics
The increase in utility over traditional minicabs and black cabs is vast
Therefore, some form of this model is the future. But it might not be Uber doing it
Lumping together millions of people that have nothing particular in common bar not being white, I suppose it could come across as a little patronising...
Gentiles? That's BILLIONS of people. As for BAME, if we need a word in certain circumstances to describe non whites (which I think we do) and BAME were to fall out of favour it would have to be replaced with an alternative. So I suppose we will stick with it unless or until that alternative comes along.
What I am not getting is why the Pillar 2 cases are not ending up in Pillar 1 as some of those afflicted end up in hospital. Is it because the Pillar 2 cases are younger and not actually all that ill? In which case is this a slightly unnecessary panic?
Comments
They landed on the doctors who had previously fallen out of the same windows.
Plus as asked before - is there anything on the BBC list you would pay for?
https://twitter.com/JoshuaYJackson/status/1277985648536891392?s=20
This is another of those Brexit issues. On the face of it (getting rid of the BBC or the license fee) seems like a good idea. When you actually delve into it, it's an illogical one. And would likely end up costing most people more.
I was sure he was a parody, but apparently not. The real deal
It does those six far better than Netflix in my humble opinion.
I don't think the BBC is value for money no and were I not obliged by law to pay for it I doubt I would.
Mwahahahahaha!
Netflix produce far better original series and films than the BBC does in my humble opinion.
Do you know how much Netflix spends on original programming? How much the BBC does?
As for evidence, yes. But also no. It depends. If you always stick to public domain evidence you can easily end up being a "consensus" bettor and that loses over time. Sometimes you have to get ahead of the pack using intuition - this will pay off big time if you are blessed with intuition which is above average and you can separate the genuine article from "just a hunch".
If people want stuff in Scottish Gaelic then they should pay for it. Or they should donate to a charity that wishes to pay for it.
Plus as you are posting on here I am pretty sure you would pay £14.99 for BBC Parliament alone.
That said, why shouldn't white people have a term they can use without getting cancelled three minutes later?
The BBC makes more original content now than it did in the late eighties and early nineties.
Removing the license fee is not illogical. It’s a perfectly valid and sensible standpoint. As is retaining it.
If it doesn’t happen in this parliament there will come a time if the BBC loses more and more of it’s reach to the general public that the license fee becomes completely untenable.
That is the problem with spendaholic lefties like you. Money gets committed and you bank it then demand more and nothing is ever enough. So instead of saying "the government is spending hundreds of billions" you say "the spending is £5 billion".
When you look at overall what the government has done this year, including the furlough scheme etc, absolutely it is comparable to FDR.
I am just observing that it is likely imo that people in aggregate would subscribe to enough of the individual services so as to reach that £14.50 per capita equivalent pretty quickly.
I guess I might pay for News, Weather and Parliament. And one offs that I like, such as Masterchef and Springwatch.
I would pay maybe £3 a month for the first three together (a small sum, because I can obtain these free elsewhere). And maybe £10 per season of the other two. So my yearly payment to *BBC Inc* would be £56 not £157
It is still operating on the model of selling people dollar bills for 80 cents.
I highly doubt that it will considering £5.99 per capita is the going rate for covering a majority of those services - and those are the most popular of the services! I'm not sure where you're expecting the trebling of the price to be justifiable from.
And I see you didn't respond on original programming budgets. Are you sure you want to claim the BBC does better than Netflix on original programming?
They are making an operating profit.
https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/30/amazon-earnings-q4-2019/
"Amazon reports $87.4 billion in Q4 2019 revenue: AWS up 34%, subscriptions up 32%, and ‘other’ up 41%"
Eighty seven BILLION in revenue
This is how you win in the internet. You "blitzscale". You spend and spend and spend - and don't make a profit for years - until you become so big you completely dominate the market, and crush all competition. THEN you sit back and start reaping the billions.
Uber is trying to do exactly this.
I think also that, to much wailing and gnashing of teeth, the BBC buys in plenty of programmes from "Production Companies" set up for one tax reason or another whereas in another environment they would own that company.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/blog/bernard-jenkin-whitehall-after-coronavirus
"politicians need to demand and encourage more independence of thought, more bodies embedded in Whitehall which think the unthinkable and which are empowered to challenge.
There is a consensus that the civil service needs a far wider diversity of thinking but replacing the present system by more political appointees would not address the failure of the political culture. In fact, it would simply reinforce it."
Today you say you don't understand the word "cancelled"?
May I politely suggest you are not totally on trend when it comes to contemporary politics.
Plus 3 x £5.99 = £14.50?
Yesterday Oklahoma voted for Medicaid Expansion (a key component of Obamacare)
https://results.okelections.us/OKER/?elecDate=20200630
Amazon always had a route to profitability.
Headline : 50
7 days : 43
1 day : 2
All regions are now in single digits for the last five days
As ever - last 3-5 days of data subject to later revision
I rather envy you. I yearn for the innocent days when I didn't understand the term "Woke".
It is, however, risky.
That's actually really close to profitability if you have several advanced degrees in finance and are being handsomely paid to believe in a business proposition. Plus they're laying off 14% of their workforce, another good sign.
Truly the good times are just around the corner.
The future is surely small electric driverless vehicles, or air craft, that you can summon with an app *like* Uber. But it might not be THE Uber doing it, though they are having a go:
https://www.uber.com/gb/en/elevate/#:~:text=Uber Air is our most,Learn more
Amazon is keeping it's profitability and investment in infrastructure about equal. So every time they look like making a big profit, investment goes up and prices go down.
Uber is banking on getting self driving cars to work and then generating profit off zillions of customers they are currently paying to keep.
And that was their pitch. I've seen their original pitch deck. Their idea was luxury limousines summoned as a mini-cab rather than hired for a whole evening.
There was absolutely nothing there about autonomous vehicles or clever AI or any of that nonsense. They literally pitched themselves as an up market minicab firm.
They have lost vast sums of money on their minicab operation whilst researching autonomous vehicles. It would have been better for them if they didn't run a massive loss making minicab firm and were just a research outfit.
And even if they get to autonomous vehicles they still don't have a path to profitability
https://www.dw.com/en/top-stories/documentary-report/s-32861
What's not to like?
But THEN they realised that in an era of ubiquitous smartphones with detailed real-time maps, showing location, you could have a universal instant ride-hailing service, with automatic payment and no cash or cards involved. It is brilliant.
And it IS the future, as owning cars becomes an unnecessary extravagance. Owning your own car in the future will be like owning a horse now, whereas once owning horses was extremely common.
What's more, you could argue that their model becomes more valid post-Covid: there's no exchange of money or cards (less infection), fewer people will want to use trains (increase in passengers) and if they get their Holy Grail of driverless vehicles then that's probably the ideal way to move around, if you want to stay bug-free
HOWEVER I agree they are right on a knife edge because they haven't crushed the competition yet, they have regulatory issues (just like Airbnb) and they are still spending billions with no profit.
For example, Stormzy at Glasto last year, he (my dad) watched it intently, was very interested, and I got an email from him with his thoughts. Many observations but with a common theme - Stormzy might be all the rage but if this sort of thing caught on it was goodbye proper music. And as for that union jack "stab vest", that was celebrating violence and therefore disgusting.
Uber and most of the other gig companies are subsidising almost every sale in the hope that when they reach critical mass they can increase their prices. I've never seen how that plan works.
If you are imagining a future where Uber own the vehicles then Uber has to spend a few more billion buying all the vehicles and the storage and maintenance facilities.
Uber currently have absolutely no skills at any of that. It would be a whole new avenue for them to fail at.
And once again this only works if they exclusively get autonomous vehicle tech. The thing about operating a minicab firm is that it is really easy and cheap to get started. Uber can never "crush the competition" because they can always be challenged by small local competitors who don't have the massive overheads of pretending to be a technology company rather than a minicab firm.
Uber only is where it is in terms of market dominance because it is selling $11 dollar taxi rides for $8.50. The evidence is that whenever it raises its fares to it's break even (or god forbin profitability) in a market they lose ridership to local competitors. The taxi user pool is massively price sensitive. No fancy app beats that.
I can't see how a cab company can ever compete with that.
He’s a decent guy who makes music that other people like.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-45206266
But yes they have big problems with rivals, and regulation, and their bid to dominate driverless looks doomed: they have extremely powerful competitors
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/business/amazon-zoox.html
The rest of us are better off not having to pay for WokEnders and the like..
Pronunciation might even improve a bit if people are not watching Woke TV.
Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
There has long been the view that you create the scale, get the customer base, and only THEN think about making it profitable.
That isn't totally wrong - there are a lot of now very profitable businesses where the route from scale to profitability was never very clear, but where they found a way.
However, the regulatory challenges are very large for Uber compared with, say, Just Eat, which is ultimately getting a cut from existing (regulated) restaurants and takeaways for pushing business their way. The Uber drivers aren't part of an existing regulated business which inevitably gives Uber employment law and safety obligations... whereas if I order from the local Indian restaurant via Just Eat, it's not Just Eat I do (or should) blame if I get food poisoning, and nor is it Just Eat hiring and firing the chef.
In the past the BBC has relied upon its incumbency and its history of original programming but its losing both of those, fast. My generation and younger generations are simply not that bothered by the BBC anymore and that isn't a "young are liberal, old are conservative" idea - it is simply we've grown up with choice and that is not going away.
People are growing up with more channels and used to streaming and YouTube and multi-channel TVs. The idea of simply having the BBC on and seeing whatever is on next is rapidly fading into history.
And then when it comes to content the BBC used to be famed for its content. Emphasis is used to be. The era of Monty Python etc ended a long time ago, now increasingly the most talked about TV is Netflix and that is only going to continue.
The problem is that the era of the BBC is dying. It can't compete on original programming, it can't compete on cost. People increasing simply don't care for it and fondness for it is dying away.
Change has to come - and the problem is like a 'bricks and mortar' store failing to see the threat Amazon provides to their existence, the longer the BBCs fans live in denial about this fact the weaker and weaker the BBC will be when it is finally dealt with.
Years ago when digital was rolling out had the BBC been made a subscription service it would have had near universal uptake. Now that's going to be technologically hard to achieve and it won't be. The longer this is ignored, the worse it is for the long-term future of the BBC.
https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1278285323592708096
Wonder if you picked up on local New Orleans ("Nawlins") accent. Once spoken by many local Whites ("yats") but probably more prevalent today in its Black varient.
Classic is "My brotha Oil works on an earl well." Very similar to old-school Brooklyn accent. One thing that always tickled me was way many NO Black folks pronounce "orange" - "What kind of soft drink do you want? Coke, root beer or erngh drink." Whites in city tend to more standard Deep South "ahhhng".
Basically, in London, Uber is like having a personal chauffeur in his own car always waiting two minutes around the corner, ready to pick you up and drop you off wherever you like (or do the same for friends) no cash or cards needed, no annoying rants about politics
The increase in utility over traditional minicabs and black cabs is vast
Therefore, some form of this model is the future. But it might not be Uber doing it
What I am not getting is why the Pillar 2 cases are not ending up in Pillar 1 as some of those afflicted end up in hospital. Is it because the Pillar 2 cases are younger and not actually all that ill? In which case is this a slightly unnecessary panic?
Maybe I am missing something.