I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
Interesting. No radio, current affairs, BBC apps? No "How to Vaccinate the World" (on in an hour, R4)?
That imo and only imo is a diminished experience.
If people want radio then let them pay for it.
Why should TV viewers be taxed to pay for radio? What an absurd notion.
I couldn't give a toss about radio.
That is my point. It is BBC radio. Do you think it isn't funded by the LF?
If you want to have a radio subscription then pay for it. Good for you
Gah! That is my entire point.
You should be able to buy the BBC radio on a subscription model.
How popular? No idea but there will be millions of takers at a price.
Same with other modules.
Doesn't get off the ground unless you introduce a new generation of Radio Detector Vans to enforce it. And that would only work if you keep the model that if you don't have a BBC licence you can't listen to anyone else.
What detector vans? There never was any....well there were some empty vans driving around, but none that could actually work out if you were watching tv. Not a single individual has ever been prosecuted via evidence collected from a "detector van".
And they don't even try to pretend these days, as the enforcement is all via Capita, who are quite open that they have a big database and just look at those properties that had a licence, got rid and then they decide which to eventually knock on their door to ask if they need a licence (and you can simply say no thanks, and they have to go away).
And these days, they absolutely can't work out what you are streaming via the internet, unless they get legal warrants to talk to your ISP, and even then use of a simple VPN, means you need GCHQ involved to work it out.
One of the things you spot when doorknocking are the notices in windows saying that the implied right to access your property is withdrawn for TV licence enforcement. They have no legal right to even go up the front path to knock on your door with that up.
My pet peeve against the BBC is that a number of their dramas from the 70s are only available in Region 1 format DVDs. e.g. an Ibsen season. There is a lot of drama from the past I would like to see but it is difficult to access.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
He also forgets a lot of that sport isn't available on BBC. If you are a sport fan you probably need a fair few subscriptions already
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
I tend to agree. We still watch plenty of BBC stuff, much more than from the other broadcast channels (although it is all, apart from live news, via iplayer and the like, not live) but probably less than Netflix. However, most of that is private production companies who would likely sell to other players like Netflix if the BBC wasn't buying.
So, I see the value in news and current affairs and also in the more niche sports, perhaps. I also wonder whether we'd have some of the amazing wildlife documentaries without the BBC. Sure, Netflix do them now and do them well, but would we have ever got to the level we have got to without the public service remit of the BBC? I honestly do not have an answer, but sometimes things are produced because it's a 'good' thing to do and only afterwards is it obvious there is a market for it. We might lose out on those kinds of things without a BBC. Radio too, of course. So I think there's a place for the BBC, but much slimmed down. The question is, can we as a country agree which bits stay in a slimmed down BBC? Why should my desire for the public broadcaster to fun wildlife documentaries trump someone else's desire for them to fund EastEnders?
BBC kids TV is also better than the other broadcasters'. Probably could survive well as a subscription service, but why should kids of rich parents get better (more educational, more nuanced) TV than kids of poor parents? There's also a public service remit there too.
Cant answer for kids tv as I don't watch it but can say there are plenty of very good documentaries on prime and they tend to be series on a subject rather than a single program. A nature example for instance
Re nature documentaries, my question was not whether private providers can do as well (they can) but whether high quality big budget nature programming would have happened without the BBC showing there was an audience for it (I don't know - are there examples of private networks doing really high quality big budget stuff in this area until very recently?)
Netflix do a huge number of high quality documentaries covering subjects that aren't exactly seen as easy mainstream stuff.
And remember Netflix is in 4k...the BBC still can't do that outside some very limited tests.
Netflix are prepared to take more risks than almost anyone else at the moment, in TV or film.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
Wanting?
This is the year 2021. On demand is the present not the future.
We have an atomised world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality today. Other than sport and news I don't watch any live broadcast TV and haven't for many years now. Broadcast is dead, everyone sitting together at 7pm to watch the same thing up and down the nation died years ago. Wake up.
Don't mimic my language back at me, Philip. That's the sort of infantile brittle comms adopted by alt-right airhead nasties. You're better than that.
So what I mean is, please don't now reply saying that eye am better than that.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
Sky sports and BBC Sport aren't comparable services, Netflix isn't comparable to whatever the BBC has and Prime is just a handy little bonus for people who want next day delivery.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
Its available to me on demand with my Sky subscription.
On demand subscription services is the world we live in now.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
Wanting?
This is the year 2021. On demand is the present not the future.
We have an atomised world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality today. Other than sport and news I don't watch any live broadcast TV and haven't for many years now. Broadcast is dead, everyone sitting together at 7pm to watch the same thing up and down the nation died years ago. Wake up.
Don't mimic my language back at me, Philip. That's the sort of infantile brittle comms adopted by alt-right airhead nasties. You're better than that.
So what I mean is, please don't now reply saying that eye am better than that.
Turnabout is fair play.
If you don't want your language being mimicked, then don't say ridiculous stupid things ending with the infantile phrase "Wake up."
Because if you do that, then I am not better than taking the piss out of that.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
People are paying a huge premium to watch prime, netflix and have sky sports.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
Sky sports and BBC Sport aren't comparable services, Netflix isn't comparable to whatever the BBC has and Prime is just a handy little bonus for people who want next day delivery.
I think Prime comes into its own on the prime video side. Especially now people can live with deliveries taking a day or two longer. But the prime video content is excellent.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
Wanting?
This is the year 2021. On demand is the present not the future.
We have an atomised world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality today. Other than sport and news I don't watch any live broadcast TV and haven't for many years now. Broadcast is dead, everyone sitting together at 7pm to watch the same thing up and down the nation died years ago. Wake up.
Don't mimic my language back at me, Philip. That's the sort of infantile brittle comms adopted by alt-right airhead nasties. You're better than that.
So what I mean is, please don't now reply saying that eye am better than that.
Turnabout is fair play.
If you don't want your language being mimicked, then don't say ridiculous stupid things ending with the infantile phrase "Wake up."
Because if you do that, then I am not better than taking the piss out of that.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
No they don't cost four to five times what the BBC costs. It isn't like-for-like putting in Sky Sports against the BBC because the BBC has never had the depth or breadth of sport that Sky offers.
That's like comparing the cost of a price of a flight to Disneyworld staying there for a fortnight, with the cost of driving to your local Disney store. They're not the same thing.
The BBC is more comparable to Netflix and is to be frank inferior to it in my and many other people's opinion - and it costs far more. But if the BBC wants to go subscription and justify its costs then I'd say good luck to it.
My first bit of advice would be that the BBC should put its entire back catalogue online as part of its subscription fee - and keep adding new material to that catalogue like Netflix does, rather than putting new shows up for 30 days to a year.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
People are paying a huge premium to watch prime, netflix and have sky sports.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
Not so It's a Sin, as an example.
Well some are, I don't have sky so I just pay my prime sub and get sport, music, documentaries, films and drama just fine. All I am really missing is news and current affairs both of which are better imo on the net. I don't need talking heads giving me their opinion for that
The Crown Office? That unimpeachable bastion of probity?
Nothing will happen but weasel words and buck passing. Of course. The structures of government in Scotland are riddled with SNP apparatchiks, and they are all the more emboldened now they've seen how little they have to fear, no matter how shameful their actions.
IMO the real issue about boundaries is that they count registered voters rather than British citizens, which massively disadvantages areas where people move frequently, i.e. cities. People who've lived in the same place for 20 years say "Well, if they can't be bothered to register, why should they be represented?" but if you're in a series of temporary places and sofa-surfing because you're struggling to afford anywhere, then registering to vote is just not on your radar - but you're still British and your interests ought to be heard like anyone else. ..
Err, Nick, that makes precisely zero sense. If they are not registered to vote, then their interests aren't heard (which is entirely their own choice - it's not exactly difficult). How on earth does that justify those who are registered to vote in such constituencies getting more than their fair share of MPs? You seem to think that by some mysterious process they are authorised to vote on behalf of those who can't be bothered to register.
(Not sure how much is 'AI' as we'd think of it and how much simpler models). Same concerns as in the article for me. These systems are trained and so will pick up attributes that match candidates who did well in the past not necessarily those who would do well now. So if your past recruitment was biased or your past progression was biased so e.g. white men did well, then it's quite likely you algorithm will favour people who behave in the tests as white men would behave.
Of course, human recruiters suck too. We recently shortlisted and interviewed. Only one person fit the bill and took a different position, so we re-advertised and shortlisted (second time) someone we'd rejected at shortlisting stage first time. Was still a borderline decision whether to include him second time. At interview, he was way above anyone else. Great candidate, came across well, passed our tests with flying colours. And yet we rejected him once and only just included him a second time.
The 'AI' tests are also very gameable, unless done on-site, and generic ones can have limited relevance. My wife had English and Maths online tests, pre-interview, for her last job. We did them together. I'm probably better at the maths tests like that then her and maybe a bit more chilled under time pressure (both deliberately didn't give you enough time). She still had to prove herself at interview, and did, but could she have been rejected by the daft online test? Maybe.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
There hasn't been that community for years since we went from 4 channels and who the hell wants it back if community to you means saying oh did you see taggart on tv last night wasnt it great! means community to you then you can keep it
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
If you are willing to negotiate each year you can get Sky Sports incl broadband for around £400 per year, some years more, some less. Problem is, if you forgot to negotiate on renewal it can rise to silly amounts like £80 per month so requires discipline.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
People are paying a huge premium to watch prime, netflix and have sky sports.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
Not so It's a Sin, as an example.
You can watch "It's a Sin" without paying a subscription fee? How?
And how and where will that be available to watch in a few years time? Boardwalk Empire was on first air from 2010 to 2014 and is still available to stream today as part of my subscription at no extra cost. How does that work with stuff the BBC produced from 2010 to 2014 for example?
Those saying but x costs y, then you have to add this and that. As Max points out, increasingly you get loads of these services bundled. It isn't hard to get Free BT Sport, Spotify, Netflix thrown in when you buy services you already use.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
If you are willing to negotiate each year you can get Sky Sports incl broadband for around £400 per year, some years more, some less. Problem is, if you forgot to negotiate on renewal it can rise to silly amounts like £80 per month so requires discipline.
Yeah we're running down the TV contract after we switched broadband to Vodafone. As I've said, it's unlikely that we're going to renew Sky in two months when it comes up.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
And as pointed out, 118 has basically gone the way of the dinosaur too....you don't ever need to use it. The "market" worked out far more efficient ways of providing that information.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
MOTD, from the theme song onwards, perhaps especially the theme song, connects with something visceral in me and I love it.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
Or in other words "How terrible it is that people can watch what they enjoy, they should be watching the stuff I think they should watch" and then you wonder why people mock the lefty attitude you have.
I don't wonder why people mock lefty attitudes. I know exactly why they do. It's because they are mean of spirit and can't see beyond the end of their nose.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
I'd pay a tenner a month for something the BBC doesn't currently offer, it's not a comparable service to the licence fee.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
People are paying a huge premium to watch prime, netflix and have sky sports.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
Not so It's a Sin, as an example.
You can watch "It's a Sin" without paying a subscription fee? How?
And how and where will that be available to watch in a few years time? Boardwalk Empire was on first air from 2010 to 2014 and is still available to stream today as part of my subscription at no extra cost. How does that work with stuff the BBC produced from 2010 to 2014 for example?
Well no you can't watch It's a Sin without paying the LF. But it's a sunk cost. If I want to watch Boardwalk Empire on prime it will cost me £20/series. On top of my £79/year sub.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
MOTD, from the theme song onwards, perhaps especially the theme song, connects with something visceral in me and I love it.
There’s definitely something in the classic sporting theme tunes. F1 is the same, with the Fleetwood Mac intro.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
Sky sports and BBC Sport aren't comparable services, Netflix isn't comparable to whatever the BBC has and Prime is just a handy little bonus for people who want next day delivery.
I think Prime comes into its own on the prime video side. Especially now people can live with deliveries taking a day or two longer. But the prime video content is excellent.
Not that much on Prime I watch but works for me as a bundle. Delivery worth £30 ish, Music worth £50, Sport worth £30, Films and Series worth £30.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
MOTD, from the theme song onwards, perhaps especially the theme song, connects with something visceral in me and I love it.
So it isn't the quality of the actual programme then....its the emotion of it.
I haven't watched it in 2 seasons. As soon as I stopped, it quickly became apparent just how out of touch the talking heads on that show are about modern football tactics and stats.
For instance, the big introduction of "XG" into tv analysis, most serious analysts will tell you very good, that is something from 5 years ago and basically tells you want most people knew already, shoot near and centre of the goal....the more you do it, the more you are likely to score and thus win.
As I say, The Athletic coverage and analysis is just far superior in every way.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
Or in other words "How terrible it is that people can watch what they enjoy, they should be watching the stuff I think they should watch" and then you wonder why people mock the lefty attitude you have.
I don't wonder why people mock lefty attitudes. I know exactly why they do. It's because they are mean of spirit and can't see beyond the end of their nose.
No it is just we don't agree with your particular world view. That doesn't make us evil,greedy or immoral. I am happy for you to be as collectivised with your fellow travellers as you like just don't ask me to join. On the other hand you want to make me join your borg collective whether I want to or not....yet apparently I am the selfish one.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you and yours living in a collective as far as I can see. Points at the various communes dotted around the country
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
MOTD, from the theme song onwards, perhaps especially the theme song, connects with something visceral in me and I love it.
Same here. I'd pay a few quid just for that. Talking about VTM comparisons, Virgin cable TV is £85 per month. Not per year, per MONTH.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
And as pointed out, 118 has basically gone the way of the dinosaur too....you don't ever need to use it. The "market" worked out far more efficient ways of providing that information.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
I'd be happy to dispense with Marr, but BBC news (as opposed to any particular BBC news programme) is, despite its many faults, excellent and IMO underfunded. And BBC ought to have a far greater educational remit, particularly early years.
The structure and remit of the BBC needs rethinking, but simply hiving to off as a commercial organisation ignores its potential societal value (and its still major influence overseas as a trusted news source).
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
And as pointed out, 118 has basically gone the way of the dinosaur too....you don't ever need to use it. The "market" worked out far more efficient ways of providing that information.
After 16 years, yes.
With tv, the tech and competition is already much further along and established....and price points have had a line in the sand (plus big tech companies like Amazon and Apple are happy to subsidise for market share).
When 118 came along, there was no smart phone, no easy way for everybody to get that info.
In terms of content and competition to the BBC, there are already 4-5 big services, plus YouTube, plus Twitch, etc etc etc. It isn't some mythical future, that one day you might be able to watch content on the internet, in the way with the launch of 118, there was a mythical magic future wireless information stream that you could get on this tiny handheld piece of electronics.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
The other thing Topping neglects is there really is no need to go watch boardwalk empire unless you really want to. All the streaming services have more tv than you could watch in a lifetime even if you just stick to things you like. It is not like it was in the broadcast only days where you had to buy video's for when there was nothing worth watching on
People are paying a huge premium to watch prime, netflix and have sky sports.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
Not so It's a Sin, as an example.
You can watch "It's a Sin" without paying a subscription fee? How?
And how and where will that be available to watch in a few years time? Boardwalk Empire was on first air from 2010 to 2014 and is still available to stream today as part of my subscription at no extra cost. How does that work with stuff the BBC produced from 2010 to 2014 for example?
Well no you can't watch It's a Sin without paying the LF. But it's a sunk cost. If I want to watch Boardwalk Empire on prime it will cost me £20/series. On top of my £79/year sub.
Its not a Prime show so why are you looking at Prime series costs? Prime store is a glorified VHS store.
Boardwalk Empire was a Sky Atlantic show and it is available on NowTV/Sky at no extra cost. Just as Prime's shows are available still on Prime at no extra cost. Just like Netflix's shows are available still on Netflix at no extra cost. Just as the BBC's shows are . . . oh wait no they're not.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
And who in the bbc > netflix/prime group have never paid for content over and above? Sorry I don't see what point you are making here. The point of the debate is people like me don't want to pay for the BBC because we don't use it
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
The shared set of facts is sadly the most important contribution the BBC can make in the next couple of decades. Ridiculous that humankind has got here, but it is far too easy to live in a world where the news is a mix of what entertains us, drives emotions and what we want to it to be, rather than actual news. The BBC is an important defence against Trumpist false reality.
Therefore I'm happy to accept any pragmatic funding solution that can keep the BBC as an important part of UK society, whether its license fees, grants, advertising or subscriptions - whatever works and keeps the BBC at the centre of UK media.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
I haven't paid Amazon any money overy annual subscription. 9/10 times what they have in the premium content section is available on Netflix or Sky Boxsets/NowTV. Don't forget that Netflix has got most high quality BBC nature docs and high quality dramas already and NowTV has got all HBO TV content (such as Boardwalk Empire).
You're doing it wrong by paying the premium instead of the subscription fee.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
Why do you need MOTD? Legal highlights for free on YouTube within an hour of the game ending, and much better coverage / analysis from the likes of the Athletic for a £1 / month (or there are other outlets for free). MOTD "analysis" is just crap, the world has moved on, Tifo football for example will explain the tactical approaches of teams far better than the likes of Shearer and Ian Wright on MOTD.
MOTD, from the theme song onwards, perhaps especially the theme song, connects with something visceral in me and I love it.
So it isn't the quality of the actual programme then....its the emotion of it.
I haven't watched it in 2 seasons. As soon as I stopped, it quickly became apparent just how out of touch the talking heads on that show are about modern football tactics and stats.
For instance, the big introduction of "XG" into tv analysis, most serious analysts will tell you very good, that is something from 5 years ago and basically tells you want most people knew already, shoot near and centre of the goal....the more you do it, the more you are likely to score and thus win.
As I say, The Athletic coverage and analysis is just far superior in every way.
I also like the content. It presents to me, a non-fanatic but interested footie fan with bite-sized chunks of yesterday's games. And I also like the banter in a Kermode & Mayo, (early) Top Gear way.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
The thing about the modular model is that we all think of the bits of the BBC that we personally don't use, and how much we could save if we didn't have to pay for those bits.
What we forget is that we also would end up paying more for the bits we do use, because other people would have withdrawn their funding from those bits. And whatever else, it would introduce complexity, and that always costs.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
The Prime Store is a glorified DVD store, its not comparable to or "adding up" to a subscription cost. I have never paid for a TV show above my subscription cost.
I have bought movies in the past on release but view that as no different to buying a DVD, just in a more convenient format. Again if I want movies on demand I can either buy it via Prime Store (like a DVD), or get movies in subscription format from eg Netflix etc - the BBC does not have a reliable on demand archive of films available as part of my subscription so you need to pay on top of that.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
I'd be happy to dispense with Marr, but BBC news (as opposed to any particular BBC news programme) is, despite its many faults, excellent and IMO underfunded. And BBC ought to have a far greater educational remit, particularly early years.
The structure and remit of the BBC needs rethinking, but simply hiving to off as a commercial organisation ignores its potential societal value (and its still major influence overseas as a trusted news source).
Then have the news/world services paid for out of general taxation if it has a societal good. At that way it won't hurt the poor who pay the same £175 as I do for services they probably don't care about.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
And who in the bbc > netflix/prime group have never paid for content over and above? Sorry I don't see what point you are making here. The point of the debate is people like me don't want to pay for the BBC because we don't use it
It`s a public utility not a pay-as-you-go scheme. You pay for roads and libraries even of you don`t drive and don`t read books.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
I haven't paid Amazon any money overy annual subscription. 9/10 times what they have in the premium content section is available on Netflix or Sky Boxsets/NowTV. Don't forget that Netflix has got most high quality BBC nature docs and high quality dramas already and NowTV has got all HBO TV content (such as Boardwalk Empire).
You're doing it wrong by paying the premium instead of the subscription fee.
Nah I like to watch films and am happy to pay to do so. Also mini-series. And I don't have Sky or NowTV.
Do we think it is possible to get the booster / adjusted vaccines between the autumn? Seems an awfully long time to hope that Saffer COVID doesn't take hold and that because of the reduced efficacy of the vaccines we will have to still have very strong restrctions.
I think to me it increasingly looks like the rest of the year might well be a repeat of 2020. Most of the year under restriction, with some relaxation in the summer.
If C4 are going to show cricket my main reason for Sky Sports has disappeared. Indeed, might be appropriate to review Sky completely, apart from the fact that I've currently got a Sky dish.
Dr Mike Tildesley, an infectious disease expert who advises the government, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that "it's very possible" the South Africa variant could already be quite widespread in the UK.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Spot on. UK programme makers need to grow a pair and invest beyond the 6 episode format when they have a hit.
Yet - if I look at Disney plus everything is a 6 to 8 part series because that is what the story needs.
In a world of on demand media it really doesn't matter how many episodes are produced - the need for 20-25 episodes to strap it in a time slot for the entire year doesn't exist anymore.
It does matter if you want to dominate the market by getting mind share. The Bodyguard was a great show for example, but it was just 6 or 8 episodes a long time ago now. 6 episodes should be considered a pilot, then if it works, go all in.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
There hasn't been that community for years since we went from 4 channels and who the hell wants it back if community to you means saying oh did you see taggart on tv last night wasnt it great! means community to you then you can keep it
I'm talking about the overall media landscape not nostalgia for the days of 20m watching Corrie all at the same time of a weekday evening. I'm not one for trying to recreate the past. You never can anyway. But we need to be upping the influence of things like the BBC and reducing that of bad actors. This whole idea of scrapping public service broadcasting and just leaving things to the market is short-sighted and feeds rather than fights the post truth society. That's what I'm saying. That's my point. Don't go all anal and literal on me. I can't cope with that. It drives me away and into flipness.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
Well then if the BBC would be forced to offer a "premium product and sweat the asset" that is a good thing and would stop the BBC from being as s**t and doomed as it is at the minute.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
I haven't paid Amazon any money overy annual subscription. 9/10 times what they have in the premium content section is available on Netflix or Sky Boxsets/NowTV. Don't forget that Netflix has got most high quality BBC nature docs and high quality dramas already and NowTV has got all HBO TV content (such as Boardwalk Empire).
You're doing it wrong by paying the premium instead of the subscription fee.
The other thing is you dont have to have all subs running at once. I certainly have a friend who has a couple of months of prime then a couple of months of netflix then a couple of months of disney then repeat
If C4 are going to show cricket my main reason for Sky Sports has disappeared. Indeed, might be appropriate to review Sky completely, apart from the fact that I've currently got a Sky dish.
Im not sure how long it will last, it could just be a one off for this series.
Seems to me that they are agitating for a fight - they know inertia means they won't get chances the longer he is in post, not until he actually loses a GE (or worse, as far as they are concerned, he wins it).
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
And who in the bbc > netflix/prime group have never paid for content over and above? Sorry I don't see what point you are making here. The point of the debate is people like me don't want to pay for the BBC because we don't use it
The debate, such as it is because we are all agreeing, is to assess the relative merits of different entertainment options.
My point is that compared with what people pay to other platforms, the BBC is good value.
And therefore although I want it "broken up" into payable modules and made non-compulsory I rather suspect that it is even on those terms very good value. Moreso because they would then stop their content being available elsewhere.
If C4 are going to show cricket my main reason for Sky Sports has disappeared. Indeed, might be appropriate to review Sky completely, apart from the fact that I've currently got a Sky dish.
Its just a one off. Sky and BT still have the rights to most of it. And I doubt the viewing figures will hold up, given the appalling quality of the coverage, both due to the Indian commentators, but also the totally amateur hour studio setup / coverage.
If C4 are going to show cricket my main reason for Sky Sports has disappeared. Indeed, might be appropriate to review Sky completely, apart from the fact that I've currently got a Sky dish.
Sky have still got all the England home series over the summer. It's only the away series where C4 and BT have rights.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
And who in the bbc > netflix/prime group have never paid for content over and above? Sorry I don't see what point you are making here. The point of the debate is people like me don't want to pay for the BBC because we don't use it
It`s a public utility not a pay-as-you-go scheme. You pay for roads and libraries even of you don`t drive and don`t read books.
Well it isn't a public utility as I can't access it. Nor is it funded like one. Instead I pay the value it is to me which is zero
(Not sure how much is 'AI' as we'd think of it and how much simpler models). Same concerns as in the article for me. These systems are trained and so will pick up attributes that match candidates who did well in the past not necessarily those who would do well now. So if your past recruitment was biased or your past progression was biased so e.g. white men did well, then it's quite likely you algorithm will favour people who behave in the tests as white men would behave.
Of course, human recruiters suck too. We recently shortlisted and interviewed. Only one person fit the bill and took a different position, so we re-advertised and shortlisted (second time) someone we'd rejected at shortlisting stage first time. Was still a borderline decision whether to include him second time. At interview, he was way above anyone else. Great candidate, came across well, passed our tests with flying colours. And yet we rejected him once and only just included him a second time.
The 'AI' tests are also very gameable, unless done on-site, and generic ones can have limited relevance. My wife had English and Maths online tests, pre-interview, for her last job. We did them together. I'm probably better at the maths tests like that then her and maybe a bit more chilled under time pressure (both deliberately didn't give you enough time). She still had to prove herself at interview, and did, but could she have been rejected by the daft online test? Maybe.
I would prefer to work for a smaller firm and coincidentally they, at least in my experience, are less likely to deploy such "AI" measures.
That said I know half the battle is luck: right place, right time, striking a chord with the shortlisters, interviewers, or assessors, on a particular day at a particular time. That sort of thing.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
Well then if the BBC would be forced to offer a "premium product and sweat the asset" that is a good thing and would stop the BBC from being as s**t and doomed as it is at the minute.
It is still good value now, compared with the fabled Prime, Netflix and D+. Oh and Sky.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
But it's still a completely different value proposition. Surely what we're all pointing out is that the licence fee model is rubbish because it prevents the BBC from properly exploiting it's archive for income from people like me who would be happy to pay for it. My £175 per year doesn't get me anything close to what I'd want from the BBC right now and they've got it so that I can't legally watch non-BBC live content without paying the £175 per year.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
I haven't paid Amazon any money overy annual subscription. 9/10 times what they have in the premium content section is available on Netflix or Sky Boxsets/NowTV. Don't forget that Netflix has got most high quality BBC nature docs and high quality dramas already and NowTV has got all HBO TV content (such as Boardwalk Empire).
You're doing it wrong by paying the premium instead of the subscription fee.
The other thing is you dont have to have all subs running at once. I certainly have a friend who has a couple of months of prime then a couple of months of netflix then a couple of months of disney then repeat
I occasionally take up subs for their trial period to watch a particular thing.
But other than that your friend is evidently more active in managing subscriptions than your usual couch potato. Certainly than me (although I have it in my diary to cancel Apple Music [came with a TV] in June).
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
Sky sports for £120?! If you find that offer let me know. It's about £200 per year at the moment through NowTV and entertainment/boxsets is about £80 if you pay annually plus I have Prime for the delivery. The TV part of it is just a bonus and I pay annualy.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
I bloody love MOTD on a Sunday afternoon after (a boozy) lunch. But then that's just about the only sport I watch on TV apart from the boxing (free occasionally, happy to pay for the big fights, or it's YouTube T+1 for me).
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
I think I'd be very, very happy to leave Marr and the rest of BBC News behind forever, EastEnders, radio, Mrs Brown's Boys, and the rest of it too.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
Of course it is different. It is the new model. As I have said (2x already so apols) I just paid £11.50 to Prime to watch a BBC series. No more of that in the brave new world.
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
And who in the bbc > netflix/prime group have never paid for content over and above? Sorry I don't see what point you are making here. The point of the debate is people like me don't want to pay for the BBC because we don't use it
The debate, such as it is because we are all agreeing, is to assess the relative merits of different entertainment options.
My point is that compared with what people pay to other platforms, the BBC is good value.
And therefore although I want it "broken up" into payable modules and made non-compulsory I rather suspect that it is even on those terms very good value. Moreso because they would then stop their content being available elsewhere.
I have no problem with them doing so which I have said time and time again. Where we disagree is on whether their finances would improve
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
There hasn't been that community for years since we went from 4 channels and who the hell wants it back if community to you means saying oh did you see taggart on tv last night wasnt it great! means community to you then you can keep it
Sad attitude. I think that sense of community is a good thing.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
Well then if the BBC would be forced to offer a "premium product and sweat the asset" that is a good thing and would stop the BBC from being as s**t and doomed as it is at the minute.
It is still good value now, compared with the fabled Prime, Netflix and D+. Oh and Sky.
It isn't though, not for me. If the £175 came with full archive access via iPlayer I'd happily pay it, I'd even be open to paying more depending on what they included. They don't though and that's the problem. The £175 holds value because it unlocks legal viewing of live broadcast TV such as Sky Sports. I'd honestly stop paying overnight if that went away. What the BBC offers for me today has absolutely zero other value.
Up and down the country, toys are being thrown out of prams.
Number 10's operation has improved immeasurably already as a result of having a proper opposition. Plus, with Kier on the Labour front benches, the Tories will be under pressure to put forward a suitable, sensible replacement for Johnson (sooner or later).
Therefore I find myself actually willing on the Labour leader, as amusing as a left-wing replacement would be.
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
I cancelled my tv license about 3 months back, primarily to save money. Haven't missed it much other than live sport. Have been exclusively watching Netflix and Prime.
The idea that the BBC is worth the same as Netflix and Prime combined is absolutely ludicrous.
I just find it strange that political geeks would not want to watch live tv news and current affairs.
What do you do on election night? PB?
Yes the internet trumps TV.
I watch live TV news. Sky typically, its not paid for by the licence fee last I checked. Yes a fee is legally requried but that's an absurdity I oppose.
Current affairs I don't watch on TV, I get my current affairs online.
Election night is one of the few times I watch the BBC, but I could just as easily watch Sky. Though yes PB trumps them both.
So that's cool. You are breaking the law because you watch live tv news which counts as live tv and hence you need a licence fee. But you have decided that such a law doesn't apply to you.
As for election night, I see that you don't like the BBC apart from when you do.
What are you talking about? I pay my licence fee.
I don't want to, I campaign against it, but I do.
Yes I do (very rarely) watch the BBC. I pay through the nose for it so why shouldn't I? I just recognise how rarely I do and what terrible value for money it is, which is why many others are cancelling. Good for them.
I agree that BBC TV is terrible, and not value for money. The paradox is that BBC radio is in many ways good, though not as good as it ought to be, - and there is no decent quality alternative anyway - and very convenient. And it is currently free. To me it alone is worth the licence.
The other thing about BBC TV is that occasionally either for news or event coverage (and IMHO election nights) it has the edge because of its range and reliability and (even) caution. Its (relative) commitment to neutrality and truth is important. I think like without BBC would be much worse.
Is there anyone else in radio who would produce the World Service or, say, Tim Harford?
BBC Radio still retains a lot of the pre-Birt ethos - it's somehow got away with it - and is well-worth the license fee alone, agreed.
On TV, BBC Four is an example of how the rot continually sets in to the BBC's televisual ethos since the late 1990s ; a genuinely ambitious and promising channel when it launched 10 to 15 years ago, it's now too often anonymous, unambitious and average-to-poor, mimicking the mundanity of the modern BBC2 in its regular output.
The BBC has a huge archive of documentaries that seem to be unavailable anywhere other than low quality YouTube rips and yet they fill BBC4 with 40 year old PBS painting shows.
And it’s not like these things are languishing on rotting betamax somewhere - they spent an absolute fortune digitising them in the late naughties.
Not just dramas, but documentaries ; the BBC has incredible riches stored, because many of documentaries and dramas made by it between the mid-1960s and mid-1990s stand up with the very best in the world. It would cost the BBC nothing to more regularly screen some on these on BBC4 - if not on the supposedly more ambitious channel that is strapped for cash, then where ? Anyone could reasonably ask.
Yep, the archive is a genuine national treasure. If it isn't, nothing is. I do NOT want some "innovative" capitalist getting their hands on that, thank you very much.
Why? At least we might actually be able to see some of it.
Rather not see it than pay a grubby capitalist for the privilege. Also, the fact it is only dipped into every so often adds to the sense of occasion - and therefore value - when it happens. It brings a lump.
You'd rather pay a telly tax to not see products you've paid for, than have a subscription based BBC make it available to you to watch whenever you want?
You're stark raving bonkers.
You're bonkers wanting an atomized world where people are staring at their own bespoke digital reality the whole time. Wake up.
I've lived in an atomised world since I got my first modem. What we're discussing is how we'd make it a better quality one.
But you know what I mean. No sense of community or even of a shared set of basic facts and realities on which understanding can be built, debates can be had, choices and progress made. The post truth, atomized world. It's a massive problem and getting worse not better. Losing things like the BBC in favour of yet more 'money talks' media is exactly the wrong direction for us. Losing what little we have left of quality impartial media so that whinging precious "libertarians" who wouldn't know what genuine liberty meant if they fell over it can save a few quid and watch more Netflix and Youtube? Fuck off. I mean really, fuck right off. We need to promote the opposite.
There hasn't been that community for years since we went from 4 channels and who the hell wants it back if community to you means saying oh did you see taggart on tv last night wasnt it great! means community to you then you can keep it
Sad attitude. I think that sense of community is a good thing.
I didn't say sense of community is a bad thing I ridiculed the idea that having all sat down to watch the same show at the same time on a sunday night was a sense of community
I think the BBC's great. Things I've loved over the last year either live or on iPlayer - Spiral, Normal People, Peaky Blinders, The Serpent, Mrs America, and lots more. Radio news (1pm and 5pm) much better than most others. Quite a lot of good plays on R4, and good analysis on things like More or Less. Just a Minute. And of course The Archers. I could go on and on.
The idea that the BBC doesn't produce good stuff is absurd - of course they do.
Peaky Blinders is a great example of what is wrong with the BBC in the modern era.
They have a hit, a big hit....and in 8 years they have made 30 episodes.
Big shows now regularly have between 10 and 20 episodes per season and they make a season every year.
Now you could argue, but the quality, what about quality, it slips if you do too many etc. Can be true, but people are now conditioned to binge watch things, they want content, 30 episodes in 8 years isn't enough.
Lets compare a similar show, Boardwalk Empire on HBO. 4 years, 58 episodes. That has even higher production values, a top quality show, I don't think doing 12 episodes a year reduced its quality.
Very well said and frankly I doubt the quality of Peaky Blinders is any better than that of Boardwalk Empire.
Plus HBO of course don't rest on their laurels of having done Boardwalk Empire, they move onto other quality projects.
The volume and quality of the BBC compared to HBO etc is just embarrassing, it is really poor.
30 episode in eight years isn't something to live off.
EXCELLENT EXAMPLE!
How much would it cost you to watch all 58 episodes of Boardwalk Empire?
It's available on NowTV so not very much.
Ha dammit. So what's that? A tenner a month for Boardwalk Empire. And we already have prime and netflix. On prime, for example, it would cost you £100 for all five seasons of Boardwalk empire.
So now we're at £9.99 (Now), £9.99 (Netflix), £7.99 (Prime) = £336/yr.
Plus Sky Sports = another £120?
And so for those who say "but prime can do that" re the BBC - can it? Plus how many don't buy extra stuff that is not included in prime?
£120 a year for Sky Sports. You forget that you need to spend £30 for the basic Sky package on top.
Now you can get Netflix with Sky for about £2 but that's still £400 a year for sports not £120.
Indeed I was trying to err on the side of the "you can replicate the bbc with netflix and prime. Oh and Sky" lot.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
The point is can they just carry on as they are? They can't enforce the licence fee, we know they are falling behind in content production and they are miles behind in the tech department.
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
We shall see. My point is that, as with my example of directory enquiries, things tend to be more expensive than people might think they should be.
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
No I think you misread what Max wrote.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
And as I said, now it does because that isn't the model today. And he isn't being offered the chance to pay £10/month for it. In the new world the Beeb would offer a premium product and sweat the asset.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
But it's still a completely different value proposition. Surely what we're all pointing out is that the licence fee model is rubbish because it prevents the BBC from properly exploiting it's archive for income from people like me who would be happy to pay for it. My £175 per year doesn't get me anything close to what I'd want from the BBC right now and they've got it so that I can't legally watch non-BBC live content without paying the £175 per year.
You currently have some degree of what you want from the BBC - Drama & Docs - but you value it way under (I'm guessing) the £10 you would want from a full fat version. So there remains some value in what you have.
Equally, we have heard on here that BBC Radio is alone worth the licence fee.
So horses for courses.
My guess is that if the BBC were to go modular subscription, their revenue would go up.
Comments
So what I mean is, please don't now reply saying that eye am better than that.
It works out to £20 per year for Netflix, £60 for D+, £660 for Sky (with Sports, movies and boxsets) and £175 for the licence fee.
I think this is the last year I have Sky, I think I'm going to get NowTV entertainment and sports which is about £300 per year together. If I could pay £10 per month for BBC Drama and Documentaries (under your variable subscription model) which gave me full access to the archive of BBC Drama and Documentaries I'd have that instead of the licence fee. As it stands we'll go all online and get our content through IPTV and stop paying the licence fee, I'm not that fussed about MOTD.
It is comparing chalk with apples. Prime, Netflix and Sky cost together four to five times what the BBC costs and hence my belief that if it were to move to a modular subscription service they (the BBC) would hit the £14.50/month in toto quite easily if not exceed it quite often.
https://twitter.com/benatipsosmori/status/1358397292370395137?s=20
The BBC will say they can, but it isn't just Netflix coming for them, both Amazon and Disney are, and I believe Sky have just committed a huge amount of money to produce new original content as well (due to the Comcast take over).
I think Disney might be the biggest threat. They not only own amazing historic library of content, they own the rights to so many big modern popular franchises and they also own ESPN for sport.
In the US, Disney already going big with triple package offer. Hulu (for adults), Disney+ (for the kids / big kids), and ESPN+ for I think $13 a month.
Maybe Liz's trade deal will put them in a better place.
If you don't want your language being mimicked, then don't say ridiculous stupid things ending with the infantile phrase "Wake up."
Because if you do that, then I am not better than taking the piss out of that.
So pretty quickly we're at £10/month for Drama & Docs. Can we squeeze a few quid out of you for Marr, the debates, current affairs, not radio though?
Not far off £14.50 at all and you hadn't really thought about it.
So no of course you don't need to watch boardwalk empire. Unless you want to watch boardwalk empire. In which case you will have to pay for it one way or another.
Not so It's a Sin, as an example.
That's like comparing the cost of a price of a flight to Disneyworld staying there for a fortnight, with the cost of driving to your local Disney store. They're not the same thing.
The BBC is more comparable to Netflix and is to be frank inferior to it in my and many other people's opinion - and it costs far more. But if the BBC wants to go subscription and justify its costs then I'd say good luck to it.
My first bit of advice would be that the BBC should put its entire back catalogue online as part of its subscription fee - and keep adding new material to that catalogue like Netflix does, rather than putting new shows up for 30 days to a year.
https://twitter.com/ScienceShared/status/1358737153832943616?s=20
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1358748691750932486?s=20
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55932977
(Not sure how much is 'AI' as we'd think of it and how much simpler models). Same concerns as in the article for me. These systems are trained and so will pick up attributes that match candidates who did well in the past not necessarily those who would do well now. So if your past recruitment was biased or your past progression was biased so e.g. white men did well, then it's quite likely you algorithm will favour people who behave in the tests as white men would behave.
Of course, human recruiters suck too. We recently shortlisted and interviewed. Only one person fit the bill and took a different position, so we re-advertised and shortlisted (second time) someone we'd rejected at shortlisting stage first time. Was still a borderline decision whether to include him second time. At interview, he was way above anyone else. Great candidate, came across well, passed our tests with flying colours. And yet we rejected him once and only just included him a second time.
The 'AI' tests are also very gameable, unless done on-site, and generic ones can have limited relevance. My wife had English and Maths online tests, pre-interview, for her last job. We did them together. I'm probably better at the maths tests like that then her and maybe a bit more chilled under time pressure (both deliberately didn't give you enough time). She still had to prove herself at interview, and did, but could she have been rejected by the daft online test? Maybe.
I'd only pay the tenner for full archive access though, not what is currently on iPlayer and stuff shown in the last 6 months. I wouldn't subscribe on the basis of the BBC's current streaming options. I'd want 4k streaming of David Attenborough docs, Horizon, Peaky Blinders, The Fall etc... included for for as long as I subscribe same as Netflix does with its original content. It's a completely different value proposition to the licence fee which is geared towards today's content.
And how and where will that be available to watch in a few years time? Boardwalk Empire was on first air from 2010 to 2014 and is still available to stream today as part of my subscription at no extra cost. How does that work with stuff the BBC produced from 2010 to 2014 for example?
https://twitter.com/REWearmouth/status/1358747554972901378
I am a fan of a BBC subscription service. In my world as I have said, it would be modular so you could pick and choose what you wanted to consume. However, my point is that, especially with reference to the other platforms, it might easily be the case that £175/year for the whole lot is extremely good value.
Hence while conceptually I disagree with the obligation to pay for an entertainment service, I will not be heading down to the barricades as I also think I am getting quite a good deal.
@MaxPB for example was prepared to pay £10/month (2/3rds of the licence fee) for just Drama and Docs from the BBC. Well think how much more content the BBC has than Drama & Docs.
£10/m for Drama & Docs (including full access on demand to back catalogue) is demanding more from the BBC than it currently offers, for a lot less money than it currently charges.
The BBC has a puny amount of content currently. 30 days on demand is absolutely s**t.
I haven't watched it in 2 seasons. As soon as I stopped, it quickly became apparent just how out of touch the talking heads on that show are about modern football tactics and stats.
For instance, the big introduction of "XG" into tv analysis, most serious analysts will tell you very good, that is something from 5 years ago and basically tells you want most people knew already, shoot near and centre of the goal....the more you do it, the more you are likely to score and thus win.
As I say, The Athletic coverage and analysis is just far superior in every way.
Well done!
And I ask again, who here in the "Prime and Netflix > BBC" group has never paid Prime for content above their subscription?
It all adds up.
As I said, the more I think about it the more I think that the BBC is good value, albeit ideologically I disagree with its pricing mode.
There is absolutely nothing stopping you and yours living in a collective as far as I can see. Points at the various communes dotted around the country
And BBC ought to have a far greater educational remit, particularly early years.
The structure and remit of the BBC needs rethinking, but simply hiving to off as a commercial organisation ignores its potential societal value (and its still major influence overseas as a trusted news source).
When 118 came along, there was no smart phone, no easy way for everybody to get that info.
In terms of content and competition to the BBC, there are already 4-5 big services, plus YouTube, plus Twitch, etc etc etc. It isn't some mythical future, that one day you might be able to watch content on the internet, in the way with the launch of 118, there was a mythical magic future wireless information stream that you could get on this tiny handheld piece of electronics.
Boardwalk Empire was a Sky Atlantic show and it is available on NowTV/Sky at no extra cost. Just as Prime's shows are available still on Prime at no extra cost. Just like Netflix's shows are available still on Netflix at no extra cost. Just as the BBC's shows are . . . oh wait no they're not.
And on those terms you would get to £14.50/month pretty quickly imo.
Therefore I'm happy to accept any pragmatic funding solution that can keep the BBC as an important part of UK society, whether its license fees, grants, advertising or subscriptions - whatever works and keeps the BBC at the centre of UK media.
You're doing it wrong by paying the premium instead of the subscription fee.
What we forget is that we also would end up paying more for the bits we do use, because other people would have withdrawn their funding from those bits. And whatever else, it would introduce complexity, and that always costs.
I have bought movies in the past on release but view that as no different to buying a DVD, just in a more convenient format. Again if I want movies on demand I can either buy it via Prime Store (like a DVD), or get movies in subscription format from eg Netflix etc - the BBC does not have a reliable on demand archive of films available as part of my subscription so you need to pay on top of that.
https://twitter.com/_b_meyer/status/1358741686285967361
With a very interesting result...
https://twitter.com/_b_meyer/status/1358743060541284356
I think to me it increasingly looks like the rest of the year might well be a repeat of 2020. Most of the year under restriction, with some relaxation in the summer.
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1358750295753392129?s=20
My point is that compared with what people pay to other platforms, the BBC is good value.
And therefore although I want it "broken up" into payable modules and made non-compulsory I rather suspect that it is even on those terms very good value. Moreso because they would then stop their content being available elsewhere.
That said I know half the battle is luck: right place, right time, striking a chord with the shortlisters, interviewers, or assessors, on a particular day at a particular time. That sort of thing.
But other than that your friend is evidently more active in managing subscriptions than your usual couch potato. Certainly than me (although I have it in my diary to cancel Apple Music [came with a TV] in June).
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Therefore I find myself actually willing on the Labour leader, as amusing as a left-wing replacement would be.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_HBO_original_programming
Equally, we have heard on here that BBC Radio is alone worth the licence fee.
So horses for courses.
My guess is that if the BBC were to go modular subscription, their revenue would go up.
https://twitter.com/STVNews/status/1358749101249200128?s=20