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
Exactly, with the way the back catalogues work you can easily switch them on and off to have only one active one at a time assuming you aren't someone that cares about watching something on release day.
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.
The point is the game has moved on...Netflix is HBO on steroids. The big daddy Disney now going to throw eye watering sums of money at new content (I have forgotten how many new Star Wars shows are coming in the next 2 years alone, I think it is 7-8) And Sky are also investing heavily in original content.
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
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
Yes. It's an interesting one. They evidently fear not. Looking at my example of directory enquiries, I am not so sure.
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?
£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.
Yes, I agree with the last point. Over time the BBC would see it's revenue go up, especially as it starts to directly offer the same subscription model overseas with access to the BBC Archive.
IMO the attachment to the licence fee is holding the BBC back, it's completely outdated for the digital era.
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.
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
If the Beeb really want to monetise their archive at almost no cost, they could put an awful lot of it up on Youtube and Vimeo, and run ads around it. A fair bit of it ends up there anyway!
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
The BBC is absolutely shit scared of the free market. The licence fee allows them to operate a model that wouldn't be possible under what we're all agreeing is a good way forwards. All of those bureaucratic middle management meddlers would be out tomorrow, all of the diversity and outreach officers would be out the following day, the likes of Gary Linekar wouldn't get anywhere near what they earn now or they'd be told to do one and let someone else take over for 10% of the money.
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.
Number of programmes and number of quality programmes are two very different things. I have no doubt that the BBC pumps out a heck of a lot of dross to fill in the hours, I'm not too impressed by that.
But also HBO isn't a service here in the UK, its programming is primarily bundled in with other services as part of the Sky/Now subscription. Hence Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire etc all being on Sky.
If I go now to Sky On Demand I can download every episode ever of Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones etc as part of my generic subscription. Or if you want to binge Boardwalk Empire and you're not a Sky/Now customer you can choose to subscribe for just a month and binge it.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Just to follow on with my VFX comment....the other thing about not having the VFX tech, it isn't just about little cute green babies and space men in shiny metal suits....What most people don't realise is large amounts of what we would think of as normal shots these days involve a lot of VFX work to adjust the scene, crop out / replace certain elements.
If you can do this really well, you won't even notice, and it is cheaper than having to find the perfect place to film (and spend ages converting it for your shot) or having to build a specialist set.
Again, Disney have this incredible virtual set, where they can film in a dome and you can't even tell the stuff in the background isn't real.
This is far cheaper than having to take your whole crew on location. Baby Yoda show in the past would have flown to a whole load of places around the world for all those shots by the sea, in the desert, now they just open up the dome and film.
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.
No, it really is not.
Which is why the Beeb only survives by having the law behind it.
Other than its excellent programmes, which I referred to earlier on here, I think too many people underestimate the BBC's crucial role as a public service broadcaster.
Although I can't prove it, I'm confident that many more people have learnt about Covid from the BBC than anywhere else over the last year. Now, while that coverage has its faults, particularly over data analysis, it seeks to offer objective, important facts about the disease. It's much more reliable, and consistent, than the press and other sources. I'd also bet that the government press conferences have been watched on the BBC more than anywhere else, so for the government the BBC is an invaluable dispenser of government information.
I mean, without the BBC, where would all those millions have watched Dom Cummings' rose garden performance?
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.
Except other platforms which all open up their archives as part of their subscription offer far more content than the BBC does, for much less money.
How you turn that into the BBC being "good value" is beyond me.
Is it too much to hope that this Government has used up its being shit quota in the first year - and years 2, 3 and 4 are going to be solid, sensible decision-making?
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
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.
Possibly. Although sometimes less is more. The fact you recall Bodyguard, rather than the tired Series 6 coming soon. Example. Homeland. Had they had the courage to have Brodie blow himself, and the Cabinet up at the end of the one and only season, then that would have been all time great TV.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Rubbish. As far as the EU is concerned, we are all laughing our socks off but no surprises. I would rather still be in the EU in a semi detached way whereby we would have opted out of the vaccine cooperative, as I believe we would.
As to SAGE and vaccines, you may have missed some relevant real world information over the weekend about virus strains? The world is as it is, it is not a great big conspiracy among the grown ups to spoil your fun, and SAGE and the government have to react accordingly..
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
There is no such thing as public service broadcasting.
If there was we wouldn't exclude those who haven't paid the licence fee from receiving the public service by law.
One other interesting thing. The BBC fail miserably on YouTube. You would think such a well known and trusted brand would smash it when they put up videos that clip the news. On the whole, they absolutely tank. Most get 40-50k views, which by YouTube standards is basically nothing. There are twats in their bedrooms filming themselves on iPhones talking about the news that do more than that.
Just to follow on with my VFX comment....the other thing about not having the VFX tech, it isn't just about little cute green babies and space men in shiny metal suits....What most people don't realise is large amounts of what we would think of as normal shots these days involve a lot of VFX work to adjust the scene, crop out / replace certain elements.
If you can do this really well, you won't even notice, and it is cheaper than having to find the perfect place to film (and spend ages converting it for your shot) or having to build a specialist set.
Again, Disney have this incredible virtual set, where they can film in a dome and you can't even tell the stuff in the background isn't real.
This is far cheaper than having to take your whole crew on location. Baby Yoda show in the past would have flown to a whole load of places around the world for all those shots by the sea, in the desert, now they just open up the dome and film.
The Disney virtual set is amazing, but the new one is incredible. It's why Sony just invested $250m in Epic to get access to Unreal Engine 5 for their virtual set technology on their backlot as well to licence a custom version to other studios who are using their CLED virtual sets.
It's this kind of stuff where the BBC used to be at the forefront of technology that they've just let others take the lead. The team at Sony who made it happen is all made up of ex-BBC people and now the licence income from virtual sets will go to a Japanese conglomerate instead of the BBC.
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.
I'm looking at this too. I've lost the football bug because of no fans and really now only "need" the golf and the F1. And highlights of GPs and golf majors are on terrestrial. So this could be it - the parting of the ways between me and Sky Sports. But SS have been very good, I will say that. Great coverage of lots of great sport over the years.
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Downside? It's so not a downside! Teaching biology because the school has to run on the basis of generic science teachers, that's more of an issue. Biology is full of gross stuff.
Just to follow on with my VFX comment....the other thing about not having the VFX tech, it isn't just about little cute green babies and space men in shiny metal suits....What most people don't realise is large amounts of what we would think of as normal shots these days involve a lot of VFX work to adjust the scene, crop out / replace certain elements.
If you can do this really well, you won't even notice, and it is cheaper than having to find the perfect place to film (and spend ages converting it for your shot) or having to build a specialist set.
Again, Disney have this incredible virtual set, where they can film in a dome and you can't even tell the stuff in the background isn't real.
This is far cheaper than having to take your whole crew on location. Baby Yoda show in the past would have flown to a whole load of places around the world for all those shots by the sea, in the desert, now they just open up the dome and film.
The Disney virtual set is amazing, but the new one is incredible. It's why Sony just invested $250m in Epic to get access to Unreal Engine 5 for their virtual set technology on their backlot as well to licence a custom version to other studios who are using their CLED virtual sets.
It's this kind of stuff where the BBC used to be at the forefront of technology that they've just let others take the lead. The team at Sony who made it happen is all made up of ex-BBC people and now the licence income from virtual sets will go to a Japanese conglomerate instead of the BBC.
The last BBC tech talk I attended, they were waffling on about ingesting mobile phone footage from live events like gigs and sports events....I mean everybody wants to watch shaky potato quality coverage from some idiot moshing to Radiohead at Glastonbury above 4k, HDR, Dolby Surround Sound don't they.
Other than its excellent programmes, which I referred to earlier on here, I think too many people underestimate the BBC's crucial role as a public service broadcaster.
Although I can't prove it, I'm confident that many more people have learnt about Covid from the BBC than anywhere else over the last year. Now, while that coverage has its faults, particularly over data analysis, it seeks to offer objective, important facts about the disease. It's much more reliable, and consistent, than the press and other sources. I'd also bet that the government press conferences have been watched on the BBC more than anywhere else, so for the government the BBC is an invaluable dispenser of government information.
I mean, without the BBC, where would all those millions have watched Dom Cummings' rose garden performance?
There's no such thing as public service broadcasting in this country. If there was we wouldn't deny the public service to those who haven't paid the licence fee.
As for government press conferences - I watch them on Sky but increasingly far more normal people who aren't politics geeks spending time on politics websites probably see them on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/TikTok etc nowadays.
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.
Except other platforms which all open up their archives as part of their subscription offer far more content than the BBC does, for much less money.
How you turn that into the BBC being "good value" is beyond me.
Exactly, the Netflix and D+ archive is what makes them good value. A new D+ subscriber can watch two seasons of the Mandalorian as soon as they subscribe, a new Netflix subscriber gets 4 seasons of The Crown. That's where the value is, the BBC doesn't give you access to its gigantic content archive for your money. That's why it's poor value.
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Other than its excellent programmes, which I referred to earlier on here, I think too many people underestimate the BBC's crucial role as a public service broadcaster.
Although I can't prove it, I'm confident that many more people have learnt about Covid from the BBC than anywhere else over the last year. Now, while that coverage has its faults, particularly over data analysis, it seeks to offer objective, important facts about the disease. It's much more reliable, and consistent, than the press and other sources. I'd also bet that the government press conferences have been watched on the BBC more than anywhere else, so for the government the BBC is an invaluable dispenser of government information.
I mean, without the BBC, where would all those millions have watched Dom Cummings' rose garden performance?
I think if it was solely the news element few would complain beyond partisan tories and labourites objecting to supposed political slants.
I find it hard to justify spend on other content, but do think we'd lose something vital without the public service broadcaster part.
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Downside? It's so not a downside! Teaching biology because the school has to run on the basis of generic science teachers, that's more of an issue. Biology is full of gross stuff.
Biology is the icky science, as my physics teacher used to say.
More 2019 Tories now voting Reform UK than Labour on that poll, 5% of 2019 Tories now back Reform UK to only 4% who back Labour. More 2019 Labour voters now back the Greens than the Tories, 9% of 2019 Labour voters back the Greens, only 2% back the Conservatives.
Tories also back doing as well with ABC1s as C2DEs on 41% each
Despite an identifiable Brexit benefit and the Commission having an absolute mare, the net view is still that this was, in hindsight, a mistake, and that the government is handling things badly.
That may change- in either direction, depending on events and consequences.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Rubbish. As far as the EU is concerned, we are all laughing our socks off but no surprises. I would rather still be in the EU in a semi detached way whereby we would have opted out of the vaccine cooperative, as I believe we would.
As to SAGE and vaccines, you may have missed some relevant real world information over the weekend about virus strains? The world is as it is, it is not a great big conspiracy among the grown ups to spoil your fun, and SAGE and the government have to react accordingly..
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Downside? It's so not a downside! Teaching biology because the school has to run on the basis of generic science teachers, that's more of an issue. Biology is full of gross stuff.
I have been teaching since the early nineties and have yet to have to teach either biology or chemistry; indeed when I was looking for a job at the start not having to teach "science" was high on my list of priorities.
Speaking of which, my next lesson is about to start...
It would be funny if Macron didn't make it to the top 2. I guess Hollande would have managed that had he run, but surely Macron would never be that unpopular.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
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
In this particular debate my goal is to argue against slipping further into the hell of the post truth society. We all benefit from that apart from bad actors such as Piers Corbyn and Laurence Fox.
In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union? Right to leave 43 (+3) Wrong to leave 45 (-3)
So the gap has closed from 8 to 2......
The Guardian and Beeb will have to pump out more articles about people buying£400 coats or artisan cheese companies struggling with paperwork otherwise they're in danger of remain being overtaken.
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Downside? It's so not a downside! Teaching biology because the school has to run on the basis of generic science teachers, that's more of an issue. Biology is full of gross stuff.
I have been teaching since the early nineties and have yet to have to teach either biology or chemistry; indeed when I was looking for a job at the start not having to teach "science" was high on my list of priorities.
Speaking of which, my next lesson is about to start...
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
"Deaths strongly falling in Sweden" "OH sure, last week's deaths have been revised up by 100% but this week, this week cases are falling" "Oh sure, the last 2 weeks of cases have now been revised up to the extent that there is a new peak and sure testing levels are down by a third and positivity is still running at 10% but THIS WEEK. THIS WEEK DEATHS ARE FALLING"
I hadn’t realised Paton is now plugging directly into the Spiked truther network. Has that been going on for a while?
He'd started being approvingly cited by them a while ago thanks to his "Lockdowns don't have any effect, October/November was a pure coincidence" thought line. Actually publishing on Spiked is new I think but he's been clearly heading in that direction for a while.
No he started off by correctly highlighting a deficiency in the way the government (and the media) were reporting the daily numbers, and why he was quoted here....then it went downhill into nothing to see, lockdowns are bad, etc, and I don't think any regular poster then went near his tweets.
It's truly amazing the way the Government can reliably and consistently guess when cases are going to "naturally" decline and declare a lockdown to take effect shortly before that.
I mean, they've done it three times on the trot now, and never missed any decline outside of those. Other countries have pulled it off in multiple cases as well.
It's almost as though those two events are somehow linked.
I genuinely miss the days of "according to my calculations the decline started 48 minutes 30 seconds before lockdown was declared so clearly not the effect of lockdown"
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
In this particular debate my goal is to argue against slipping further into the hell of the post truth society. We all benefit from that apart from bad actors such as Piers Corbyn and Laurence Fox.
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
In this particular debate my goal is to argue against slipping further into the hell of the post truth society. We all benefit from that apart from bad actors such as Piers Corbyn and Laurence Fox.
Post truth has always been around you only have to read a bbc article or any newspaper article about a topic you know well and count the enormous quantities of factual errors. The only difference now is people who are even more clueless are joining in
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
Other than the crazies (doing more harm than good) it seems to me that the only cohort pushing this is some Tory MPs. I think the LibDems should be vocal on this too. Was it 22 Feb or 29 Feb, I forget?
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
We already have a sportsman's bet about the date, I believe. You are on 21 June for pubs opening, I am on 2 April.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
The BBC is absolutely shit scared of the free market. The licence fee allows them to operate a model that wouldn't be possible under what we're all agreeing is a good way forwards. All of those bureaucratic middle management meddlers would be out tomorrow, all of the diversity and outreach officers would be out the following day, the likes of Gary Linekar wouldn't get anywhere near what they earn now or they'd be told to do one and let someone else take over for 10% of the money.
Would they? I don't know what Gary Lineker could command but Amazon increased the old Top Gear team's fees considerably. The evidence is that ACME TV would pay Lineker whatever his agent asked for and double it for luck. The difference is ACME would cancel MotD as soon as the viewing figures dipped.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
Well there you go then. Your first para is instantly alleviated by the second.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
Part of the problem is the BBC is a bit like Brexit, in that there is probably a small majority who want significant change, but they are not united as to what that change should be. Some want a subscription service, some want it gone, some want it funded from taxation, some want it to focus on whatever they use it for, some want it funded by advertising and so on.
I would try something like phasing the license fee out over 5-8 years, to be replaced by a subscription service but with govt backstop funding, kicking in only if subscriptions are too low during the transition period (given rivals like Amazon, Netflix and Disney will run their services at a cash loss to kill off competitors this safety net is important). News and education divisions should be state funded ongoing.
Just to follow on with my VFX comment....the other thing about not having the VFX tech, it isn't just about little cute green babies and space men in shiny metal suits....What most people don't realise is large amounts of what we would think of as normal shots these days involve a lot of VFX work to adjust the scene, crop out / replace certain elements.
If you can do this really well, you won't even notice, and it is cheaper than having to find the perfect place to film (and spend ages converting it for your shot) or having to build a specialist set.
Again, Disney have this incredible virtual set, where they can film in a dome and you can't even tell the stuff in the background isn't real.
This is far cheaper than having to take your whole crew on location. Baby Yoda show in the past would have flown to a whole load of places around the world for all those shots by the sea, in the desert, now they just open up the dome and film.
The Disney virtual set is amazing, but the new one is incredible. It's why Sony just invested $250m in Epic to get access to Unreal Engine 5 for their virtual set technology on their backlot as well to licence a custom version to other studios who are using their CLED virtual sets.
It's this kind of stuff where the BBC used to be at the forefront of technology that they've just let others take the lead. The team at Sony who made it happen is all made up of ex-BBC people and now the licence income from virtual sets will go to a Japanese conglomerate instead of the BBC.
As time goes on the further behind the BBC falls.
They used to be technological leaders but they also used to lead on another metric - their content and back catalogue.
If you'd asked 20 years ago for the best prior British shows you'd have almost exclusively received a list of BBC shows: Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Only Fools etc
But since the dawn of universal HDTVs the new content is increasingly not BBC. Any list of the best British dramas of the past decade would have to include shows like The Crown, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey etc
People used to feel affectionate towards the BBC. I don't think many of my generation or younger do. The BBC is rapidly facing a day where even if it did open up its archive of old SD dramas it will be met with a grunt of indifference rather than affection.
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.
That's incredible. I pay Virgin £1000 per annum just for cable TV. Need to get it sorted soon as I've had the jab.
I think a good analogy for BBC approach to content production is the Oxford AZN vaccine....it uses old established technology, which is fine, but the game has changed, there is better out there and the future is only going one way.
In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union? Right to leave 43 (+3) Wrong to leave 45 (-3)
So the gap has closed from 8 to 2......
The Guardian and Beeb will have to pump out more articles about people buying£400 coats or artisan cheese companies struggling with paperwork otherwise they're in danger of remain being overtaken.
Thats because of the bloody French demanding 3 day covid tests at Folkestone and Dover instead of the 20 mins ones that are available. The loathing the French (as an institution) and the EU must have increased substantially. In my case, its off the scale.
I hope all those who thought Murrell should be compelled to testify with threats of legal sanction feel the same about Salmond.
Otherwise I’ll think those Justice for Salmond t shirts are a load of hypocritical bullshit.
People seem to have forgotten that Salmond was originally demanding immunity from prosecution before testifying.
Nothing says "honest man with nothing to hide" like demanding to be above the law.
The Stuanoners now literally at the stage of saying there needs to be a Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden to whistleblow this whole case wide open. Definite sense of it dawning on them that they may be in the middle of a big, fat air shot.
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.
The license fee model is obsolete. Problem is that it's being weaponised by those who want to get rid of the BBC completely.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
We already have a sportsman's bet about the date, I believe. You are on 21 June for pubs opening, I am on 2 April.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
Actually, you have a point. I am wrong. We will get out of this, one day.
There is a determined attempt to discredit the Astra vaccine, both in the press and in the scientific community, however.
On topic (as it were), the existence of the BBC in its current form is worth more to Labour than any boundary changes could ever be to the Tories. It injects a steady stream of centre-left pabulum into the national bloodstream, invisibly shaping the discourse in the direction that its high priests think best. If the government wants to show some real ambition, it should try to wean the public off that particular stupefactant.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
Well there you go then. Your first para is instantly alleviated by the second.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
Actually you are correct that was a silly post by me. We will one day get out of this. But I stand by my other points.
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
Other than the crazies (doing more harm than good) it seems to me that the only cohort pushing this is some Tory MPs. I think the LibDems should be vocal on this too. Was it 22 Feb or 29 Feb, I forget?
Pretty sure it was 22 Feb, I heard that on the news yesterday.
I'd like to see both the Liberals and the liberal wing of Labour challenge lockdownism from the left. I have only read Zoe Williams and one or two others do so publicly among the latter's journalistic outriders.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
We already have a sportsman's bet about the date, I believe. You are on 21 June for pubs opening, I am on 2 April.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
Actually, you have a point. I am wrong. We will get out of this, one day.
There is a determined attempt to discredit the Astra vaccine, both in the press and in the scientific community, however.
I'm almost tempted to agree with you about the latter! AFAICS Oxon/AZ protects against severe disease among all variants. That to me is the key!
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
The BBC is absolutely shit scared of the free market. The licence fee allows them to operate a model that wouldn't be possible under what we're all agreeing is a good way forwards. All of those bureaucratic middle management meddlers would be out tomorrow, all of the diversity and outreach officers would be out the following day, the likes of Gary Linekar wouldn't get anywhere near what they earn now or they'd be told to do one and let someone else take over for 10% of the money.
Would they? I don't know what Gary Lineker could command but Amazon increased the old Top Gear team's fees considerably. The evidence is that ACME TV would pay Lineker whatever his agent asked for and double it for luck. The difference is ACME would cancel MotD as soon as the viewing figures dipped.
Not sure Top Gear is a good example. Firstly, Amazon didn't hire them as presenters, they paid a massive wad of cash for them to be the creators, producers and presenters of shows. That is why there is Hammond on some desert Island, Clarkson is doing a farming show and May does the travel shows. Secondly, that deal I think was an exception, because it was the crossroads of Top Gear still being the best show going and Amazon wanting to get into content creation.
Graham Norton gets many millions from the BBC. I don't think he would get anymore on Sky or Netflix for his show.
Which is another good point about the difference between say Sky and MOTD. Gary Big Jugs turns up for 30 weeks a year (he doesn't have to do every Saturday) and the odd FA cup game, and that's it.
Gary Neville on Sky has to do commentary, analysis, interviews, offshoot programmes across many days a week. If they get the big bucks on somewhere like Sky Sports, they make you do loads of different things for you dosh.
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.
The point is the game has moved on...Netflix is HBO on steroids. The big daddy Disney now going to throw eye watering sums of money at new content (I have forgotten how many new Star Wars shows are coming in the next 2 years alone, I think it is 7-8) And Sky are also investing heavily in original content.
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
On the drama front, the UK might take a look at the S. Korean industry. Absolutely astonishing results for content in a language spoken by a minute fraction of the world's population, and it doesn't depend on massive investment. And FX is overrated compared to good writing.
(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.
Or you can try being a qualified Physics teacher. I was the only candidate called for interview for both of the schools I have worked at.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Downside? It's so not a downside! Teaching biology because the school has to run on the basis of generic science teachers, that's more of an issue. Biology is full of gross stuff.
A friend told of a physics teacher covering biology and telling one of the first year girls, "don't feed the worms, you'll give them nightmares; let one of the pretty girls do it."
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
Well there you go then. Your first para is instantly alleviated by the second.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
Actually you are correct that was a silly post by me. We will one day get out of this. But I stand by my other points.
I think it's good to keep up pressure around lockdown just in case. I'm sanguine as it barely affects me, but it must be something done only in extremis.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
There is no such thing as public service broadcasting.
If there was we wouldn't exclude those who haven't paid the licence fee from receiving the public service by law.
That is such a technical point. But, yes, funding out of taxation should be considered.
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
The BBC is absolutely shit scared of the free market. The licence fee allows them to operate a model that wouldn't be possible under what we're all agreeing is a good way forwards. All of those bureaucratic middle management meddlers would be out tomorrow, all of the diversity and outreach officers would be out the following day, the likes of Gary Linekar wouldn't get anywhere near what they earn now or they'd be told to do one and let someone else take over for 10% of the money.
Would they? I don't know what Gary Lineker could command but Amazon increased the old Top Gear team's fees considerably. The evidence is that ACME TV would pay Lineker whatever his agent asked for and double it for luck. The difference is ACME would cancel MotD as soon as the viewing figures dipped.
Of course Top Gear was a global export raking in big bucks around the globe.
Is Match of the Day doing so too? If so I wasn't aware of that, if not then its not an accurate comparison.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
We already have a sportsman's bet about the date, I believe. You are on 21 June for pubs opening, I am on 2 April.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
I've come to the conclusion that ending lockdown will be like bankruptcy. Gradually until it happens suddenly.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
There is no such thing as public service broadcasting.
If there was we wouldn't exclude those who haven't paid the licence fee from receiving the public service by law.
That is such a technical point. But, yes, funding out of taxation should be considered.
I would rather be technically correct than technically wrong.
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.
The license fee model is obsolete. Problem is that it's being weaponised by those who want to get rid of the BBC completely.
Only an idiot would want to get rid of the BBC completely, the content it produces can be absolutely brilliant and it has a huge archive that could become massive source of income for them with a DTC streaming model.
I think it's the other way around personally, the BBC is using the spectre of it disappearing forever as a way to hold on to its outdated model. The BBC won't go anywhere, it will just do things differently which means people will pay for different parts of it. As they discover what people want to pay for the less popular bits either become more expensive or see reduced output. The BBC itself still exists and is producing content that people want to watch.
I hope all those who thought Murrell should be compelled to testify with threats of legal sanction feel the same about Salmond.
Otherwise I’ll think those Justice for Salmond t shirts are a load of hypocritical bullshit.
People seem to have forgotten that Salmond was originally demanding immunity from prosecution before testifying.
Nothing says "honest man with nothing to hide" like demanding to be above the law.
The Stuanoners now literally at the stage of saying there needs to be a Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden to whistleblow this whole case wide open. Definite sense of it dawning on them that they may be in the middle of a big, fat air shot.
Will they then proceed to aggressively dead name them?
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
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.
Yep, this is the point I'm seeking to make. And it's also how I feel about the detail. I'm not wedded to precisely the status quo. For example, a smaller Beeb funded from taxation would be ok with me. Whatever. But we must NOT kill public service broadcasting and leave it 100% to the market just on the grounds of "Why should I pay for something I don't like or use?" I pay, directly or indirectly, for tons of things I don't personally like or use. And so I should. It's one of the key things which shapes a society out of a collection of individuals.
There is no such thing as public service broadcasting.
If there was we wouldn't exclude those who haven't paid the licence fee from receiving the public service by law.
That is such a technical point. But, yes, funding out of taxation should be considered.
So your entertainment should be funded out of my taxes and I should have to pay for mine.....wow and you accuse me of being selfish
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
Other than the crazies (doing more harm than good) it seems to me that the only cohort pushing this is some Tory MPs. I think the LibDems should be vocal on this too. Was it 22 Feb or 29 Feb, I forget?
Pretty sure it was 22 Feb, I heard that on the news yesterday.
I'd like to see both the Liberals and the liberal wing of Labour challenge lockdownism from the left. I have only read Zoe Williams and one or two others do so publicly among the latter's journalistic outriders.
I was thinking about this this morning.
All through the nineteenth and early 20 century the labour party's forbears campaigned tirelessly and ceaselessly to get all children educated. To get rid of child labour, child exploitation, ignorance and early death and to give every kid some sort of chance in life. Whatever disease or affliction ravaged the land.
What would those campaigners say today, when labour is behind a 'no schooling' policy that consigns all to ignorance, but poor children more than anyone?
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.
The point is the game has moved on...Netflix is HBO on steroids. The big daddy Disney now going to throw eye watering sums of money at new content (I have forgotten how many new Star Wars shows are coming in the next 2 years alone, I think it is 7-8) And Sky are also investing heavily in original content.
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
On the drama front, the UK might take a look at the S. Korean industry. Absolutely astonishing results for content in a language spoken by a minute fraction of the world's population, and it doesn't depend on massive investment. And FX is overrated compared to good writing.
My point is these days FX isn't what you think it is. It is used as a standard technique in basically every show that has some sort of quality to it. When you watch the showreels of some of the top companies who do this, there is only a limited amount of what we would think of as "FX" i.e. explosions or aliens.
It is as much efficiency and cost saying, as it is to wow you.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
Well there you go then. Your first para is instantly alleviated by the second.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
Actually you are correct that was a silly post by me. We will one day get out of this. But I stand by my other points.
I think it's good to keep up pressure around lockdown just in case. I'm sanguine as it barely affects me, but it must be something done only in extremis.
In extremis is right. I, like Anabobazina, have come onboard purely because (to my surprise) vaccine have been developed very quickly. But the condition is that we face what risk remains, not continue to cower from ANY risk once the chance of an overwhelmed health service goes away.
We are in a war-like situation I guess - where the pause button on liberal democracy is pressed. "Short term only" is implicit.
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.
The point is the game has moved on...Netflix is HBO on steroids. The big daddy Disney now going to throw eye watering sums of money at new content (I have forgotten how many new Star Wars shows are coming in the next 2 years alone, I think it is 7-8) And Sky are also investing heavily in original content.
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
On the drama front, the UK might take a look at the S. Korean industry. Absolutely astonishing results for content in a language spoken by a minute fraction of the world's population, and it doesn't depend on massive investment. And FX is overrated compared to good writing.
My point is these days FX isn't what you think it is. It is used as a standard technique in basically every show that has some sort of quality to it. When you watch the showreels of some of the top companies who do this, there is only a limited amount of what we would think of as "FX" i.e. explosions or aliens.
It is as much efficiency and cost saying, as it is to wow you.
People don't realise how few naked flames there are on a set these days (e.g. candles). It's almost all physical lighting, grading, and CG.
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.
If their revenue would go up then they should do it. Absolute no brainer, why not do it?
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
The BBC is absolutely shit scared of the free market. The licence fee allows them to operate a model that wouldn't be possible under what we're all agreeing is a good way forwards. All of those bureaucratic middle management meddlers would be out tomorrow, all of the diversity and outreach officers would be out the following day, the likes of Gary Linekar wouldn't get anywhere near what they earn now or they'd be told to do one and let someone else take over for 10% of the money.
Would they? I don't know what Gary Lineker could command but Amazon increased the old Top Gear team's fees considerably. The evidence is that ACME TV would pay Lineker whatever his agent asked for and double it for luck. The difference is ACME would cancel MotD as soon as the viewing figures dipped.
Of course Top Gear was a global export raking in big bucks around the globe.
Is Match of the Day doing so too? If so I wasn't aware of that, if not then its not an accurate comparison.
You miss the point. The new tv services do splash the cash, and not just for onscreen talent, but are more likely to cancel underperformers. And the streamers can tell if you fast forward through Hammond but rewatch May's segments. Whether or not you personally like Gary Lineker is neither here nor there.
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.
The point is the game has moved on...Netflix is HBO on steroids. The big daddy Disney now going to throw eye watering sums of money at new content (I have forgotten how many new Star Wars shows are coming in the next 2 years alone, I think it is 7-8) And Sky are also investing heavily in original content.
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
On the drama front, the UK might take a look at the S. Korean industry. Absolutely astonishing results for content in a language spoken by a minute fraction of the world's population, and it doesn't depend on massive investment. And FX is overrated compared to good writing.
My point is these days FX isn't what you think it is. It is used as a standard technique in basically every show that has some sort of quality to it. When you watch the showreels of some of the top companies who do this, there is only a limited amount of what we would think of as "FX" i.e. explosions or aliens.
It is as much efficiency and cost saying, as it is to wow you.
People don't realise how few naked flames there are on a set these days (e.g. candles). It's almost all physical lighting, grading, and CG.
Here is a good example of the sort of work that has nothing to do with Baby Yodas that all high quality movies and tv shows do. And most of it is about efficiency.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
Well there you go then. Your first para is instantly alleviated by the second.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
Actually you are correct that was a silly post by me. We will one day get out of this. But I stand by my other points.
I think it's good to keep up pressure around lockdown just in case. I'm sanguine as it barely affects me, but it must be something done only in extremis.
Can I ask how/why it barely affects you? Do you never visit pubs, museums, restaurants, theatres, or go on holiday? Do you have no schoolage children or niblings?
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.
The license fee model is obsolete. Problem is that it's being weaponised by those who want to get rid of the BBC completely.
Only an idiot would want to get rid of the BBC completely, the content it produces can be absolutely brilliant and it has a huge archive that could become massive source of income for them with a DTC streaming model.
I think it's the other way around personally, the BBC is using the spectre of it disappearing forever as a way to hold on to its outdated model. The BBC won't go anywhere, it will just do things differently which means people will pay for different parts of it. As they discover what people want to pay for the less popular bits either become more expensive or see reduced output. The BBC itself still exists and is producing content that people want to watch.
Well said. The BBC Licence Fee is like "managed decline".
Every year the BBC falls further and further behind as it declines further and further, until eventually it will be so full of rot that it will require wholesale reform or abolition.
But its not too late. If the decision were to be made that the licence fee is not going to be renewed, instead it will be a subscription starting at the current licence fee rate - and that as part of that the back catalogue would be made available online . . . then I think the BBC could thrive independently.
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
Other than the crazies (doing more harm than good) it seems to me that the only cohort pushing this is some Tory MPs. I think the LibDems should be vocal on this too. Was it 22 Feb or 29 Feb, I forget?
Pretty sure it was 22 Feb, I heard that on the news yesterday.
I'd like to see both the Liberals and the liberal wing of Labour challenge lockdownism from the left. I have only read Zoe Williams and one or two others do so publicly among the latter's journalistic outriders.
I was thinking about this this morning.
All through the nineteenth and early 20 century the labour party's forbears campaigned tirelessly and ceaselessly to get all children educated. To get rid of child labour, child exploitation, ignorance and early death and to give every kid some sort of chance in life. Whatever disease or affliction ravaged the land.
What would those campaigners say today, when labour is behind a 'no schooling' policy that consigns all to ignorance, but poor children more than anyone?
Labour is not behind a 'no schooling' policy. Labour wants teachers jabbed so schools can reopen sooner.
I have a feeling he won't be as chipper as previous weeks.
Why do you think that?
The idea that 2021 "will be like 2020" is utterly unacceptable.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
I guess it depends what you mean by "end". I think there will continue to be widespread mask use which I would be relaxed about, for instance.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
Masks in supermarkets I can live with for a while. But no to masks in pubs and restaurants and anywhere where the primary function is meeting each other.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
Other than the crazies (doing more harm than good) it seems to me that the only cohort pushing this is some Tory MPs. I think the LibDems should be vocal on this too. Was it 22 Feb or 29 Feb, I forget?
Pretty sure it was 22 Feb, I heard that on the news yesterday.
I'd like to see both the Liberals and the liberal wing of Labour challenge lockdownism from the left. I have only read Zoe Williams and one or two others do so publicly among the latter's journalistic outriders.
I was thinking about this this morning.
All through the nineteenth and early 20 century the labour party's forbears campaigned tirelessly and ceaselessly to get all children educated. To get rid of child labour, child exploitation, ignorance and early death and to give every kid some sort of chance in life. Whatever disease or affliction ravaged the land.
What would those campaigners say today, when labour is behind a 'no schooling' policy that consigns all to ignorance, but poor children more than anyone?
Agreed. It's not sustainable and is incongruous with Labour's worldview.
I hope all those who thought Murrell should be compelled to testify with threats of legal sanction feel the same about Salmond.
Otherwise I’ll think those Justice for Salmond t shirts are a load of hypocritical bullshit.
People seem to have forgotten that Salmond was originally demanding immunity from prosecution before testifying.
Nothing says "honest man with nothing to hide" like demanding to be above the law.
The Stuanoners now literally at the stage of saying there needs to be a Chelsea Manning or Edward Snowden to whistleblow this whole case wide open. Definite sense of it dawning on them that they may be in the middle of a big, fat air shot.
Will they then proceed to aggressively dead name them?
Good point! Ok, scrub that, time for Space Force to intervene.
You can always tell when a cherished political betting shibboleth perishes. People start talking about anything but politics. Cricket. telly. Movies. Whatever.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
Nope. The lockdown must end this spring.
But it manifestly is not going to. Not Spring. Not summer. Not ever.
Not until we decide it does.
We already have a sportsman's bet about the date, I believe. You are on 21 June for pubs opening, I am on 2 April.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
Actually, you have a point. I am wrong. We will get out of this, one day.
There is a determined attempt to discredit the Astra vaccine, both in the press and in the scientific community, however.
There's definitely an awful lot of negative stories going round about the AZ vaccine, which don't necessarily match up to the findings of the official trials in many countries.
If I were a real cynic, I might suggest that the fact it costs $3, keeps in a fridge and is being produced on a non-profit basis might have a lot to do with it.
It's the winning vaccine, and all the losers are upset.
Comments
And all this new content, will be yearly seasons, 10-20 episodes per season.
Where as the BBC will say, but we have Peaky Blinders, if you wait another 2 years for 6hrs of content.
Another comparison....Doctor Who, putting aside how woke it has gone, the special effects are just laughably bad. In comparison, I can watch Disney+ and see movie quality special effects in 4k / HDR. via the Mandalorian.
The BBC just can't compete with this level of technology these days. Watch any show that needs VFX / SFX work and it is massively inferior to the show on Netflix. And Disney will just absolutely kill everybody on this front.
But enough about the BBC!
https://twitter.com/G7/status/1358743459683778567?s=20
IMO the attachment to the licence fee is holding the BBC back, it's completely outdated for the digital era.
https://twitter.com/BritainElects/status/1358755647790153728?s=20
In hindsight, do you think Britain was right or wrong to vote to leave the European Union?
Right to leave 43 (+3)
Wrong to leave 45 (-3)
So the gap has closed from 8 to 2......
I expect if they did it the quality would go up and the revenues would go down simultaneously. Win/win.
But also HBO isn't a service here in the UK, its programming is primarily bundled in with other services as part of the Sky/Now subscription. Hence Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire etc all being on Sky.
If I go now to Sky On Demand I can download every episode ever of Boardwalk Empire or Game of Thrones etc as part of my generic subscription. Or if you want to binge Boardwalk Empire and you're not a Sky/Now customer you can choose to subscribe for just a month and binge it.
The same can not be said of most BBC content.
Recently it was the wonderfulness of Britain being in the EU that was totally atomised.
Over the week-end, two more Politicalbetting totemic beliefs went the same way
The first is that the vaccine would set us free. The post vaccine lockdown world is manifestly being constructed as we speak.
The second cherished politicalbetting consensual belief that got destroyed was the notion that the entire government and SAGE do not want to keep us in lockdown a MINUTE longer than they have to. Look at the nice scientists calling for the cancellation of Cheltenham for ever. Oh dear.
Pubs opening by 21 June 2021. This morning, June 2022 looks closer.
If we can't rid ourselves of harm from this thing by the spring, we need to accept it and live with it. Those at high risk can voluntarily shield.
Many PBers seem sanguine about endless lockdowns.
I am not. They must end forever this spring.
Net "Well" : -6 (+8)
https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/8qxqi34bw1/TheTimes_VI_Results_210203_W.pdf
If you can do this really well, you won't even notice, and it is cheaper than having to find the perfect place to film (and spend ages converting it for your shot) or having to build a specialist set.
Again, Disney have this incredible virtual set, where they can film in a dome and you can't even tell the stuff in the background isn't real.
This is far cheaper than having to take your whole crew on location. Baby Yoda show in the past would have flown to a whole load of places around the world for all those shots by the sea, in the desert, now they just open up the dome and film.
Which is why the Beeb only survives by having the law behind it.
Nothing says "honest man with nothing to hide" like demanding to be above the law.
Although I can't prove it, I'm confident that many more people have learnt about Covid from the BBC than anywhere else over the last year. Now, while that coverage has its faults, particularly over data analysis, it seeks to offer objective, important facts about the disease. It's much more reliable, and consistent, than the press and other sources. I'd also bet that the government press conferences have been watched on the BBC more than anywhere else, so for the government the BBC is an invaluable dispenser of government information.
I mean, without the BBC, where would all those millions have watched Dom Cummings' rose garden performance?
How you turn that into the BBC being "good value" is beyond me.
The down side is that you have to teach Physics.
Example. Homeland. Had they had the courage to have Brodie blow himself, and the Cabinet up at the end of the one and only season, then that would have been all time great TV.
I could watch Morning Joe at lunchtime.
As to SAGE and vaccines, you may have missed some relevant real world information over the weekend about virus strains? The world is as it is, it is not a great big conspiracy among the grown ups to spoil your fun, and SAGE and the government have to react accordingly..
If there was we wouldn't exclude those who haven't paid the licence fee from receiving the public service by law.
It's this kind of stuff where the BBC used to be at the forefront of technology that they've just let others take the lead. The team at Sony who made it happen is all made up of ex-BBC people and now the licence income from virtual sets will go to a Japanese conglomerate instead of the BBC.
As for government press conferences - I watch them on Sky but increasingly far more normal people who aren't politics geeks spending time on politics websites probably see them on Facebook/YouTube/Twitter/TikTok etc nowadays.
I`ve banged on enough about my concern - and yours - that the narrative of "the vaccine will save us" will change to "the vaccines are great but there is still risk so let`s keep x shut and restrict y and Sunak must continue to financially support z and what about mutant variants etc etc etc". Populist government = the public has got to want things to return to normal and there is insufficient evidence in the polling of this at the moment.
I find it hard to justify spend on other content, but do think we'd lose something vital without the public service broadcaster part.
https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1358758729362010118?s=20
https://twitter.com/woodstockjag/status/1358756589675687936?s=20
Tories also back doing as well with ABC1s as C2DEs on 41% each
Despite an identifiable Brexit benefit and the Commission having an absolute mare, the net view is still that this was, in hindsight, a mistake, and that the government is handling things badly.
That may change- in either direction, depending on events and consequences.
But unfortunately for all of us, It Ain't Done.
Speaking of which, my next lesson is about to start...
Right to leave 27 (-7)
Wrong to leave 61 (+4)
So the gap has widened from 23 to 34.
Shame there aren't figs for NI.
Not until we decide it does.
Someone needs to get in front of this, and lay out a roadmap for exit. I believe that has been promised for 22 Feb.
I'm happy with my bet – I think beer gardens will be back open by Easter and then pubs open with fewer restrictions by May.
I don't deny that some of your points are valid: some people (especially on PB!) are overly sanguine about lockdowns, which are a modern nightmare – an inhumane horror.
But you take things way too far with your hyperbole, just undermines your arguments.
It will end because the public's consent will stop at some point.
If you are still mad that there may be consent for longer than you or perhaps I would like, that's a separate point.
After all, if 'we' dont decide it should stop when you would like, will you still claim they will keep us in it forever? Even though it would be by consent?
I would try something like phasing the license fee out over 5-8 years, to be replaced by a subscription service but with govt backstop funding, kicking in only if subscriptions are too low during the transition period (given rivals like Amazon, Netflix and Disney will run their services at a cash loss to kill off competitors this safety net is important). News and education divisions should be state funded ongoing.
They used to be technological leaders but they also used to lead on another metric - their content and back catalogue.
If you'd asked 20 years ago for the best prior British shows you'd have almost exclusively received a list of BBC shows: Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Only Fools etc
But since the dawn of universal HDTVs the new content is increasingly not BBC. Any list of the best British dramas of the past decade would have to include shows like The Crown, Game of Thrones, Downton Abbey etc
People used to feel affectionate towards the BBC. I don't think many of my generation or younger do. The BBC is rapidly facing a day where even if it did open up its archive of old SD dramas it will be met with a grunt of indifference rather than affection.
Problem is that it's being weaponised by those who want to get rid of the BBC completely.
There is a determined attempt to discredit the Astra vaccine, both in the press and in the scientific community, however.
On topic (as it were), the existence of the BBC in its current form is worth more to Labour than any boundary changes could ever be to the Tories. It injects a steady stream of centre-left pabulum into the national bloodstream, invisibly shaping the discourse in the direction that its high priests think best. If the government wants to show some real ambition, it should try to wean the public off that particular stupefactant.
I'd like to see both the Liberals and the liberal wing of Labour challenge lockdownism from the left. I have only read Zoe Williams and one or two others do so publicly among the latter's journalistic outriders.
I'm almost tempted to agree with you about the latter! AFAICS Oxon/AZ protects against severe disease among all variants. That to me is the key!
Graham Norton gets many millions from the BBC. I don't think he would get anymore on Sky or Netflix for his show.
Which is another good point about the difference between say Sky and MOTD. Gary Big Jugs turns up for 30 weeks a year (he doesn't have to do every Saturday) and the odd FA cup game, and that's it.
Gary Neville on Sky has to do commentary, analysis, interviews, offshoot programmes across many days a week. If they get the big bucks on somewhere like Sky Sports, they make you do loads of different things for you dosh.
And FX is overrated compared to good writing.
But, yes, funding out of taxation should be considered.
Is Match of the Day doing so too? If so I wasn't aware of that, if not then its not an accurate comparison.
You?
I think it's the other way around personally, the BBC is using the spectre of it disappearing forever as a way to hold on to its outdated model. The BBC won't go anywhere, it will just do things differently which means people will pay for different parts of it. As they discover what people want to pay for the less popular bits either become more expensive or see reduced output. The BBC itself still exists and is producing content that people want to watch.
All through the nineteenth and early 20 century the labour party's forbears campaigned tirelessly and ceaselessly to get all children educated. To get rid of child labour, child exploitation, ignorance and early death and to give every kid some sort of chance in life. Whatever disease or affliction ravaged the land.
What would those campaigners say today, when labour is behind a 'no schooling' policy that consigns all to ignorance, but poor children more than anyone?
It is as much efficiency and cost saying, as it is to wow you.
We are in a war-like situation I guess - where the pause button on liberal democracy is pressed. "Short term only" is implicit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3tfIem4ckE
Every year the BBC falls further and further behind as it declines further and further, until eventually it will be so full of rot that it will require wholesale reform or abolition.
But its not too late. If the decision were to be made that the licence fee is not going to be renewed, instead it will be a subscription starting at the current licence fee rate - and that as part of that the back catalogue would be made available online . . . then I think the BBC could thrive independently.
Ok, scrub that, time for Space Force to intervene.
If I were a real cynic, I might suggest that the fact it costs $3, keeps in a fridge and is being produced on a non-profit basis might have a lot to do with it.
It's the winning vaccine, and all the losers are upset.