Sunak correct on bbc, £15 increase is too much, £5 is about right imo. Medium term, it should be switched to general taxation, absolutely ridiculous to have tens of thousand of people a year prosecuted for non payment when our courts can't cope with non BBC workloads. In favour of a publicly funded BBC but lets simplify and detoxify the process.
£15 is an extra 29p a week, £1.20 a month. Regardless of the arguments about the licence fee, I'm not sure that hitting people for an extra 29p a week would constitute a significant contribution to cost of living pressures, as the government is claiming.
Though I recognise, of course, that many PBers may struggle to find an extra 29p per week.
Sometimes it is not just can people afford it, but also should we do it? The answer to £15 a week is clearly no because:
1. Fee itself is controversial, as is public funding. Therefore a £15 increase would significantly increase the threat to the BBCs long term future for very minor short term benefit, mostly to current staff rather than the institution.
2. BBC costs less impacted by inflation than most businesses. Low energy use and peoples desire to work in the industry can be used to control wage inflation in a way that wouldnt be possible in care homes or construction.
3. Public institutions should set an example where possible. Communcal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, however raised.
Another common PB complaint is the British disease of doing everything on the cheap. So, yes, public institutions should set an example where possible, and communal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, but we should also stop trying to do the same on less money, and instead be investing. However the BBC is funded, and I agree with the concerns around license fee non-payment prosecutions, let's put more £ in.
The problem I have with that is the BBCs mission to inform, educate and entertain can be done relatively on the cheap. There are loads of wannabee presenters who would be delighted to work for £50k to replace an outgoing presenter on £250k moving to Sky or ITV, and may be just as good. Indeed freshness of talent is just as important as familiarity of talent.
It is not at all comparable with hospitals being run on the cheap where we cant get the staff on current salaries and then decide we won't even keep those up with inflation resulting in more staff leaving, long queues and a load of people off work sick.
The pay issue is one thing but I get more annoyed by the incestuousness where you have a bbc presenter for one topic, Andrew Marr was a good example, who is then given lots of other programmes by the Beeb outside of their speciality to present and thus keep earning more from the bbc when maybe hiring someone who is an expert on the area being given the chance to make a programme. It happened too with Janina Ramirez who got a break with a doc series on her field of expertise, largely old English literature, and then starts cropping up presenting shows on other areas such as Leonardo da Vinci. I can’t believe the BBC couldn’t find someone presentable and engaging who is an expert on Da Vinci.
The other gripe is the cross promotion of either books by BBC presenters being hyped on BBC shows or podcasts by BBC presenters being pushed.
The unspoken glaringly evident elephant in the lead being that the Tories' client base, elderly (and especially asset-rich) pensioners, don't pay NI but do pay IT. During the period set out by the lead, the Tories proportion of the elderly vote has increased whilst among working age people it has continued to dwindle away.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
It’s pensioners too, who pay the BBC license fee. It’s been made clear here on several occasions that there are people who never watch the BBC and consequently don’t pay a license fee. For as long as I can get away with it anyway!
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
You don't get away with anything. Just disconnect any live broadcast receiving equipment, don't watch anything live broadcast by a "recognised TV company" or BBC iplayer, cancel your direct debit then enjoy watching whatever catchup or streaming service you want. I genuinely don't watch anything that requires a TV licence. No laws are broken, I don't have to respond to the increasingly threatening letters that Capita send out. Detector vans don't exist. I honestly don't hate the BBC and enjoy their output on other streaming services, I just don't love them enough to pay a licence fee I don't require.
My problem is that I genuinely watch almost nothing on the BBC. But the two programmes I do watch - Only Connect and University Challenge - are absolute musts for me. So I pay £3 a week for 1 hours compulsive viewing*. As long as I am still watching those programmes I will still pay the licence fee as I don't believe in tax evasion.
But compared to my other subscriptions with Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, the BBC is very, very expensive for what I get.
*Okay that calculation is wrong because neither programme are on every week of the year but for the sake of this discussion I can't be arsed to go and find out exactly how many weeks a year they are showing.
The issue I have is that I can't legally watch "live" news from a "recognised TV broadcasting company" online or even on YouTube, so I have to be a bit creative. In a national emergency, non licence fee payers wouldn't have access to potentially important information, but in that situation I'd ignore the "law" and watch it online.
Sunak correct on bbc, £15 increase is too much, £5 is about right imo. Medium term, it should be switched to general taxation, absolutely ridiculous to have tens of thousand of people a year prosecuted for non payment when our courts can't cope with non BBC workloads. In favour of a publicly funded BBC but lets simplify and detoxify the process.
£15 is an extra 29p a week, £1.20 a month. Regardless of the arguments about the licence fee, I'm not sure that hitting people for an extra 29p a week would constitute a significant contribution to cost of living pressures, as the government is claiming.
Though I recognise, of course, that many PBers may struggle to find an extra 29p per week.
Sometimes it is not just can people afford it, but also should we do it? The answer to £15 a week is clearly no because:
1. Fee itself is controversial, as is public funding. Therefore a £15 increase would significantly increase the threat to the BBCs long term future for very minor short term benefit, mostly to current staff rather than the institution.
2. BBC costs less impacted by inflation than most businesses. Low energy use and peoples desire to work in the industry can be used to control wage inflation in a way that wouldnt be possible in care homes or construction.
3. Public institutions should set an example where possible. Communcal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, however raised.
Another common PB complaint is the British disease of doing everything on the cheap. So, yes, public institutions should set an example where possible, and communal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, but we should also stop trying to do the same on less money, and instead be investing. However the BBC is funded, and I agree with the concerns around license fee non-payment prosecutions, let's put more £ in.
No. This is the publics money. We are taxed enough as it is and if we are going to have tot pay more of our hard earned there are far more deserving causes than daytime TV and Radio 6. Local govt and care funding are crying out for more money and are far more important than funding repeats of Father Brown, bargain hunt and cash in the attic and channels no one has any interest in like BBC 3, for da yoof.
Yes, local government and care funding need more money, but that doesn't mean everything else is unimportant. We are taxed less than many other countries, like our European neighbours. We've had over a decade of cutting corners and it hasn't made us better off.
The BBC may be important to you and it may be important to others but there are a hell of a lot of people it is not important to.
I’m sure there are elements of local govt and care people don’t see as important however Local govt and care funding is essential. A broadcaster in a field of broadcasters is not and what we are talking about is not getting rid of the BBC just making it seek its funding in a different way. For me not reliant on the largesse of the hard pressed taxpayer.
Mr. L, what also surprises me is that episodes of streamed content all follow a similar size. As if they have a fictional 1 hour television slot.
Netflix have played around a little with the length of episodes to match the particular story. It is another example of conservatism though.
There was a discussion about this on one of the comedy podcasts the other day, where it was mentioned that a “1 hour” comedy special for TV used to be about 42’ long because of all the adverts on American TV - but they’re now almost always 60’ long, because that’s the minimum programme length for Emmy award nomination. That means the comic needs to have 50% more material than used to be the case!
Sometimes this gets taken a bit too far in their reality TV comedy shows though. I much preferred the Thick of It when it was just half hour episodes, whereas the current version where they have embedded the cast in the cabinet just seems to drag on and on.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
It's already fucked with. There's practically nothing left worth saving. It's a shadow of what it was even five years ago.
I point I've made to my local MP is that being the party that passes a law which, for example, drives facetime from the UK and means Granny can no longer speak to her grandchildren that way would be an ELE.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
The unspoken glaringly evident elephant in the lead being that the Tories' client base, elderly (and especially asset-rich) pensioners, don't pay NI but do pay IT. During the period set out by the lead, the Tories proportion of the elderly vote has increased whilst among working age people it has continued to dwindle away.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
It’s pensioners too, who pay the BBC license fee. It’s been made clear here on several occasions that there are people who never watch the BBC and consequently don’t pay a license fee. For as long as I can get away with it anyway!
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
You don't get away with anything. Just disconnect any live broadcast receiving equipment, don't watch anything live broadcast by a "recognised TV company" or BBC iplayer, cancel your direct debit then enjoy watching whatever catchup or streaming service you want. I genuinely don't watch anything that requires a TV licence. No laws are broken, I don't have to respond to the increasingly threatening letters that Capita send out. Detector vans don't exist. I honestly don't hate the BBC and enjoy their output on other streaming services, I just don't love them enough to pay a licence fee I don't require.
My problem is that I genuinely watch almost nothing on the BBC. But the two programmes I do watch - Only Connect and University Challenge - are absolute musts for me. So I pay £3 a week for 1 hours compulsive viewing*. As long as I am still watching those programmes I will still pay the licence fee as I don't believe in tax evasion.
But compared to my other subscriptions with Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, the BBC is very, very expensive for what I get.
*Okay that calculation is wrong because neither programme are on every week of the year but for the sake of this discussion I can't be arsed to go and find out exactly how many weeks a year they are showing.
I drifted away from UC about 5 years ago, and OC about 2 years ago, found I didn't really misss them, and am now left with nothing at all on the BBC. Richard Osman's House of Games is cheerfully diverting if there is nothing on but hardly unmissibale. Radio 6 is still my default radio station but the rot set in a few year's back with Lauren Laverne's "everything's amazing" approach replacing Shaun Keaveney, and now Marc Riley and Gideon Coe have been sidelined there's only Steve Lamacq left during the week. (Radcliffe and Maconie on a Saturday/Sunday morning are still worth switching on for.) I recognise I am now 20 years older than when I first listened to it and that they're after a different audience but I don't know where the grumpy indie elitist is meant to go now. TMS is still worth paying for, but increasingly getting sidelined.
Sunak correct on bbc, £15 increase is too much, £5 is about right imo. Medium term, it should be switched to general taxation, absolutely ridiculous to have tens of thousand of people a year prosecuted for non payment when our courts can't cope with non BBC workloads. In favour of a publicly funded BBC but lets simplify and detoxify the process.
£15 is an extra 29p a week, £1.20 a month. Regardless of the arguments about the licence fee, I'm not sure that hitting people for an extra 29p a week would constitute a significant contribution to cost of living pressures, as the government is claiming.
Though I recognise, of course, that many PBers may struggle to find an extra 29p per week.
Sometimes it is not just can people afford it, but also should we do it? The answer to £15 a week is clearly no because:
1. Fee itself is controversial, as is public funding. Therefore a £15 increase would significantly increase the threat to the BBCs long term future for very minor short term benefit, mostly to current staff rather than the institution.
2. BBC costs less impacted by inflation than most businesses. Low energy use and peoples desire to work in the industry can be used to control wage inflation in a way that wouldnt be possible in care homes or construction.
3. Public institutions should set an example where possible. Communcal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, however raised.
Another common PB complaint is the British disease of doing everything on the cheap. So, yes, public institutions should set an example where possible, and communal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, but we should also stop trying to do the same on less money, and instead be investing. However the BBC is funded, and I agree with the concerns around license fee non-payment prosecutions, let's put more £ in.
The problem I have with that is the BBCs mission to inform, educate and entertain can be done relatively on the cheap. There are loads of wannabee presenters who would be delighted to work for £50k to replace an outgoing presenter on £250k moving to Sky or ITV, and may be just as good. Indeed freshness of talent is just as important as familiarity of talent.
It is not at all comparable with hospitals being run on the cheap where we cant get the staff on current salaries and then decide we won't even keep those up with inflation resulting in more staff leaving, long queues and a load of people off work sick.
The pay issue is one thing but I get more annoyed by the incestuousness where you have a bbc presenter for one topic, Andrew Marr was a good example, who is then given lots of other programmes by the Beeb outside of their speciality to present and thus keep earning more from the bbc when maybe hiring someone who is an expert on the area being given the chance to make a programme. It happened too with Janina Ramirez who got a break with a doc series on her field of expertise, largely old English literature, and then starts cropping up presenting shows on other areas such as Leonardo da Vinci. I can’t believe the BBC couldn’t find someone presentable and engaging who is an expert on Da Vinci.
The other gripe is the cross promotion of either books by BBC presenters being hyped on BBC shows or podcasts by BBC presenters being pushed.
Agree on the first. On the second I don't mind it at all as long as presenter salaries are controlled. It should be kind of similar to being PM, you can make disproportionate money outside of the job we are paying you for, so don't expect mega bucks whilst your here. If that doesnt suit, next.....
The unspoken glaringly evident elephant in the lead being that the Tories' client base, elderly (and especially asset-rich) pensioners, don't pay NI but do pay IT. During the period set out by the lead, the Tories proportion of the elderly vote has increased whilst among working age people it has continued to dwindle away.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
It’s pensioners too, who pay the BBC license fee. It’s been made clear here on several occasions that there are people who never watch the BBC and consequently don’t pay a license fee. For as long as I can get away with it anyway!
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
You don't get away with anything. Just disconnect any live broadcast receiving equipment, don't watch anything live broadcast by a "recognised TV company" or BBC iplayer, cancel your direct debit then enjoy watching whatever catchup or streaming service you want. I genuinely don't watch anything that requires a TV licence. No laws are broken, I don't have to respond to the increasingly threatening letters that Capita send out. Detector vans don't exist. I honestly don't hate the BBC and enjoy their output on other streaming services, I just don't love them enough to pay a licence fee I don't require.
My problem is that I genuinely watch almost nothing on the BBC. But the two programmes I do watch - Only Connect and University Challenge - are absolute musts for me. So I pay £3 a week for 1 hours compulsive viewing*. As long as I am still watching those programmes I will still pay the licence fee as I don't believe in tax evasion.
But compared to my other subscriptions with Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, the BBC is very, very expensive for what I get.
*Okay that calculation is wrong because neither programme are on every week of the year but for the sake of this discussion I can't be arsed to go and find out exactly how many weeks a year they are showing.
I drifted away from UC about 5 years ago, and OC about 2 years ago, found I didn't really misss them, and am now left with nothing at all on the BBC. Richard Osman's House of Games is cheerfully diverting if there is nothing on but hardly unmissibale. Radio 6 is still my default radio station but the rot set in a few year's back with Lauren Laverne's "everything's amazing" approach replacing Shaun Keaveney, and now Marc Riley and Gideon Coe have been sidelined there's only Steve Lamacq left during the week. (Radcliffe and Maconie on a Saturday/Sunday morning are still worth switching on for.) I recognise I am now 20 years older than when I first listened to it and that they're after a different audience but I don't know where the grumpy indie elitist is meant to go now. TMS is still worth paying for, but increasingly getting sidelined.
The unspoken glaringly evident elephant in the lead being that the Tories' client base, elderly (and especially asset-rich) pensioners, don't pay NI but do pay IT. During the period set out by the lead, the Tories proportion of the elderly vote has increased whilst among working age people it has continued to dwindle away.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
It’s pensioners too, who pay the BBC license fee. It’s been made clear here on several occasions that there are people who never watch the BBC and consequently don’t pay a license fee. For as long as I can get away with it anyway!
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
You don't get away with anything. Just disconnect any live broadcast receiving equipment, don't watch anything live broadcast by a "recognised TV company" or BBC iplayer, cancel your direct debit then enjoy watching whatever catchup or streaming service you want. I genuinely don't watch anything that requires a TV licence. No laws are broken, I don't have to respond to the increasingly threatening letters that Capita send out. Detector vans don't exist. I honestly don't hate the BBC and enjoy their output on other streaming services, I just don't love them enough to pay a licence fee I don't require.
My problem is that I genuinely watch almost nothing on the BBC. But the two programmes I do watch - Only Connect and University Challenge - are absolute musts for me. So I pay £3 a week for 1 hours compulsive viewing*. As long as I am still watching those programmes I will still pay the licence fee as I don't believe in tax evasion.
But compared to my other subscriptions with Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, the BBC is very, very expensive for what I get.
*Okay that calculation is wrong because neither programme are on every week of the year but for the sake of this discussion I can't be arsed to go and find out exactly how many weeks a year they are showing.
I drifted away from UC about 5 years ago, and OC about 2 years ago, found I didn't really misss them, and am now left with nothing at all on the BBC. Richard Osman's House of Games is cheerfully diverting if there is nothing on but hardly unmissibale. Radio 6 is still my default radio station but the rot set in a few year's back with Lauren Laverne's "everything's amazing" approach replacing Shaun Keaveney, and now Marc Riley and Gideon Coe have been sidelined there's only Steve Lamacq left during the week. (Radcliffe and Maconie on a Saturday/Sunday morning are still worth switching on for.) I recognise I am now 20 years older than when I first listened to it and that they're after a different audience but I don't know where the grumpy indie elitist is meant to go now. TMS is still worth paying for, but increasingly getting sidelined.
You don't need a licence to listen to radio.
True, but I think it gets paid for by the license fee? Ditto BBC online. Which is where I still default to for sports results because it's set out how I expect. Similarly weather (the BBC still win for presentation, though the forecasts appear now to be largely plucked out of someone's arse and are much less useful than the Met Office's site.)
The latest Hail Mary Pass to appeal to Captain Mainwaring.
The Government having reached an agreement for the BBC to increase its licence fee by the rate of inflation for several years in return for savings delivered previously, Short-Term-Rishi is going back on the promise for pure attempted politics - which are likely to fail.
The BBC fulfilled it's side of the bargain - a 2 year freeze, and Rishi is welching on the deal. What a miserable, untrustworthy, Scrooge-like Government we have.
At least their reputation is consistent, if that's what they want to reinforce.
Is anyone surprised?
I wonder, is this potentially subject to legal action?
It’s our money not the governments. Sunak is hardly being Scrooge, which is a tired Xmas cliche.
Whether the politics will fail or not is irrelevant. It is the right thing to do in a cost of living crisis.
I doubt it would appeal,to Cpt Mainwaring either. He’d be proud of the institution.
And it's for us as a country to decide what we wish to tax, and invest in our public realm and our future.
Rishi attacking the BBC has nothing to do with a cost of living crisis; when a few billion is needed to lubricate the base, it appears instantly. The BBC move is political, for appearance.
Personally I think a Prime Minister unable to be trusted is more concerning.
Scrooge is precisely the right comparison - a short-termist Government salami-slicing everything including basic services, and wasting untold amounts of resource along the way by failure to think beyond the end of their noses.
What happened to fixing social care, for example? Or transport expenditure?
FFS in the midst of the greatest security crisis for a generation, this lot have *cut* defence expenditure.
It's all about salting the Earth for the incoming government now.
Hence my suggestion Starmer abolishes the license fee. Defuses the issue.
Replaces it with what though ?
A subscription. Initially, simply roll over the licence fee into a subscription, and provide free decoding boxes / software.
End the public ownership model and set it up as a mutual, owned by the subscribers, with protection in law from demutualisation and/or takeover. Then set it free to produce, commission and charge what it wants.
Sounds like a good idea. As a non-licence-holder, I don't think the BBC should be able to charge people for watching other channels live, and I don't think the BBC should receive public money for producing entertainment that is indistinguishable from what commercial companies are producing.
But with a subscription model of that kind, I think it would be perfectly fair for the government to subsidise the production of genuine public service content that isn't commercially appealing. Provided it's accessible to everyone, of course, not just subscribers.
Mr. L, what also surprises me is that episodes of streamed content all follow a similar size. As if they have a fictional 1 hour television slot.
Netflix have played around a little with the length of episodes to match the particular story. It is another example of conservatism though.
There was a discussion about this on one of the comedy podcasts the other day, where it was mentioned that a “1 hour” comedy special for TV used to be about 42’ long because of all the adverts on American TV - but they’re now almost always 60’ long, because that’s the minimum programme length for Emmy award nomination. That means the comic needs to have 50% more material than used to be the case!
Sometimes this gets taken a bit too far in their reality TV comedy shows though. I much preferred the Thick of It when it was just half hour episodes, whereas the current version where they have embedded the cast in the cabinet just seems to drag on and on.
It’s definitely true that the art of editing is getting somewhat lost, when there’s no longer the need to make a programme that’s a specific length; but in other cases it works the other way around, with a fixed time slot not either really allowing enough time for the story to be told, or stretching the available material to make up the running time.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
It's already fucked with. There's practically nothing left worth saving. It's a shadow of what it was even five years ago.
I point I've made to my local MP is that being the party that passes a law which, for example, drives facetime from the UK and means Granny can no longer speak to her grandchildren that way would be an ELE.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
All shows have a shelf life. We have passed peak strictly. Just like the X Factor before it and other successful Saturday TV staples all wither on the vine, sometimes coming back in a new form after a few years off screen.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
Maybe Lineker has an appeal that makes it financial sense to pay him so much, but I do think the BBC should use a non star presenter for things like MOTD, the programme is just as good when Mark Chapman presents. It’s unusual to have an ex player as presenter rather than analyst, although Lineker is obviously a polished performer.
The Chairman of the Republicans in Florida and his wife, who campaigns for any reference to anything other than heterosexual models to be banned from schools were having threesomes. When the wife was not available the third wheel called off saying she was really into the wife, not him. So, allegedly, he went and raped her.
Even the SNP would be embarrassed.
Wow. The general rule is the more someone goes on about family values the more likely they are to be getting up to all kinds of shit. I see that this guy appears to conform to the rule, and then some.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
It's already fucked with. There's practically nothing left worth saving. It's a shadow of what it was even five years ago.
I point I've made to my local MP is that being the party that passes a law which, for example, drives facetime from the UK and means Granny can no longer speak to her grandchildren that way would be an ELE.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
All shows have a shelf life. We have passed peak strictly. Just like the X Factor before it and other successful Saturday TV staples all wither on the vine, sometimes coming back in a new form after a few years off screen.
Fair point. But I know my mother would never forgive the Tories it they led to its demise.
The solution is clearly to switch to a subscription or ad based model IMO. Free news, everything else £10 a month.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
The unspoken glaringly evident elephant in the lead being that the Tories' client base, elderly (and especially asset-rich) pensioners, don't pay NI but do pay IT. During the period set out by the lead, the Tories proportion of the elderly vote has increased whilst among working age people it has continued to dwindle away.
If there is an awareness to rebalance towards a more equitable, and wealth-generation friendly, balance of taxation, then this is a good thing.
Indeed, it would make a lot of sense to significantly simplify our tax code by rolling Income Tax, National Insurance, Capital Gains Tax, and even Inheritance Tax, into one type of tax all levied on the same incomes at the same rate (with a single tax free allowance and higher rate bands as appropriate).
It’s pensioners too, who pay the BBC license fee. It’s been made clear here on several occasions that there are people who never watch the BBC and consequently don’t pay a license fee. For as long as I can get away with it anyway!
And good morning one, and all; I hope those affected by the snows of of the north Are able to get about now
You don't get away with anything. Just disconnect any live broadcast receiving equipment, don't watch anything live broadcast by a "recognised TV company" or BBC iplayer, cancel your direct debit then enjoy watching whatever catchup or streaming service you want. I genuinely don't watch anything that requires a TV licence. No laws are broken, I don't have to respond to the increasingly threatening letters that Capita send out. Detector vans don't exist. I honestly don't hate the BBC and enjoy their output on other streaming services, I just don't love them enough to pay a licence fee I don't require.
My problem is that I genuinely watch almost nothing on the BBC. But the two programmes I do watch - Only Connect and University Challenge - are absolute musts for me. So I pay £3 a week for 1 hours compulsive viewing*. As long as I am still watching those programmes I will still pay the licence fee as I don't believe in tax evasion.
But compared to my other subscriptions with Netflix, Disney and Amazon Prime, the BBC is very, very expensive for what I get.
*Okay that calculation is wrong because neither programme are on every week of the year but for the sake of this discussion I can't be arsed to go and find out exactly how many weeks a year they are showing.
The latest Hail Mary Pass to appeal to Captain Mainwaring.
The Government having reached an agreement for the BBC to increase its licence fee by the rate of inflation for several years in return for savings delivered previously, Short-Term-Rishi is going back on the promise for pure attempted politics - which are likely to fail.
The BBC fulfilled it's side of the bargain - a 2 year freeze, and Rishi is welching on the deal. What a miserable, untrustworthy, Scrooge-like Government we have.
At least their reputation is consistent, if that's what they want to reinforce.
Is anyone surprised?
I wonder, is this potentially subject to legal action?
It’s our money not the governments. Sunak is hardly being Scrooge, which is a tired Xmas cliche.
Whether the politics will fail or not is irrelevant. It is the right thing to do in a cost of living crisis.
I doubt it would appeal,to Cpt Mainwaring either. He’d be proud of the institution.
And it's for us as a country to decide what we wish to tax, and invest in our public realm and our future.
Rishi attacking the BBC has nothing to do with a cost of living crisis; when a few billion is needed to lubricate the base, it appears instantly. The BBC move is political, for appearance.
Personally I think a Prime Minister unable to be trusted is more concerning.
Scrooge is precisely the right comparison - a short-termist Government salami-slicing everything including basic services, and wasting untold amounts of resource along the way by failure to think beyond the end of their noses.
What happened to fixing social care, for example? Or transport expenditure?
FFS in the midst of the greatest security crisis for a generation, this lot have *cut* defence expenditure.
It's all about salting the Earth for the incoming government now.
Hence my suggestion Starmer abolishes the license fee. Defuses the issue.
Replaces it with what though ?
A subscription. Initially, simply roll over the licence fee into a subscription, and provide free decoding boxes / software.
End the public ownership model and set it up as a mutual, owned by the subscribers, with protection in law from demutualisation and/or takeover. Then set it free to produce, commission and charge what it wants.
Sounds like a good idea. As a non-licence-holder, I don't think the BBC should be able to charge people for watching other channels live, and I don't think the BBC should receive public money for producing entertainment that is indistinguishable from what commercial companies are producing.
But with a subscription model of that kind, I think it would be perfectly fair for the government to subsidise the production of genuine public service content that isn't commercially appealing. Provided it's accessible to everyone, of course, not just subscribers.
Yes you could have a much more slimmed-down BBC, making programmes that the market won’t (news, documentaries, arts, religious, children’s etc), have it funded by the Treasury and shown on two TV channels and two radio chanels - similar to PBS, rather than the behemoth the BBC has become in recent years. Also no need for the six-figure presenter salaries, it should be seen as a place to develop talent rather than hoard it.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
The latest Hail Mary Pass to appeal to Captain Mainwaring.
The Government having reached an agreement for the BBC to increase its licence fee by the rate of inflation for several years in return for savings delivered previously, Short-Term-Rishi is going back on the promise for pure attempted politics - which are likely to fail.
The BBC fulfilled it's side of the bargain - a 2 year freeze, and Rishi is welching on the deal. What a miserable, untrustworthy, Scrooge-like Government we have.
At least their reputation is consistent, if that's what they want to reinforce.
Is anyone surprised?
I wonder, is this potentially subject to legal action?
It’s our money not the governments. Sunak is hardly being Scrooge, which is a tired Xmas cliche.
Whether the politics will fail or not is irrelevant. It is the right thing to do in a cost of living crisis.
I doubt it would appeal,to Cpt Mainwaring either. He’d be proud of the institution.
And it's for us as a country to decide what we wish to tax, and invest in our public realm and our future.
Rishi attacking the BBC has nothing to do with a cost of living crisis; when a few billion is needed to lubricate the base, it appears instantly. The BBC move is political, for appearance.
Personally I think a Prime Minister unable to be trusted is more concerning.
Scrooge is precisely the right comparison - a short-termist Government salami-slicing everything including basic services, and wasting untold amounts of resource along the way by failure to think beyond the end of their noses.
What happened to fixing social care, for example? Or transport expenditure?
FFS in the midst of the greatest security crisis for a generation, this lot have *cut* defence expenditure.
It's all about salting the Earth for the incoming government now.
Hence my suggestion Starmer abolishes the license fee. Defuses the issue.
Replaces it with what though ?
A subscription. Initially, simply roll over the licence fee into a subscription, and provide free decoding boxes / software.
End the public ownership model and set it up as a mutual, owned by the subscribers, with protection in law from demutualisation and/or takeover. Then set it free to produce, commission and charge what it wants.
Sounds like a good idea. As a non-licence-holder, I don't think the BBC should be able to charge people for watching other channels live, and I don't think the BBC should receive public money for producing entertainment that is indistinguishable from what commercial companies are producing.
But with a subscription model of that kind, I think it would be perfectly fair for the government to subsidise the production of genuine public service content that isn't commercially appealing. Provided it's accessible to everyone, of course, not just subscribers.
I would definitely support that. My big unanswered question is radio. I don't even know what public service radio should include, let alone how you commercialise the non-public service bits. But radio is such a relatively small part of the BBC budget that this shouldn't really matter that much.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
Not sure Ilkley Grammar (Bradford, rather than North Yorks) is a grammar school in the way we usually understand the term (i.e. selective?)
Worth noting on this subject that OFSTED have recently tried to make 'outstanding' much harder to achieve - i.e. only about 5% of schools should be getting it, rather than around 25%. Which makes sense - something isn't literally 'outstanding' if it occurs one in four times. But it certainly can't be the case that that 5% of schools can accommodate 100% of pupils.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
It's already fucked with. There's practically nothing left worth saving. It's a shadow of what it was even five years ago.
I point I've made to my local MP is that being the party that passes a law which, for example, drives facetime from the UK and means Granny can no longer speak to her grandchildren that way would be an ELE.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
All shows have a shelf life. We have passed peak strictly. Just like the X Factor before it and other successful Saturday TV staples all wither on the vine, sometimes coming back in a new form after a few years off screen.
Fair point. But I know my mother would never forgive the Tories it they led to its demise.
The solution is clearly to switch to a subscription or ad based model IMO. Free news, everything else £10 a month.
Abolish the daft license fee, which isn't FFP.
I would pay £10 a month not to get Strictly Come Dancing.
[Tongue is largely in cheek here, before anyone says 'just turn it off'.]
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
The nasty Nats have evidently turned the weans against the Beeb.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
Fine. Why should people be taxed for something they don't use. I mean yes hospitals if they are well or roads if they don't drive. But a broadcast media company? Nope. That is crazy to force people on pain of prosecution to consume it.
Fair enough, if you take that view. But be very clear that your plan would mean the end of the BBC as we know it.
I think the BBC is a hugely successful UK export. I agree with other people there. I think when you have something that’s very successful, it’s a bad idea to destroy it.
It is OK. It projects "our values" abroad (how colonially quaint, as though people in sub-Saharan Africa need "our values"). But it can't be hugely successful otherwise or we wouldn't be having this discussion wrt funding models.
The fact that we’re discussing it, as piece of significant political news, shows that the BBC is not just any old company. It is an important part of the country. That is an example of how successful it has been.
It absolutely is a piece of significant news and is part of the fabric of the nation. As was national service, coal-mining and cock fighting. All now things of the past. Being part of the fabric of the nation doesn't mean it is a good or relevant thing today.
Your "hugely successful" means, presumably, not financially hugely successful but fabric of the nation, projecting our values, dammit all we're British hugely successful. And I think this is open to debate.
BBC. Telly generally awful; website very patchy. But, and it is a big matter, it is not easy to locate a media organisation better at ensuring a reasonable degree of accuracy and verification, which tries, not always successfully, to be balanced ('no bias' is way beyond the BBC, but probably that's just the way reality is) and has the capacity for reasonably comprehensive coverage.
Secondly, the bit that is essential - really essential - is ironically the free bit - radio, including of
course the World Service. I would pay way more than the licence fee for radio alone.
(For comparison, the Economist cover price is £400 per year. People need to get real).
Whether you love it or hate it, without the BBC, Britain wouldn’t feel like Britain anymore. I’ve listened to Radio 5 football this season and having a show simply called ‘Sports Report’ with the old fashioned tune is lovely. Maybe kids won’t feel the same but I think there is something ineffable about the beeb that is worth keeping
Yes. I hate the BBC’s Wokeness and I’d be quite happy if Lineker never spoke another word on social media - and yet I accept that if the BBC disappeared it would leave a huge hole in British cultural life
It’s the beeb. It’s us. Good and bad, cringe and creditworthy - many nations would love to have such a revered media institution projecting a sane, sensible respectable image around the world
It’s part of the whole package of Britishness, a crucial part of the brand. And at a wobbly moment for the country, we fuck with it at our peril
It's already fucked with. There's practically nothing left worth saving. It's a shadow of what it was even five years ago.
I point I've made to my local MP is that being the party that passes a law which, for example, drives facetime from the UK and means Granny can no longer speak to her grandchildren that way would be an ELE.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
All shows have a shelf life. We have passed peak strictly. Just like the X Factor before it and other successful Saturday TV staples all wither on the vine, sometimes coming back in a new form after a few years off screen.
Fair point. But I know my mother would never forgive the Tories it they led to its demise.
The solution is clearly to switch to a subscription or ad based model IMO. Free news, everything else £10 a month.
Abolish the daft license fee, which isn't FFP.
I would pay £10 a month not to get Strictly Come Dancing.
[Tongue is largely in cheek here, before anyone says 'just turn it off'.]
On the main BBC news broadcast on one of the days last week one of the main stories, third or fourth, was Claudia Winkelman standing down from her Saturday radio show. There are quite a few news stories on the BBC News bulletins tat are merely plugs for other shows.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
On Topic: A very good header from 'Lost' and I certainly do hope this disreputable practice is finally falling out of favour. Well overdue if so. How long is it since anyone had the balls to do the simple honest thing of raising the basic rate of income tax to alleviate fiscal stress? Who was the last British politician to do that? Was it Pitt the Younger?
It really shows the power of language, doesn't it. In particular that TAX is a 4 letter word despite having only 3 letters. Remember the linguistic tussle over "bedroom tax" vs the "spare room subsidy" for example. God that was tedious. It was like the substance of the thing didn't matter, all that mattered was what it was called. Well that's because that was what mattered. You get "tax" into the title of something, just colloquially if necessary, and you're most of the way there to turning people against it.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
They are more likely to gain voters from ReformUK from the right than win back voters lost to Starmer Labour unless and until a Labour government mucks up the economy
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
The BBC could also help fund drama and light entertainment via advertising
For me, the main attraction of BBC shows is the lack of advertising (apart from that of other BBC shows of course).
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
1 - The Brexit Party didn't stand in Tory seats at the last election, thus their voters had to vote Tory. Such seats would be their most attractive seats, and so a swing from Tory to Reform would always happen under any leader, and be a lot, lot higher than their vote at that election.
2 - A vote lost to Labour [or the LibDems in seats where they are the main competitor to the Tories] is worse by a factor of two, as it decreases the Tory vote but increases the likely winner. Reform are unlikely to win any seats.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
Not sure Ilkley Grammar (Bradford, rather than North Yorks) is a grammar school in the way we usually understand the term (i.e. selective?)
Worth noting on this subject that OFSTED have recently tried to make 'outstanding' much harder to achieve - i.e. only about 5% of schools should be getting it, rather than around 25%. Which makes sense - something isn't literally 'outstanding' if it occurs one in four times. But it certainly can't be the case that that 5% of schools can accommodate 100% of pupils.
Only 7% of pupils go to private schools and even most of them would stay private even with Labour's planned VAT on school fees
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
The BBC could also help fund drama and light entertainment via advertising
For me, the main attraction of BBC shows is the lack of advertising (apart from that of other BBC shows of course).
I think the prosecution of supposed TV license fraudsters is a major risk to the BBC.
Has the whiff of the Post Office scandal about it. Vulnerable people, in dire financial straits, signed off en masse by magistrates*, isolated legal representation.
* Is it happening in Scotland too?
Similar to what Cyclefree was saying re the PO the other day: the BBC and Capita don't have it theor own way in Scotland. Unlike in England, the PF does the deciding and prosecuting. So it goes for other options than prosecution, presumably cos there are more important things to use limited court time and resources on.
Edit: but see DAvidL's post which I have now seen. Confused ...
That does not accord with the experience of a good friend of mine who sits as a JP in Edinburgh. The alternative to prosecution is normally a fixed penalty. If you don't pay the fixed penalty you are prosecuted. I think these numbers are somewhat misleading.
Edit my guess is that they show the number of people offered a fixed penalty first.
Thanks. Less hassle all round, and no crim record?
The really cunning trick is to get to pay it by instalments and then just pay the first one. There is a lacuna in the legislation that states you cannot be prosecuted in the event that a payment is made. (For the avoidance of doubt I have no idea if the same lacuna exists in England so do not try this at home).
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I would pay for. The rest,largely I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
Not sure Ilkley Grammar (Bradford, rather than North Yorks) is a grammar school in the way we usually understand the term (i.e. selective?)
Worth noting on this subject that OFSTED have recently tried to make 'outstanding' much harder to achieve - i.e. only about 5% of schools should be getting it, rather than around 25%. Which makes sense - something isn't literally 'outstanding' if it occurs one in four times. But it certainly can't be the case that that 5% of schools can accommodate 100% of pupils.
Correct. Ilkley Grammar is a comprehensive (albeit one serving a much higher income area than most in West Yorkshire). There will be some catchment from parts of N Yorks too, given that the boundary is so close.
It was a grammar school proper about 50 years ago but that changed following local govt reorganisation and comprehensivisation in the 1970s. North Yorks does still have selective education. Because of local pressure in various areas about losing the 'grammar' name, the compromise agreed across Bradford District was that all secondaries (mis-named as Bradford also moved to a three-tier system at the time; since reverted), would be styled 'grammar schools'. The reversion to a two-tier system, combined with acadamisation and forced restarts for failing schools has resulted in only a few of those 1970s 'grammars-but-really-comprehensives' having survived into the 2020s with the same name - but Ilkley is one that has.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
You put your left wing in, your left wing out. In, out, in, out, shake it all about?
Lies, damned lies….and not knowing the difference between mean and median:
The Herald on Sunday made a number of errors in its analysis, but one mistake was by far the most significant: it compared an average household bill for Scotland based on mean consumption with an average household bill for the rest of the UK based on median consumption.
Mean household energy consumption is higher than median, and this is true across all nations and regions of the UK. The Herald on Sunday made a simple apples to oranges mistake.
Unit charges are actually lower in Scotland than the average in the rest of the UK, for both gas and electricity. Standing charges for electricity are higher than average in Scotland, but because unit charges are lower, bills for average consumption in Scotland are very similar to bills in the rest of the UK, whether you use median or mean for average household energy consumption.
1 - The Brexit Party didn't stand in Tory seats at the last election, thus their voters had to vote Tory. Such seats would be their most attractive seats, and so a swing from Tory to Reform would always happen under any leader, and be a lot, lot higher than their vote at that election.
2 - A vote lost to Labour [or the LibDems in seats where they are the main competitor to the Tories] is worse by a factor of two, as it decreases the Tory vote but increases the likely winner. Reform are unlikely to win any seats.
It's incorrect to say that Tory seats are most BxP/Reform-friendly. The Tory vote and the (potential) Reform vote is nothing like a direct overlap. To see where Reform might do best, look at the 2015 UKIP shares.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Rolling out (yet again) the TOPPING BBC FUNDING MODEL (all rights reserved).
Compartmentalise the BBC into different divisions:
News & current affairs Documentary Radio Drama "Light Entertainment" Children's Sport Etc
Charge a monthly subscription for each of them. Say £2-6/month. And of course have an "AYCE" subscription which would be in price not unadjacent to the value of the current license fee. Then people could choose what they wanted and if they wanted to pay for it. Job done.
The BBC’s income would collapse under this model. It wouldn’t be able to make what it currently makes.
The BBC could also help fund drama and light entertainment via advertising
For me, the main attraction of BBC shows is the lack of advertising (apart from that of other BBC shows of course).
It sure is off putting though. I really liked the BBC prison drama Time a couple of years ago but their INCESSANT trailing of the woman's companion piece turned me off completely, to the point of me still not having watched it.
See the Times has published its annual ranking of schools in its Parent Power supplement. Especially useful for parents planning their escape from the private sector and impending VAT on fees.
@HYUFD is adamant that such parents won’t touch with a barge pole a state school that is not Outstanding according to OFSTED. Looking forward to see what happens in North Yorkshire where there is a single Outstanding state secondary school which is already well over-subscribed.
Delighted to see the Times nominate a school in Hull as Comprehensive of the Year. Partly because St Mary’s College is in my home town but mainly because Peach Junior is on the SLT there.
There is also Ripon grammar school which makes the Sunday Times list if they won't be able to afford Ampleforth fees.
Room for more free schools too.
However given North Yorkshire is one of the most rural areas in the country there are no big cities there and even the towns are generally small and take in all the pupils from the neighbouring villages for secondary school
But Ripon Grammar isn’t Outstanding so according to you they won’t touch it with a barge pole.
Ripon Grammar is the Sunday Times best state school in the North and has top exam results to match.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
So a parent would choose Ilkley Grammar even though it isn’t outstanding?
Not sure Ilkley Grammar (Bradford, rather than North Yorks) is a grammar school in the way we usually understand the term (i.e. selective?)
Worth noting on this subject that OFSTED have recently tried to make 'outstanding' much harder to achieve - i.e. only about 5% of schools should be getting it, rather than around 25%. Which makes sense - something isn't literally 'outstanding' if it occurs one in four times. But it certainly can't be the case that that 5% of schools can accommodate 100% of pupils.
Only 7% of pupils go to private schools and even most of them would stay private even with Labour's planned VAT on school fees
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I would pay for. The rest,largely I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Tbf I don't think anyone cares very much whether you're associated with the BBC or not.
Presumably all the cholerics who give up their BBC licence would then mercifully stop moaning about it? (don't be fucking stupid - ed)
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I would pay for. The rest,largely I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Here's one for you, Rooters. An Unwoke episode of Mastermind:
Der da da der … Der Der
“Our next contestant please.”
(a pugnacious looking individual takes the chair in front of Clive Myrie)
“Your name and occupation.” “Right Wing Internet Blogger” “And your specialist subject?” “Detecting anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the BBC on Gaza.”
(Myrie pulls a sheepish face)
“What, us?” “Yes, you guys.” “Ok, you have sixty seconds on detecting anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the BBC on Gaza starting NOW.” “What does the BBC fail to say after each and every mention of Hamas?” “That they are terrorists and also monsters.” “Correct. What do they also sometimes omit when making reference to a Hamas claim.” “That it’s a stone cold lie.” “Correct. How could one describe Jeremy Bowen’s expression when he talks about Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister?” “Disapproving. Looks like a prune” “Correct. What about his expression when talking about Palestinian casualties of the IDS?” “On the edge of tears.” “Correct.”
(Etc Etc. Bang bang bang. On a roll)
“Correct. You’re doing amazing.” “Cheers Clive.” “You’re welcome. Ok on we go. Do BBC newsreaders sometimes wear a colour that also features on the Palestinian flag?” “Damn right they do. Happens quite often. Raworth had a green blouse on yesterday.” “Correct. Yet are those self-same newsreaders allowed to ...
Beep beep beep
“I’ve started so I’ll finish … to have a tattoo of the Flag of Israel on their forehead?” “No they are not. Sacking offence.” “Correct!”
“Right Wing Internet Blogger you have scored 27 points and no passes. A record for the programme. Well done if I may say so.”
(RWIB grins, vacates the chair, walks back to tumultuous audience applause. There is one heckler, an elderly bearded man in a Lenin cap is shouting something. We catch the word “Mossad” before security moves in)
The BBC is part of our cultural fabric. So is complaining about the BBC. If we lose the one we lose the other and we'd be all the poorer for it.
But that argument has basically given it immunity from any sort of quality control standards. If we say we're never going to get rid of the beeb under any circumstances, it just gets gradually worse and worse. For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
Looks as though the people who hated Boris for upping taxes, spending more on public services and increasing immigration are going to have to praise Sir Keir for doing the opposite - pick your side then stick with it
Keir Starmer says Labour won’t ‘turn on the spending taps’
The odd thing about the BBC license fee is that you're precluded* from watching any live sporting (Or anything else) event on any platform if you don't pay it
*Well I'm sure there are people that do, but they shouldn't.
You could not watch a second of BBC output and you'd still be bound to pay it.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
If too many supposed right wingers praise the BBC, calling it an essential part of being British, will James O’Brien start saying ‘it was akshally founded by a Nigerian’?
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
Indeed. I've tangled with HYUFD on this before, hence the wink.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
I used to watch a lot of programmes on BBC4 but that has become starved of cash and it is mainly repeats these days. Mind you, the recent repeat of I Claudius was probably the best thing I watched all year; it was even better than I remembered it.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
Indeed. I've tangled with HYUFD on this before, hence the wink.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
The very high probability for me is that the Tories will indulge themselves by selecting someone completely unelectable, just as Labour did with Corbyn, for the same delusional reasons. When they have received another hammering in 2028/9 they will start to focus on winning again and come back to the centre with a Cameron equivalent. Tories have much less of a taste for losing than Labour and seem unlikely to me to indulge themselves twice like Labour did.
When politicians reach the end with nothing left to say or do, they go to their comfort zone and attack the usual hobby horses. So this week, the Tories turn their attention to the BBC over an inflationary increase.
The Tories would be better off apologising for their economic chaos that cost us all a lot more than £15.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
My problem with the BBC is that all the people I used to look up to have been succeeded by people I look down on. This is, alas, an inevitable consequence of ageing and applies equally to adjacent disciplines such as academia and publishing and is in turn a corollary of the human condition which requires every wise, creative, educated person who dies to be replaced by an illiterate, mewling savage.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme sports live streams on other platforms. You absolutely do not need a TV licence to watch Live streams.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
Indeed. I've tangled with HYUFD on this before, hence the wink.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
The very high probability for me is that the Tories will indulge themselves by selecting someone completely unelectable, just as Labour did with Corbyn, for the same delusional reasons. When they have received another hammering in 2028/9 they will start to focus on winning again and come back to the centre with a Cameron equivalent. Tories have much less of a taste for losing than Labour and seem unlikely to me to indulge themselves twice like Labour did.
The interesting thing is that the Tories face strong competition on the right from RefUK. Right now the Tories can claim ownership of right of centre votes because they are clearly the party that will win seats under FPTP. What if the Tories do really badly in the next election - like win 100 seats or fewer - not my baseline at all but it could happen. Then couldn't an emboldened RefUK leapfrog them as the Tories collapse into infighting? Perhaps the Tories are tilting right to shore up their right flank and stop that from happening. But isn't the risk that they are simply legitimising RefUK positions, and people will prefer to vote for the real thing? Labour never faced this intense competition on the Left, in England at least, because the post coalition Lib Dems are clearly not a left wing party, and the Greens remain quite small.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Absolutely not true.
Have you argued this lot in front of a magistrate yet ?
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I always wonder what exactly 'recognised TV broadcasting company' means.
Am I allowed to watch, eg, a space launch on "NASA TV" or SpaceX YouTube?
If I'm not, how many minutes delay vs live do I need to make it legal?
Sunak correct on bbc, £15 increase is too much, £5 is about right imo. Medium term, it should be switched to general taxation, absolutely ridiculous to have tens of thousand of people a year prosecuted for non payment when our courts can't cope with non BBC workloads. In favour of a publicly funded BBC but lets simplify and detoxify the process.
£15 is an extra 29p a week, £1.20 a month. Regardless of the arguments about the licence fee, I'm not sure that hitting people for an extra 29p a week would constitute a significant contribution to cost of living pressures, as the government is claiming.
Though I recognise, of course, that many PBers may struggle to find an extra 29p per week.
Sometimes it is not just can people afford it, but also should we do it? The answer to £15 a week is clearly no because:
1. Fee itself is controversial, as is public funding. Therefore a £15 increase would significantly increase the threat to the BBCs long term future for very minor short term benefit, mostly to current staff rather than the institution.
2. BBC costs less impacted by inflation than most businesses. Low energy use and peoples desire to work in the industry can be used to control wage inflation in a way that wouldnt be possible in care homes or construction.
3. Public institutions should set an example where possible. Communcal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, however raised.
Another common PB complaint is the British disease of doing everything on the cheap. So, yes, public institutions should set an example where possible, and communal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, but we should also stop trying to do the same on less money, and instead be investing. However the BBC is funded, and I agree with the concerns around license fee non-payment prosecutions, let's put more £ in.
The problem I have with that is the BBCs mission to inform, educate and entertain can be done relatively on the cheap. There are loads of wannabee presenters who would be delighted to work for £50k to replace an outgoing presenter on £250k moving to Sky or ITV, and may be just as good. Indeed freshness of talent is just as important as familiarity of talent.
It is not at all comparable with hospitals being run on the cheap where we cant get the staff on current salaries and then decide we won't even keep those up with inflation resulting in more staff leaving, long queues and a load of people off work sick.
People on this thread have been talking about the solution for the BBC to become an international streaming platform. OK, it's an idea, but you need substantial investment to get there.
Sunak correct on bbc, £15 increase is too much, £5 is about right imo. Medium term, it should be switched to general taxation, absolutely ridiculous to have tens of thousand of people a year prosecuted for non payment when our courts can't cope with non BBC workloads. In favour of a publicly funded BBC but lets simplify and detoxify the process.
£15 is an extra 29p a week, £1.20 a month. Regardless of the arguments about the licence fee, I'm not sure that hitting people for an extra 29p a week would constitute a significant contribution to cost of living pressures, as the government is claiming.
Though I recognise, of course, that many PBers may struggle to find an extra 29p per week.
Sometimes it is not just can people afford it, but also should we do it? The answer to £15 a week is clearly no because:
1. Fee itself is controversial, as is public funding. Therefore a £15 increase would significantly increase the threat to the BBCs long term future for very minor short term benefit, mostly to current staff rather than the institution.
2. BBC costs less impacted by inflation than most businesses. Low energy use and peoples desire to work in the industry can be used to control wage inflation in a way that wouldnt be possible in care homes or construction.
3. Public institutions should set an example where possible. Communcal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, however raised.
Another common PB complaint is the British disease of doing everything on the cheap. So, yes, public institutions should set an example where possible, and communal money raised by law should be spent wisely and fairly, but we should also stop trying to do the same on less money, and instead be investing. However the BBC is funded, and I agree with the concerns around license fee non-payment prosecutions, let's put more £ in.
No. This is the publics money. We are taxed enough as it is and if we are going to have tot pay more of our hard earned there are far more deserving causes than daytime TV and Radio 6. Local govt and care funding are crying out for more money and are far more important than funding repeats of Father Brown, bargain hunt and cash in the attic and channels no one has any interest in like BBC 3, for da yoof.
Yes, local government and care funding need more money, but that doesn't mean everything else is unimportant. We are taxed less than many other countries, like our European neighbours. We've had over a decade of cutting corners and it hasn't made us better off.
The BBC may be important to you and it may be important to others but there are a hell of a lot of people it is not important to.
I’m sure there are elements of local govt and care people don’t see as important however Local govt and care funding is essential. A broadcaster in a field of broadcasters is not and what we are talking about is not getting rid of the BBC just making it seek its funding in a different way. For me not reliant on the largesse of the hard pressed taxpayer.
I don’t have kids. I still think it’s a good thing my taxes pay for schools. That’s how taxation works.
The BBC is in a field of broadcasters, but it’s specifically a public service broadcaster. I think there is value in having a public service broadcaster that is lost if you just privatise it. The respect the BBC garners around the world suggests to me it’s a model that works well.
Taxpayers are not hard pressed because of the cost of the BBC. They’re hard pressed because the Conservatives have wrecked the economy. I have a simple solution for that and it’s called a general election.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Absolutely not true.
Have you argued this lot in front of a magistrate yet ?
You don't need to. You don't need a TV licence to watch a NASA live stream on YouTube. The BBC have clarified that.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Absolutely not true.
Have you argued this lot in front of a magistrate yet ?
You don't need to. You don't need a TV licence to watch a NASA live stream on YouTube. The BBC have clarified that.
The BBC is part of our cultural fabric. So is complaining about the BBC. If we lose the one we lose the other and we'd be all the poorer for it.
But that argument has basically given it immunity from any sort of quality control standards. If we say we're never going to get rid of the beeb under any circumstances, it just gets gradually worse and worse. For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
BBC output looks shit to you? I can't relate to that at all. For what I pay (£3 a week) I rate it amazing value. I can't immediately think of anything in the same league in the media space on VFM. I mean, I pay about 10 times that for various subscription services for this and that, yet I'd say on hours watched I'm using the Beeb as much as all of those combined.
Are you sure it's the quality that's your main problem? Reason I ask is you once said something on this subject I found quite striking. You said you were losing patience with the BBC because you were fed up of watching tv made by people who didn't like you. It rang heartfelt and true to me. And of course if you feel like that you won't (to put it mildly) be a fan.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I always wonder what exactly 'recognised TV broadcasting company' means.
Am I allowed to watch, eg, a space launch on "NASA TV" or SpaceX YouTube?
If I'm not, how many minutes delay vs live do I need to make it legal?
This all needs clearing up.
You don't need a TV licence to watch the vast majority of live streams. Say you're watching GB News on YouTube live, then you'd need a TV licence. GBNews is recognisably a live broadcasting TV company. Watching live foreign channels also requires a licence. Watching a SpaceX launch online doesn't need a licence. The BBC don't control the Internet.
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
Indeed. I've tangled with HYUFD on this before, hence the wink.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
The very high probability for me is that the Tories will indulge themselves by selecting someone completely unelectable, just as Labour did with Corbyn, for the same delusional reasons. When they have received another hammering in 2028/9 they will start to focus on winning again and come back to the centre with a Cameron equivalent. Tories have much less of a taste for losing than Labour and seem unlikely to me to indulge themselves twice like Labour did.
The interesting thing is that the Tories face strong competition on the right from RefUK. Right now the Tories can claim ownership of right of centre votes because they are clearly the party that will win seats under FPTP. What if the Tories do really badly in the next election - like win 100 seats or fewer - not my baseline at all but it could happen. Then couldn't an emboldened RefUK leapfrog them as the Tories collapse into infighting? Perhaps the Tories are tilting right to shore up their right flank and stop that from happening. But isn't the risk that they are simply legitimising RefUK positions, and people will prefer to vote for the real thing? Labour never faced this intense competition on the Left, in England at least, because the post coalition Lib Dems are clearly not a left wing party, and the Greens remain quite small.
The BBC is part of our cultural fabric. So is complaining about the BBC. If we lose the one we lose the other and we'd be all the poorer for it.
But that argument has basically given it immunity from any sort of quality control standards. If we say we're never going to get rid of the beeb under any circumstances, it just gets gradually worse and worse. For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
BBC output looks shit to you? I can't relate to that at all. For what I pay (£3 a week) I rate it amazing value. I can't immediately think of anything in the same league in the media space on VFM. I mean, I pay about 10 times that for various subscription services for this and that, yet I'd say on hours watched I'm using the Beeb as much as all of those combined.
Are you sure it's the quality that's your main problem? Reason I ask is you once said something on this subject I found quite striking. You said you were losing patience with the BBC because you were fed up of watching tv made by people who didn't like you. It rang heartfelt and true to me. And of course if you feel like that you won't (to put it mildly) be a fan.
It's also quite challenging to disentangle "BBC TV News" and "The Rest of the BBC's Output" for abnormally-news-and-politics-interested people. That tends to skew responses, even when considering drama, LE, arts, history etc.
The latest Hail Mary Pass to appeal to Captain Mainwaring.
The Government having reached an agreement for the BBC to increase its licence fee by the rate of inflation for several years in return for savings delivered previously, Short-Term-Rishi is going back on the promise for pure attempted politics - which are likely to fail.
The BBC fulfilled it's side of the bargain - a 2 year freeze, and Rishi is welching on the deal. What a miserable, untrustworthy, Scrooge-like Government we have.
At least their reputation is consistent, if that's what they want to reinforce.
Is anyone surprised?
I wonder, is this potentially subject to legal action?
It’s our money not the governments. Sunak is hardly being Scrooge, which is a tired Xmas cliche.
Whether the politics will fail or not is irrelevant. It is the right thing to do in a cost of living crisis.
I doubt it would appeal,to Cpt Mainwaring either. He’d be proud of the institution.
And it's for us as a country to decide what we wish to tax, and invest in our public realm and our future.
Rishi attacking the BBC has nothing to do with a cost of living crisis; when a few billion is needed to lubricate the base, it appears instantly. The BBC move is political, for appearance.
Personally I think a Prime Minister unable to be trusted is more concerning.
Scrooge is precisely the right comparison - a short-termist Government salami-slicing everything including basic services, and wasting untold amounts of resource along the way by failure to think beyond the end of their noses.
What happened to fixing social care, for example? Or transport expenditure?
FFS in the midst of the greatest security crisis for a generation, this lot have *cut* defence expenditure.
It's all about salting the Earth for the incoming government now.
Hence my suggestion Starmer abolishes the license fee. Defuses the issue.
Replaces it with what though ?
A subscription. Initially, simply roll over the licence fee into a subscription, and provide free decoding boxes / software.
End the public ownership model and set it up as a mutual, owned by the subscribers, with protection in law from demutualisation and/or takeover. Then set it free to produce, commission and charge what it wants.
Sounds like a good idea. As a non-licence-holder, I don't think the BBC should be able to charge people for watching other channels live, and I don't think the BBC should receive public money for producing entertainment that is indistinguishable from what commercial companies are producing.
But with a subscription model of that kind, I think it would be perfectly fair for the government to subsidise the production of genuine public service content that isn't commercially appealing. Provided it's accessible to everyone, of course, not just subscribers.
Yes you could have a much more slimmed-down BBC, making programmes that the market won’t (news, documentaries, arts, religious, children’s etc), have it funded by the Treasury and shown on two TV channels and two radio chanels - similar to PBS, rather than the behemoth the BBC has become in recent years. Also no need for the six-figure presenter salaries, it should be seen as a place to develop talent rather than hoard it.
Lots of people here are saying, “I don’t watch the BBC, so why should I pay for it.” But that’s why the BBC makes entertainment programmes and pays high presenter salaries. Because it’s trying to keep up its ratings.
You could have a more slimmed down BBC, but then fewer people would watch it and there’d be more people going, “I don’t watch the BBC, so why should I pay for it.” That’s the quandary the BBC has always found itself in.
How viable is a BBC paid for by public money if it’s like PBS, i.e. a BBC for the middle classes?
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Absolutely not true.
Have you argued this lot in front of a magistrate yet ?
You don't need to. You don't need a TV licence to watch a NASA live stream on YouTube. The BBC have clarified that.
It's there in black and white on the link you supplied.
"Yes, if live video streaming live TV"
Watching a Spacex launch isn't live TV. If it was being broadcast live on Sky News and you watched it on YouTube, then you'd need a licence. Watching it on SpaceX own YouTube channel, you don't need a licence. I watched a live streamed podcast on YouTube last night from a drone company. I don't need a licence to do that
Hmm, so the Tories should tack left/liberal to recapture the 23% of their 2019 voters they've lost in that direction then? Surely not further right after the 15% they've lost to refuk?
I think @hyufd's argument is those lost to Lab/LD are lost for the time being no matter what they do, whereas those lost to Reform maybe recoverable. He may be correct.
Indeed. I've tangled with HYUFD on this before, hence the wink.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
The very high probability for me is that the Tories will indulge themselves by selecting someone completely unelectable, just as Labour did with Corbyn, for the same delusional reasons. When they have received another hammering in 2028/9 they will start to focus on winning again and come back to the centre with a Cameron equivalent. Tories have much less of a taste for losing than Labour and seem unlikely to me to indulge themselves twice like Labour did.
The interesting thing is that the Tories face strong competition on the right from RefUK. Right now the Tories can claim ownership of right of centre votes because they are clearly the party that will win seats under FPTP. What if the Tories do really badly in the next election - like win 100 seats or fewer - not my baseline at all but it could happen. Then couldn't an emboldened RefUK leapfrog them as the Tories collapse into infighting? Perhaps the Tories are tilting right to shore up their right flank and stop that from happening. But isn't the risk that they are simply legitimising RefUK positions, and people will prefer to vote for the real thing? Labour never faced this intense competition on the Left, in England at least, because the post coalition Lib Dems are clearly not a left wing party, and the Greens remain quite small.
Merger with Farage as leader. Job done.
Yes that might be where we're heading but first Farage needs to be elected as an MP. In the meantime the Tories in defeat will pick a new leader from among their remaining MPs. Unless Farage is elected at the general election or before he won't be in the running.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
Thank you for that but it's past bbc documentaries and dramas on radio and TV I want access to.the
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
Thank you for that but it's past bbc documentaries and dramas on radio and TV I want access to.the
The BBC is part of our cultural fabric. So is complaining about the BBC. If we lose the one we lose the other and we'd be all the poorer for it.
But that argument has basically given it immunity from any sort of quality control standards. If we say we're never going to get rid of the beeb under any circumstances, it just gets gradually worse and worse. For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
BBC output looks shit to you? I can't relate to that at all. For what I pay (£3 a week) I rate it amazing value. I can't immediately think of anything in the same league in the media space on VFM. I mean, I pay about 10 times that for various subscription services for this and that, yet I'd say on hours watched I'm using the Beeb as much as all of those combined.
Are you sure it's the quality that's your main problem? Reason I ask is you once said something on this subject I found quite striking. You said you were losing patience with the BBC because you were fed up of watching tv made by people who didn't like you. It rang heartfelt and true to me. And of course if you feel like that you won't (to put it mildly) be a fan.
Well that is true. But every BBC product I might want to consume is, if not shit, considerably less good than it used to be. There is literally nothing in the drama/comedy bucket which I now find watchable - that certainly wasn't the case ten years ago; indeed, most of the jewels in our comedy crown are BBC produced. Radio, as I've mentioned, has got worse. Obviously I'm not a fan of BBC's news coverage, but that is rather less heavyweight than it was twenty years ago. Do they still do general interest science like Horizon? If so, I haven't seen it. They broadcast less and less sport and do so less and less well. They don't even do the classified football results any more (the occasion when - for no readily apparent reason - Mark E Smith reading out the classified football results was the BBC at its glorious peak. It's not as if they had a rolling roster of celebrity announcers; how MES was the only one to ever get the gig is a glorious mystery). I don't think there is a single thing they do better than ITV or Channel 5. Strictly Come Dancing doesn't hate me but it makes me want to punch myself in the face at the sheer inanity of it. How this can be considered the corporation's cultural peak is beyond me.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
Thank you for that but it's past bbc documentaries and dramas on radio and TV I want access to.the
Britbox certainly has old documentaries and dramas from tv on it. No idea if it gives access to radio shows admittedly
Not quite, I have a brown suit when under the right lights looks orange or red depending on your perspective.
Brown suit / brown shoes isn’t exactly the height of fashion. I think you could probably rock Liz’s look (with slightly better tailoring).
I think Truss's tailoring looks OK, but the photos of her from this set are absolutely terrible. Female politicians have a bit of a history of terrible fashion photography images recently. Nadine Dorries standing on a table in a flowery frock. Theresa May photographed by celebrated photographer Anne Leibowitz (sp?), looking weak by virtue of being photographed from above whilst sitting on a sofa. Photos (like the one of Truss above) that undermine them as serious politicians. Thatcher never took a photo like that in her life.
Men fare a bit better because they're all photographed the same way in boring grey suits.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event is bonkers imo.
That's not true. You can watch anything live streamed that isn't via a recognisably TV broadcasting company. You can watch anything live on YouTube that isn't via the likes of Sky, Amazon, BBC, or any other TV broadcast company. You can watch live NASA launches, I regularly watch live interviews and podcasts. I could even watch Downhill MTB racing on RedBull TV ( it's not a TV broadcast company) and watch a lot of the live Xtreme
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
Everything on BBC iPlayer You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Yup, but the important word is "live" . So anything that isn't "live" or BBC iPlayer doesn't require a licence. +1 channels also require a licence. Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence. Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't. The TV licence isn't compulsory.
I watched the SpaceX launch on Youtube a few weeks back, technically that's "live broadcast" so the license fee is required. Now we watch enough iplayer and so on to mean that the license fee is fine in our household and we'd probably subscribe if it came down to it but the implied reach of the necessity of the license fee for watching said event (Within the UK obviously) is bonkers imo.
And here's the thing. If you even watch 0.55 seconds of such a broadcast then you're liable for the license fee for the entire year ! Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Absolutely not true.
Have you argued this lot in front of a magistrate yet ?
You don't need to. You don't need a TV licence to watch a NASA live stream on YouTube. The BBC have clarified that.
If you are watching a TV programme live on YouTube, you need to be covered by a TV Licence.
A licence is not required to view user generated content, clips and videos on YouTube. This includes live streamed content that is not part of a television broadcast. Or being broadcast at the same time by other means.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
Thank you for that but it's past bbc documentaries and dramas on radio and TV I want access to.the
Then you need a TV licence to watch iPlayer.
There's no access to that sort of thing. Limited stuff on I player. Eg. I would like to re watch jude the obscure from the 70s. Can't do it.
The BBC is going to be choked in a manner of its own making in allowing all this woke shite on the airwaves. Once the license fee goes, and it will, subscription/viewers will plummet.. That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't. Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I woukd pay for. The rest I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
Frankly, that's nuts. If you don't like the BBC (you obviously hate it) cancel your licence and never worry about it again.
I like the BBC as it was . The back catalogue is worth having access to. If I can't have it, so be it. I will certainly cease my subscription for TV if that is an option.
You might find a subscription to britbox suits your needs for 5.99 a month. I sub to it for my elderly father as its only the films and series of his younger years he tends to be able to follow
Thank you for that but it's past bbc documentaries and dramas on radio and TV I want access to.the
Then you need a TV licence to watch iPlayer.
There's no access to that sort of thing. Limited stuff on I player. Eg. I would like to re watch jude the obscure from the 70s. Can't do it.
Then you're shit out of luck, fella. Maybe get a time machine?
The BBC is part of our cultural fabric. So is complaining about the BBC. If we lose the one we lose the other and we'd be all the poorer for it.
But that argument has basically given it immunity from any sort of quality control standards. If we say we're never going to get rid of the beeb under any circumstances, it just gets gradually worse and worse. For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
BBC output looks shit to you? I can't relate to that at all. For what I pay (£3 a week) I rate it amazing value. I can't immediately think of anything in the same league in the media space on VFM. I mean, I pay about 10 times that for various subscription services for this and that, yet I'd say on hours watched I'm using the Beeb as much as all of those combined.
Are you sure it's the quality that's your main problem? Reason I ask is you once said something on this subject I found quite striking. You said you were losing patience with the BBC because you were fed up of watching tv made by people who didn't like you. It rang heartfelt and true to me. And of course if you feel like that you won't (to put it mildly) be a fan.
Well that is true. But every BBC product I might want to consume is, if not shit, considerably less good than it used to be. There is literally nothing in the drama/comedy bucket which I now find watchable - that certainly wasn't the case ten years ago; indeed, most of the jewels in our comedy crown are BBC produced. Radio, as I've mentioned, has got worse. Obviously I'm not a fan of BBC's news coverage, but that is rather less heavyweight than it was twenty years ago. Do they still do general interest science like Horizon? If so, I haven't seen it. They broadcast less and less sport and do so less and less well. They don't even do the classified football results any more (the occasion when - for no readily apparent reason - Mark E Smith reading out the classified football results was the BBC at its glorious peak. It's not as if they had a rolling roster of celebrity announcers; how MES was the only one to ever get the gig is a glorious mystery). I don't think there is a single thing they do better than ITV or Channel 5. Strictly Come Dancing doesn't hate me but it makes me want to punch myself in the face at the sheer inanity of it. How this can be considered the corporation's cultural peak is beyond me.
Much truth in what you say
And yet every so often it produces a total gem which gives me hope
Comments
The other gripe is the cross promotion of either books by BBC presenters being hyped on BBC shows or podcasts by BBC presenters being pushed.
I’m sure there are elements of local govt and care people don’t see as important however Local govt and care funding is essential. A broadcaster in a field of broadcasters is not and what we are talking about is not getting rid of the BBC just making it seek its funding in a different way. For me not reliant on the largesse of the hard pressed taxpayer.
I suspect Strictly would be a similar middle class shibboleth.
Radio 6 is still my default radio station but the rot set in a few year's back with Lauren Laverne's "everything's amazing" approach replacing Shaun Keaveney, and now Marc Riley and Gideon Coe have been sidelined there's only Steve Lamacq left during the week. (Radcliffe and Maconie on a Saturday/Sunday morning are still worth switching on for.) I recognise I am now 20 years older than when I first listened to it and that they're after a different audience but I don't know where the grumpy indie elitist is meant to go now.
TMS is still worth paying for, but increasingly getting sidelined.
Ditto BBC online. Which is where I still default to for sports results because it's set out how I expect. Similarly weather (the BBC still win for presentation, though the forecasts appear now to be largely plucked out of someone's arse and are much less useful than the Met Office's site.)
But with a subscription model of that kind, I think it would be perfectly fair for the government to subsidise the production of genuine public service content that isn't commercially appealing. Provided it's accessible to everyone, of course, not just subscribers.
The solution is clearly to switch to a subscription or ad based model IMO. Free news, everything else £10 a month.
Abolish the daft license fee, which isn't FFP.
If it isn't Outstanding that says more about OFSTED than Ripon Grammar (looking at it it was rated Outstanding last time inspected, now rated Good with Outstanding features).
https://www.ripongrammar.co.uk/documents/Ofsted Report 2023- Ripon Grammar School.pdf
The average upper middle class parent if they couldn't afford to send their children private would almost always choose a grammar school over even an Outstanding comprehensive or academy
My big unanswered question is radio. I don't even know what public service radio should include, let alone how you commercialise the non-public service bits.
But radio is such a relatively small part of the BBC budget that this shouldn't really matter that much.
Worth noting on this subject that OFSTED have recently tried to make 'outstanding' much harder to achieve - i.e. only about 5% of schools should be getting it, rather than around 25%. Which makes sense - something isn't literally 'outstanding' if it occurs one in four times. But it certainly can't be the case that that 5% of schools can accommodate 100% of pupils.
[Tongue is largely in cheek here, before anyone says 'just turn it off'.]
https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2023/07/bbc-scotland-suffers-plunge-in-viewing-figures/
zerohedge
@zerohedge
·
In Blow To Uber, Grubhub, & Doordash, Court Rules Food Delivery Gig Workers Must Be Paid At Least $17.96/Hour
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/blow-uber-grubhub-and-doordash-court-rules-food-delivery-gig-workers-must-be-paid-least
Yes it’s zerohedge but if true you are better protected in New York than London
— just 59% of voters who backed the Tories under Boris Johnson are sticking with them under Sunak
— that’s down from 74% in Aug 2022
— and even worse than 63% after Truss’ mini-budget
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1731586237738233973?s=20
It’s Reform causing Sunak’s cratering numbers, say
@JLPartnersPolls
— just 5% of Tory 2019 voters have switched to the Lib Dems. But 15% say they’re voting Reform. That’s ~1.5 million votes lost by the Tories to Reform
— 18% have gone to Labour
https://x.com/alexwickham/status/1731586491380371938?s=20
Margaret Thatcher represented the opposite of everything the labour movement stands for.
Individualism instead of solidarity. Private interest instead of public. The rich over the working-class.
By praising her, Starmer brings shame on our party.'
https://x.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1731277655901634825?s=20
It really shows the power of language, doesn't it. In particular that TAX is a 4 letter word despite having only 3 letters. Remember the linguistic tussle over "bedroom tax" vs the "spare room subsidy" for example. God that was tedious. It was like the substance of the thing didn't matter, all that mattered was what it was called. Well that's because that was what mattered. You get "tax" into the title of something, just colloquially if necessary, and you're most of the way there to turning people against it.
https://www.ilkleygrammarschool.com/
1 - The Brexit Party didn't stand in Tory seats at the last election, thus their voters had to vote Tory. Such seats would be their most attractive seats, and so a swing from Tory to Reform would always happen under any leader, and be a lot, lot higher than their vote at that election.
2 - A vote lost to Labour [or the LibDems in seats where they are the main competitor to the Tories] is worse by a factor of two, as it decreases the Tory vote but increases the likely winner. Reform are unlikely to win any seats.
That ludicrous article in the Times recently about a Radio presenter whose mental health was affected because the studio was "so white" is typical if the sort of shit BBC Management has to deal with and doesn't.
Frankly I am sick if it and the likes of Lineker and don't want to be associated with the BBC or its content bar radio for sport which I would pay for. The rest,largely I can live without. The back catalogue would be worth investing in. It's much better than the crap on tv these days.
It was a grammar school proper about 50 years ago but that changed following local govt reorganisation and comprehensivisation in the 1970s. North Yorks does still have selective education. Because of local pressure in various areas about losing the 'grammar' name, the compromise agreed across Bradford District was that all secondaries (mis-named as Bradford also moved to a three-tier system at the time; since reverted), would be styled 'grammar schools'. The reversion to a two-tier system, combined with acadamisation and forced restarts for failing schools has resulted in only a few of those 1970s 'grammars-but-really-comprehensives' having survived into the 2020s with the same name - but Ilkley is one that has.
The Herald on Sunday made a number of errors in its analysis, but one mistake was by far the most significant: it compared an average household bill for Scotland based on mean consumption with an average household bill for the rest of the UK based on median consumption.
Mean household energy consumption is higher than median, and this is true across all nations and regions of the UK. The Herald on Sunday made a simple apples to oranges mistake.
Unit charges are actually lower in Scotland than the average in the rest of the UK, for both gas and electricity. Standing charges for electricity are higher than average in Scotland, but because unit charges are lower, bills for average consumption in Scotland are very similar to bills in the rest of the UK, whether you use median or mean for average household energy consumption.
https://www.these-islands.co.uk/publications/i392/ipso_facto.aspx
It's better than Pants, which iirc can mean both bad and good in reaction to the former.
Fashion as ever should be mainly ignored.
Presumably all the cholerics who give up their BBC licence would then mercifully stop moaning about it?
(don't be fucking stupid - ed)
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one
Everything on BBC iPlayer
You also need a licence to stream on-demand TV and live BBC channels, plus thousands of hours of exclusive box sets and content on BBC iPlayer.
Online TV services
If you live stream the latest series, news or sport online, from services like ITVX, Sky Go, Amazon Prime and YouTube you need a licence.
Der da da der … Der Der
“Our next contestant please.”
(a pugnacious looking individual takes the chair in front of Clive Myrie)
“Your name and occupation.”
“Right Wing Internet Blogger”
“And your specialist subject?”
“Detecting anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the BBC on Gaza.”
(Myrie pulls a sheepish face)
“What, us?”
“Yes, you guys.”
“Ok, you have sixty seconds on detecting anti-Israel bias in the reporting of the BBC on Gaza starting NOW.”
“What does the BBC fail to say after each and every mention of Hamas?”
“That they are terrorists and also monsters.”
“Correct. What do they also sometimes omit when making reference to a Hamas claim.”
“That it’s a stone cold lie.”
“Correct. How could one describe Jeremy Bowen’s expression when he talks about Benjamin Netanyahu the Israeli Prime Minister?”
“Disapproving. Looks like a prune”
“Correct. What about his expression when talking about Palestinian casualties of the IDS?”
“On the edge of tears.”
“Correct.”
(Etc Etc. Bang bang bang. On a roll)
“Correct. You’re doing amazing.”
“Cheers Clive.”
“You’re welcome. Ok on we go. Do BBC newsreaders sometimes wear a colour that also features on the Palestinian flag?”
“Damn right they do. Happens quite often. Raworth had a green blouse on yesterday.”
“Correct. Yet are those self-same newsreaders allowed to ...
Beep beep beep
“I’ve started so I’ll finish … to have a tattoo of the Flag of Israel on their forehead?”
“No they are not. Sacking offence.”
“Correct!”
“Right Wing Internet Blogger you have scored 27 points and no passes. A record for the programme. Well done if I may say so.”
(RWIB grins, vacates the chair, walks back to tumultuous audience applause. There is one heckler, an elderly bearded man in a Lenin cap is shouting something. We catch the word “Mossad” before security moves in)
For me, the point where the beeb became so shit it was no longer worth keeping was passed about four years ago. No one event, just a thousand drips of an ever shittier product.
If it was providing a decent product, complaints about the way it was funded would be much more muted. That's where I was a decade ago. It was a terrible way to produce content, but actually it turned out to be, on balance, worth the money. For me, that's no longer the case. For you, it might still be worth it. But it surely can't be the case that we have to keep it no matter how shit it gets because it is part of our cultural fabric? There must be a point at which everyone passes their threshold of 'this isn't worth it'. And the direction of travel is only one way.
I'd like a national broadcaster which was good and worth the money. But we haven't got one, and we're never going to get one again, and years of saying 'we need reform' have got nowhere; it just gets more and more mediocre.
Keir Starmer says Labour won’t ‘turn on the spending taps’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/1851ad6d-8c42-4d84-8254-6e8859546518?shareToken=68271c67f0d7ab44cedd103a47a2537d
*Well I'm sure there are people that do, but they shouldn't.
You could not watch a second of BBC output and you'd still be bound to pay it.
Watching the latest series of Reacher on Prime or Netflix's latest blockbuster series or the latest Star Wars wank on Disney isn't live streaming. You can watch any live streamed event you want, as long as it isn't broadcast via a "recognised TV broadcasting company". Watching live rugby or tennis on Prime? You need a licence.
Watching Sky News live on YouTube, you need a licence, Watching a recorded news bulletin on YouTube, you don't. Watching Politics Joe or Novara Media, you don't.
The TV licence isn't compulsory.
HYUFD's reply with 'until Labour muck up' (or similar) is relevant, though. The Tories are losing this one, but they need to be electable when Labour muck up or are seen to muck up. Going too far after Reform will make that more of a challenge, I think.
It is, of course, the hangover from 2019 - Johnson put together an astonishing coalition, but one that could only be held together by a need to do Brexit and a need to keep Corbyn out. It just didn't work otherwise.
There is though, the argument - with which I have some sympathy - that it might be better to stand and fail big from the right at this election and then tack left under a new leader, rather than lose this one from the centre(ish) and give credence to the 'being more right could have won it' idea. Much like Miliband was seen - by some - as too centrist/triangulating and it took Corbyn to put the idea of winning from the left to bed.
The Tories would be better off apologising for their economic chaos that cost us all a lot more than £15.
“Thatcher did not like beards (a pogonophobe).
It is not a coincidence that the only two leaders in recent times with beards are Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon.”
Not like Amazon Prime where you can dip in and out at will.
Perhaps the Tories are tilting right to shore up their right flank and stop that from happening. But isn't the risk that they are simply legitimising RefUK positions, and people will prefer to vote for the real thing?
Labour never faced this intense competition on the Left, in England at least, because the post coalition Lib Dems are clearly not a left wing party, and the Greens remain quite small.
The ensuing apoplexy would provide months of free entertainment.
Am I allowed to watch, eg, a space launch on "NASA TV" or SpaceX YouTube?
If I'm not, how many minutes delay vs live do I need to make it legal?
This all needs clearing up.
The BBC is in a field of broadcasters, but it’s specifically a public service broadcaster. I think there is value in having a public service broadcaster that is lost if you just privatise it. The respect the BBC garners around the world suggests to me it’s a model that works well.
Taxpayers are not hard pressed because of the cost of the BBC. They’re hard pressed because the Conservatives have wrecked the economy. I have a simple solution for that and it’s called a general election.
Are you sure it's the quality that's your main problem? Reason I ask is you once said something on this subject I found quite striking. You said you were losing patience with the BBC because you were fed up of watching tv made by people who didn't like you. It rang heartfelt and true to me. And of course if you feel like that you won't (to put it mildly) be a fan.
The BBC don't control the Internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCbD6MZqQWM
You could have a more slimmed down BBC, but then fewer people would watch it and there’d be more people going, “I don’t watch the BBC, so why should I pay for it.” That’s the quandary the BBC has always found itself in.
How viable is a BBC paid for by public money if it’s like PBS, i.e. a BBC for the middle classes?
"Yes, if live video streaming live TV"
Watching a Spacex launch isn't live TV. If it was being broadcast live on Sky News and you watched it on YouTube, then you'd need a licence. Watching it on SpaceX own YouTube channel, you don't need a licence.
I watched a live streamed podcast on YouTube last night from a drone company.
I don't need a licence to do that
But every BBC product I might want to consume is, if not shit, considerably less good than it used to be. There is literally nothing in the drama/comedy bucket which I now find watchable - that certainly wasn't the case ten years ago; indeed, most of the jewels in our comedy crown are BBC produced. Radio, as I've mentioned, has got worse. Obviously I'm not a fan of BBC's news coverage, but that is rather less heavyweight than it was twenty years ago. Do they still do general interest science like Horizon? If so, I haven't seen it. They broadcast less and less sport and do so less and less well. They don't even do the classified football results any more (the occasion when - for no readily apparent reason - Mark E Smith reading out the classified football results was the BBC at its glorious peak. It's not as if they had a rolling roster of celebrity announcers; how MES was the only one to ever get the gig is a glorious mystery). I don't think there is a single thing they do better than ITV or Channel 5.
Strictly Come Dancing doesn't hate me but it makes me want to punch myself in the face at the sheer inanity of it. How this can be considered the corporation's cultural peak is beyond me.
Men fare a bit better because they're all photographed the same way in boring grey suits.
Do I need a TV Licence to watch Youtube?
If you are watching a TV programme live on YouTube, you need to be covered by a TV Licence.
A licence is not required to view user generated content, clips and videos on YouTube. This includes live streamed content that is not part of a television broadcast. Or being broadcast at the same time by other means.
And yet every so often it produces a total gem which gives me hope
SAS: Rogue Heroes is brilliant. Co-pro with MGM
Totally unwoke and actually patriotic