Local Radio being destroyed - no more Sportscene.

[europia]

Unfortunately this is politically motivated. The current govt have been making things difficult for the BBC for some time. 

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

11 hours ago, WestStandStartTheBounce said:

I don't get all this BBC is special, no it isn't. It's just another TV service. I object to being forced to pay for something I don't want. If it was so good let people pay for it on a subscription basis or introduce advertising. 

I can understand historically why a TV license made sense. All the infrastructure had to be paid for and it was only fair that those using it paid for it. Times have changed and the BBC is a dinosaur of an organisation.

I love British TV me and especially the beeb - says the frenchman - I get french TV and it is sh!te, most of it. The equivalent of MOTD is 1 a hour program on a Sunday morning. 20 mins of adverts. For several years TF1 did not show any goals from ligue 1 cos they hadn't bought the rights, I am not making this up, a MOTD with no goals or matches highlights. Amazon Prime have got the rights now and sold them highlights but they still don't show all the goals all as it would cost them too much and there isn't enough time for all the adverts. When France are playing, half time analysis is 14 mins of adverts solid followed by a 30 secs "detailed" analysis of the first half by Deschamp. By this I mean 1 question and answer from the on field reporter " Didier, what did you make of the 1st half?"

I used to work/travel abroad quite a lot. No foreign TV gets anywhere near British TV and this is mostly due to the beeb setting a very high standard -  as mentioned in my previous post.

Be careful what you wish for.

[VulcanRam]

22 hours ago, WestStandStartTheBounce said:

You couldn't be more wrong. To quote a news article:

 

" Netflix subscriber numbers increased by 2.4 million from July to September this year, more than double the number than was expected.

The world's largest streaming service also saw revenue exceed expectations and top $7.9bn, its third quarter results showed. Netflix now has a total of 223.1 million subscribers around the world."

I probably could be more wrong, but thanks anyway.

 

For context, the recent upturn was recovering some of the significant losses it made in Q1 and 2 this year. It's nevertheless, been a poor year for the company, set out in the context below.

"US streaming service Netflix has revealed that it lost almost a million subscribers during the past three months of its financial year as the global cost of living crisis takes its toll on family entertainment budgets." 

"Disney has overtaken Netflix to become the TV streaming service with the highest number of subscribers. On Wednesday, the company announced that its three platforms – Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu – had 221.1 million subscribers worldwide, compared to Netflix’s 220.67 million."

"A new report has found that nearly 1 million households in the United Kingdom have been forced to cancel their streaming subscriptions to services like Netflix and Prime Video due to the rising cost of living."

[hintonsboots]

12 hours ago, europia said:

Unfortunately this is politically motivated. The current govt have been making things difficult for the BBC for some time. 

To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, all the right words but not necessarily in the right order.

[Ram@Lincoln]

17 hours ago, jono said:

I love these stats things “only” £ 7.36 per household. It’s like those sales gimmicks that say only 20p a day. Thing is 30 million households is quite a lot. 

Subs, licence fees, subscribe and save are ok - so you have to pay multiple subs to get a cross section of viewing and listening is darn crafty. Sod your album collection .. sign up to £ X quid a month to rent your music from us for the rest of your life (and you can’t pass it on ) Then …. don’t buy your word processing programme .. pay us a sub instead, we want a regular income stream from you which is a lot easier for us than having to persuade to buy/use our product each time you want it or only get a sale from you once in 10 years. It’s one easy transaction for them. Clever, but I know I am being stitched up despite the glitz of “regular updates, bug fixes and latest version and new content”

To throw more numbers your way like this;

There's currently 24,906,400 tv licenses currently, so £7.36 x licenses is £183,311,104 in funding for the year.
For the last quarter, the 39 BBC Local Radio stations generated 7,824,000 listeners. Over the last year the number is 33,182,000 listeners.

So per listener, that's £5.52 per year per listener, per week that's 10.6p. The average listener listens to 28.6 hours of content per year on BBC Local Radio., so 19.3p per hour of content listened to. 

Each to their own, but I'd say that was pretty reasonable cost each to avoid having to listen to annoying adverts cutting up the listening experience. Even with the likes of Now TV and the basic Netflix subscription, adverts are being placed in paid for subscriptions that's much more than the Beeb cost. 

 

[Reggie Greenwood]

55 minutes ago, hintonsboots said:

To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, all the right words but not necessarily in the right order.

In your opinion ?

[hintonsboots]

36 minutes ago, Reggie Greenwood said:

In your opinion ?

Don’t remember Andre Previn using that one ?

[WestStandStartTheBounce]

16 hours ago, EtoileSportiveDeDerby said:

I love British TV me and especially the beeb - says the frenchman - I get french TV and it is sh!te, most of it. The equivalent of MOTD is 1 a hour program on a Sunday morning. 20 mins of adverts. For several years TF1 did not show any goals from ligue 1 cos they hadn't bought the rights, I am not making this up, a MOTD with no goals or matches highlights. Amazon Prime have got the rights now and sold them highlights but they still don't show all the goals all as it would cost them too much and there isn't enough time for all the adverts. When France are playing, half time analysis is 14 mins of adverts solid followed by a 30 secs "detailed" analysis of the first half by Deschamp. By this I mean 1 question and answer from the on field reporter " Didier, what did you make of the 1st half?"

I used to work/travel abroad quite a lot. No foreign TV gets anywhere near British TV and this is mostly due to the beeb setting a very high standard -  as mentioned in my previous post.

Be careful what you wish for.

I've worked abroad quite a bit and lived in France. I didn't watch that much telly when I was there. I also watched BBC world. None of it was very exciting but i'd say that about the BBC here. If you like it then fair enough. I just don't want to pay for it as i don't watch it.

[WestStandStartTheBounce]

5 hours ago, VulcanRam said:

I probably could be more wrong, but thanks anyway.

 

For context, the recent upturn was recovering some of the significant losses it made in Q1 and 2 this year. It's nevertheless, been a poor year for the company, set out in the context below.

"US streaming service Netflix has revealed that it lost almost a million subscribers during the past three months of its financial year as the global cost of living crisis takes its toll on family entertainment budgets." 

"Disney has overtaken Netflix to become the TV streaming service with the highest number of subscribers. On Wednesday, the company announced that its three platforms – Disney+, ESPN+ and Hulu – had 221.1 million subscribers worldwide, compared to Netflix’s 220.67 million."

"A new report has found that nearly 1 million households in the United Kingdom have been forced to cancel their streaming subscriptions to services like Netflix and Prime Video due to the rising cost of living."

In Q1 and Q2 it lost a million subscribers but in Q3 it added 2 million more than offsetting any losses. Don't get me wrong i'm not saying Netflix is this amazing thing. However, I like the programs on there, you can watch when you want and it's up to you if you pay for it or not.

The one television service that is doing bad is SKY. That's because their TV offering is very poor. It's very expensive for what you get. i stopped subscribing years ago.

[Yani P]

The BBC has been going downhill faster than Franz Klammer for decades. It does still create some superb series and is the master of the period costume drama, but a lot of these are also majority funded from external sources so would still happen if the BBC dropped its forced payment system.

Being told you have to pay for something you don't want in the world we now live in is frankly a joke.

Don't get me wrong, I now live in Canada where the TV is spectacularly bad, so I just don't watch it. I pay for Rams TV and Crave which has all the HBO shows and have Amazon Prime. That is more than enough.

[jono]

We need the BBC at it’s advert free Reithian principled best. How do we do it ? 
 

it can’t be an open chequebook but it has to be funded properly. I wonder if there is a case for a “tax/fee” levied on subscription broadcasters that gets diverted to the BBC ? I.e .. you are Netflix , you have 3 million subscribers at £ 10/month so 50p/month goes to the Beeb or something. So a condition of your right to broadcast is a contribution to national free TV ? 

Edited November 3, 2022 by jono

[Yani P]

1 minute ago, jono said:

We need the BBC at it’s advert free Reithian principled best. How do we do it ? 

Trouble is it is way too far removed from those early principles.

[Mihangel]

1 hour ago, WestStandStartTheBounce said:

I've worked abroad quite a bit and lived in France. I didn't watch that much telly when I was there. I also watched BBC world. None of it was very exciting but i'd say that about the BBC here. If you like it then fair enough. I just don't want to pay for it as i don't watch it.

I'm not in receipt of any benefits but I'm happy to pay for them. The BBC and, as a slightly different example, Channel 4 and S4C make fantastic programmes that otherwise would remain inside someones head, not everything has to be driven by popularity and money, it's a fantastic thing that more obscure and niche programming still exists. The loss of local BBC stations would be such a sad thing.

[cstand]

I would rather see the top earners on this list sacked cut the wages in half for the rest and save local radio stations around the country.

All of these people are replaceable.

John McEnroe got 180k for two weeks work Wimbledon !

https://www.prolificnorth.co.uk/news/london-news/2022/07/bbc-reveals-202122-top-presenter-salaries-list-full?amp

Edited November 3, 2022 by cstand

[Van der MoodHoover]

On 01/11/2022 at 09:09, David said:

And if you say that council tax is a rip off, I don't think anyone would be challenging you on that.

What I would say is that as someone without children, I personally have no issues paying my council tax knowing that some of it goes towards education. Whilst I am no longer at school, that education is teaching kids that will go on to provide services that I would use, design, manufacturer, produce, open businesses that create jobs for maybe my wife.

That public transport I rarely use myself helps get those people to work, reduces pollution, traffic.

That £160 TV licence where 86% goes to the BBC, 14% admin costs for content I don't consume or get any real benefit from for me is a rip off, sorry if that upsets you in someway. Ideal world, I would like to see every household keep that £160 per year and transition fully to advertisements like ITV and C4 that produce just as good content, if not better for myself. 

For what it's worth, I also consume several pints a week, those pints in the pub are also a rip off when compared to prices in the supermarket.

Think of it as a prepayment. 

Local councils also provide adult social care and one day you may need your botty changing.... ?

[europia]

10 hours ago, hintonsboots said:

To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, all the right words but not necessarily in the right order.

Hahaha, well yes, that supports my comment. The Gov't certainly don't like being held to account by any section of the media. 

[RamuelLJackson]

On 31/10/2022 at 20:27, Carl Sagan said:

And that's before you talk about their political bias which has understandably made enemies for them in government, so made even more funding harder to come by.

 

Their political bias is for the incumbent government. This started under Blair from the Hutton Report onwards, and has been intensified by successive Tory governments.

[RamuelLJackson]

On 31/10/2022 at 22:45, ilkleyram said:

That's roughly 67 radio stations, national and local, no doubt with all their own presenters, researchers, managers, technicians, buildings/studios, equipment, expense accounts, HR departments, online presence, podcasts, uncle Tom Cobbly and all.

Well, no. They generally don't have significant separate staffing, equipment or support departments from the wider BBC. The digital networks are run within the relevant parent department. So, for example, Five Live Sports Extra uses BBC Sport (and News) staff, studios, equipment and material, just like its parent network Five Live.

[RamuelLJackson]

On 01/11/2022 at 16:00, ram59 said:

A recent 'freedom of information' question about newspapers provided for staff at the BBC, revealed that in comparison with national sales, the Guardian was massively over subscribed at the BBC and that the Daily Mail was massively under subscribed by the BBC. I think that shows the political bias within the organsiation.

In contrast, the editor of the Breakfast programme on Five Live a few years ago said in a programme meeting "I have no interest in covering any story that isn't on the front or back page or the Sun, or the front or back page of the Daily Mail". Never heard him mention the Guardian.

[uttoxram75]

The government will not do away with the Beeb completely as much as its market driven ethos would like to. The beeb is, and always has been, an excellent propaganda machine for successive govts.

From wars to maintaining the status quo, the beeb can be trusted to report what it is told. 

What it should do, imo, is scrap all the pathetic attempts at political debate, Question time and the like have become a bit like the Chinese and Russian news sites and rarely raises any issues that might question anything seen as anti establishment. All they do is try to keep the pretence that the current main parties have substantial differences - they don't. Not in the sense of curbing the power of the unelected corporate entities that basically own our politicians. All they do is push mindless arguments about culture wars instead of debating in detail whether privatising the NHS would benefit the majority of us or not.

Report the news as truthfully as they are allowed, show football and other sports as much as possible, and make great drama, history, kids and nature programmes.

Take politics out of the beeb and let them produce quality programmes, but I doubt very much they will be allowed to do that.