Slashdot Mirror
BBC to Cull the Cult TV Repository
malkavian writes "The BBC has announced that it's going to be ceasing to host it's Cult TV Repository. At a meager 700,000 users per month, it was decided that this was no longer a significantly useful public resource, as the information was also available elsewhere on the net. Many people believe this to be a grievous mistake on the part of the BBC, to allow the history of their own broadcasting highlights to fragment, and possibly be lost like so much of its other content."
After getting an additional 700,000 hits from the /. in just a couple of hours crowd maybe that will make them reverse their decision.
Damn, it's just so hard to be funny at work on fridays. Sorry.
700,000 hits is really not very many.
And the idea that the closure of this small part of the webpage is going to result in BBC archivists deleting the programs is just idiotic scaremongering. The BBC are more than aware of the stupid mistakes made in the past w.r.t. Not Only But Also, The Goons and so.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
This is about pressure on the what web content the BBC should have from other commericial operators such as News International (The Sun newspaper, Sky TV) and other Newspapers groups who feel that the BBC is giving away content, they could be earning revenue from.
Don.
Slashdot - The Home of the Tortured Analogy
I sent an offical complaint through the BBC's internal complaints and got this reply within a couple of days. I asked about the closure and the BBC's continuing lack of sci-fi and fantasy based tv as well as expressing my disbelief that they aren't following up Doctor Who with more similar content, instead removing the section of the site that deals with most of the BBC's "cult" output that isn't Doctor Who. My Reply Thank you for your e-mail.
We recognise that the Cult website has attracted a large following. However, efficiency savings are needed to pay for new projects which will ensure that the BBC continues to offer distinctive and innovative services, so it is necessary to close this site.
As Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media, explained in December "...to meet the 10% target set out by the BBC Governors, we are announcing today a further 7.5% reduction to be achieved through lowering investment in areas where we feel this will not cause a reduction in public value...These changes build on the first steps we took in July to close those websites which we felt did not offer sufficient distinctive public value for the investment required. The savings we made in July represented 2.5% of our web output."
Furthermore, the BBC outlined in November its commitment to offer more distinctive content. We felt that many areas covered by the Cult site were already being replicated on other areas of the web. This meant there was very little distinction between the BBC and the commercial sector.
The exception to this is Dr Who, the largest of our Cult sites, which has now evolved into its own website, as an extension of the hugely successful BBC ONE TV series. We hope users will continue to visit and enjoy this site.
Regards
Sophie Walpole - Head of iD&E
And
Chris Chalton - Communications Manager, MC&A
Whilst we are not commenting on the proposed closure of the cult site, could we clarify a point made in a quote from one of the users of the website? The quote is question is " I mean, 700,000 hits a month, the second most popular BBC site"
The bbc.co.uk/cult does have 700,000 unique users a month, however this does not mean it is the 2nd most popular BBC website. Indeed some bbc.co.uk sites get 700,000 hits in a few hours. The Cult site came second in the BBC's Online Audience Appreciation Survey, which was voted by users of the bbc.co.uk, which is where I believe a misunderstanding has occurred.
We appreciate the opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding and to assure you that we are listening to the feedback given to us.
Alas, there is a new organ grinder in charge and he's introduced proposals for a huge number of job cuts, thousands of people are to go. Mark Thompson became Director General following the resignation of Greg Dyke (over a highly public row between the BBC and the UK Government on the War in Iraq).
No matter what people thought of Greg Dyke - he wasn't actually Evil(TM) but he wasn't without a fair share of legitimate critics either - pretty much everybody, both the general public and BBC employees, hate Mark Thompson (something which on his announcement as new Dir. Gen. was fuelled by the media, who have plenty of material owning to his own past behaviour).
I rather suspect this is all to help make the BBC better suited to transition to a subscription based service (rather than a license fee funded one), though this won't be till after 2008-12, and would probably co-incide with a move to switch of analogue TV all together and go digital (so the government can go through with it's plan to sell of the valuable airspace to next generation mobile/wireless operators).
No, no, no, no, NO!
As someone who is not in the UK, I can tell you that (for me anyway) I would be happy to pay for a subscription to the BBC (both for television and web, but not BBC America since it's watered/dumbed down). I think that modifying your statement to say "Perhaps the BBC should implement a subscription model for those outside the UK and the non-lincense fee payers" would be a bit more appealing to me. I would gladly pay for quality programming from them, since most of the programming in the US is crap.
"Teleporting Rodents with D-Cell Battery Displacement" theory -- IgnoramusMaximus (692000)
No it isn't. This is about the BBC ceasing to host and maintain information regarding several of their "cult" programs, such as Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio and TV versions), and Blake's 7. They're purging the information from their website, in much the same way they have, in the past, destroyed all known recordings of programs such as Dad's Army and Top of the Pops.
This isn't about, "Oh that's a grand show. It should stay on the air." This is more akin to your local library deciding they're going to get rid of hundreds of popular books which are being checked out, on the basis that "They're available at other public libraries and bookstores."
Honestly, it's deplorable that the BBC has gone back to their long-standing tradition of willful destruction of archive material.
Happiness is relative, Based upon the way we live.
2. the suit responsible: Jonathan Kingsbury jonathan.kingsbury@bbc.co.uk He looks forward to hearing from you.
Currently GB PLC is demonstrating that public enterprise is often better than private, contrary to the official government line. Failed privatised railways had to be rescued; private prisons are a humanitarian disaster; privatised schools are failing. So let's get the absolute flagship of public service, the BBC, and wreck it.
The amazing thing about this is that some of the British politicians who spout the privatisation nonsense - the unlamented M Thatcher among them - don't have a clue about how much the US depends on charities, not for profits, and local government at many levels, when it comes to delivering essential services. Sorry about the rant, but this whole thread is about the Government cutting BBC funds so it cannot do its job of ensuring that minority interests are heard. I guess next they'll be bringing in Fox to do the fair and balanced reporting that the BBC is famous for (but obviously getting wrong since sometimes it opposes the government...)
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.