Slashdot Mirror
BBC To Make Deep Cuts In Internet Services
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that the BBC has yielded to critics of its aggressive expansion, and is planning to make sweeping cuts in spending on its Web site and other digital operations. Members of the Conservative Party, which is expected to make electoral gains at the expense of the governing Labor Party, have called for the BBC to be reined in and last year James Murdoch criticized the BBC for providing 'free news' on the internet, making it 'incredibly hard for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news.' Mark Thompson, director-general of the BBC, said 'After years of expansion of our services in the UK, we are proposing some reductions.' The BBC is proposing a 25 percent reduction in its spending on the Web, as well as the closure of several digital radio stations and a reduction in outlays on US television shows. The Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union, which represents thousands of workers at the BBC, says that instead of appeasing critics, the proposed cuts could backfire. 'The BBC will not secure the politicians' favor with these proposals and nor will the corporation appease the commercial sector, which will see what the BBC is prepared to sacrifice and will pile on the pressure for more cuts,' says Gerry Morrissey, general secretary of the union."
My guess, these changes will B-B-Backfire!
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Everyone knows that you can cut costs substantially by switching to open source. This is a good time for them to get back to using open source and open standards: get rid of your flash-based, linux-unfriendly, iPlayer and stick with open source (theora, etc). They could also stop using word/excel etc and move to open office... I bet the savings on licence costs would be large!
metageek
James Murdoch can get bent. The BBC News service is not free. It's provided by the license fee so it is clearly not free - I've already pay for it. I like the BBC News and would rather that than have to pay for the (more) biased reporting from any of his stable of rags.
The BBC has a pretty good web presence. I certainly prefer BBC News, Democracy Live and the other services they provide to anything that is tainted by Rupert Murdoch. Just because Murdoch doesn't understand the web and has no sense to realise that, quality news sources like the BBC shouldn't just provide a more shitty service to make Murdoch lose less money.
In this case, a public service is providing great service and if you can't compete with that, instead of whining maybe you should go bankrupt.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
James Murdoch criticized the BBC for providing 'free news' on the internet, making it 'incredibly hard for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news.'
Little James Murdoch recently also said that the BBC is killing Democracy. Funny, here I was thinking that the BBC is the only big media organization with the balls to stand up and support the democratic process, while the scholarly literature into corporate controlled media showing exact opposite. Little Dr James Murdoch must be confused... or not?
If they would just start selling full episodes of Top Gear (amongst others) over here in the states. My British counterparts get to see full one-hour episodes of Top Gear when they are in the UK. But here in the US I cannot have that from the BBC, for any amount of money. BBC America shows me the butchered 40-minute episodes. Sure, I can accept that they need to sell advertising space here. But why can't they sell the full episodes on DVD here? If I buy the BBC America DVDs I get the same 40-minute episodes that they show on TV here. And BBC UK won't sell me the regular DVDs - they are region encoded (and PAL) but that doesn't matter since they won't sell them to me anyways.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"Your actions don't suit my business model-- stop it." Now where have we heard this before?
'Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.' - Mao Tse-tung
Murdoch has also been making a lot of noise about the Australian broacasting commission's (ABC) "stealing" his audience. The state sponsered TV channels in Oz are the only one's left with any real journalists, this prick won't be satisfied until he removes every last skeric of independence.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
(1) I applaud the decision to reduce expenditure on US television shows. Some of them are brilliant, but it is not really the BBC's place to broadcast them.
(2) The BBC needs to go back to a principle of quality over quantity. Output from such channels as BBC Three would not pass for a mediocre school production. "Hole in the Wall" might not pretend to be anything but light entertainment, but it is not adding to the knowledge or the culture of Britain. Digital radio is in general a failure, and it is good that they have tacitly acknowledged this. Meanwhile, the BBC News Internet site is excellent, and should not be the first choice for cuts despite evident political pressure for those who do not like the balance provided by the BBC.
(3) The BBC needs to stop privatising or outsourcing its research and development, so it can go back to long-term efforts in improving the state-of-the-art in broadcasting. It needs to go back to a technical-driven culture: for example, it needs to cooperate in efforts to prevent pollution to the shortwave spectrum, and it needs to reverse all efforts to introduce Digital Restrictions Management. We've already paid for what you produce, and you are our public broadcasting service: you don't get to dictate how we enjoy your productions.
There's no Labor Party in the UK. Though I've got to hand it to the USA - you fellows are really taking this cultural imperialism thing to the next level!
... maybe its time they sue the company that keeps accidentally dropping pianos on their test track.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
DRM bye bye?
I pay my licence fee, aka subscription, for the BBC. I get my news from the BBC website. I do not want to pay Murdoch for his news as his news is rubbish. i think it is totally wrong to try to restrain the BBC. Especially on the internet where the future is.
So the Empire of Murdoch can't emtirely dominate in the UK due to the BBC
So The Sun, the UK's most popular paper and owned by the Empie of Murdoch, changes its support from Labour to the Conservatives
And the BBC's board back down.
Abso-bloody-lutely marvellous. Now we can have news of the quality and independence served to the US by Fox.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
What part of "bread and circuses" do they not understand. Cutting pensions and television at the same time, well that's the bread AND the circus.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
So where does Murdoch's mythical right to extract money from the public come from? Or, more to the point, Murdoch's right to prevent anyone from competing with services he might prefer we pay for?
Especially when the public have already paid for the news to be gathered, and the BBC are only making available (at modest extra cost to the BBC) the information they have already been paid to gather - to the people who paid for it (even if it is also available to non-licence payers).
Isn't it the BBC's mission to inform and entertain? And why not do that via the internet as well as the airwaves?
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Objectively, you could look at this a different way. If the BBC stops publishing re-engineered press releases and left that to the newspapers and focused solely on making sure that they produced insightful, detailed analysis pieces then this will bring them nothing but benefit. They will be providing the service that we (in the UK) pay for, instead of providing free advertising to a company that wants to tell the world that they've released a new product. Plus the repackaged press releases and Associated News/Reuters content tends to not get many people looking at it after day 2. Big spike in people looking at it when it is new, little long tail. The detailed analysis pieces will be worthwhile for a long time yet.
Plus this still has to be approved by the BBC Trust. They can reject it if they don't see it as a useful way of spending the tax payers money. It's the equivalent of me putting a business plan into my boss on how to make better use of my time.
Mr Murdoch slammed Radio 2's effort to woo younger listeners by hiring presenters on "salaries no commercial competitor could afford".
Bollocks. If a private company had half the country listening, it's advertising revenue would MORE THAN cover the salaries of a bunch of presenters.
"There is general agreement that the natural operation of the market is inadequate, and that a better outcome can be achieved through the wisdom and activity of governments and regulators."
"This creationist approach is similar to the industrial planning which went out of fashion in other sectors in the 1970s. It failed then. It's failing now."
Come again? I read: The natural operation of the market is inadequate, and a better outcome has been reached through the wisdom and activity of governments and regulators.
While the approach may not have worked in the 1970s, they clearly have a winning strategy right now, and it's leaving other private enterprises out in the cold.
Sorry, but when private enterprise can't do a good enough job, and a publically funded organisation start showing them up, it's time for them to reel back? Piss off mate. That's the EXACT opposite of market freedom. The guy is just annoyed that HIS company doesn't have half of Britain listening, and that the BBC are providing an excellent service from public funds for free to the public that pay for it - along with ALL THE ADVERTISERS.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the days that the BBC wasn't in the black from it's own revenue are long history. Amazingly popular shows on it's TV side (Nature docos, popular shows like Top Gear) and their now massive DVD sales sure must line the bottom line of BBC quite well.
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
If American commercial media had anything as good as the quality of BBC News (Radio, TV or online) I would listen, watch and read it, and even put up with commercials.
I actively avoid the complete and utter crap Murdoch's medial outlets spew out.
Murdoch, if you want to make money, sell a quality product.
The BBC reflects very well on Britain. My very positive view of the country is due at least in part to the programming I've received via the BBC. Curtailing that programming would have unfortunate results far outweighing any potential benefit to Murdoch's bottom line.
He sells advertising. The news is just bait to get people to buy.
The idea that the BBC 'giving' news away is undermining 'paying' for news. So far as I am aware, no major news site charges for content, or at least not for major headline articles less than 2 days old. If News Corp truly thinks that by eliminating the BBC's presence they can begin to shape market expectations of people 'paying' for news, I think they need take a deeper look at the nature of the Web itself. Duplication and propagation are in its very nature, and the idea that alternative, free-to-view sources will not spring up (or current ones have their traffic increased), or that their 'pay for' articles won't be reposted across blogs and forums within minutes of appearing on their sites is naieve in the least. The music and movie industries have enough trouble keeping enormous amounts of music and movie files flying about the place - how on earth do they think they will stop something that can be duplicated with two keyboard shortcuts? I suppose this will begin the search for a 'copy/paste disabled browser' or somesuch tool - then I guess it really will be screenshot or it didn't happen.
It begs the question, how many people pay for news now? As an example, quick google search will show in 2005 the NYT had 1.1 million subscribers, the Sunday paper 1.7 in 2005. By charging for online access, do we really expect a significant increase in the new combined digital/paper subscribers total? I would submit if you're not paying for news now, and you didn't when paper was the only format, you're unlikely to start now.
It also belies something a little more sinister. Does this mean that all 'government corporations' (a type of entity in growing popularity, seemingly) are subject to supervision of Corporate interests? The BBC was and has always been free to its many listeners and, later, readers - it was a public institution set up to provide a service, a World Service even. Could you imagine telling someone in Britain in the mid-20th Century that, unfortunately, the BBC was going to have to curtail its activities because some multinational corporation was finding it too hard to charge you for listening to its private media on your own radio set? Of course, we can argue that the BBC is government media just like News Corp is private media, but any discerning reader understands that bias is part of reporting intentionally or not. In any case, I'd like my bias free, as in beer, thank you, and goodnight.
I'd like some clarification from the BBC or uk.gov on point 1 - I agree with your (implicit) argument against the BBC importing US programmes, but I worry that it'll affect joint BBC/US productions. Recently I've seen a (IMHO) positive trend for the BBC and HBO to work on co-productions - "Rome", for example, was the BBC and HBO (and an Italian broadcaster); "Five Days" was also the BBC and HBO.
BBC 3 does have some good programming. I've never seen "Hole in the Wall", but can imagine just how dreadful it is. That shouldn't distract from the good work the channel does, and I'm also concerned that UK TV is going to hand teenage programming in its entirety over to Channel 4. Don't get me wrong, Channel 4 is good, but Britain - even its teenaged section - deserve choice. And freedom from advertising is surely something we should be pushing to teenagers?
Actually, scratch that last paragraph. I've just checked today's listings for BBC 3 and it's unremitting shite. The only high point is a programme called "Family Guy", which (a) disproves my argument against importing US programmes, and (b) could easily be broadcast on some other channel. (And I'll bet Stewie Griffin's last diaper that both episodes are repeats...)
This is where the serious fun begins.
It is not sea of content I usually like to see in BBC website (it's nice touch though), it is the news - unspoiled, objective, rich with context news with additional references where to look for more information. I rather doubt that -25% will do wonders like making suddenly BBC to loose their integrity and turning all BBC readership to commercial news feeds.
In overall, someone (or some forces) seems like want to gain more control over BBC - or make it so that it feels vulnerable, so it doesn't get into the way for some yet unknown motions.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
These cuts are nothing more than looking to be doing something, while actually not doing much. They are simply trimming back some of the dead wood.
However, in doing so they are completely missing the point of their remit. They are supposed to produce high-quality programming, and that includes minority programming that commercial broadcasters wouldn't, or couldn't, touch. Radio 6 completely falls within this remit -- Radio 1 however, most surely does not. Radio 1 is a commercial channel, in everything but name. Sure, there's no overt adverts on it, but there's plenty of covert ones -- not the least of which is the music itself, all commercial products, and products from a very evil industry. Radio 6 played music from unsigned bands, so I guess there's not so much payola, hence it's the channel that's cut.
BBC3 and BBC4 are worthless channels and could go easily. BBC3 is braindead crap. It's targeted at a youth audience for purely commercial reasons -- and to add insult to injury, most of the youths watching it do not even pay the TV licence.
BBC4 contains programmes that would have naturally been on BBC2. When 4 was created they harvested off the (slightly more) intelligent shows, and filled the gaps in the BBC2 schedule with reality crap, make-over shows, cooking shows, antiques shows -- all riddled with product placement, which they can get away with as it's independent producers that are getting the kick-backs from promoting the products.
BBC News is the largest news organization in the world. Ignoring its inherent government progaganda and bias for the moment, for all the journalists it employs, for all the offices all over the world, it very, very, very rarely ever breaks an exclusive story. Much of the news is regurgitated press releases -- as well as again, lots of product placement. Usually, any exclusive stories come from the result of documentary researchers working for shows such as Panorama, and not from the news dept.
The BBC's new multi-million Pacific Quay HQ is state-of-the-art, with all the latest tech and a fantastic studio. But all it does is host tabloid-style regional news, cheap game show "The Weakest Link", and a few other unscripted talent and variety shows.
The quality of the BBC's production crew seems to have diminished dramatically over the past few years. There's barely a single show that has a camera set at the correct exposure. The editing is universally horrific across all BBC shows.
It's a vastly bloated, and increasingly dumbed-down organization. The name "Mark Thompson" seems only to be synonymous with failure, he's inexpertly presided over the worst period in the corporation's history. These cuts are superficial, there's considerably more changes need to be made to improve the quality of the BBC.
People pay for it trough their taxes. It’s the nation’s homegrown/self-owned news service.
Murdoch is just a greedy dick who “invests” in political party sock puppets.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
it's about time, godless commies... Now, switch over to FOX news for the REAL story
"incredibly hard for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news."
it's not hard to ask i just don't want your news.
i want to pay my tv license and have an organisation that tells me what's going on and not what they think sells papers.
I can't wait for a reduction in our TV licenses, due to all this money the BBC will now be saving!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
In other news, Mr. Sleedwidge Numbscull of Oxygen Bottling Inc. criticised farmers and the forestry commission for providing free oxygen in the atmosphere, making it 'incredibly hard for private oxygen bottlers to ask people to pay for their oxygen.'
There was always free news available in some form or another. Newspapers were able to make money by providing more value than the news that was freely available. If the quality of the free news increases, if you still want to make money, you have to find a new or at least improved business model.
BBC3 is really a sandbox for new programmes they would have only ever previously piloted on BBC2. Hence there is a lot of rubbish, but also a few real gems that now are mostly on BBC2. I don't know if it is a worthwhile use of the license fee or not, but some of my favourite comedy programmes in years have started out on BBC3. BBC4 is the Radio4 of TV, and I guess it has a very specific target audience, but the programming is generally good. Obviously both have a lot of repeats too, which most of the time makes them not worth watching.
Nothing to see here.
Yeah Heinlein was a crank but he is spot on in that quote.
Since when is it the obligation of the taxpayers to support Murdoch if he can't even provide himself with a viable business model? Corporate welfare beggars like Murdoch posing as businessmen really waste a lot of our resources and just seem to have no other purpose than to try to make things suck as much as they can.
I bet the fight against open standards may be at the bottom and that the real goal is getting at and stopping Dirac. It's a good codec and royalty-free.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
By "democracy" he actually means "my Dad's ability to tell people who to vote for".
You thought you could break the laws of physics without paying the PRICE?
I vaguelly remember an article in the newspaper that listed the BBC employee costs. A significant part of those was in paying "super-stars" (those entertainers that get payed millions of pounds per-year).
In a country like the UK with a long tradition of great humourists, paying a single comedian like Johnathan Ross 18 million pounds a year to host a couple of talk-shows is incredibly bad value for money.
Just for comparisson sake, the budget of BBC Radio 6 Music (which they're also planning on closing) is half as much. That's 24h/day, 7 days a weak, 52 weeks a year of music for half the price of maybe 10h/week of programming with Johnathan Ross. Measured in in hours-of-entertainment/pound terms that means that Johnathan Ross costs almost 34x more than BBC Radio 6 Music (and he's definetly not 34 times better).
Ditch that guy and couple more like him and replace them with new blood and you'll probably be able to cover the 110 million pounds that the BBC Internet operations cost. It will even have the nice side effect of enhancing even more the BBC's work in developing and promoting new talents in the UK.
Save 6music!
http://www.petition.fm/petitions/6musicasiannet/1000/
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=278123313911
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/02/bbc-protests-change-mind-6music
How did James Murdoch get that job anyway? He's obviously not qualified to run a big public company.
Even though they list the older seasons in their catalog, they are never available through Netflix. What, do they only have one copy of each?
Politics is Murdoch's bread and butter. As far as political interference goes, that old traitor Rupert (and I call him a traitor, because he renounced his Australian citizenship for commercial reasons) would sell his mother for a Mars Bar, and would say and do anything to advance his own interests.
This sneak-attack on the BBC's online news operation will go down in history as one of the nastiest, shittiest commercial and political power plays in history. This is a classic case of the evils of allowing people like Rupert Murdoch to become as powerful as he has -- he has effectively kneecapped one of the world's greatest news organisations, so he can force people to pay for his filthy, biased low-grade garbage (optimistically called "news").
Murdoch is threatening to turn the world into a supersized version of the US; with few large independent voices, and a news market dominated by undemocratic, fascistic shit like FOX News. And with a for-profit, partisan, low-quality mass media that shills for its corporate masters, rather than doing its job, we are talking about a basic and dire threat to our society.
The Murdochs are a walking disaster area for our democracy, and not enough is being done to challenge them and their minions. Old Rupert himself is a very old man, and undoubtedly his appointment with Old Nick is imminent; however that's not to say that his sons won't follow in his footsteps.
i thought the 'free market' capitalism was a system which let individuals and organizations charge whatever they want for their products and services.
turns out, it isnt so, everyone has to charge high enough so that private interests can make profits to satisfy themselves. it seems so, because some prick is able to come up and say that, like people are born to this world to to be profited from. reminds me of the middle ages and serf system.
Read radical news here
The imports refer to "acquisitions" rather than "co-productions".
Simply put, an acquisition is an "off the shelf" series or programme made and sold by an another broadcaster or production company. A co-production has editorial input from all companies funding it.
The BBC will likely look to increase the number of such co-productions as they reduce costs (shared between broadcasters) whilst retaining control over the look and feel of the programme.
They could save on bandwidth by replacing their restrictive video feeds with torrent servers, and live feeds with streaming torrents.
BBC Three's operating cost is a third of that for the WHOLE of the Channel 4 group. BBC Three wastes a lot of money.
* Making food and handing it out (for free!) to your family, friends, and neighbors ... for free
* Caroling for free in the holidays
* Free sex (some have even institutionalized this theft as "marriage")
* Developing software and giving it out
* Free thoughts and writing. Also get rid of WordPress, an enabler for the freebies.
* Handing out free food to the homeless.
* Free search engine results
* Free web browsers
* Free on-the-air TV signals
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
So long as they don't fuck with Steven Moffat's new series of Doctor Who then I'm not too bothered... :-P
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
BBC Trust chairman Sir Michael Lyons has said "public concern" over 6 Music and the Asian Network may give the Trust a golden opportunity to throw director general Mark Thompson under a bus.
Plans to close the stations, available via download, DAB Radio, tooth fillings, necromancy and the rantings of schizophrenic tramps on street corners, have outraged millions of Britons (reported by Sky News as 80,000), approximately five times as many as have mastered the technical wizardry and sequence of Masonic handshakes necessary to actually listen to 6 Music.
The music industry has also spoken out, though 6 Music staff thanked Lily Allen for her comments in support and asked her to please stop trying to be "helpful."
The proposals will go through a public consultation before the Trust tells Thompson he is a drooling incompetent and that the Tories won't like a crawler either. "Like Murdoch will actually give the twat the Sky job he's after," said Sir Michael. "Christ, why didn't we keep Dyke."
Mr Thompson is expected to meet with union leaders later, who say 600 people could lose their jobs. There is concern that Marc Riley could start making records again.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Ok, let's clarify this...
IT IS NOT FREE!!! I pay a yearly license fee that gets paid into the BBC to provide me with these programs...I PAY. I should receive...Murdoch just wants to make everyone else but him poor
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Please correct me if I am wrong, but I think the days that the BBC wasn't in the black from it's own revenue are long history. Amazingly popular shows on it's TV side (Nature docos, popular shows like Top Gear) and their now massive DVD sales sure must line the bottom line of BBC quite well.
You are utterly, utterly wrong. The BBC takes a £3.5 billion/year subsidy from the British taxpayer, collected from a £142.50/year per-household 'television license'. (Figures source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom ).
If you watch TV (or own a working TV) without a license, there is a £1000 fine and the possibility of jail.
That's why some people here in the UK occasionally get pissed off with the BBC's spending and operations; we're all directly funding them, by law.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
I pay £110 per year for my BBC services because I think they're better than your advertisment-supported (and hence profit-motivated) propaganda machines. You push the agenda your advertisers let you, and I don't buy it. The BBC has no advertisers, and is far more critical than any private and profit-oriented media company.
Get bent, Murdoch. Stop trying to monetise me. I give my money and time to who I want to give it to, and that's not you.
Nor will it ever be.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Trouble with the BBC is that they are so busy trying to be all thing to everyone in the world that they forgot who it was paying their bills. Quite regularly programs that read letters from viewers/listeners will read one form someone in a foreign country. How much they love the program and the BBC, even though the podcast/iplayer is totally free to them. Why should we pay for a web site when (statisticly) more people in the rest of the world are going to view it than there are people at home. Don't even get me started on the various "local" international BBC stations.
Don't get me wrong, I love the BBC. Subscription TV is the way to go be it BBC or HBO oe whoever. I would even pay to watch ITV if it meant no adverts and no lowest common denominator programming. People seem to think it is wrong though.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
The ABC/SBS is set up like the BBC but we got rid of the licenses in the 70's. The money now comes from general taxation. Most Aussies will know the expression "My 8 cents worth". It refers to a 1990's promotion the ABC ran informing taxpayers what the ABC was costing them per day. Taking inflation into account it's probably double that now. Even if you don't personally watch it, it's still a far better investment than any of Murdoch's daily rags.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
FX shows Family Guy and American Dad pretty much daily, so there is absolutely no reason for BBC3 to be showing repeats.
The BBC should tell Murdoch and others to go jump. Unless something has changed recently, the BBC is funded largely by the license holders and has no obligation to Murdoch/News or any other "news" organization.
confused or not I do not like to pay but if I have to I will. However if I have a choice I will not pay to this little brat of a boy that you so nicely describe.
Check out "Snuff Box" - a BBC 3 programme that only lasted for one series, but it is excellent. There's a lot of rubbish on BBC 3, but hey, some people seem to like it. I fear telling them it shouldn't be made in case they demand an end to the offbeat comedies *I* like.
Labours election strategy is roughly: "What choice do you have?"
Anyone who can remember back to Major and Thatcher... well... all of sudden Blair ain't all that bad. France had the same problem. Elect the crook or the extremist.
Democracy: "Choose me, because I am not as bad as the others".
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Just curious: are you satisfied with what you were getting for your money?
Would you prefer to pay less and have BBC make these cuts?
FWIW, the BBC is still one of the most respected media organizations in the world.
Unfortunately it's not very capitalistic or "free market"-ish to force everyone with a TV (or equivalent) to pay for the BBC. But if the alternative is more Rupert Murdoch and Friends...
I'm not sure that you thought that through really well. I've lived in the UK and the US. In the US people pay for all kinds of programming they don't want just to get a few channels they do want, and they pay much more than 142.50 pounds sterling per year for the privilege of watching the A team in Spanish and hearing the holy rollers who want to save you... for a price. I know it's not the same, but the fact remains the British public is actually getting good value for the money. If the BBC were scrapped altogether, the British public would be MUCH worse off. That it operates in the black is a good thing, even if you have quibbles about what black actually means in this case. It appears that no matter what you pick, the viewers end up paying for stuff they don't want, don't need, and can truly live better without. Complaining does not get you perfection. Replacing the BBC on the basis that it's not a free market enterprise ignores the fact that the free market has not shown a desire to bring you programming of the same quality. Baby and bathwater as they say. If other broadcasting firms were to provide the same quality or better, it would be silly to argue, but that is not the case. Would you throw away a great painting because it was commissioned by the King? Or worse, jail the painter?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Not sure about BBC right now as in recent years the quality seems to have deteriorated a bit (but so did it in the rest of media) but BBC provided service of quality superior to almost any other media organisation. It was and is one of the few organisations that justify their existence by great service. Pity if it were to cut too much of it.
And that is the wrong way of doing it: your testing method shouldn't be a separate channel targeted to teens and otherwise showing a lot of tat.
The classical BBC didn't have a problem with using good talent to identify good talent, giving writers a chance and letting a programme develop an audience. It boldly offered new shows straight to mainstream, and didn't panic if it wasn't seeing huge viewing figures by the second episode.
As for BBC4, I wouldn't say that the audience is "very specific", merely that it requires an audience willing to learn. It comes much closer to providing an educational/cultural service than BBC3, but so did BBC2 Open University programming.
Dump BBC News 24: there's not enough news they can or will report on to make a 24 hour news channel. Dump it.
Not good news. But at least we've seen the BBC respond to budgetary and practical issues in the past through innovation. I imagine that something along the lines of "Oh no, we've got all these historical costumes from other dramas lying around! And lots of bubblewrap! And some shiny things we can't identify. And some old breakfast. And I certainly don't know what to do with that old Police Box, it's just taking up space!". Use up the costume drama cast-offs by doing time-travel, save on special effects by using a police box (and make it bigger on the inside - much easier than having a full-size spaceship model to lug around), cover a few props guys in bubble wrap and tip some porridge over them - and we basically have Doctor Who, one of their most successful shows and one of the most enduring Sci Fi shows around. Budget and plausible special effects came later.
Other examples abound, I'm sure - sometimes austerity breeds innovation although that's not really a good reason for forcing it on a quality broadcaster.
If an information news is accused by everybody to be partial for the other guy, then it almost certainly means they are REALLY striving to be impartial.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Would you prefer to pay less and have BBC make these cuts?
See zappepcs post above. the answer is NO - because in the alternative I would have to pay as well AND get worse service...
FWIW, the BBC is still one of the most respected media organizations in the world. Unfortunately it's not very capitalistic or "free market"-ish to force everyone with a TV (or equivalent) to pay for the BBC. But if the alternative is more Rupert Murdoch and Friends...
umghhh posted above an example of what the "free" market produces when big Media conglomerates. It is not pretty, the BBC is a breath of fresh air in comparison.
FX isn't available on "council telly", however - you need Sky or cable. Or, at least, if it is available on Freeview it ain't available on Freeview where I live, which is all that matters ;-)
This is where the serious fun begins.
Ah, that's good to hear. Acquisitions are also somewhat variable - 24 started out on BBC, first two series on BBC 1 (I think) then series 3 on BBC 3. Then Sky bought the rights. That strikes me a license-payer funded bait-and-switch - get us hooked on 24, then we'll all cheerfully move to Sky like happy drones. No thanks, BBC! No thanks, Sky!
This is where the serious fun begins.
> Isn't it the BBC's mission to inform and entertain? And why not do that via the internet as well as the airwaves?
It's called the British Broadcasting Company. Perhaps their web services should be video rather than text.
So where does Murdoch's mythical right to extract money from the public come from?
Keep in mind that the BBC has a considerable revenue stream that has nothing to do with their ability to satisfy viewers. Why should the BBC have the power to extract money from the public, but not some competitor like Fox?
The BBC needs to stop privatising or outsourcing its research and development, so it can go back to long-term efforts in improving the state-of-the-art in broadcasting.
Unfortunately, the reason for this seems to be political as much as anything - the BBC doesn't dare to be seen competing with the private sector too much, and in fact is required not to do so.
There seems to be a universal dislike of Murdoch, it's good to see the slashdot community agreeing on something (anything).
It's surprising there don't seem to be any libertarians arguing that because the BBC is tax-funded it is evil compared wit the saintly Murdoch free-marketeers.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The fact of the matter is that while the BBC *does* produce some damn fine programming, every good program is accompanied with a torrent of pointless shit. It's funny how people like yourself use the 5% good programming too justify 100% (or more) of the compulsory taxation that funds the remaining 95%.
I'd personally be happy if they cut the crap and concentrated on the distinctive and valuable stuff that people seem to assume is all they do.
You talk about (presumably) people in the USA and elsewhere choosing to pay for cable, satellite or whichever other TV service. That happens here too. The point is that here we *HAVE* to pay the tax to watch anything at all, even 'free to air' TV.
Would you throw away a great painting because it was commissioned by the King? Or worse, jail the painter?
No, but if the King is spending billions on paintings every year, 95% of which are artless garbage, by raising a massively regressive tax that becomes a sizeable burden on the poorest in society; then I have the right to be pissed off.
Complaining does not get you perfection.
Oh, I'm sorry; how dare I give a toss where my taxes go.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
You are utterly, utterly wrong. The BBC takes a £3.5 billion/year subsidy from the British taxpayer, collected from a £142.50/year per-household 'television license'.
In America we have something called the "Public Broadcasting Service" which receives public funds. Of course, PBS gets less than 1/5th of what the BBC receives and the end result is that PBS stations are something of a TV sideshow instead of sitting in center stage like the BBC.
/PBS is where I first started watching Dr. Who & Red Dwarf
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
The BBC should tell Murdoch and others to go jump. Unless something has changed recently, the BBC is funded largely by the license holders and has no obligation to Murdoch/News or any other "news" organization.
It would be nice if they could. But the Tories - still fairly likely to form the next government in a few months - are now Murdoch's big pals, and have detested the very idea of the BBC since the patrician old guard (Tories and BBC bigwigs) went. They already have a policy of 'distributing the license fee more widely' (i.e. giving some of it to commercial stations). They are very keen that the BBC should not produce anything 'populist', the overt reason being that the commercial sector can do this just fine, but it's also an excellent strategy for later saying 'not enough people watch the BBC anymore, cut the license fee further/switch BBC to subcription model'. The only constraint is how much they can cut the BBC without becoming too unpopular.
Labour have often had (very) serious rows with the BBC and have big issues with particular programs, managers and presenters etc. but they are not fundamentally opposed to the basis of its existence.
The BBC presumably is trying to preempt worse cuts by proposing its own more modest ones, but this could backfire and just fuel the Tories'/Mudoch's appetite for even more.
Who gets to decide what's "crap"? You? Me? If I had my way, Eastenders, Strictly Come Dancing and all sorts of "crap" would go. If I asked one of the 8million+ people who regularly watch those shows however (& whom also pay their license fees), I'm sure they'd have very different views on the subject.
Essentially all you've suggested is that the BBC should employ the tyranny of the majority to their output. That doesn't sound like a great idea to me: it's how ITV has ended up the cesspool it currently is.
BBC is patchy - but that's its remit - to be allowed to experiment and be hit-or-miss. Some of its output is excellent. I would cite Being Human as an example.
Much the opposite; if the show is THAT popular then they would have no trouble whatsoever attracting advertisers to pay for it instead of taxation, therefore the BBC doesn't need to produce it.
It can't be said that programming like Eastenders etc. "could not be provided by commercial broadcasters" so why the hell do I have to subsidise what already exists?
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
So where does Murdoch's mythical right to extract money from the public come from?
But that is *exactly* what the BBC does - extract money from the public to provide the service. Why is it somehow "better" for goverment to do this (taking your money by force, I should add) than a private individual (voluntarily)? I know it's fashionable to bash "evil" big businesses, but really, you think government is more your friend?
If its so great, why do we have to make it a crime to watch TV in the UK, if you do not subscribe to it. Whether you watch it or not.
We don't make it a crime to read newspapers without subscribing to the Times.
In other news, Mr. Sleedwidge Numbscull of Oxygen Bottling Inc. criticised farmers and the forestry commission for providing free oxygen in the atmosphere, making it 'incredibly hard for private oxygen bottlers to ask people to pay for their oxygen.'
This is a false analogy; unlike media organisations, oxygen isn't funded by taxpayers or private individuals, it really is "just there".
That's why some people here in the UK occasionally get pissed off with the BBC's spending and operations; we're all directly funding them, by law.
I'm not, I don't have a TV. I do listen to the radio about 8 hours a day (almost exclusively BBC, Radio 1, 4, and 5). I also use the BBC website loads, it's the only place I go for mainstream news. I also, and here's the really backwards bit, watch quite a lot of the BBC's output by using BBC iPlayer on my computer. And I don't have to pay anything for any of it.
I realise I am freeloading off of people who do have to pay the license fee, but radio listeners have been doing this for years. I'm also _far_ from rich, and any expense I need to justify, otherwise I'm broke. I pay 15 quid a month for mobile broadband, 15gb d/l a month, runs about 3mb/s (comparable to the crappy ADSL we have around here), pay less than that for my mobile, and don't pay for a landline.
Note : you are not however allowed to watch anything on the iplayer that is currently being broadcast, and a select few programs are not available (most importantly for me, MOTD). I do not know the rules if you download something, then accidently play it at exactly the same time as it is being repeated later. :P
It's comforting to know that the USA isn't the only country with crazy conservatives.
if the show is THAT popular then they would have no trouble whatsoever attracting advertisers to pay for it instead of taxation
And how do the advertisers afford to pay for the show? They add it to the cost of their goods. Eventually you end up paying for shows that you don't watch. At least with the BBC model you have a chance that something uncommercial, but revolutionary will get made.
It can't be said that programming like Eastenders etc. "could not be provided by commercial broadcasters" so why the hell do I have to subsidise what already exists?
So if it is popular then the Beeb shouldn't do it, and yet if they only did unpopular stuff then I can't imagine that you would be happy with that. If it helps, just assume that all your money went to some show that you really like and ignore the other stuff.
Oh, bad news. I just did a search and found that your particular £142.50 went to repairing a photocopier that someone spilled coffee on. I guess its going to be another year of disappointment for you!
In fact in many cases, I already do. F-ing send me a tax form and get rid of the annoying blocks for me on all your web content. Don't cut your services, my goodness Primeval showed that writers can do a decent story, compared to those Lost writers (didn't watch past season 2) who're sellouts. That's just one show, but web content, etc., you are proof that the rest of the world is falling down on the job. Murdoch hates you because you show what a scam his entire business is!
And here is my own line of bullshit in the form of creative linking.
But no one cares what he said, because we're talking about News Corp here, one of the world's ten largest media conglomerates, that gets to decide what you will see and hear if you get your "news" from practically fucking anywhere.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
By "salaries no commercial competitor could afford", he means "salaries no commercial competitor is willing to pay". After all, no commercial company wants to pay its subjects an actual living wage - that's communism.
Shit, man, I would pay ~$200 a year to guarantee that they'll keep on making Dr. Who and shows like Life on Mars. I don't think you realize how horrible television is in the States; I pay $60 a month for absolute shit with a couple of good shows mixed in. $200 a year is peanuts.
News is also "Just there". Media organizations don't create it, they just report it. They had a solid business model when spreading it required designated infrastructure, like printing presses etc.
With the internet, a lot of news can spread without them globally just as fast as it did without them locally by people talking about it at the village pump.
So:
Basically the ONLY thing they can add additional value is *quality* in reporting. Ironically, the BBCs quality is much higher than Mr. Murdochs quality in my opinion.
Probably *because* their priority can be the quality, not the immediate revenue.
I'm not sure that you thought that through really well. I've lived in the UK and the US. In the US people pay for all kinds of programming they don't want
I don't think you understand.
In the US, you have the option of putting up an antenna and getting free TV. 1 in 10 Americans (I just read it's 11%) does just that. That is what all that hoopla over the digitial changeover was about. In lots of areas (including mine) you can get 12-15 channels for free.
In England, if you own a TV, you must pay $142.50 a year in tax. There is no service included in that. That's just a tax for owning a TV. If you buy it and never turn it on, you still must pay. That money goes to fund the BBC, whether you watch it or not. You may have zero interest in the BBC programming or have some objection to their programming, but you're still funding it. If you then want cable or satellite or whatever, you must pay all those subscription fees additionally.
Also, don't confuse "what is skimmed off the top and resold in America" with "the vast swaths of lowbrow garbage" that is BBC programming. Believe it or not, not everyone in England is an Oxford-educated intellectual who relaxes with Brideshead Revisited at night. The vast majority are emptyheaded droolers like Americans and watch crap like Three's Company or Sanford and Son - which, hey, were both BBC shows originally.
Advice: on VPS providers
Here in the states, the BBC World News is by far the most objective and balanced reporting available. They even do a good job of covering US politics, whereas the US based news organizations appear to assume their listeners want to remain blissfully ignorant to what is going on in the rest of the world. Hell, even Al Jazeera has better journalism standards than most US News organizations. Is James Murdoch any relation to Rupert Murdoch? They both appear to have a business model based on whining that their customers aren't paying enough for their product.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Apparently James Murdoch is Rupert Murdoch's son. Note to self: Google is your friend. Use it BEFORE hitting "Submit"!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
In France you also pay a mandatory TV license fee (around £110/year last time I looked, though I don't have a TV). The television here is appalling, either dubbed A-Team / 70's detective series or a panel of boring middle-aged guys waffling whilst ogling the cute under-aged female pop singer that serves as eye candy. Every channel is chock full of adverts. The Brits are getting a pretty good deal from the BBC.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Yes, but in the US, that type of payment is not in any shape or form mandatory!!
In the US, you are perfectly able to put up an antenna, and watch FTA television. You won't get fined for not having a TV license that goes to the PBS (is that the US equivalent of BBC?)....
Heck, if you just want a tv over here to play games on or watch DVD's..you don't actually come under scrutiny by the govt. people as to whether you're really doing only that or trying to dodge the govt. tv tax....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No, news isn't "just there", the person who writes up the initial report has to have food and a roof over their head, and it takes time, totally unlike oxygen. And it often takes travel, too, and management overheads. You are confusing production scarcity with distribution scarcity. News is actually very difficult to report initially, and remains so, but because of the Internet era, the *distribution* of that news has become incredibly cheap and fast and difficult to monopolise (but still not anything like oxygen, because the Internet is actually a big complex network that wasn't created by the Tooth Fairy, it cost a lot of money and still costs a lot of money to keep working). Anyway, because distribution used to be difficult, the old-style media used to fund news *production* (i.e. journalism) from the revenue from news *distribution* (e.g. printing a newspaper). The latter is now very cheap thanks to the Internet, but the former is still expensive and difficult. But to think it's anything like oxygen is sheer moronity. IT COSTS MONEY TO PRODUCE.
If you think news is like oxygen, then tell me, why would the BBC need to lower its production in the face of limited budget?
BBC4 has Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, an unremittingly funny and at the same time informative show. Search it on YouTube if you don't believe me.
I write bullshit
Once again the Murdoch empire says jump, and the UK government says "How high sir?". The UK (along with most western countries) needs to sack every single mp and start again from scratch. Unless they want murdoch and other corporate fatcats to control thier lives.
So your saying ALL of that subsidy shouldn't go into programming operations? Why should the license money go anywhere else?
Actually the Eu should allow him his monoply on news. Im sure theres something in the human rights legislation about free access to the channels of communication - so he wouldnt be able to charge for it!
He never really was an Australian. Murdoch was always a yank at heart and threw away his Aussie citizenship at the first opportunity and as an Aussie I say good riddence.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
As a BBC licence payer - £140 pa is remarkable value - between 1/2 and a 1/3 of the annual cost of a daily news paper!
News International wants to charge for it's News on the internet
Why would anyone pay for News international - when a superior product - the BBC is free? So - as above News International wants cuts
The Sun which prides itself in swinging UK Marginal votes "It's the Sun wot did it!" has just moved to support the Conservatives
The BBC is responding to pressure from the Conservatives
Both the Tory leader David Cameron and their Finance minister George Osborne have met and holidayed with Murdoch
The proposed shut of 6 Music is a sleight of hand - the real question - is why non-UK-national gets so much influence over our culture and media?
if "Faith" could be proved with facts - would it still be faith? So why does "Faith" try to present beliefs as fact? -
Actually the TV tax only funds France Television channels, which do not produce reality TV shows (I guess that's what the "panel of boring middle-aged guys..." referred to). And there are no ads on these channels after about 8:00PM. In general, there are much less ads on french TV than on US or Australian TV (not sure about England) : there's "only" one commercial break during a movie.
But otherwise I agree with you, TV here globally sucks, I'd gladly pay £150 to see them produce Dr Who instead of the asinine Plus belle la vie... Thank god for eztv ^^
Shit, man, I would pay ~$200 a year to guarantee that they'll keep on making Dr. Who and shows like Life on Mars. I don't think you realize how horrible television is in the States; I pay $60 a month for absolute shit with a couple of good shows mixed in. $200 a year is peanuts.
Well said!!
All cows eat grass!
Yeah, fuck James Murdoch. Of course BBC news isn't free. But in any case, I'd rather pay the BBC, with all its flaws, £131 a year for its reasonably impartial news than give one single penny to the Murdoch hate machine.
I don't think you appreciate how valuable having a TV station that is largely unbiased by commercial interests is.
Look at Fox News in the US. Owned by the same lot who make Sky News in the UK. Why isn't Sky News as bad as Fox? It's not like hate-mongering is not allowed, just look at the Daily Mail. It's because they would seem so extreme next to the BBC News (and the ITN news programmes which are more regulated than newspapers) that people would turn off. The BBC keeps people at least somewhat honest.
What's more you can be reasonably sure that material on the BBC News is at least attempting to be factual and non-biased. That is why it is so popular internationally - a lot of countries don't have an unbiased source of news on their own TV and radio.
They also produce important programs which commercial broadcasters would not. Even if you don't watch them programs like Newsnight, Question Time and the Today program are uninfluenced by money, advertisers and lobbying and so provide a valuable contribution to our democracy.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
The moment that you think that ANY news source is really 'unbiased' is the moment that you fail hard.
The BBC has biases all of its own; it should be considered 'another point of view' rather than 'an entirely unbiased and trustworthy news source'. You need to get your information from diverse sources to get a full picture.
"A valuable contribution to our democracy"? Yes. "Uninfluenced by .. lobbying"? No. There are lobbyists with influence there, but different lobbyists to those active elsewhere.
I also think that there is somewhat active product placement and other 'advertising' going on, unless you consider BBC coverage of, for example, Twitter and/or Apple to be proportionate or justified.
/my 2p
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
Just wanted to thank you for funding Top Gear, the best show on television, period.
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
I really don't care what they cut, can I get some RECENT Dr Who here in the states??? Please?!
like a man without arms, you can't hang......
It's something called public service broadcasting. I know for some slashdotters that's a bit like socialism, and therefore evil... but there is broad support for it in the UK. Not least because the Public Service output of the BBC seems... better than Fox. People like the system because (on the whole) it works.
Maybe it's because the BBC doesn't have that strange Fox TV rule that if a series is any good it must be cancelled :-)
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Fuck off and die.
A) It isn't a tax. Nobody, including you, has a need or right to watch TV. If you don't want to fund the BBC don't watch TV. Get your TV tuner disabled and use it only for DVD's and Video games. Simples. You can still get free access to the internet and radio offerings for free even if you don't pay the licence fee. Isn't that kind of the BBC?
B) That 95% you consider crap includes things other people like and want to see. Why don't they have the right to have something on the BBC they want to watch too? After all they pay the 'tax' too. I assume you are just better than everyone else and are the self-appointed high arbiter of good taste in the UK.
C) You whole argument reads like that of a Daily Mail journalist. Harping on about how the BBC is unfair, doesn't solely cater to your desires and how it is forced on you. Then you throw in a 'and the poor people' argument at the end to try a mitigate all the self-centred douchebaggery you just typed.
Please try not to ignore the caveats in future. All of your points have already been addressed in my original post.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
i seriously think Murdoch should be taken out and shot! he's a criminal, and he should be punished like he would've been 300 years ago, just to prove how out of date his criminal activities are.
maybe we should go back further and have him slide down a giant sword, blade side up?