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."
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?
"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.
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"
The word is the same, it's just a variant spelling.
You don't apply variant spelling to proper nouns.
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!
Everything but Top Gear, it seems...
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
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.
it's about time, godless commies... Now, switch over to FOX news for the REAL story
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.
A Freesat decoder box costs about £50. Buy one, have it shipped to Denmark, hook it up, done. It's not encrypted, you don't need a subscription, what's the problem?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
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?
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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.