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Future Of The BBC 2015
Ash_M1
Posts: 18,703 Forum Member
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Released today (07.09.15), the BBC outlines very strongly the case for it. It is a brilliant document. Read it, absorb it and digest it people. A plea, lets not have the usual from the usual suspects (the J's / the C's and the like). Let's have no mention of subs or ads as those arguments have been had and they are done and dusted.
I have also attached another document (What If There Was No BBC) for those interested parties who want to read it too and to make it easy for you to find and access it.
Believe in British...Back British...Support The British Broadcasting Corporation: Our Voice In The World.
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/pdf/futureofthebbc2015.pdf
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/What%20if%20there%20were%20no%20BBC%20TV_0.pdf
I have also attached another document (What If There Was No BBC) for those interested parties who want to read it too and to make it easy for you to find and access it.
Believe in British...Back British...Support The British Broadcasting Corporation: Our Voice In The World.
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/reports/pdf/futureofthebbc2015.pdf
http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/What%20if%20there%20were%20no%20BBC%20TV_0.pdf
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Comments
The BBC News channel appears vulnerable as a linear channel. Given that significant parts of its output are already simulcasts of BBC One or Two or BBC World it is already moving to a point where it could cease as a separate channel with limited loss of programming to those channels. The BBC Newstream idea is clearly designed to take the general rolling news format online. One halfway option could be to replace BBC News with BBC World altogether (eliminating simulcasts) but have it available to take rolling UK news when required. Alternately rolling news for big events/incidents could override BBC One or Two daytime programming or other remaining services in the evening. Some existing BBC News feature strands could simply move to other channels.
CBBC must also be vulnerable given what is happening to BBC Three and the tendencies of its audience as to how they consume programming. Not to mention that its entire audience base is theoretically unavailable for around two thirds of its broadcast hours for three quarters of the year (ie at school). Perhaps one answer is to provide two hour morning and teatime and weekend blocks on BBC One or Two with the remainder of CBBC going online and onto I-play.
I can also see BBC Four being merged with BBC Two but with a BBC Extra or BBC Two Extra taking over the existing main BBC Four hours to show programmes which would currently appear on BBC Four or BBC Red Button such as Live Proms, Sport etc.
In Radio I could see Radio 1 and Radio 1 Xtra merging, possibly the same with Radio 2 and 6 Music, Radio 4 Extra moving online save as an overnight sustaining service for Radio 4 and occasional other slots in the main Radio 4 schedule, and Local Radio being cut back to essentially local programming (5 or 6am to 7pm daily plus sport) and being merged in with 5 Live the remainder of the time - perhaps renamed BBC Local as a brand and included in 5 Live branding at night. 5 Live might carry World Service as an overnight sustaining service but with its own bullies and branding. 5 Live Sports Extra could be renamed 5 Live Extra to also carry key non sports events - Parliament, News Conferences etc
In TV terms though this could leave:-
BBC One inc perhaps programming from Nations and Regions overnight.
BBC Two inc current BBC Four post midnight shows and Learning Zone overnight
CBeebies (6am to 7pm) / BBC Extra (7pm to 1am) - a mix of current BBC Four/Red Button / BBC Sign Zone (1am to 6am)
BBC World (an existing channel so a lower cost alternative to BBC News)
Out go:-
CBBC / BBC Three (online and to BBC One/Two)
BBC Red Button
BBC News
Just some thoughts arising from Tony Hall's speech and the Report.
A 24 news streaming app or site with news articles is what we are starting to see and this may expand. But the problem is local and national newspapers get the shaft and we still have the problem of media plurality as it is!
The BBC's new internet first policy must be heavily scrutinized.
Why not just have a simply web site and news bulletins on BBC 1, old school style!?
Do you not believe in democracy?
yes i have read it, i still do not change my views of the BBC and the way it should be funded. That is all
BBC Parliament won't close no matter how strapped they are for cash, it would be economic and political suicide.
Yes, Lord Hall Hall put his BBC loud haler to good use today, pity those who have a different point of view do not get the same opportunity
Try reading it again. You may come to a different conclusion. Don't dismiss other opinions/documents which challenge your own opinions as propaganda. It is an excellent document, well written and expertly put together.
The licence fee is imperative to what the BBC does and who is able to access it. The BBC is a public service, available to ALL, free at the point of use. Any other method of funding throws all this out the window. No good in my view and a change for the worse. All that said, I don't want a funding chat as that has all been done and dusted.
Another classic from the BBC Society.
You really need to stop pushing with this propaganda.
We've got no "voice" in the world, no one takes any notice of us any more. All they want is hand-outs.
Why? Because you disagree with the facts? Have no answers to the facts? Don't like your own views and opinions challenged?
Those of us on the right side of the argument are not going to sit back and let our public services be mauled to death by people with the wrong values and the wrong agendas.
Ash, as has been mentioned before, real people don't talk like that. People are unlikely to take your points seriously when you constantly phrase them as if you were a paid mouthpiece of the BBC.
I did actually read the DG's speech - amazingly it reads exactly like one of your messages here, full of wild claims about how the BBC feeds the hungry, clothes the poor, is responsible for every single idea that anyone has ever had, and how this must continue - with no supporting evidence at all. All claims and hot air about being the best in the world, and no evidence to back it up, as if it's just so manifestly obvious that you only have to say the words and people will believe them without question.
I have to say, that even with as much love as I do have for the BBC, they're getting it really badly wrong at the moment. Saying that 'cuts to programmes and services are inevitable' at the same time as announcing a flurry of new expansionist, half-baked websites which are not remotely at the core of what people want from the BBC, is a deception which will only work for so long.
For the BBC to say that services like CBBC and BBC Four will have to be cut is completely disingenuous and wrong. The BBC takes in nearly 4 billion pounds a year of money from the licence fee. To shut (or to threaten to shut) CBBC and BBC Four - which together barely cost £100m in total - so that more money can be spent on drama production... no, no. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
BBC One has a budget of something like 1.3 BILLION pounds a year. Take the money from there. Save the cash by making a few less episodes of 'Saints and Scroungers'. The difference between 1.3 billion and 1.2 billion would be undetectable on-screen. Closing entire services, and not replacing the content that they show, means that substantial segments of the licence fee paying public get a markedly reduced service and in many cases will join the groups of people who get NOTHING of value from the licence fee. Whereas a couple of extra repeats on BBC One here and there is something that nobody is going to worry about too much.
It's the equivalent of a parent saying that because their household budget has been reduced, they're going to stop feeding one of their children. Nobody would consider that a sensible approach - yet the BBC present it as the only way.
It's difficult not to believe that the BBC is actually trolling the public by threatening named services like this. They seem to want to provoke a 6 Music-style uprising and a flurry of outrage, but simply will not accept the idea of making any reasonable and proportionate economies and savings in any other part of their organisation. Oh, while at the same time announcing more new whizz-bang internet buzzword diversions which, as the past has proven, never really set the world on fire.
I am a real person...and I "talk like that", and no, for the umpteenth time, I don't work for Auntie. Why is is so hard to comprehend that the BBC has many, many supporters who happen not to work for the Corporation?
What you don't like is the robust arguments I present in defense of the Beeb. That's the truth.
I don't mind what you post, I just find it surprising that you think anyone is fooled by it. Your robust arguments consist of little more than just repeatedly praising the BBC, and saying that it's the truth when people disagree - as if that's any kind of a rebuttal to what, in many cases, are actually quite detailed and well-argued points.
I'd never go as far as to tell other people what they're thinking, but if I were, then I'd say that "What YOU don't like..." is that not everyone shares your opinion of the BBC, and that disagreeing with you doesn't mean that they're wrong.
Once again I notice that you disregarded the detailed points I made. Do you support the BBC threatening to close CBBC and BBC Four, rather than saving that money from other services where the change would be near-invisible?
My my how very odd, that there is only one correct view, which must not and cannot be challenged...
Good piece Antbox, or should I say 'mate'?. I mean, there has to be some easy but lazy mechanism to show solidarity with those that get it surely...
People with extreme views or completely one-sided opinions are often removed from surveys & statistical analysis, being labelled 'rogue outliers', not representative of the real world and not relevant to the argument. I couldn't give two hoots whether you're Lord Sir Tony Hall Of West London or someone with a barmy obsession with the BBC. All I know is it's terminally dull seeing the same argument repeatedly posted as a basis for discussion. I am so glad that listening to you drone on about it in a pub is never to be something I have to contend with.
I'm not being funny, but when some posters resort to accusing one another of working for this one, that one and the other, it really means loss of argument in my view. I am flattered to think that you place my postings on a par with press releases. Perhaps I should look for employment in such fields after all.
I don't spend all day posting on here. Let's try to be accurate.
I repeat, why is it so difficult to believe that millions upon millions of the UK love and value the BBC including me? Why is that so difficult to get your head around? Surely audience share and ratings provide all the data you need to prove my point.
The only argument 'the bashers' have is simply, 'I don't want it, I don't want to pay for it' which is no argument at all.
The bottom line is that the terrible tories are forcing cuts to budgets of (in total and in real terms) 60%. Those unnecessary cuts mean cuts to services. What some expect is quality services funded via hot air. News Flash...it ain't gonna happen. What you should be saying to government is reverse the unnecessary cuts to budgets then no services need to be lost. If not, services that you and I value will be lost and lost forever. I have already lost BBC Three...
As you have read the document attached above, you will know that it is the first of a series of papers. This, I guess, is the broad opener...setting out current thinking and presenting the direction of travel.
None of us want to lose any services. I don't want to lose BBC Three from the telly. I love the dramas and docus from there but it is happening. Cuts have consequences. We are seeing the effects of unnecessary cuts unfolding before our very eyes.
How about saying:
it was wrong of government to freeze the licence fee back in 2010
it was wrong of government to force the BBC to fund S4C
it was wrong of government to fund local television from the licence fee
it was wrong of government to force the BBC to fund the World Service which doesn't benefit licence fee payers
it was wrong of government to use licence fee money to fund broadband for the benefit of the d' private sector
it was wrong of government to force the BBC to part fund it's social policy re: the Over 75s licences
Did you mention any of the above or has that been forgotten about?
Ratings and share prove nothing about quality. Commercial broadcasters get ratings and share every day of the week, yet you'd be the first to point out what dreadful tripe comes out of most of them.
That's not true, and it's not being a 'basher' to suggest that maybe the BBC could make better choices with its limited (£4 billion!) budget than it currently does.
I will ask you again, directly, would it not be more sensible to make a modest 7% cut to the budget of BBC1, rather than permanently closing valued services like CBBC and BBC Four, which for many are the very epitome of public service broadcasting?
There's nobody to blame for that except the BBC themselves. The expensive part of BBC Three is not broadcasting it on television, but in making the programmes. So 'taking the channel online' saves pretty much nothing at all. Nevertheless, if BBC Three has to be cut to save money, how is it that the BBC then say 'and we'll spend the money we saved on doing this other new thing...'? That's not a cut, that's not a saving. That's changing your priorities, and spending the same amount of money on doing something else. That's purely down to the BBC making its own decisions about what it wants to do. Nothing to do with cuts whatsoever.
Hypothetically, the BBC is a seven year old who is given money by their parents so that they can have a nutritious lunch. But instead they spend it on something else (let's say, chocolate bars) and then go home and tell their parents that they've saved the money. But in fact they've still spent it all - just on something different that the money wasn't meant for.
Whereas you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of having "wrong agendas" and "wrong values" or call them "the usual suspects" or "the bashers". Mature.
Why can't you seem to understand that you can "love and value" the BBC whilst not agreeing with everything the BBC does, wanting some things to change and accepting that there are valid counter arguments to positions which you seem to treat as akin to the Ten Commandments.
The only person appearing to expect quality services funded by hot air is yourself. There isn't the money to maintain services at previous levels. Heard of the deficit? Where would you propose getting the money from to clear the deficit that still exists let alone reverse the cuts you have inevitably deemed as "unnecessary". Gosh if life were that simple.
...and that's a fair call and summary. Do I go round accusing people of working for the Guardian, the Indie, The Mirror or The Express for example?
When it comes to funding, that is sacrosanct. The licence fee is the only way (or the broadcasting levy) to ensure the universality and editorial independence of the BBC. Beyond that, I am happy to spar with people in favour or against certain programmes.
BIB...I disagree. There absolutely is. We are a wealthy country. Reverse the freeze and cuts...job done. The BBC didn't cause the deficit, nor did any of our public services. The people who caused the deficit should pay. HBOS anyone? Bankers generally anyone?
The BBC is of vital importance for us as a nation. It is incredibly important that it is funded publicly and well funded at that. You don't get quality services without putting the money and resources in.