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Should BBC World Service TV & Radio be axed?
waz101
Posts: 1,253 Forum Member
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The BBC funding crisis is being caused by the Governments decision to force the BBC to fund The BBC TV & Radio World Service from the exiting License Fee.
The Foreign Office's decision to force the BBC to fund the £240m+ bill for the World Service is ill considered, why should UK license fee payers fund TV & Radio for the rest of the world?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/2013/ws_operating_licence.html
Have your say?
The Foreign Office's decision to force the BBC to fund the £240m+ bill for the World Service is ill considered, why should UK license fee payers fund TV & Radio for the rest of the world?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/news/press_releases/2013/ws_operating_licence.html
Have your say?
Should the BBC World Service TV & Radio be Axed ? 56 votes
YES
35%
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20 votes
NO
64%
36 votes
0
Comments
If this means the BBC has to look at cutting back funding in Drama or the next dancing on ice TV then so be it.
I would like to point out that the government is not the sole cause of the BBC funding cuts. The cuts came about over a general public outcry that the license fee was being consumed by the BBC in non suitable ways. Such as the high wages of the top level staff, a top heavy management staff, over paid chat show hosts and Taxis for top staff rather than using the tube.
The cut was to prompt the BBC to shake up it's act and stop wasting money on non key areas not to look at start cutting vital services and TV channels.
But of course they are not allowed to cut them, as they were given the responsibility of funding them to do just this, reduce the amount of money they have, leading to cuts and channel closures.
Just as the Tory scum want. Services ran for the benefit of the public strangled to death, for the benefit of the pay alternatives.
First goes PSB TV, then goes the NHS, and then goes the free education, it will be pay for this, pay for that, pay for every bloody thing, if you can't afford it... Tough, do without.
Yes you have a very good point those services should be funded by BBC World Wide which in turn should be funded by subs and advertising in the countries it serves!
The World shouldn't freeload off UK TV licence payers!
Also S4C should be paid for by the Welsh parliament if they want it so bad, if they cant pay the bill then local TV there should pick up the tab, or an extra Welsh TV licence top up for S4C!
If the Welsh want it so bad they can pay for it, same with BBC Alba!
England doesnt have a service like this and we have to help fund the countries that do!
Sorry I sound so harsh, but that is the reality, if the BBC really have come to the point they have to close a TV channel!
It's got to the point where people seemingly think BBC staff should work for Minimum wage...
Everything you say here is true, bud sadly the BBC can do nothing about them, they are forced to fund these things, the reason starting to become more apparent with the expected closure of BBC Three, to cut the BBC without making it look politically driven.
Yes and the rich will get richer and the poor get poorer, oh look we have gone back 200-300 years in the country's mindset!
This had to stop before it gets out of control!!
Times have changed though, If you are abroad and desperately want to hear the BBC's often biased view on world events you can do so via the web.
The reason that The World Service was funded by The Foreign Office was so that someone like me couldn't pose this question? and I'm sure they will easily find £200.000 for Kate's frocks for the Australia tour?
I doubt that the average UK License fee payer even realizes that they are now funding a very expensive TV & Radio service for the rest of the world.
The current budget of £245m would easily enable the BBC to keep BBC3 running and could also fund a BBC5.
Why should our license fee be used in this way?
I know the already carry ads and some are sub channels, but I mean that no other funding allowed for those channels and that they have to pay for any UK content they use on those channels.
Unless they do a swap and provide new content back to the UK!
Well they could merge BBC News and BBC World News and provide UK content in the spaces that the rest of the world get adverts!
The same with world service with say 5Live or something and any other BBC WW channels to be funded by Subs and ads exclusively! no reliance on UK licence fee! Like I said above.
You maybe correct in that the demands for the cuts were politically motivated. I don't see how that is proven by the fact that the BBC have decided to cut the channel services. One might suggest that the BBC cutting the channel is also politically motived to put pressure on the government to raise its funding to potect the service. Who the heck really knows.
However that does not mean that the BBC was not wasting money. For example the salary of Director General Tony Hall is reported to be 450,000 a year with Danny Cohen getting 320,000.
To be clear this is the figures after they had taken pay cuts from the old managment staff. Prior to the cuts the Director General was taking home close to 750,000.
I dont' expect people to work for free and I know the Civil Service staff are just as bad. However the PM is only on 170,000. If you can run the country on that sort of figure do we need to pay someone to run the BBC near 1/2 a million ?
I use the salary just to highlight some of the waste that was going on at the BBC. It does not matter if it was the government pushing their views it was still the correct thing to do. The only shame is the government should also get their own house in order too.
I totally agree UK TV licence fee money is for UK viewers not foreign countries!
That comes from the royal lists its a different matter, the royals actually do an OK job of raising a fair amount of money themselves though opening royal palaces to the public!
It sounds like a maximum wage is a good idea! I know it should be the same as the PM then all companies and the civil service have to adapt to that meaning loads of people getting a big pay cut!
Also to top it off raise the minimum wage to £10 an hour and say that unless there is exceptional circumstances that people have to work 16 hours minimum!
That would shake the whole system up!
Just like will probably happen if Scotland were to go Independent.
The Foreign office pay for any new clothes that members of The Royal Family wear on tours abroad separately from any Royal Lists funding. The Prince's and princess's usually hit Saville Row and the designers big style!
The cash raised from opening Royal Palaces is generally used for their upkeep.
This is probably a here today/gone tomorrow administration (government). They are nasty of course, but also economically incompetent. The only reason people ever want a Conservative government is because they are supposed to sort out economic matters. If they actually make them worse...
I would hope that a future government bring World Service funding back under treasury responsibility.
And how much are the bosses of commercial broadcasters getting paid? Far more than the BBC pays. So the BBC are paying far less than their competitor broadcasters yet people still claim they are paying 'too much'. What do you expect them to do? Pay them minimum wage? That way you would get no one willing to do the job. Why do that job for little money when you can do the same job elsewhere for far more money.
Which is still considerably less than their comparable person in a commercial company was getting paid.
That 170,000 will be far below what he actually gets with his bonuses and endless supply of expenses.
Which is not waste at all. That is just what those who want to get rid of the BBC want you to think...
Times really have changed, I'd be a unhappy if the Foreign Office were still funding it! The service has long since passed it's usefulness
Well Ok thats good and thats what BBC WW Sub channels are about, but the services that are now going to be funded by LF money no thats just not right.
BBC WW and other forgen BBC serices should be entirely self funded seperate to UK TV LF money if they are to survive and if they make shows that will work for the UK then a swap for rights with UK made programs can be done ect.
It's only BBC World Service (radio) which is now funded by the licence fee.
However, BBC World television is NOT funded from the LF (it is a commercial subscription service sold overseas by BBC Worldwide, and as we know profits from BBC Worldwide are returned to the BBC to supplement the LF). Cutting it would be crass stupidity of the highest order.
politically motivated government is forcing license fee payers to underwrite our international broadcasting. in a very cynical and nasty move intended to destroy the bbc.
no other government does this including the usa.
all depends how you do the accounting.
the whole argument FOR merging different newsrooms was economic. not editorial.
Whereas gradually cutting the overall service (salami slicing) does tend to make people just blame the BBC...
So maybe the public will tend to blame government for the closure of BBC3
The World Service is accessible in the UK (on DAB, Digital TV, Online). It's an excellent antidote to much of the nonsense of modern media and provides an excellent service to people in the UK and around the world. It's already been damaged by cuts to its transmission and funding - any more would be really tragic.