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Every £1 of licence fee puts £2 into UK economy, Every £1 SKY sub puts 90p into UK...
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According to the guardian...
The BBC accounts for much of Britain's success in the creative industries, a prime example of national investment yielding rich returns. Every £1 of the licence fee puts £2 into the economy, in talent trained and nurtured, in independent companies commissioned, its own output rolling through the economy. Exports and sales deliver 20% of the BBC's income: 70m US homes buy BBC channels. But Sky is a net loss to the UK: for every £1 in Sky subscriptions, only 90p stays in the UK, the rest going to the parent company and Hollywood studios. Sky is essentially parasitic, not productive, for Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/02/maimed-bbc-parasitic-sky
The BBC accounts for much of Britain's success in the creative industries, a prime example of national investment yielding rich returns. Every £1 of the licence fee puts £2 into the economy, in talent trained and nurtured, in independent companies commissioned, its own output rolling through the economy. Exports and sales deliver 20% of the BBC's income: 70m US homes buy BBC channels. But Sky is a net loss to the UK: for every £1 in Sky subscriptions, only 90p stays in the UK, the rest going to the parent company and Hollywood studios. Sky is essentially parasitic, not productive, for Britain.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/02/maimed-bbc-parasitic-sky
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Of course I can guess a few people here will disagree....:rolleyes:
'Never forget that in 2011 Britain's broadcasting culture was only saved by a whisker. Days before Jeremy Hunt was about to hand the Murdochs complete control of BSkyB, the Guardian's revelations about phone-hacking stopped that in its tracks. Labour feared and fawned on Murdoch, but his influence reached its zenith when his own man, Andy Coulson, secured a place right in the heart of Cameron's Downing Street.
Gaining monopolistic control of Sky was only step one: next was abolition of impartiality laws for broadcasters. Fox News was on its way here, destined to poison the UK as it has US politics. Murdoch-friendly commentators were already softening up opinion, claiming Britain's fuddy-duddy neutral news was outdated in the age of the shouty internet. Dominating the press is not enough, the right would control broadcasting too. Cameron was up for it.'
Sorry alikhan, I know it wasn't entirely on topic, but it struck me a very important part of that piece
Very interesting and not unexpected.
I wonder what the comparable figures are for the Guardian compared with other newspapers, is it the Cayman Island where their money goes to?
Especially when you remember that Fox News went to court in the US and argued that they had the right to lie in their broadcasts, that they had no duty to be fair or truthful. :eek:
Having watched some Fox News I can say that there is no way I want anything like that on mainstream news in the UK. It has, imho, led to US politics becoming deeply divisive and confrontational to the detriment of the US.
The article should also have pointed out that Sky is already much bigger than the BBC in financial terms.
But not, it would seem, in terms of how much money they put into the UK economy...
One glaring mistake, BSkyB doesn't have a parent company it's a UK Plc.
True. Sky's big spending is movies (almost all Hollywood made), lots of US made TV series and sport rights (many overseas events).
The BBC has some overseas sporting events and some movies, though later aired FTA rights are probably way less than first run PPV and subscription rights, but most of its content is UK made either by the BBC itself or by UK indies.
Some "indies" are foreign owned but even in those cases the production is almost all UK based.
Parent Company.
A parent company is a company that owns enough voting stock in another firm to control management and operations by influencing or electing its board of directors; the second company being deemed as a subsidiary of the parent company.
In the UK it is generally held that an organisation holding a "controlling stake" in a company (a holding of over 51% of the stock) is in effect the de facto parent company of the firm, having overriding material influence over the held company's operations, even if no formal full takeover has been enacted. Once a full takeover or purchase is enacted, then the held company is seen to have ceased to operate as an independent entity and become a trading subsidiary of the purchasing company, which in turn becomes the parent company of the subsidiary. (A holding below 50% could be sufficient to give a parent company material influence if they are the largest individual shareholder or if they are placed in control of the running of the operation by non-operational shareholders.)
News Corp certainly consider Sky to be part of their company. If 40% shareholding, with no other shareholders anywhere close, is not "controlling" then by that argument Rupert Murdoch does not "control" News Corp.
Agreed, of all the things seeing Jeremy Hunt rolling over and having his belly tickled by Murdoch left a nasty taste in my mouth.
He's the CEO of News Corp.
CEO's report to, and are answerable to, the board and the shareholders.
No CEO can just do what he wants. He has to obey the shareholders or they can fire him.
As a life long Tory voter I was disgusted too. I expect the Conservative party to support Britain, not act in the interests of a foreign business just because they want the support of their newspapers.
Quite, i have voted Tory, and Labour and Liberal Democrat in my political life.
The sad thing is that it doesn't matter who i vote for they'll all do favours for the most powerful media barons if it means positive coverage.
This has been arrested, somewhat, by the phone hacking scandal, but i don't suppose it will be long before it starts happening again.:mad:
one department of the BBC (the news dept) has nearly 2000 staff why> and as such is wasteing publicv money for many years... Sky is owned by an american ex australian who basically has been conning and lieing his way and as such sky uk should lose there right of transmitting licence. remember they own fox in the usa and a number of newspapers and abuse "fair play". In my view the murdochs should face a court.
Sky is not owned by Rupert Murdoch!!
His family own a minority share of a company that owns a minority share of BSkyB.
Just remember every Sky hater on this forum no doubt owns a little bit of Sky themselves!!
Rupert isn't an "ex Australian", he kept his Australian citizenship when he got his US citizenship.
Secondly, why is it shocking that BBC News have 2000 staff? How many people do you think it should need to run a worldwide news organisation?
BBC News isn't just a few presenters who read stuff they found on Google. News is very labour intensive.
CNN has twice that number, for example.
Indeed, it's the same when the newspapers try to brainwash the public into thinking the BBC send too many staff to events.
Usually equivalent broadcasters send more!
I remember the Daily Mail having a fit because the BBC sent 600 staff to cover the Chinese Olympics, but failed to mention NBC sent 3000....
Or when they had a go at the BBC for using 250 staff to cover a three day music festival on a dozen stages when Sky can use 120 staff to cover one single two hour football match. Seems the BBC get far better value for money than their commercial competitors.
Sky buys Hollywood movies - shock, horror. :yawn:
And I'm sure that if the article said the BBC was bad value for the UK you be equally dismissive? :rolleyes:
As for "Non story" how about Bedsit Bob starting a thread to tell us that there are, shock horror, some homes and businesses that don't need or have TV licences.....
I think the point of his thread was the 3 million LLF addresses - a figure that has not been published before.
But why not ask him (not me) on that thread (not this one)? You guys need to learn some ettiquette.