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Jingo
Posts: 33 Forum Member
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http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/news/a296965/tv-licence-fee-boycott-over-s4cs-future.html
100 people will with hold their licence fees - that's probably the entire viewing audience given that 25% of the programmes have zero viewers.
100 people will with hold their licence fees - that's probably the entire viewing audience given that 25% of the programmes have zero viewers.
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Does anyone know?
I think they are all being profoundly stupid and confrontational.
For starters, S4C will now be better looked after being operated by the BBC (which provides a lot of the Welsh-language S4C programmes anyway) than it ever would being as a stand alone channel directly at the mercy of some philistine Tory culture minister (bit of an oxymoron there!).
If they want to get their voice heard then what's needed is professional lobbying directed at the BBC management and BBC Trust to get their case across and not some juvenile public tantrum - doh!
PS I sincerely hope these delinquents are fully prosecuted.
The BARB ratings also show that out of 228 channels that registered enough viewers to actually be worthwhile considering, S4C was the 69th most watched, ahead of the likes of ESPN and Home (UKTV). Not too bad, when you consider it's aimed at a tiny minority of the population in comparison.
Not that it's got anything to do with this anyway - this is about the BBC taking over funding and cutting S4C's budget. Something which I guess was inevitable in the current climate, but given S4C's very low overheads will soon cut back programming.
Sure there's a gravy train, but not as much as you might think. S4C spent 83% of it's old £100million/year budget directly on programming. On top of that, there's transmission and carriage which are essentials.
Sure those at the top are paid too much, as with every body it seems, public and private, but your average S4C employee isn't getting more than they should.
(Having seen the quality of some of the programmes they should be holding their licence fee back on principal already)
I seem to recall S4C being called the most heavily subsidised channel per viewer in the world.
Actually that's appalling given the level of public funding it's given.
Yes S4C is supposed to be the most expensive television channel in the world per capita of people in Wales. Most of its finance comes from licence payers outside Wales who presumably have no interest in its programmes because they don't speak the language.It also suffers from the fact most viewers in north Wales tune to services from Winter Hill in preference to home-grown products.
I fully support the idea of a Welsh-medium TV service and there'll regrettably have to be some efficiencies as BBC aren't getting a licence fee rise for the next few years. However, the station will continue to exist to provide a service to the hundreds of thousands of native Welsh speakers.
That said, Welsh Language Society's actions are decidedly unhelpful and counterproductive and they just paint themselves as extreme loons by these ill-considered actions.
perhaps one or more of the extreme members
That was the viewpoint I was trying to get across in my post - I understand the cuts and restructuring have to be made, although it will probably hurt the programming. Cymdeithas' position is unreasonable, as unfortunately it often is.
Actually Neil it would great to get your views on this.
One member of the other organization (Meibion Glyndŵr) was convicted for something other than the arson attacks, but as far as I know isn't associated with Cymdeithas yr Iaith (the Welsh Language Society). As no-one was ever convicted of the arson, it's hard to tell if they're involved with Cymdeithas today, but a lot of Cymdeithas' members are younger people - too young to have been involved in the 80s campaign.
What programmes were these? On what grounds was the quality awful - content, technical?
Otherwise that's a sweeping statement that could be applied to any channel in the country.
actually Jack, Ive just given it
Or do you mean boycotting license fee paying. Not for the proposed cuts, no. Personally speaking
Im more intrigued however about how you equate doing something that you cite as 'not illegal' and yet how 'the full force of the law should be used when dealing with them'.
They are either doing something ilegal or they arent
That is a genuine typo, they are illegal.
I will be interested to see updated figures taken after the digital switchover. Remember that most of Wales didn't have Channel 4 as they had to have S4C.
They were October 2010 figures, six months after DSO was completed in Wales.
Certainly not true about being bad technically. AIUI S4C has the most HD content of any channel in the UK.
Didnt seem like a typo Jack, as you elaborated above. But thanks for clarifying in your last post.
The point has been made again and again that the "zero figures" argument includes their pre-school children's strand which is on for 6 hours a day out of approx 18 broadcast hours.
BARB doesn't count viewers under the age of 3(?ish), so it's no wonder these programmes have "zero" viewers on paper.