Originally Posted by Antbox:
“Indeed. Just as the BBC's contract with Love for GBBO had expired, and the BBC would not agree reasonable terms for a renewal. The BBC were failing to provide the investment in the show that is necessary for such a massively popular show to have the production resources it needs. Despite a full year of negotiations, the BBC would not budge from their massively misguided position that GBBO was a "factual" show and that - being factual - it would never be given as high a budget as the BBC gives to entertainment shows. Something which is in itself quite disgraceful and highlights how the supposed Public Service ethos of the BBC has been all but abandoned in favour of unchallenging, easy ratings-grabbing nonsense.
This is the real reason why those with vested interests are trying so hard to spin this discussion as being about 'loyalty' and 'greed' - to cover up the BBC's entirely broken system of management and its callous disregard of the value of, and failure to invest in, factual programming - the most important genre of programming and one which should be absolutely core to the BBC's values.
Remember, very little of that production budget is profit. If the BBC internally lobbied for a £10m a year increase in the money allocated to EastEnders, that money doesn't go in the producers' pockets - it gets spent on the shows and seen on the screen. The same applies to GBBO. To pretend that it's about "greed" is wilfully dishonest, and no less than would be expected of the posters on here who think the BBC can do no wrong. (It does a lot of good, true, but it has some serious problems as well.)
It's a long-held view that the quality of the show "on the screen" is directly proportional to how much money is spent on it. Love Productions may well have thought that the BBC was limiting their show's success by refusing to invest adequately in it. To say nothing of the staff and talent who worked on the show. I would expect that Love probably had a real job on their hands having to explain to everyone who gave their all to the show that they'd continue to be paid a "tiny 2 million BBC2 show" fee for their work on the biggest show on BBC1 and British Television as a whole. There comes a point when you realise you're being taken for a ride.
Why was Mel (or was it Sue) actually already thinking about leaving the series anyway, before this all blew up? Because of long hours and a punishing production schedule - exactly what happens when production budgets are tight and the channel fails to invest in a show, and its staff.
So Kudos to Love for taking the risk and doing the right thing - no matter how much it may upset Ash personally.
”
“Indeed. Just as the BBC's contract with Love for GBBO had expired, and the BBC would not agree reasonable terms for a renewal. The BBC were failing to provide the investment in the show that is necessary for such a massively popular show to have the production resources it needs. Despite a full year of negotiations, the BBC would not budge from their massively misguided position that GBBO was a "factual" show and that - being factual - it would never be given as high a budget as the BBC gives to entertainment shows. Something which is in itself quite disgraceful and highlights how the supposed Public Service ethos of the BBC has been all but abandoned in favour of unchallenging, easy ratings-grabbing nonsense.
This is the real reason why those with vested interests are trying so hard to spin this discussion as being about 'loyalty' and 'greed' - to cover up the BBC's entirely broken system of management and its callous disregard of the value of, and failure to invest in, factual programming - the most important genre of programming and one which should be absolutely core to the BBC's values.
Remember, very little of that production budget is profit. If the BBC internally lobbied for a £10m a year increase in the money allocated to EastEnders, that money doesn't go in the producers' pockets - it gets spent on the shows and seen on the screen. The same applies to GBBO. To pretend that it's about "greed" is wilfully dishonest, and no less than would be expected of the posters on here who think the BBC can do no wrong. (It does a lot of good, true, but it has some serious problems as well.)
It's a long-held view that the quality of the show "on the screen" is directly proportional to how much money is spent on it. Love Productions may well have thought that the BBC was limiting their show's success by refusing to invest adequately in it. To say nothing of the staff and talent who worked on the show. I would expect that Love probably had a real job on their hands having to explain to everyone who gave their all to the show that they'd continue to be paid a "tiny 2 million BBC2 show" fee for their work on the biggest show on BBC1 and British Television as a whole. There comes a point when you realise you're being taken for a ride.
Why was Mel (or was it Sue) actually already thinking about leaving the series anyway, before this all blew up? Because of long hours and a punishing production schedule - exactly what happens when production budgets are tight and the channel fails to invest in a show, and its staff.
So Kudos to Love for taking the risk and doing the right thing - no matter how much it may upset Ash personally.
”
Can you explain what exactly has happened that Love needed to go from £5 mill (which is what the BBC were paying) to £25 mill per season in order to keep staff and promote the show ? Were they intending to film all year round so the staff had less hours to work, were Mel and Sue going to be carried around by A list celebs decked out in diamonds ?
The BBC offered them a 200% increase to £15mill so please explain how that was paltry and not enough to do the show properly ? and have we heard how all the staff are getting lots more money due to the £25 mill C4 will pay per year ? seeing who owns the majority of Love I doubt it somehow.
As for punishing schedule, two 12 hour filming shifts is one episode and 10 weeks is a series. How many normal people do 12 hour shifts as the norm and are they demanding 400% pay increases? Where does it state either one of them were considering quitting ? I mean if that were the case surely they would have used that to demand more money and less hours with C4 rather than both stating they wanted it to remain on the BBC




