The future of the BBC

[Si Hunt]

Si, I hope you're not cross with me over the bike thread! I thought about the point you made about the admin not making it worth doing and I finished up agreeing with you.

Meanwhile...

BBC To Charge For iPlayer

Hurrah!

I put the link in there, lest you think I just jumped on a headline in order to distort my point.

I get the point about people getting BBC output for free, but how they jump from this to proposing to charge a subscription or more money to EXISTING license-payers is beyond me. Sounds like another rip-off to make us pay for the same thing twice.

Si.

[SiHart]

No I'm not cross. I was trying to be funny! It didn't work.

The stuff about charging for iPlayer is sintersting. The Daily Mail, along with the Tories are gojng a real hate rant against the BBC at the moment, particularly from the point of view of its money making sides. On the face of it, I think they're putting up this story to make sure that there is more opposition to the idea of the BBC making money against poor-old-cash-strapped-ITV. The Daily Mail always has an agenda to follow, that's why it's the UK's most hateful and hate-filled paper.
However, it was ex-BBC employee Lorraine Heggessy who suggested the idea in the first place. Oddly enough when she worked for the BBC she was the one who championed a free i-player system on the website, but now she's working for commercial TV she's demanding a pay-per-view system. It's so hypocritical. But then that's how the politics of these things work. You say what's expedient for the moment, not necessarily what you believe.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

The thing is the UK is about to go digital. Everyone will have access to about up to 60 channels from FREEVIEW.

All free to watch.

Except for about 4, which you are MADE to pay £140 a year from. With the switch to digital, surely it's time people had the choice - those who want to pay the license fee get BBC channels. People who don't want channels like Sky One, or Cartoon Network don't pay for them.

Surely it's time everyone was allowed to make that choice over the BBC?

[SiHart]

Spun off from discussions in the Credit Crunch thread, because I feel this is a separate and probably very good topic of debate.

Si xx

[WhiteCrowNZ]

It's interesting to have read this. In NZ of course TV is free but every channel has ads. And ads put in probably the worst places. Literally you come back from the ads and it's credits sometimes!

Obviously in NZ we can't use the iPlayer. If we were allowed to use it if we paid for it - that would be so tempting, esp with Doctor Who.

But as I said the world has moved on from the days of 2/3/4 channels. There's technology now to allow people to turn on/off channels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence

It's ironic with all the talk of digital, turning the licence fee optional has never happened. In recent years the BBC has been ramping up the number of channels and the price of the fee as well, without any consultation. It was only recent Government measures where it got capped.

[Si Hunt]

Maybe it's time we asked the question "would a BBC with advertising be THAT bad?" and actually thought about it.

Because when asked this, people automatically imagine a BBC with ITV style add breaks (i.e regular 15 minute intervals of crass jingles and patronising skits featuring decades-behind-the-times nuclear families jauntily using various products - you're a hapless man, and even YOU can wash up now!). But why should it be like that? One thing to consider is that the BBC is NOT advert free - it advertises its own output so much that often, the between programmes breaks is not that much different to on ITV. But because the ads are, in line with the rest of the channel, presented in dignified, reserved BBC fashion, no-one notices. "Adverts" has become synonamous with "ITV Adverts", which are only slightly better than awful tacky US commercials.

Why not let BBC advertise a bit? It could be done. We wouldn't neccessarily have to have loud exerts of Barry Scott shouting "Bang! And the dirt is gone!" at us. Perhaps just allow companies to sponsor all the programmes, like they do with "Coronation Street"? I.e a subtle, subdued banner before each show. Now they've got rid of the dreadful Cadburys trails, the current Harveys Furniture intros to the show are gentle, amusing and would not be out of place or offensive on the BBC. Or just have the BBC announcements each sponsored by a different logo?

Alas, even this wouldn't give us "choice" - for years people nievely thought that if it wasn't for the BBC we'd get free telly! I.e the not having the license fee would allow us to "opt" not to have ITV and only get the good channel. But the current times of freeview "packages" mean we are moving towards paying for everything anyway, and getting whatever they choose to put in each bundle. We pay a monthly fee to get Virgin Digital, and we get with that whatever programs they put in the package - if we paid more for the next biggest package, we'd get more channels, but there's no option to dump the ones we don't want and pay less.

Si.

[SiHart]

I wonder, though, if the BBC could survive through advertising revenues and provide the same level of service it does now? You only have to look at how ITV is struggling at the moment to see that funding through advertising doesn't always work so well. Possibly less so if the advertisers have to consider which TV stations they're going to pay to advertise on.

Like it or not, I think the licence is here to stay. And I don't mind that. The bulk of TV we actually watch at home is BBC based (between BBC One and the marvellous BBC 4). Maybe the BBC could go down the route of having pay-per-view channels full of archive TV and stuff... I'd pay for that. But I think the bulk of the channel should be paid for by the Licence Fee. Perhaps though there should be more thought about what the BBC is for and what they should be offering?

Perhaps we should also debate ITV? Should they be receiving licence fee money to continue to provide their regional news? It's in their charter that they shouild provide it, so surely they should be finding ways of making it viable rather than complaining about what the BBC has gived to it? I mean after all, it's something they've always ahd to provide, so they should know what the overheads are...

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

The license fee is actually very cheap when you think what you get - £12 a month. I know you only get one channel, but it's probably better than 90% of channels on Satelite which is £30 a month. But like the cost of stamps, the level has been set so we've been conditioned to get outraged whenever it goes up. The license fee would be good value if it was twice the cost, and stamps would be good value if it cost £2 to send a letter all the way round the country by hand delivery.

Si.

[Captain Tancredi]

Part of the problem is that the BBC keeps having things other than programme-making (like internet and digital TV take-up) foisted on it by the Government and then taken away if they start to threaten its commercial competitors. The way around the massive start-up costs is through its guaranteed revenue stream.

The arguments that whichever Murdoch scion came out with the other week were persuasive up to a point- the British TV market is skewed towards a state-supported broadcaster and commercial competitors dependent on advertising struggle to make a dent in the marketplace. It's no wonder that several have come a cropper banking on football because you need ratings to get a foot in the door, and one-offs like European football are a way in. Personally I think things changed once the licence fee went over the psychological threshold of £100 and people started to look much more closely at what we get for our money. Accountability is not something the BBC has ever done well, though- but it's going to have to because I can see a head of steam building.

[Lissa]

The thing about the BBC is that it is a two way street - for all the apparent freedom that the licence fee gives the Beeb, they have rules and regulations that stop them doing things that their commercial rivals can do. The BBC is held to a higher standard and is expected to be whiter than white (except on ethnic matters) at all times. Everything they do is scrutinised because we're paying for it and we expect them to behave like the BBC.

A BBC with advertising wouldn't help anyone. There is a finite amount of advertising money and if the BBC start taking a hefty chunk then the commercial sector is in trouble. It can't be in ITV's interest - or Sky's interests for that matter - to have the BBC competing with them in the marketplace.

As for the iPlayer, the iPlayer has single-handedly driven video on demand in the UK and every pound ITV, Channel 4 et al see in their VOD future is down to the BBC's efforts in getting people used to catch-up viewing. With the threat from advert-skipping on DVRs, video on demand is going to be a key revenue source and trying to kill the iPlayer (because charging people iTunes level prices to watch last night's telly is not going to work) at this time isn't going to help anyone. There is an argument for charging for archive content or programmes outside a 30 day window but the iPlayer is driving video on demand right now and it has to be free for people to keep on using it.

ITV should stop blaming the BBC for their own problems. ITV made a huge mistake in becoming one huge company instead of a network of local companies and it is biting them on the ass. Their greed - not unfair competition - is at the heart of their troubles. And Sky are just angry that OFCOM are going to clobber them and are hitting out at an easy target.

Simple fact - if we get rid of the BBC, we'll never get it back. You simply couldn't create something like that today. It would be like President Obama trying to introduce the NHS in America.

[SiHart]

I agree with Lissa.
That's an excellent argument and far more erudite than I could manage this morning.

Si xx

[Captain Tancredi]

Probably worth remembering that if I remember my history rightly, the BBC started life itself as a private commercial broadcaster which failed and went cap in hand to the government of the day, who realised that if they let it go bust, broadcasting in this country would fall at the first hurdle and might never recover from the setback.

Personally I suspect that politicians find it very convenient to have a national broadcaster with a public service remit, if for no other reason than that it guarantees them airtime, and that's part of the reason why the political will isn't there.