So he does.
He makes the mistake of assuming jjimm will read all of his post, the fool.
No, a public service is one which would not otherwise be provided by the market. Fame Academy is just a rip-off of Pop Idol and Big Brother.
Not about the medium, but rather the product. The BBC raises the game of everyone competing with it in the market of News and Current Affairs product - and not just within the UK.
The financial model doesn’t work – at least the whole developed world excluding the US thinks it doesn’t work (see last post); How do you plan productions and budgets years in advance when income levels are unknown, you end up with low income serving only the constituency that actually pays, you end up with - may God save us - something like the US PBS, because, because, because . . does anyone actually think about this subject or does it all boil down to £10.00 a month ?
Also, you don’t think politicians – including the anti-BBC Thatcher Governments – would have changed the BBC financial model (at any point in the past, say, 40 years) to make political capital had it made any kind of sense to do so ?
Fact: Changing the fundamentals of the financial model doesn’t make sense to political parties of all or any persuasion.
Btw, people do understand that, one way or another, we pay for absolutely everything we receive through broadcasting, no matter who the broadcaster and even if it is “free to air” ?
Because it’a supposed to serve all the public – that doesn’t mean ‘variety shows’ that everyone can watch and get equally bored with, but rather particular programmes targeted at particular sections of public; like Top of the Pops, Newsnight and a dedicated kids channel.
Does *Fame Academy * reach its targeted demographic - I have no idea what it is or whether it does ?
Hey, I concede that I’m the minority in being opposed to a mandatory licence fee, and the system is unlikely to change any time soon. But ten years from now, when almost everybody has digital telly, and we’ll all be watching video streamed across the internet… the licence fee is going to get harder and harder to justify. Fair point about the problems of uncertain income, but HBO and other subscription channels seem to get by. Also is PBS that bad? I really don’t know, looks OK judging by the TV Guide. Any Yanks care to comment?
This is all getting a bit GD for the Pit, isn’t it?
Oh shut the fuck up.
Okay, lets talk about it in ten years cos I won’t know what I’ll think about it until it happens.
Why not ask the Americans how the (one channel) PBS News and Current Affairs compares with the ( ix, seven, eight ? channel) BBC - in other words, what exactly are you comparing and how are you measuring the comparison, per market demographic, maybe . . . ?
Thats because they have less of a product to create.
funding one TV channel is easier (so to speak) than many channels on TV, radio and web.
Hi London_calling. Thanks for all the stuff about about ‘prejudice’, ‘ignorance’ and ‘utter nonsense’. I know you’re capable of better.
Look, my point is a very simple one. The deal the BBC has with us, the British public, runs like this:
-
you HAVE to pay us the telly tax even though you have never voted for it or been asked about it
-
you HAVE to pay for our services even if you don’t like, want or need them, and would be quite happy to see the BBC vanish tomorrow
-
you HAVE to pay us for our services one year in advance
-
you get NO say in how we spend the money, and in fact at the time you pay (a year in advance) you have no idea what it is you’re paying for or how we’ll spend the money. For all you know, we could be planning three more series of Robot Wars.
-
you get NO redress if you don’t like what we spend the money on, no refunds, no credits, no nothing. If, in your view, we are serving up unmitigated crap, then tough. You still have to pay for it
-
if we want to waste it we can, and there’s nothing you can do to find out how much we’ve wasted, or to stop us
My point is that I believe it is unfair, wrong, anachronistic and unnecessary for any entity to be able to levy a tax in this way. You disagree. That’s fine. We have different points of view. I’m cool with that, and I don’t see why you aren’t. It doesn’t matter in the slightest what I think or what you think, and it isn’t going to change anything or harm the BBC in any way. So why the invective and abuse? Why the need to reach for terms like ‘prejudice’ and ‘ignorance’ and ‘utter nonsense’? We just have different opinions.
My two minor points are that (a) it is unnecessary - the BBC can function perfectly well as a commercial organisation if it wants to and (b) it is a recipe for outrageous wastage, which I’ve seen first-hand.
We both know it is funded through advertising, marketing, merchandising and other ways of exploiting its production facilities and intellectual and creative assets.
The commercial TV companies operate in a free market, and are answerable to their customers and shareholders. BBC doesn’t and isn’t.
They (the commercial operations) have to compete successfully to survive, and part of ths means competing efficiently (avoiding wastage). BBC doesn’t need to be concerned about wasting money because of the telly tax, which is there whether they produce ambrosia or garbage.
I have a choice whether I support any of the companies that advertise their products on ITV. (In fact I neither watch the ads nor care who is advertising what, and never base my purchases on TV ads). I have to pay the BBC whether I want to or not.
They do not ask me to pay a lump sum payment in advance. BBC does.
They do not enforce payment by the threat of a hefty fine or imprisonment. The licence fee is thus enforced.
That’s enough differences for now, and I think the commercial option is more equitable. You don’t. S’okay, we disagree. So what?
Has nothing to do with my point. My point pertains not to how high or low the licence fee is, but whether it should be there at all.
Again, nothing to do with my point. My point is not about whether it represents good value for money, but whether it is right and fair that it exists at all.
A footnote for you.
You are quite right to suggest there are lots of things I don’t know much about. Apart from occasional lapses (I’m human) these are the subjects I don’t talk about much. I prefer to listen to people who know more than I do - I might learn a thing or two. However, as it happens, I probably do know at least a little bit more than the average person about the British TV industry in general and the BBC in particular. I’ve made TV progs professionally. I’ve appeared on all five of the terrestrial channels and Sky and several other cable/sat channels, and I’ve known and worked with a great many producers in both the commercial and state-funded sectors. I’ve been party to several productions from initial scribbles to pilot and series, both BBC and ITV. What’s more, I know many actors, entertainers and performers (famous and non-famous) whose own TV experience amplifies my own. My conclusion is that the way the BBC is funded is unfair and unnecessary, and that the BBC wastes more money than the others because it can. That’s my view.
I know that the above opens me up to the rather lazy criticism of hypocrisy, seeing as how I’ve been paid for participating in some BBC productions. But it isn’t really as hypocritical as you might want to make it sound. I sincerely believe what I’ve said about the BBC’s funding. But given that the licence fee IS there, and I can’t change it, I’ve had no qualms about occasionally earning back a fraction of the money I’ve put IN over the years.
Do you Brits have anything like THE HISTORY CHANNEL (THC)? I call it the HITLER CHANNEL-it is basically all Hitler, all the time! It is basically cheaply-made WWII documentaries, narrated by unknown history wonks…the formula is always the same…show grainey film footage of the german invasion of Poland, complete with Stukas dive-bombing helpless refugees…
Part of the reason I dropped cable…120 channels of crap like this!
Isn’t the phrase “take a long walk ON a short pier?” If it were “take a long walk OFF a short pier”, then you really wouldn’t need to take a long walk. You could take a short walk OFF a short pier and have the same effect. It is a long walk ON a short pier which would result in a surprise wetting.
Yes, but check out “Curb Your Enthusiasm”, or “Crankyankers”, or “Newlyweds” with Nick Lachey and Jessica Simpson. You’ll be back.
I had never really thought about this saying before, but it is always said as ‘long walk OFF a short pier’. I kind of took it to mean that you walk off the end of the short pier and carry on walking until you are far out to sea and dead…but then again i’ve never really analized it. Saying ‘long walk ON a short pier’ could imply that you just walk around for a long time on the pier but remain on it. Man, analyzing phrases is bizarre…
When I say ‘it is always said’ I mean in the UK.
In my most recent post, when I said “For all you know, we could be planning three more series of Robot Wars” I didn’t actually mean ‘Robot Wars’, which at the moment isn’t even a BBC show. I meant to refer to ‘Fightbox’ (computer generated figures fighting each other) which has been less than rapturously well-received by the viewing public.