I’ve been around a bit over the years and I’m yet to find anything close to the BBC for quality and content.
Great value IMO

Has anyone an example of a country that has a better system resulting in better TV and radio?

The technology is there to make it pay per view/encrypted, if its as good as everyone on here thinks it would soon recoup its money and more.
You could also setup up ‘bundles’ so people could pay for the services they actually want to use as opposed to subsidizing content they don’t, my point being that the BBC is probably got to bloated in terms of content, how many TV channels does it actually need, I would say 2 were sufficient to cover a wide base of interests?
Ensuring that minority interests are covered could still fall in that scope, I mean with iPlayer content is generally available 24/7 so doesn’t have to have dedicated channel just for specific content.
Using pay services would also mean that those who currently get it free (i.e. Ireland, parts of Europe etc) could also contribute to its coffers.
With the change in how people now watch TV it would make sense to attempt to commercialize the on-line aspects, in fact it would be interesting to see the breakdown in how the BBC gets its money i.e. general license fee against on-line/overseas sales?
For better examples, people make the US TV but in the last 10-15 years its drama and comedy output has far outweighed the UK’s (sad to say).

There is some great US TV

The down side with watching it in the US is the almost continuos ‘male erectile problem’ adverts that show every 10 minutes.

I’m another firmly in the ‘cherish it’ camp.

I do wonder if they should just concentrate on national broadcast services though, and leave any regional broadcast TV and radio to the commercial stations. I’m sure it’s a considerable expense and for most (sweeping assumption) people it’s becoming less and less needed/valued.

Can we open this thread up to give some thought to what YOU would change or cut or indeed improve..

I’ll start..

Pull out of Salford. I’m sick of all this Northern Bias 😆 Everyone they interview these days is either from Sheffield or Liverpool or Manchester.
Bring in regional Dialect interpretors 😆
Pull BBC 3 (I know it’s for the chop) and make the Head of BBC at the time of it’s inception pay back all the wasted money *cough* invested in what is a crap channel.
Get rid of that “sports” bloke on BBC News Mike Bushell (It’s all about ME! don’t you know) 🙄
Cut BBC Local News. It’s Ok folks I don;t really want to know about traffic jams nor how many Bus drivers we “need”
Make Radio 1 subscription and Internet only.
Get rid of Steve “it’s also all about ME!” Wright off Radio 2 and his cronies,
All the support crew and producers that manage the above and I reckon I’ve saved about £14bn.

😀

Yeah, lets privatise the BBC! After all its worked out so well with utilities/trains/care/prisons/hospitals/royal mail. Oh…

What the BBC does that subscription channels don’t, is provide huge breadth. Take away the license fee and the range of output will drop dramatically.

More importantly, once you privatise the BBC you can’t go back. It’s not like a rail franchise you can take back after the contract ends. We can’t do that to future generations.

Stoner – Member
It’s the single most regressive tax in the UK. There’s nothing else like it.

The lottery is worse.

if its as good as everyone on here thinks it would soon recoup its money and more.

No it wont it will clearly lose money if it is subscription/fee based and there is no method to subscribe to a radio station for example* . Digital TV was essentially bankrolled by the Beeb when the commercial sector failed for example and they were heavily involved in digital roll out.
Some things need to be state provided to deliver scope and “social goals” as the private sector only deliver what it can make money from- ie operates only for the benefit of its shareholders not stakeholders. The funding method gives it scope to deliver things the commercial sector cannot.
I also never knew how many of you right wing folk here were so committed to redistributive taxation and fairness. Commendable 😉

I would not object to it being funded by direct taxation to remove the regressive nature of the flat rate fee but i doubt that is what was meant

* I think its nature also keeps wages down – i know some are very high- but some of the BBC top stars could earn more if they moved to commercial stations but they stay because they care and /or prestige.

scotroutes – Member
If we really want some form of Public Service Broadcasting then it should be fully costed, fully funded and farmed out via competitive tender.

Northwind
Why?

scotroutes – Member
Because some folk think Public Service Broadcasting is still a thing. Personally, I reckon it reached a peak with the Green Cross Code man and has never got back even to the dizzy heights of the Royal Observer Corps ads.
I’m sure that even the most avid TV watcher/radio listener doesn’t need umpteen channels of PSB at a cost of £4.7Bn per year.

You know, I had interpreted Northwind as asking why Public Service Broadcasting should be put out to tender, not why Public Service Broadcasting should be a thing.

You know, I had interpreted Northwind as asking why Public Service Broadcasting should be put out to tender, not why Public Service Broadcasting should be a thing.

And the irony being that it already is put out to tender.

I can’t remeber what the %s are but a significant proportion of BBC programming is made by the private sector and BBC production units have to compete with their private rivals for a lot of stuff.

The BBC do do stuff in house but like every other channel that shows original programming they are primarily a commisioning body. It’s just the shows they commision are done purely on a ROI basis like a comercial channel.

Spot the difference between the recent BBC and C4 coverage around diet and weight loss. The BBC covered and important scientific study that shows different people respond to diets in a different way, followed it up with an online story and tool for you to use. C4 just roll out endless “point and laugh” at the fatties programs where they came up with the name of the show before the content.

Laughing at fatties can be entertaining but it isn’t in a publlic service.

The BBC should move towards the Netflix/Amazon type of subscription service.

rene59 – Member
The BBC should move towards the Netflix/Amazon type of subscription service.

Any reasoning? As new and shiny as the netflix/amazon service is how does it provide a public service? How does it provide minority interest programs, cater for low demand?

Pay to View leads to populist offerings.

Almost everything they offer are repeats/shows done elsewhere with almost zero commissioning….is sky not the same [ aware they have recently done some new stuff]
Not sure how another one helps tbh.

mikewsmith – Member

Pay to View leads to populist offerings.

While I don’t disagree with your general point, tell this to HBO.

How will I get my fix of Family Guy and American Dad?

online as they are pulling it [ both good shows IMHO]

I would quite happily pay the whole fee for R4 alone. If I had to listen to a station with adverts my bike wouldn’t get any work done on it.

£12 a month to be able to switch the radio on any time and listen to advert free music, a steady stream of worth watching programmes, access to iplayer and so on.

That’ll do me.

i think the BBC is mostly great.

i’m in Germany. radio is generally proper shite here. there is some decent tv broadcasting, but by and large it is mostly regurgitated/rehashed versions of British shows. here we have “deutschland sucht das supertalent” (BGT), “Hölle der Löwen” (Dragons Den), “wohnzimmer helden” (Gogglebox), “Firmen Retter” (like Polizzi/Fixer).

they show quite a few of BBC wildlife stuff here. i’ll watch it thinking “i’ve seen this before” and then as the credits roll see that it was a BBC production, just very heavily edited. i remember there being a big hoo-har about a wildlife programme. maybe it was Africa, but was a whole series condensed into a 2 hour programme.

(strangely, i recently saw a poster for a 2 hour show, along with live orchestra, for the Life Stories series….. Life Stories… a 6 or 7 part series condensed into 2 hours with a live orchestra…. odd, IMO)

even the GF chooses to watch UK output over German stuff.

if i could, i would happily pay to watch the BBC here in Germany. as it is i watch it online via some trickery.

i think that the majority of what the BBC puts on TV is crap. cheap tv filler.

i remember reading something saying that TV should be for the betterment, benefit and education of the masses.

lose BBC3. it’s crap. show Family Guy on one of the other channels if you must. no one needs Snog, Marry, Avoid or any of the other crap on there. cannot remmeber tha last time i watched something on BBC3.
stop sending camera crews to auctions, be that house auctions or who-the-****-is-going-to-buy-that-shite auctions.
get rid of any presenters that use yoot speak – this goes for radio, too, so that is most of the R1 presenters out of a job.
ban the BBC from doing any kind of cheap “reality” tv. this includes Fannying About on Ice, Strictly Can’t Dance, Noise (think it’s the Voice i’m thinking of… and on that note, don’t give Will I Am (what a chunt… his name is William – you clever funny funk. ****) any more air time). why compete on that level? leave that sort of LCD* programming to ITV/C4.

more documentaries, even if it is stuff like that (incredibly tedious) Tying a Fly prog that was on BBC4 recently. i don’t mind fly-on-the-wall type stuff, just prefer it if the BBC left the point-and-larf stuff to C4 (someone picked up on that earlier).

more original comedy (Detectorists, Office etc). please note that dressing a guy up as a woman, ala Mrs Brown’s Boys, does not make something funny.

no day-time soaps. Doctors or WPC 56, for example. never watched it, never will.

kill Eastenders. it offers nothing other than LCD, dregs viewing.

*LCD… lowest common denominator

So once again, get rid of everything you don’t watch (but millions do)?

I have no interest in BBC West Midlands – the BBC could save money by getting rid of it.

get rid of any presenters that use yoot speak – this goes for radio, too, so that is most of the R1 presenters out of a job.

So isolate any young people and tell them that the must speakath the royal majesty’s finest English, to be honest anyone moving on from Shakespeare or Chaucer is speaking yoof english…

new figures from TV Licensing reveal today that over 28,000 homes across the UK are still enjoying their programmes in black and white.

A colour TV Licence currently costs £145.50. A black and white TV Licence currently costs £49.00.

just throwing that in there

to be honest anyone moving on from Shakespeare or Chaucer is speaking yoof english…

Verily. you say it wearies you, It wearies me

u no wot i mene, blud. get me?

and yeah, get rid of regional stuff. don’t know what it costs to run BBC Midlands, BBC East etc, but i always used to turn off or switch over when the regional news came on.

ban the BBC from doing any kind of cheap “reality” tv. this includes Fannying About on Ice, Strictly Can’t Dance, Noise (think it’s the Voice i’m thinking of… and on that note, don’t give Will I Am (what a chunt… his name is William – you clever funny funk. ****) any more air time). why compete on that level? leave that sort of LCD* programming to ITV/C4.

That’s probably the only thing in your list I agree with. This category is already well covered on other channels.

The BBC do a lot of rubbish day time tv, yes it’s mostly crap, but I bet it’s pretty cheap to make and gives retired folk and other stay at home types something to watch. I wouldn’t be too fussed if they didn’t broadcast after 9am and before 5pm, but I bet there’s an audience that would be upset.

Bring back the test card. Hours of cheap tv

rene59 – Member
The BBC should move towards the Netflix/Amazon type of subscription service.

That presupposes that everyone with a TV has the means to do so. How do you propose that it’s rolled out to the entire country?

get rid of the TV licence! it should be funded by subscription by the people who WANT the bbc, just like those who want sky or virgin, its simple basic commerce.
if you don’t want it then don’t buy it.

Scrap it, either let them advertise or make it a subscription service.

I am more than happy to pay the licence fee for the quality of programming the BBC produces & the lack of adverts.

I watch the BBC daily, listen to BBC radio daily, all other TV channels are inferior.

the You should pay for it by Subscription! I on the other hand really don’t like their threatening letters of £1000 fines (unlawful) or jail.
buy it if you want it and don’t if you don’t! there should be NO force or threats.

Yay for commerce – we should do everything that way. TV, trains, water, post, doctors…

So do you watch live TV or not? If you do then you should be paying, which stops the letters, if you don’t then tell them which also stops the letters.

and report them as its unlawful

You cannot have subscription radio services you can have the BBC or commercial services.
you wont like this either

The BBC World Service is the world’s largest international broadcaster,[1][2] broadcasting news, speech and discussions in 28 languages[3] to many parts of the world on analogue and digital shortwave platforms, internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. The World Service was reported to have reached 188 million people a week on average in June 2009.[4] It does not carry advertising, and the English language service broadcasts 24 hours a day.

Impartial news to the world..its comendable

I don’t have a TV and ive tried all that telling them crap, but the letters start again soon after, so I say Again, buy it if you want it!
don’t make Everyone else pay for what You want tho, Fair I think.

issuance of fine Without due process IS unlawful.

then the fine will be unenforceable as its unlawful

don’t make Everyone else pay for what You want tho, Fair I think.

Have you noticed how this website is not free and some folk pay Singletrack and some dont…guess which side you are on whilst telling us all how unfair it is to make others pay for what you want.

Aye but those who don’t pay have to put up with adverts. It’s not like we take money off everyone that’s ever viewed a website on the off-chance they might look at this one.

I don’t have a TV and ive tried all that telling them crap

It’s not a problem. Tell them you don’t have a TV.

yea, I do, then the letters start all over again 🙄

We bought an old terraced house in town recently and we’re gutting it and doing it up. We have a licence for the house we live in but we keep getting really nasty threatening letters at the doer-upper from the licensing people. I’ve been ignoring them. The last one was particularly nasty. It starts by saying “You have not responded to our previous letters. We want to ensure you have the information you need before a hearing is set at your local court”.

In other words they are trying to imply that we are to be prosecuted. For not having something we don’t need. I’ve been waiting to see this escalate but unfortunately Mrs BigJohn chickened out and emailed to say the property is unoccupied. No doubt we’re in for another type of threat now.