biased politic programming.

totally overtaken by the PC Woke brewage

Well, which is it? Boris’ fluffer, or a liberal lefty PC melting pot?

I’ve been considering cancelling Netflix as it’s mostly tosh and most of what we watch is on iplayer

Not for the TV side, I just don’t watch “normal TV” any more. But for the iplayer, yeah.

Happy to pay a fee/subscription (eg BBC) or have ad breaks (eg C4) – but not both (eg Sky)

I object to paying twice.

Just let it go commercial and lets see if it survives in true Darwin style. (spoiler alert: it wont).

Let me see, advertise on channel 5, or sky, netflix, or the world famous BBC? Its a tough one.

The commercial channels do not want the BBC to go commercial because what they receive from advertising revenue is being spread pretty thin through the myriad of channels already.

totally overtaken by the PC Woke brewage.

Is this the name of some beer from a new brewery I haven’t heard of?

The BBC is one of only two remaining ‘nationalised industries’ within the UK and is well overdue for demolition.

Yes, because it turned out so well for us when all those other industries were ‘demolished’. I think we can guess what the other industry is.

The BBC is not the problem. You are.

“inkster and wobbliscott’s posts remind everything is alright with the world.

Within the space of 2 posts in the last 3 the Beeb has been derided as being both in the tory’s pocket AND lefite Woke nonsense.
……………………..

Fair point, though the BBC does have a problem with its news content. I never said it was in the Tories pocket, far from it. For some reason the BBC has chosen to place establishment Tories in the hot seats within an overall framework of political correctness. This gives the impression that the presenters are being ‘held back’ and prevented from saying what they really think.

This is born out with the set up of news UK etc. The basic proviso is that Andrew Neil had been muzzled by the beeb and needs a ‘free speech’ platform on which to tell the truth. (This could be the BBC’s fault for employing him in the first place)

To be on the BBC political team you have to have gone to Oxford and public school. (Grammar school at a push). You know that these characters inhabit a tiny gene pool, these people don’t do the kinds of things we do, they don’t encounter working class people unless they are offering them a service. They don’t know people of colour (unless they went to the right school / uni), there is a complete absence of egalitarianism.

The light entertainment side of the beeb is dominated by Cambridge graduates who conform to a similar profile and has contributed to notions of elitism just as much as the news content. Every light entertainment comedy programme is a re run of the TWTWTW sketch with Cleese, Barker and Moore, (the I’m middle class so I look down on / look up to him sketch)

The culture and history stuff is bloody ace though, as is the radio.

I find something unsavoury about this “I don’t watch it therefore I shouldn’t pay for it” sentiment. I’ve not been ill for a while, don’t see why I should pay for the NHS.

That quote just seems totally stupid to me comparing the NHS to the BBC. I’d personally rather see the money I pay for a TV license go towards the NHS rather than what it does go on.

Conversely, I agree with @2tyred on this. The BBC produces a huge variety of output precisely because it doesn’t need to pander to the whims of what advertisers might want to associate with. It is unique in this respect and that gives it the artistic freedom which allows it to produce some exceptionally high quality and diverse material. Something for everyone.

This has parallels with the NHS, which I similarly wouldn’t want to move to an optional subscription based model.

These kinds of universal provisions are great levellers in our British society and I truly believe our culture would suffer if either (or both) were taken away from us.

I value their contribution to society highly – even though I rarely directly use either of them myself. Although it’s clear that both the NHS and BBC are not perfect in their current states (for different reasons and in different ways) I’m willing to continue to pay for both to remain as contributors to that society.

Just let it go commercial and lets see if it survives in true Darwin style.

Yep. Not sure how a subscription would actually work for live TV, i.e. if I don’t subscribe how does my TV stop BBC but not the other channels? I think that is why it will never be done.

However, if it was technically possible with a charge of £15 a month I can’t see it being very successful which would mean the price would need to increase which would mean even less successful.

I would just allow advertising on the channel and make it free just the same as other live tv and radio channels. If the programmes are as great as some of you think the advertising revenue will be massive…

News really isn’t a good advert for the BBC.

agreed. I gave up listening to Radio 4 news a couple of years back. No apparent investigation. Weak editorial approach. BBC news on radio, TV, and web is not much more than a PR regurgitation machine that is a disappointing waste of time.

Paying an optional subscription for BBC content I expect would reduce the amount the BBC receives.

As the license fee is fairly cheap and the output wide ranging and readily accessible then I don’t see such a subscription as attractive compared to the current setup.

Within the space of 2 posts in the last 3 the Beeb has been derided as being both in the tory’s pocket AND lefite Woke nonsense.

It can and is both, the “lefty woke” parts are the culture war pieces that appear to be on the right side of the war, but are really mainly just fluff pieces that lack substance are uninformative and just seam to exist to drive the click bait division algorithms. If you are already supportive of those issues they are just flimsy old rope, if you oppose those issues the headline will make you blood boil and you will read no further (but might want to head straight to the comments to show your hate*), and if you are affected by the issues you will be left still feeling marginalised by the pathetic lack of real substance.

Politically and financially it is very pro establishment, very representative of the haves rather than the have nots. Much more programming about flipping houses for profit than struggling to pay your rent/mortgage as you live paycheque to paycheque. They talk about work life in terms of career paths, representing the content makers who have lives of opportunity that allow real choices, rather than the majority experience of being at the whim of the markets and just getting any job you can.

*it is also clear that comments sections on the media just create discourse, they exist not to have any sensible discussion’s but to drive the viewing algorithm. While a privately funded organisation could be excused for their existence as they scrabble for revenues, on a publicly funded organisation there is no excuse for their continued existence at the cost of the hatred and division they enable.

I am quite happy paying the license fee. The children’s stuff is very good too, although my son’s too old for it now.

For prime time TV tonight BBC2 is all repeats and BBC1 also has repeats. Glad my licence fee is going towards new well thought out content rather than the presenter’s wages like Zoe Ball’s £1.3 million wage for her drivel in the mornings or 100 senior executives paid over £150,000 a year.

As I’ve mentioned if you’re happy to pay for the BBC then fine let’s make it a subscription service and you can carry on happily paying for it and let those like myself who have no interest in the BBC save their money.

We have a licence purely for iPlayer and occasionally watching the news. The TV isn’t even plugged into an aerial. I do feel a little mugged off paying the same as those watching live but hey we still pay it.

Edit: that said I didn’t have one for many years and that only changed once I started earning enough to justify the extra expense for iPlayer. Imo it’s nonsensical to pay the licence fee to watch e.g. channel 4 live when everything can be watched on demand later.

Id rather not pay it as i dont really use any of their content (TV, Radio or Website)

The Saturday night TV is absolute crap, loads of repeats, i have no interest in their radio stations (loads of great online radio stations out there, check out Accu Radio)

We have Neflix, Prime and Freeview for our TV needs

A quick look at the TV guide for BBC1 tonight

19.35 The Wall with Danny Dyer (no thanks)
20.20 Casualty (been on TV for 35 years, still have no interest in it)
21.00 Line of Duty season 2 (so a repeat)
22.20 Match of the Day (not a football person)
23.00 Invictus (again athletics/watching sport not my thing even though these guys are remarkable given what they have been through)

Id be more inclined to watch the BBC if they only aired great new content on the main channel and all repeats etc..(especially stuff that is 10+ years old or have been repeated to death) were available online, they could even have a pop up at the end of a great newly aired show advertising what repeats/previous episodes are available on Iplayer

Yes. I’d pay the equivalent of licence fee, I think the existing system offers fair value. It probably still makes a up a bigger proportion of media I consume than any other provider (certainly if including radio)

Whatever other accusations some people might make of the leadership/bias blah blah, I would still trust it, questioningly, over the output of any of Murdoch (et al) owned channels/outlets by an absolute mile

Ive got several friends living/working overseas they all seem to comment how poor TV generally is, and miss BBC output. I think its one of those things that is undervalued but you dont generally recognise it until you havent got it anymore.

If you work out how much the licence fee is per repeat of Dad’s Army or Last Of The Summer Wine it’s really very cheap indeed.

That may seem a cynical viewpoint but my dad is suffering from Alzheimer’s and greatly enjoys this non-demanding drivel, so the Beeb have clearly found a large and growing audience.

I don’t even pay the license fee, so unlikely. 😆

The talk is that the government want to close BBC4, my favourite channel by far, (though the commissioned content seems to have slowed down these last few years). The quality of many of the documentary series is unsurpassed. Other platforms doc’s don’t come close, with the ad breaks and the repetition…. I said repetition, it would take other channels 3 hours to convey as much as a BBC4 OR BBC2 programme manages to do in an hour.

I just watch top gear so would much rather pay per episode rather than paying for everything else I don’t watch. Don’t listen to any bbc radio anymore, radio 1 and the music they play is shocking, radio 2 I find really depressing.

Some good series in years gone by, and then there were none and the night manager spring to mind but I think these days anything half descent gets snapped up by prime, Netflix, Disney and apple so can see bbc quality getting worse rather than better

I used to wake up to bbc news every morning for years but go sick of brexit a few years back and I switched to putting radio x on with my breakfast instead

I would. We did have Sky but sacked it off as we just didn’t watch it enough to justify the expense – after the initial “honeymoon period” the cost per hour viewed was probably over £10!

I don’t watch or appreciate all of the BBC’s output, nor is much of it targeted at me or of interest to me. That doesn’t mean I don’t feel it’s good value. We don’t have kids but part of my taxes still goes to fund education, I’ve no problem with that, I’ll get secondary or tertiary benefits when those kids who get a decent education come up with solutions to problems I have or might have in the future.

Given that both the loony left and rabid right complain about the BBC’s output they are most likely close to being spot on.

I worked for several years for a US TV broadcast company (they didn’t make their own content), you really, really wouldn’t want to suffer that output. It really is “Never mind the quality, feel the width” lowest common denominator stuff, yes there’s a thousand channels but unless you’d actually been told that a particular channel was worthwhile you’d spend an hour channel surfing just looking for something decent. The general output is bad enough that when I’d go over to the States I’d never even turn on the hotel TV. Also, given that this was a commercial company they were very impressed by the BBC’s overall content and technical expertise and input to the TV broadcasting milieu – in group meetings with directors they would explicitly point out the BBC as an example of excellence.

IMHO the beeb is brilliant, radio 4/5 are worth the licence fee alone, iplayer/ sounds are a treasure trove. I suspect the growing anti -beeb sentiment is politically motivated, being whipped up by those on the right of the right feeling bullish after seeing how easy it is to manipulate a large section of the populace.
I agree politics needs better scrutiny than they’re doing at the moment, but given that the left think they’re biased to the right and vice versa suggests they’re probably doing better than most people think.
To those who only watch netflix, where do you get news/ current affairs from? NF is ok to dip in and out of but too banal as the only source of entertainment.
To quote Joni Mitchell, don’t it alway seem to go, you don’t know what you got til it’s gone’!

The talk is that the government want to close BBC4, my favourite channel by far, (though the commissioned content seems to have slowed down these last few years).

Yep, BBC4 was good a few years ago but has gone downhill. And that was the only channel that came close to being any good.

Given that both the loony left and rabid right complain about the BBC’s output they are most likely close to being spot on.

Only if you view politics as a left/right spectrum.

I haven’t paid for years and don’t see that changing. No political stand, but 99.9% of their stuff is crap (to me) and i don’t watch ‘live TV’ so had no need to pay it.

Only if you view politics as a left/right spectrum.

Just for you Colin:

The completely do-lallies will always complain about the BBC’s normal output.

I haven’t had a tv/licence the last 12/13 years as I found I just didn’t watch live tv.

I did used use iplayer (when you bizarrely could do for free). But that must be 6-7 years ago now. I liked BBC4 most, and some of 2. Can’t think I watched much 3 and none of 1. I’ve bought things like His Dark Materials and that Omens thing on dvd mind.

The radio alarm is set to R4 through habit rather than anything else. I only actually ever listen to on a Sunday am. It’s really gone downhill the last, oh, 5 years.

Dont really use the website (other than very occasionally for local news or covid update announcements.

i only took a Netflix sub about 8,9 months ago (when my MacBook DVD player died…). @6£/month… I only ever watch it on my iPad.

so, no, not really. I wouldn’t mind it being tax/grant funded (but only if they sacked of the big wage ‘talent’ shit that I never ever consume, counting David **** Attenburgh in that category.

like for a lot of Scots, the bias is quite marked.

whitestone
Free Member

Given that both the loony left and rabid right complain about the BBC’s output they are most likely close to being spot on.

That just doesn’t work. It never did. Anyone can complain, so if something is biased towards your point of view, quick, get your complaints in to prove it’s “balanced”.

The radio side I would really miss though as commercial radio drives me insane.

So much this.
I don’t begrudge adverts on anything else that I consume for ‘free’ but radio adverts give me the rage. Combination of the shouting, and then the bloke trying to read a page of terms and conditions in five seconds drive me nuts. BBC or MP3 only in the car.

I would gladly pay it, I listen to radio 4 all the time and so many podcasts from BBC sounds too. TV not sure that we watch that much BBC content, as it is all via apps new I lose track of what is where, but what we do watch is excellent.

I also feel that the BBC produces many things that couldn’t be made commercially but still have very high value to society, locally through educational content programming and online, and through foreign language services globally providing soft power. I know quite a few folk who learned English by listening to overseas bbc radio and they don’t forget that.

If it did go subscription I hope that the govt would subsidise those things above out of general taxation as a national benefit. In a ideal world I’d be happy for the BBC to make interesting / beneficial programmes that aren’t commercially competitive or attractive for advertisers and leave the ratings wars to the commercial stations.

As a ‘younger’ person I’ve never paid for a TV license. Never been a point -Netflix is cheaper

Bad news @tabletop2 – not for much longer: Netflix is about to go up to 13.99 per month (£167.88/yr) whilst the tv license goes up to £159/yr in April.

Bearing in mind your TV license is funding some of Ch4, the radio, the website, BBC Bitesize that’s helping kids learn at home, all the stuff on iPlayer etc – its actually a bargain.

You can also have a television and not BBC

Just in case you are unaware – watching any live broadcast (on TV or laptop) requires a license – even on All4, live stuff on Amazon Prime, and possibly even foreign broadcasts you watch online or Live streams on youtube etc. It also applies to recorded content on iplayer, but not other channels.

I mainly consume BBC news online and stream Radio 4.

Given the rash of adverts on the BBC website where a 1 minute advert precedes a 1 minute article.

No way.

Ive got several friends living/working overseas they all seem to comment how poor TV generally is, and miss BBC output

Really? I don’t miss it at all. Every time I’m back in the UK I switch on the TV in the forlorn hope of a night of great entertainment, and it’s always mediocre. I don’t listen to BBC radio so I’m not about to comment on that, but the TV is very average.

Where I do think it has value though is in centring the political debate in the UK. It’s output is very balanced, no doubt overly so, but given its public standing it forces the other media to moderate their message. I find it hard to imagine a UK Fox News equivalent getting much audience while the BBC is presenting a solid and mainstream viewpoint.

@rickmeister – are you in the UK or elsewhere? I don’t see any adverts on the BBC site when viewing in the UK but do when abroad.

Yes, Germany.
The BBC have an advert company sticking ads on many topics and stories.
Almost every video news item is preceded by a video advert of up to 1 minute.

It’s a no from me. I get everything I want to watch or listen to between Spotify, Netflix, AMZ Prime and Disney+ with the added bonus that I can and do cancel whenever there is nothing to pique my interest on one of the services.

I have the iPlayer and honestly can’t remember the last time I logged in to watch anything on it. Mainly because the UI is sluggish and terrible, there aren’t many films and the catalogue isn’t as great as some seem to think it is.

Comparing it to the NHS is ridiculous. One provides news and entertainment the other provides health care. The best and only logical comparison is against other paid entertainment services and for me BBC is way below Netflix and Prime in that regard. Your mileage may vary. It seems like a bit of a relic of a bygone era in terms of the programmes it produces.

Yes, at a discounted price because I don’t listen to their radio etc.

I only watch a few channels because they rest just don’t interest me especially those game shows or comedy game shows whatever.