The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying | Hacker News Reader

The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

jamesomalley.substack.com

95 pointsrwmj172 comments

My kids have no concept of linear TV. My 9 year old came back and told me that a friend had a broken TV as when they turned it on, the program was already half way through.

Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to want to watch them over things on disney. There's so much competition of things to do.

I do watch BBC (iplayer obviously) occasionally, but the material I'm interested in isn't as accessible as it is on disney/apple/prime/netflix/youtube.

We watched Eurovision and Euro2020 (England games) this year. Aside from that the only BBC output we watched was Roadkill about a year ago, and the one Doctor Who episode which had John Barrowman in. I would watch have I got news for you, but whenever I remember to watch it, it's not on.

This itself might not say a lot, and I still have a TV license despite the limited direct value I get (listen to a lot of BBC radio, and the news website), but what's interesting is I actually work for the BBC. If my household barely watches it, where does the future lie.

Linear TVs days are numbered, but the underlying cultural links that prime time TV provided in the 60s through 90s has already gone. 1 in 4 people in the UK used to watch the same shitty sitcoms in the 80s because there was very little choice.

It's not just BBC or the UK that has this cultural difference. "It's a wonderful life" is an American classic. It is because it was shown on every channel every christmas year after year, generation after generation, and kids watched it, because it was that or reading a book.

I think Star Trek was right with its outlandish prediction from 1988. TV as a form of entertainment won't survive much past 2040 (I think linear TV will still be going in 10 years time, but probably not 30).

I got such a kick out of my 7 year old at my grandparents. We turned on some random movie that was half way through and she said: "Oh, let's watch this, start it from the beginning." When I told her that's not how cable TV works, she looked at me like I was telling her some kind of stupid dad joke.

My 6 year old thinks that the screen goes black in some shows because that's when the exciting part is about to happen. Of course, it's actually where the program would normally break for ads . On Netflix/Disney+ this doesn't happen (yet!) so he's come to the conclusion that it's just a signal of impending excitement :)

This is normal in the UK because BBC never had ads. I remember foreign cartoons would often actually cut back in time slightly. It could be quite confusing but I just accepted it as some weird characteristic of TV.

For example Scooby Doo would be falling to his death... Fade to black... Fade back in... and he's higher up (?!)... Shaggy swings in and saves him.

That is how modern cable TV works though. With the now fairly standard IPTV boxes the linear programming can be rewatched straight from the on screen guide and there is a "start from beginning" button on live shows.

I've completely switched to subscription and live-based content (mainly YouTube, with some Twitch). About 2 years ago I was only watching a handful of TV shows from traditional channels (BBC) and mainly there via iPlayer.

You could consider the BBC to be a subscription + streaming model. Don't bother to watch on your TV, just fire up iPlayer, watch whatever you want, whenever you want. The subscription fee? Your TV license.

The irony for me is I watch zero bbc content but I love Radio 4 comedy.

So my BBC content consumption has gone up over time not down.

Won't argue with the your observation on consumption: I see the same with my children.

However: there's nothing intrinsic to the BBC that requires linear delivery or consumption. iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb.

I dearly want to see the BBC not only survive, but to prosper.

That may be rose-tinted/delusional/whatever. Why? Because it represents a collective service for society, by society. I don't watch all the content: not even some of the big stuff (Strictly). But I really value the breadth of content: that it caters to interests - people - that are diverse. It can do that because it doesn't have to slavishly chase advertising in a race-to-the-bottom death march to mediocrity.

Similarly, its aspiration to impartial news coverage - to inform and educate, not impose a political doctrine - should be invaluable. It certainly hasn't always achieved that (and sometimes by a long way) but at least the aspiration is there. It would be greatly helped here by some structural protection from government meddling, but that's another story.

Like the original article, I see the writing on the wall. But I don't think it needs to be a death spiral. In a world of hyper-targeted-advertising-driven-sensationalist-fact-free-fake-news in 140 characters or less, I want to believe there's a market for diverse, challenging society-enhancing content. I can't think of an organisation whose charter would better fit with that aim.

> iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb.

This is absolutely worth remembering, iPlayer was revelatory 12 or 13 years ago. Infuriatingly the innovation seems to have stopped there.

Case in point, it's a corporation nearly 100 years old, yet its back catalogue is extremely poor. You should be able to watch every episode of Doctor Who on demand since the original black & white pilot, instead you're mainly limited to items shown in the last month, plus some randomly curated stuff. Channel 4 has a better online archive.

When I lived outside of the UK I would have paid a subscription fee equal to the licence fee to gain access to iPlayer. It's worth paying for! But there's no way to give them money for services other than be a licence payer within the UK.

> Case in point, it's a corporation nearly 100 years old, yet its back catalogue is extremely poor.

This was due to the Competition Commission saying the BBC putting up their back catalogue would stifle competition.

Sounds like internal sabotage.

Isn't it because they don't physically have a lot of the back catalogue anymore? I read that they taped over a lot of shows and there aren't copies left for some.

>You should be able to watch every episode of Doctor Who on demand since the original black & white pilot

I hate to break it to you, but not even the BBC has that.

Most of their early work was never archived, as the technology to actually do so either didn't exist (television predates magnetic video recording), was so expensive as to make full archival prohibitively expensive, or was explicitly prohibited by contractual arrangement. No, seriously, TV actors insisted that tapes were wiped and reused after a period of time so that reruns would not usurp the market for new productions. The same goes for a lot of other countries' early television. Just finding working copies of all of those Doctor Who episodes is an ongoing preservation project.

Things like not being able to pay for iPlayer outside of the license fee is a similar problem - politics dictating the market. The BBC's license-funded activities are specifically firewalled from the part of the business that sells commercial TV internationally. Even if that particular diktat didn't exist, the BBC would still be following the ordinary TV business practice of selling each show off on a per-country basis. Even the big streaming services do this with their own originals, many of which are not streaming-exclusive outside the US. The idea that you have a single "owner" that just does everything and sells the work globally is mostly unheard of outside of the videogame industry.

> When I lived outside of the UK I would have paid a subscription fee equal to the licence fee to gain access to iPlayer. It's worth paying for! But there's no way to give them money for services other than be a licence payer within the UK.

This drove me nuts! There were a bunch of great series I was into that were simply not available in US even if I purchased a premium cable subscription to BBC America. Another show (programme?) I really enjoyed was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The UK version was much better than the over the top version we got on FOX in the US. I ended up paying for a cheap VPC in the UK that I would SSH into and use it as a SOCKS proxy so I can watch the shows I wanted. I would have gladly given BBC/Channel 4 money if I could.

There's a difference between aspiration and execution. Every TV channel will claim they aspire to inform, educate and be diverse. No TV channel in history has said their goal is to misinform, dumb down and present homogenous uniformity day after day.

The BBC is clearly failing at its goals. Most of the UK population no longer trusts its news output; that's huge and a new phenomenon, although of course it's been a long time in coming. Unlike normal TV companies the BBC cannot receive a reality check from the market because people are forced to fund it, so there's no way to break the downward spiral. It just gets worse, every year.

Indeed it would be sensible to argue that the BBC's problem is too little government interference, not too much. The government is, at least in theory, accountable to the people. Sure, it's only every 4 years and many different issues are conflated together. But there is at least a vote. The BBC is accountable to nobody. It's not accountable to its viewers. It's not accountable to elected representatives. It is not even really accountable to Ofcom, given the incredibly weak enforcement of the vaguely worded regulations on fairness and neutrality. If you have a complaint about the BBC you can complain to, well, the BBC itself. Or you could complain to an MP who will do nothing because the BBC is de-facto independent of the government.

If the BBC were actually controlled by the government then it would have already been forced back to more mainstream political views. The ruling party is very unhappy with the BBC's wokeness and openly biased news (e.g. "Brexit threat to sandwiches" being a memorable headline). That unhappyness is not self-serving politics but rather, reflecting the frustration that their voters are telling both them and opinion pollsters. The public no longer perceives the BBC as "society enhancing" but instead society damaging. Yet, they can do nothing about it. The political will to reform the BBC isn't there.

> The BBC is clearly failing at its goals.

Well, the Proms this year were bound to be disappointing, but I’m sure matters will improve next year. And the cricket commentary is still perfectly sound.

> Most of the UK population no longer trusts its news output

This is simply untrue: >60% of the population trust the BBC’s news output.¹

> The government is, at least in theory, accountable to the people.

It is less accountable when the public broadcaster is under its thumb. This is how e.g. Orban stays in power, and it’s not healthy regardless of the ideology of the person in power.

> Sure, it's only every 4 years and many different issues are conflated together.

Four years? It sounds like you’re rather unfamiliar with the UK.

> The BBC is accountable to nobody

The BBC survives because it is popular. Like any Quango or government body, it can be abolished by an act of parliament. If it is special, it is worth asking why it is special—and the most obvious answer is that people like it.

You also ignore that there are mechanisms other than accountability to ensure that people do things—institutions can have a culture. All your criticisms could be applied to the UK judiciary, yet its culture precludes certain behaviours that e.g. the prospect of removal from office alone cannot explain.

> If the BBC were actually controlled by the government then it would have already been forced back to more mainstream political views.

It is amusingly naïve to think that that would be the only response. I prefer having fair elections and avoiding entrenching one party rule to whatever non-mainstream views the BBC propagates.

> BBC's wokeness and openly biased news (e.g. "Brexit threat to sandwiches" being a memorable headline)

Is that really ‘woke and openly biased’? It’s not that implausible that something in the supply chain is affected by Brexit. The Conservatives, like governments of all stripes, are unhappy with the BBC because it is not in total agreement with government policy, has (excepting a commitment to democracy and human rights) no official stance in the first place making agreement or disagreement with policy something of a category error, and is not entirely under its thumb. That alone isn’t very good evidence of ‘wokeness and open bias’.

> The public no longer perceives the BBC as "society enhancing" but instead society damaging. Yet, they can do nothing about it. The political will to reform the BBC isn't there.

If turning the BBC into a UK version of CCTV were a popular policy, Boris Johnson would not shy away from it: cf. Brexit. Polling clearly indicates that you are wrong and the BBC is still quite popular: this is far more consistent with the evidence than some mysterious unwillingness to impose the will of Number 10 on the BBC.

1: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-repo...

> Four years? It sounds like you’re rather unfamiliar with the UK.

I agree OP sounds like an uninformed american, but since 1979 there's been an general election every 4 years on average.

I'm British. As the sibling comment has pointed out, my understanding of UK elections is fine.

You appear to be arguing that the only way to hold the BBC accountable is to convince Parliament to entirely abolish it, which is rather making my point for me. That is the most limited form of accountability imaginable.

Opinion polls on trust in the BBC vary, perhaps by time, but reputable and recent polls show that most people do not trust it any more:

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/1...

"YouGov figures show British trust in the press to tell the truth has fallen, with less than half believing BBC news journalists are honest and impartial."

This document shows trust in BBC News by year - as you can see it has constantly fallen since 2003, the earliest year they started polling:

https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/vf1qhxf7kh/YG%20trackers%20-%20T...

This fall in trust is deserved. If you genuinely believe the "supply chain" for two pieces of bread with some stuff in between could have been disrupted by Brexit then you're exactly the sort of person the BBC is pandering to, which is probably why you don't see the problems. There is nothing special about the BBC beyond its archaic funding model. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, it is being regularly beaten by Netflix, Amazon and other larger scale content producers.

> As the sibling comment has pointed out, my understanding of UK elections is fine.

‘Every’ is not the same as ‘on average’.

> You appear to be arguing that the only way to hold the BBC accountable is to convince Parliament to entirely abolish it, which is rather making my point for me. That is the most limited form of accountability imaginable.

‘There are mechanisms other than accountability’ does in fact appear above. And no, this is simply untrue: the BBC can also be reformed by an act of parliament, or, say, turned into a Quango to farm garlic.

> https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/1...

> "YouGov figures show British trust in the press to tell the truth has fallen, with less than half believing BBC news journalists are honest and impartial."

First of all the BBC suddenly looks rather special according to YouGov (see e.g. https://yougov.co.uk/topics/media/articles-reports/2020/04/2...) for a longer perspective. Second, ‘not much’ is a pretty vague category and not trusting journos much to tell the truth could quite easily encompass still thinking that the Beeb is still all right given the alternatives. This is also confirmed by e.g. this: https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/bbc-most-trusted-news....

> If you genuinely believe the "supply chain" for two pieces of bread with some stuff in between could have been disrupted by Brexit then you're exactly the sort of person the BBC is pandering to, which is probably why you don't see the problems.

I can’t tell whether you’re joking. The article read:

> Sandwiches would be one of the first victims of a breakdown in the food supply chain in the event of a disorderly no-deal Brexit, according to a senior grocery executive.

This is, simply, er, true. If goods were delayed for a week at the border, we would have a lot of rotten tomatoes and not very much to put in our sandwiches. This seems to be some sort of weird reaction to catastrophising about Brexit where somehow Brexit has no effect on supply chains whatsoever. A ‘disorderly no-deal Brexit’ would have been precisely that.

> There is nothing special about the BBC beyond its archaic funding model. As discussed elsewhere in this thread, it is being regularly beaten by Netflix, Amazon and other larger scale content producers.

Only somebody who does not consume the output of, say, All India Radio, CCTV, Channel News Asia &al. could say that the BBC is ‘not special’. I find it difficult not to be thankful for the Proms, and for cricket broadcasts without incessant American-style—to be thankful for civilisation, really.

> I think linear TV will still be going in 10 years time, but probably not 30

I think you're probably right, but I'm one of the few millennials who will miss it when it's gone. I still like being able to turn on the news or some dumb show as background noise, it's an old habit from my boomer parent upbringing. I'm a bit surprised I haven't really met anyone else around my age with a nostalgic attachment to linear TV.

I stream things that I actually want to watch deliberately, but as a replacement for linear TV it's just not the same. It's a lot more effort (paradox of choice, beyond just the UI itself necessitating a lot more "clicks") and there's something nice about knowing that people around the country/world are watching the same thing at the same time as me. I'd like to say it could be a startup opportunity, but I think I might be the only one who cares.

Not to mention, currently an antenna will get you much better picture quality than many/most streaming services (definitely true for the BBC News stream available on iPlayer -- that looks like crap to me).

I agree with all of that. Streaming is about choice, but linear TV is about an event and/or serendipity.

I have a lot of movies on Plex, but when we browse them it's rare for us to select one. On the other hand, we often watch those movies when they're on TV. "We have that on Plex" has become a household joke.

Netflix have a "watch something" button. I've never used it, but I assume it's there to match the serendipity aspect.

Amazon I think have a "watch party" feature, but that's not the same as 10 million people all watching Mr Blobby get gunged. There seemed to be a small amount of cultural "togetherness" with the guy doing the PE (Joe Someone?) during lockdown, not sure as I didn't watch it (too busy working).

But yes, events (sport, moon landings, etc) are great on linear tv. I suspect that even after most of the spectrum gets removed, there will remain a BBC linear TV channel for events for some time, and most households will have a working antenna for a long time to come.

The problem with the watch something button is that its not truly doing what linear TV did. Linear TV was still programming. You settled on a channel that you knew was going to have decent enough stuff on at the time. You hit "watch something" on netflix and it might pull, best case, stuff from all over my watch history with no particular rhyme or reason, when really what I want is to throw on adult swim for an aqua teen hunger force marathon interspersed with similar content like that. The big advantage of some of these older networks was that I trusted their curation. If a station like MTV saw that Jackass was a popular show, they would give me a four hour Jackass marathon sometime this week and I'd probably have it on. I don't trust netflix's curation on the other hand. I'm honestly on the hunt for some live streams of 2000s era cable channels and watching that.

That seems like an easy problem to solve, if somebody at Netflix wanted to. Make it easy for people to create their own curated playlists / streams, and then you can just turn on "Jimbob23's Stupid Funny Stuff" or "Best of Late Night Cartoons" or something.

I doubt Netflix could (easily) make a product that replicates linear network TV (as much as linear TV itself is kind of a shitty product, which I say as a defender of it here). Here's why:

(1) Based on what I've seen from spending many hours scrolling through their available content (or what the algorithm will show me of it, anyway!), I'm not actually sure Netflix could put that content together into a 24/7 program that resembles a linear TV channel, even given how repetitive and often shitty linear TV content is. I could definitely be wrong about this, but I think Netflix lacks both the dynamic breadth and thematic depth of content. On the "dynamic breadth": Linear TV is at least 95% repeats, but if you watch it one day and then watch it again 6 months later, the content in your latter watch will usually be totally disjoint from the first watch. Meanwhile whenever I go on Netflix I swear like 75% of what I'm shown is things they were showing me 2+ years ago. Maybe they could still assemble their content into a 24/7/365 schedule that mimics linear TV programming, but I wouldn't bet on that.

(2) A linear TV channel isn't just a bunch of shows concatenated one right after another. At a minimum it has interstitials between shows/segments telling you what's next and what's on later. These are what gives the channel its personality/brand, and I'd assume it takes at least a few full-time staff per 24/7 channel. Think Discovery Channel's "Shark Week". It was mostly a bunch of repeats of shows they already had that happened to be shark-related, but the interstitials for it marketed it into a national event. And, dare I say it...linear TV often has ads. Ads can be a nice part of TV (especially for shitty/campy TV) -- they're when you go to the bathroom, get a snack, and/or chat about what you just watched. Certainly not a required part of linear TV (HBO and BBC are good linear TV channels and don't have ads), but hard for Netflix in particular to recreate if they were aiming to replicate the full linear TV experience.

Yep, I've never used the watch something button either.

I also think the shared experience of many people watching the same thing is part of the "event" nature of TV.

I don't think I've ever sat down and watched The Shawshank Redeption or Goodfellas. Like, made plans to watch either of those.

But I've seen both movies probably a dozen times at this point.

It's always been a matter of me stumbling upon it while channel surfing (1990-2005) or "guide scrolling" (2005-2018), landing there to kill a few minutes, and watching through to the end. A couple of times I've gotten lucky and caught the movie at the start, so I can actually say I've seen these movies. But I've seen way more of the middle and end parts than the beginning parts.

Recognise that feeling when you watch a movie for the fourth time and go "I don't think I've seen the start of this before"!

The main problem with the BBC is that too much of its nice content isn't available out of the UK. I see no reason why it couldn't be watched all around the world.

Rights issues, and of course the fact that BBC content is -- a fair whack of BBC funding comes from Worldwide (or whatever it's called this week), which sells BBC material internationally. Watch a BBC production on CBS or PBS or BBS or whatever and some money goes back to the BBC. I believe Britbox is an option too.

Same with television formats. Dancing with the Stars I believe is a popular US program based on a BBC show, the format has been licensed to half the planet.

I still don't understand why I (an American) can't pay the BBC money for access to iPlayer. BBC has been saying hell no to my money for over a decade now. It doesn't make sense. Free money! You could lower your TV tax!

I think it must be BBC official policy that they want the whole world buying VPN and pirating the content. It doesn't make sense. Throwing money away and then asking why they aren't competitive with the commercial offerings.

1) the rights to show those programs outside the UK don't exist

2) If they do exist, this would cannibalise the income via global sales, and someone has (rightly or wrongly) crunched the numbers and determined that selling Top Gear to foreign broadcasters makes more money than having iplayer as a subscription. There may also be political issues with having iplayer as a subscription too (including a call from the right wing to make iplayer subscription based for everyone. After OnDigital/ITVDigital collapsed, the BBC got in very quickly with freeview, ensuring that large numbers of decoders lacked a CAM and thus making it harder to argue for subscription)

See also Channel 5 sell Peppa Pig to Nickleodon rather than doing it direct. Or paramount selling rights to Star Trek series' via netflix or amazon rather than paramount plus outside the US.

You may want to have a look at BritBox, which combines content produced by BBC and other UK outlets (ITV..etc).

> Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to want to watch them over things on disney. There's so much competition of things to do.

> This itself might not say a lot, and I still have a TV license despite the limited direct value I get (listen to a lot of BBC radio, and the news website), but what's interesting is I actually work for the BBC. If my household barely watches it, where does the future lie.

The entertainment sector is one of the most profitable on Earth. Marvel, Disney made billions making content that people want to watch and are willing to pay for. I'm not getting the reason why there should be government sponsored entertainment, especially seeing that people aren't even interested in watching it.

Why not simply compete and let the consumer decide?

This feels like saying "why not get rid of government funded schools and have children watch Marvel and Disney instead?". The BBC's mission was to "inform, educate and entertain", Disney's and Marvels is more like "entertain, addict and profit". From Wikipedia about the origins of the BBC:

> "The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General.[...] British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#1927_to_1939

Americans will hate the state telling them what to watch for their own good, many Britons don't like the way it's the Oxbridge upper classes telling the rest of us what to watch, but regardless of that there was some attempt to be more than just entertainment, some values other than ad revenue. Has Marvel, Disney or Netflix made a Tomorrow's World, a Blue Peter, or anything like the Reith Lectures ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reith_Lecture ) ?

But equally has the BBC made a Simpsons? The Wire? Sopranos?

Iconic comedy? The Office, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Only Fools and Horses, BlackAdder, Red Dwarf.

Iconic political shows? House of Cards, Yes Minister.

Gritty crime/drama? Peaky Blinders, Wallander, Luther.

Massively popular? The above, plus Dr Who, Top Gear, Top of the Pops.

The problem is people used to watch Blue Peter, Tomorrows World and Reith lectures because there was limited choice. Now they on the whole don't.

The article isn't advocating getting rid of the BBC, it's just reflecting on reality. The BBC has for a century been part of the nations culture. People from all backgrounds and all areas of the country earned their blue peter badges because they came home from school and blue peter was on.

That's decreasingly the case now.

The BBC is there to “inform, educate and entertain”. It gets government(/licence fee) funding because only the last of these is likely to be profitable.

The BBC is far from perfect, but its documentaries are great and it remains the most trusted source of news in the UK - give the news division a requirement to be profitable and the sensationalism that follows would destroy that trust pretty quickly. The last thing we need is a news landscape even more similar to the US.

> and it remains the most trusted source of news in the UK - give the news division a requirement to be profitable and the sensationalism that follows would destroy that trust pretty quickly.

It's kinda interesting that the journalist supposed to criticize the government are... on the government's payroll. There's a massive conflict of interests right there.

> The last thing we need is a news landscape even more similar to the US.

You mean several different organizations with different viewpoints and financial support from backers with known agendas?

The BBC aren't on the government's payroll and are very willing to criticise the government.

> The BBC aren't on the government's payroll

But where's the money coming from?

Mainly (70%) from a TV licence, the rest from selling their IP to other markets.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_...

> Mainly (70%) from a TV licence

Whose existence is voted and that is managed by... the Government?

It's not managed by the government, it's a Royal Charter.

In the UK, parliament is sovereign and can ultimately do anything so they could vote to change this arrangement. This is the case with anything. Parliament could vote to execute left handers.

The fact remains, what you said is false;

1. The BBC are not on the government's payroll

2. They regularly hold the government to account

Your criticism is nonsense Libertarian speculation that is refuted by the real world.

> In the UK, parliament is sovereign and can ultimately do anything so they could vote to change this arrangement.

So tomorrow morning they could threaten the BBC with a massive funding cut unless they don't publish things they don't like... and there's nothing stopping them from doing so.

Interesting.

This argument is meaningless, because the government can already threaten any institution with changing the law to disadvantage them.

Parliament != government. In theory it could pass a law to get rid of the royal charter. Tomorrow morning Congress could threaten ABC with confiscating its license unless they don't publish things they don't like. The German army could storm broadcasters with armed men and for them to broadcast what they say.

You mean like how opposition politicians are on the governments’ payroll and their job is almost entirely to criticise the government?

The government pays for lots of people who are not always friendly to them. Including judges, anti corruption bodies etc.

I’m in Australia so I don’t know as many specifics about the BBC but our ABC which is modeled on the BBC in many ways (except it’s not a license fee but actual government funding that pays for it) has a charter which says ’as a publicly-funded broadcaster, the ABC is expected not to take editorial stances on political issues, and is required under its charter enshrined in legislation to present a range of views with impartiality.’

Given the number of complaints by government and oppositions at various times it does this job pretty well

> You mean like how opposition politicians are on the governments’ payroll and their job is almost entirely to criticise the government? The government pays for lots of people who are not always friendly to them. Including judges, anti corruption bodies etc.

These functions are pretty much guaranteed by the constitution. They ARE the government, not some state funded parallels organization with no way of fighting back. A simple majority could severely defund the BBC and pretty much nothing could be done. Makes for a good incentive to be nice to the government.

> as a publicly-funded broadcaster, the ABC is expected not to take editorial stances on political issues, and is required under its charter enshrined in legislation to present a range of views with impartiality.

For how long? Soon they might stop granting exit rights to dissidents! Australia is on a slippery slope and it seems it's only accelerating [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28451066

Again, over the long history of both the ABC and BBC there has been a strong record of investigative journalism that has been critical of the government at times. The independence for these purposes has been enshrined in law and withstood some pretty strong challenges from governments that were on the wrong side of their reporting at times. The organisations survived. The governments did not in all instances.

Re: your hyperbole on Australia turning to authoritarianism, don't believe the hype. I could just as easily say soon the United States might begin locking up immigrant children or knocking down doors hunting for illegals. Or maybe offer bounties on people having abortions. Oh wait, they already are?

>I think Star Trek was right with its outlandish prediction from 1988

Ah, classic TNG. S1E25 "The Neutral Zone". [0]

Other near-term predictions from 90s Star Trek include terrorism-powered Irish reunification in 2024 [1] (how's Brexit coming along, again?), as well as a DS9 time-travel episode set in the same year that's not exactly about UBI and censorship and othering the poor, but those words might be the best way to describe the fake-issues of that episode's San Francisco [2].

And, uh, the periodic nuclear exchanges of World War III, starting in 2026 and continuing for a few decades, with a death toll of at least six hundred million.

[0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Neutral_Zone_(episo...

[1] a throwaway reference in https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode)

[2] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(epi...

Irish reunification in 2024 certainly plausible. Slightly plausible that in years to come brexit will be deemed to be an act of terrorism too.

It was "The High Ground", not "The Hunted" though -- and due to that line the episode wasn't shown for years in the UK (this was during the time UK cities were being regularly blown up by terrorists)

Aah good call. Wrong terrorism episode, alas.

I can't believe I've done this, Memory Alpha was right there.

Euro 2020 only reinforced how important the BBC actually is. iPlayer were streaming matches in 4K HDR while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Hard to believe that ITV were the ones with commercial funding behind them. Seeing that a match was going to be aired on ITV filled me with dread.

> while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable.

Don't forget the adverts and the several occasions when their streaming servers just plain couldn't be arsed to deliver any data to people during important games.

This is depressingly true. Whenever ITV were hosting the match, I generally just resigned myself to not being able to watch it. Besides that, when it did work, the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. The BBC's coverage on iPlayer was superb, and I'll admit before I paid for any streaming service I used to comb through iPlayer the same way I comb through Netflix now.

> the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious.

I've always assumed that how sports fans like their commentaries - vacuous, uninformative and shouty. If fans wanted intelligent commentary, surely broadcasters would hire intelligent commentators, rather than ineloquent retired sports stars?

Thankfully for track and field athletics on the BBC we have former world mile record holder Steve Cram, who's the epitome of an intelligent commentator.

What works well is Linear TV with a history, so you can go through a calendar, say, going back 30 days.

All the Japanese IPTV streamers work that way and it's a very natural integration.

You can watch the current streaming, or just go back in the calendar to whatever you want in your selected channel. And the past items flow from one to the next as if they were live. You watch through last Monday's 8:00 p.m. one hour show and it falls through to the 9:00 p.m. show of that day as if it were last Monday.

There is no annoying "recording" workflow; the full content is just there going back about a month.

The organization concept that certain shows occur regularly at certain times is very useful; it won't go away that easily; it remains useful when you're able to navigate through the calendar.

Japanese TV, as such, is pretty great though. It is not replaceable in any way by other forms of content.

E.g. families with small kids depend on the NHK E channel; there is no equivalent content. Everyone knows what that is; it's not ignored, like BBC or PBS.

I worked on a project a while back called Freeview play in the UK which I think works in a similar way to how you described. You can watch live TV over the air or scroll backwards in time along the EPG to stream recorded content over IP.

I think the BBCs childrens content is one of its strongest assets. I don't have any data for it, but I would say most families in the UK with small kids consume a lot of CBBC and CBeebies content. It's much better quality content than children's content on YouTube or Netflix.

Peoples viewing habits are more fragmented and from a wider variety of sources than 10 or 20 years ago and the BBC definitely doesn't have the same mindshare that it used to have when there was only X channels. But, I think when people are looking for some high quality curated content in the sea of 'please like and subscribe' then they will come back to iPlayer - I know I do.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part?

I think it's less about specific times and more a form of curation.

The streaming options out there either tend to be "you wanted to watch one episode of this show, so here's every single other episode of it, followed by the German translation" or a seemingly random walk through the catalog that ends in Elsagate.

The guy running the schedule at the local broadcaster is a little more intelligent than that, and can make a better selection.

I'd love to see a streaming service that let you build "channel-like playlists"-- pick a few favourite series and it would populate a sequence to watch, not just those shows but also closely-correlated other programs. You'd only see one or two episodes of a given series in a row unless you intentionally skipped around on the list.

Ideally, the suggestion logic would be smart enough to identify "randomizable" shows versus "serial" ones, and pick appropriate episodes based on those rules.

There could be various UI refinements-- "I enjoyed Blah, but I've already seen up to Season 5, so skip all of those, but still weight it for the recommendation component."

In the end, it would be like network TV all over again: sit down at 7PM, press one button, and you'll watch four sitcoms and an hour-long drama, before switching over to a news product.

Sports and other live events are still linear, to the extent you wish to keep up with real time and not have it spoiled for you elsewhere. Pandemic aside, people still go to bars and friends houses to watch live events (usually sports).

Not sure that will change by 2040.

From what I hear from other parents, the PBS Kids app is a great space where parents can trust kids and has decent content. YouTube Kids is a garbage wasteland and regular YouTube needs diligent monitoring for young kids. I find the app silos and bespoke UX (and behavior of things like offline viewing) of Netflix, Disney+, et al inscrutable for kids and some adults. I also think cable and TV manufactures helped push away young kids with their poor UX. "Back in my day" you turn on the TV you get a picture, you change the channel and instantly get another picture (admittedly, I did grow up with tuning into stations with an antennae)--but cable has been terrible for decades. Turn on the TV, turn on the cable box (and maybe stereo, too), make sure the correct input is selected, click to the next channel and wait 3-5 seconds. Good luck explaining that to the babysitter or parents staying over. They usually just use their phone.

I feel like PBS Kids has been doing a decent job. I also think NPR has done similarly well with podcasts--but I'm not sure how mainstream that is. Maybe BBC transitions to only documenting cultural milestones? I was just watching a BBC recording of Oscar Peterson from the 70s yesterday. I don't know if people like him were as popular as "shitty sitcoms in the 80s," but I'm glad someone was sponsoring and preserving these performances.

The numbers listed in the article don't actually support the author's argument at all.

> Netflix spent $11.8bn in 2020, Disney is expecting to spend $8-9bn on Disney+ content by 2024, and Amazon is estimated to be spending $7bn this year alone. By contrast, according to the BBC’s most recent annual report, it spent about £980m ($1.3bn) on “programme-related assets and other inventories” in the 2020/21 financial year.

Netflix/Disney/Amazon and the rest are catering to a much larger and more varied user base, and BBC should absolutely be able to compete with ~1/5 the budget for its 67 million residents. A British public broadcaster does not need to make Korean dramas or Bollywood movies or launch $25m/episode blockbuster franchises.

Netflix (and Amazon) literally list UK produced shows they had no involvement with except for buying the global rights to it after the fact as "exclusive/original content". I assume they do the same for other nation's domestic output too.

BBC have done co-productions with other enterprises since before streaming and have continued to do them with Netflix.

If your model of the future of the BBC is that the license fee, which costs about as much as Netflix, should give you a comparable product - then if Netflix have 10x the budget, the BBC's going to have a tough time competing.

If I were forced to choose between Netflix and BBC's back catalog and current programming for the same price, I'd say that BBC comes out far ahead.

Indeed. Especially as the BBC is kneecapped in what they can have on the iPlayer at any one time. If they could put up their entire back catalogue it would be great.

They should also sell subscriptions to those outside the UK as well, there is enough demand for sure.

Living in the USA, I tried to buy a license during the London Olympics. I was using a proxy so that I could stream the BBC coverage (instead of NBC's drivel). Even though I'm a UK citizen, it was based on residency and totally impossible to do. Ridiculous. Happy to pay the fee (as noted, it's similar to Netflix) so that I could watche the content.

Would that be true in 10 years time when Netflix has been churning out content at its current rate and cost?

I'd be curious what Netflix is going to cost in another ten years. They're intent on aggressively hiking the price of their plans. Their standard plan, which you need to get HD content, is close to $14 now (in both the US and the UK). Another ten years, I'd bet on $22-$25 or so.

Some of this value proposition question will depend on what the BBC is going to do on their pricing. We can be certain what Netflix is going to do.

Netflix is churning out garbage I will never watch. I see no value in an increasingly large garbage pile.

This spending argument is weird because the charm of BBC for an American viewer has always been low-budget production with generally strong stories and characters and clever British dialog/wit/sarcasm set against the English countryside.

Comparing how much money Disney, Netflix and the BBC put into productions is useless. Netflix in particular has already burned a lot of money and the result was average at best. How many failures are there for a hit like "The Crown", how long can Netflix in particular continue to spend so much money? For quality, you need the right makers, and the BBC has often had the right ones.

But I think this is where it's starting to nose-dive. It used to be there were competitors but they were crass comparative junk, like ITV. Now the competitors are suddenly massively out BBC-ing the BBC. Huge landmark period dramas - used to be only the BBC could competently pull that off. Now Netflix does it better. Serious radio discussion - used to be only found on the BBC. Now I can get it often better from Spectator or New Statesman podcasts.

They're being out-done on money and talent in, and results out, for their own game.

Really serious problem.

Wait and see. Netflix was once the place for new fresh shows but it's a victim of it's shareholders value. Most shows don't survive the 1st season. If the BBC tries to copy Netflix they will lose, if they stick to their last it might work out.

Apple seems to be trying to occupy the quality niche though.

It’s the quality thing - previously peopled tried to compete with the BBC by being lower brow, now they’re attacking the high brow.

It's insane to me that Apple and Amazon are making movies. How many things are companies allowed to do? They're clearly making it harder for other players in these markets, and they're leveraging their insane capital to succeed in areas they have no experience in.

It's also incredibly annoying now that there are a dozen different subscription services, each with different apps and radically different navigation UX, and many of which don't run on the same hardware.

This is insane.

> they're leveraging their insane capital to succeed in areas they have no experience in.

This is nothing unique about Apple and Amazon, leveraging insane capital is the name of the game.

It's wildly anticompetitive.

And let's not forget that this isn't strictly about movies, but the broader concept of attention.

The giants are paying to keep attention on their platforms, and they're doing it in every vertical they can possibly enter. This makes it hard for other industries to compete for that same attention as they don't have the claws and meat hooks that the trillionaire famgopolies do.

How does MGM compete? They can't. They sell their assets on the cheap to the rich megamonopoly.

Putting aside my consternation that the spectator is capable of serious discussion (it recently published an article in defence of Greek neo-nazis), the fiction that until recently only the BBC could pull off "huge landmark period dramas" is simply propaganda put about by media barons wrestling with raging hard ons for Ayn Rand in their Riviera villas (eg Brideshead Revisited - ITV 1981).

> BBC has often had the right ones.

"had" being the operative word here.

Even Netflix and Disney can't buy them all.

The big distinguishing factor has long been Netflix's subscriber driven business model: if they're not growing in subscribers then the company appears to be "failing" or stagnant to investors/shareholders. Netflix's original productions are for retention, but moreso for getting new subscribers to boost the subscription numbers (hence their hard push into Asia).

Netflix's problem is that it doesn't have the niche of another service using the same business model, something like HBO which makes "HBO shows" (Nudity, violence, swearing, "prestige" productions). Without a distinct house style or niche aesthetic, Netflix has adopted the firehose method. Blast as much money at as many scripts as possible with the hopes that one will turn gold.

The BBC, through the licensing fee, kind of evades that business model and the ramifications of it; the BBC can choose to not aim for "hits", but for cultural content as such. Creators are free to create cultural content without a direct profit motive and that really allows the BBC to retain some very high quality documentarians, screenwriters, producers, and directors. The licensing fee is a tax, but it is a tax that keeps the profit motive from dominating media production.

Why the hand-wringing over show budgets? One of the greatest shows I have ever watched, People Just Do Nothing - a BBC production - must have had a budget one one thousandth of a Marvel show but I would re-watch it a hundred times before I bothered with a single episode of that generic PG-13 comic book dreck. And I can say the same for all of the BBC greats.

BBC doesn't need to compete on budget. Netflix may pour billions into soulless generic crap that attracts eyeballs but if that's what you want from BBC you're missing the whole point of a public broadcaster.

(I'm not British and I don't live there, but I am eternally grateful to BBC for producing almost all of my favourite TV shows and podcasts).

Another fan of the Korrupt FM boys! It’s not often the BBC hit jackpots like this show though, actually tell a lie, Motherland is very well done, all parents can relate! Some of their comedies of late have been really good. I can’t really say the same about Netflix. Perhaps it’s because the BBC content appeals to my British sense of humour.

Ironically, if that’s the same show, “People Just Do Nothing” is on Netflix in the US.

At least they aren’t keeping all their shows behind iPlayer anymore and these shows are more available outside the UK.

> At least they aren’t keeping all their shows behind iPlayer anymore and these shows are more available outside the UK.

They have always sold their content overseas...

It is fine that you do not like comic book shows. I find most of them cheese too, but evidentially lots of people disagree and they want the most possible for their money too.

Personally I don't think the BBC should produce entertainment at all, only scrupulously neutral news and explanations because that is what society needs if it is to be held together.

It's worth saying the BBC has been 'doomed' for as long as I can remember. Simply pointing out that it doesn't make sense doesn't seem to have much effect on its continued presence.

I don’t recall anyone predicting the demise of the BBC when I was growing up, and if they had they’d have had no evidence as there were no serious competitors at all back then. Now there are huge competitors everywhere and they’re actually higher-brow than the BBC in many cases which defeats their traditional defence against other media! The BBC looks very small and vulnerable.

I remember the day Channel 4 started, to a chorus of cries that it would lead to the end of the BBC.

Yes, and global warming has been a problem for as long as I can remember. Just because the problem doesn't have a deliberate start date doesn't mean it isn't a problem. Collapse, whether it be political, cultural, or climatological, is one of those things that happens on such a long timescale that you don't notice it until it's too late.

It's entirely possible that the BBC is maintained for another century, purely as an expensive monument to the country's history that nobody watches, before finally being rolled up in 2092. There's precedent for this in things like the royal family[0] or Brexit. Or tomorrow the Tories wind up repealing the license tax and significantly downsizing the BBC as a result, turning it into an English PBS/NPR. Knowing that the BBC is doomed doesn't tell you how long it has to live, just that things will continue to get worse until something breaks completely.

[0] Conflict-of-interest disclosure: I am an American

edit: incorrect info

> BBC World Service, which is an entirely commercial entity

This is not truthful - the World Service is funded by the rest of the BBC, not the other way around, and until recently was also funded by the FCO.

Yea I got the name wrong and mistook it for BBC Worldwide

now called BBC Studios after a merge.

You're thinking of BBC Studios, the global for-profit arm. The BBC World Service is an international multi-lingual news and discussion service.

Big budget costume drama your commercial broadcaster paid $$$ for? BBC Studios. Guy speaking your language but likely from a radio studio thousands of miles away, telling you stuff that your local news media are too scared (if they exist) to broadcast? BBC World Service.

Historically the UK government saw the BBC World Service as an important way to exercise soft power, and funded it directly. That ended, and today it's all paid for out of the profits of BBC Studios and the license fee.

You're right, I was thinking of BBC Worldwide which is now part of BBC Studios. Still, it makes a lot more money than the group gets from the license fee, which was my point.

That's not correct.

"Licence fee accounted for 71% of BBC funding in 2019/20"

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-...

Looks like someone gave me wrong information. Thank you, I stand corrected

[Although I should note that just because the World Service says it and your local news are too scared to do so, does not mean it's true...]

See for example All Largely Propaganda from "Bang!" - An Open Letter by The Hafler Trio.

Oh, the Monty Python Flying Circus has an entire season with jokes about that.

BBC (and other national broadcasters) should focus on news, children's TV and maybe a small selection of cultural stuff that otherwise wouldn't have exposure. It makes no sense to compete in the commercial entertainment space.

I'm already noticing that there's stuff on streaming now that includes funding from several non-profit or national cultural organisations, I think that model can work well. I enjoy watching European or Asian productions with subtitles and get a break from the usual fare. There are huge economies of scale to be had.

This is what Japan's NHK does, and I watch it a lot on Roku. Documentaries, cooking shows, talk shows focusing on Japanese culture, etc. They're basically cultivating and training tourists, which is great! I want to know about famous places that I can visit, new food I can try, and enough Japanese to at least get directions or buy things from people who can't speak English. And, while the production values aren't Hollywood-level, I expect they're better than what prefectural tourist offices would make.

If I were planning a trip to Great Britain, I'd happily watch a similar channel.

I agree with you, but we need to reevaluate our values when it comes to public funds.

When Florida paid Emeril Lagasse to produce a show that's purpose was partly to promote Florida tourism, people freaked out and it ruined his career.

> It makes no sense to compete in the commercial entertainment space.

If the authors figures are right and they are spending a fraction of what the competition are spending while still producing solid shows (which are then sold on to other markets for a decent price) then why not?

I don't think that's necessarily true. National broadcasters have created great television. They can compete just fine.

They can't, or shouldn't, compete, is just an opinion.

TopGear and Schitts creek come immediately to mind of great successes.

The challenge the BBC faces is one that all public service broadcasters face across Europe. Although they cannot compete with the enormous budgets of streaming services, that doesn't mean they can't make programmes the public want to watch and which can be popular. And not every series needs a huge budget to succeed. Co-productions are common throughout the industry and a lot of BBC content ends up on Amazon and Netflix.

For those not familiar with the BBC outside the UK, the variety and scope of content they produce is simply massive. Some argue too much.

It's not just big-name TV shows though - there are national radio stations covering music and speech, a further 40+ regional radio stations and the BBC World Service.

They fund 5 orchestras, produce the biggest classical music festival in the world (BBC Proms), also support UK artists to get exposure with their BBC Music Introducing scheme.

Children's TV programmes are free of commercial influence and ad-free. Educational materials cover the entire UK school curriculum and are extensive. (Remember the recent bbc micro:bit project to get kids coding? Only the BBC would have taken the initiative).

The entire BBC website is completely ad-free for everyone in the UK (not ad-free outside the UK though).

The list goes on...

There are lots of things I dislike about the BBC, particularly their domestic news output. I hate the 'dumbing down' of some documentaries. But I think we in the UK would be worse off without the BBC despite all it's faults.

> For example, Disney reportedly shovels $25m per episode into its prestige Marvel shows. The Crown on Netflix costs7 between $6.5m and $13m per episode, and so on.

> With the best will in the world, there’s no way in hell that Doctor Who is ever going to have that sort of money spent on it8...

> My fear for the BBC is that as generational turnover takes place, the BBC will remain outpaced and its cultural relevance will continue to decline. How can the BBC compete in a world where Disney can crank out an infinite stream of Mandalorians and WandaVisions11, while the BBC has to make do with less cash and an obligation to make worthy documentaries...

Oh no, it can't afford to make superhero-themed stuff. We're doomed!

There's an important place for stuff that isn't easily-translated superhero-themed special effects blockbusters. Frankly, I view the dominance of those blockbusters to be more of a disease than an important trend that needs to be aped.

> Oh no, it can't afford to make superhero-themed stuff. We're doomed!

They absolutely can.

If you make a show people want to watch, they'll pay for it.

The BBC is (overall) great. The licence fee though has always been a regressive tax.

Like with libraries, NHS, school, police etc. some crazy person will just have to suggest the unthinkable that taxpayers money creates YouTube (or whatever) content, and the lack of need for it to be a thinly disguised advert will make it much more enjoyable to watch.

It's worth noting that the BBC's reputation has also been harmed in the course of the divisive debate over Brexit with commentary that has kept neither side of the debate happy.

On a lighter note (which I admit reflects my personal inclinations): they should buy back live coverage of Test Match Cricket from Sky - a series of broadly unifying national sporting occasions that used to have distinctive BBC coverage (and still does on the radio of course). Good for cricket too.

The political decision to lose national sports coverage from the public domain made both the BBC and the nations sense of identity weaker.

Is it even possible to cover Brexit in a "neutral" way that everyone likes?

Probably not. I do think it was less courageous than it might have been in calling out issues on both sides - I think it could have emerged with no side happy but possibly with more respect.

They were so anti-Brexit, it got a bit ridiculous.

One example: "Brexit threat to sandwiches"

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-44960293

I am happy to report that there are still sandwiches in the UK.

This article is from after the brexit vote about what might have happened in the event of a no deal brexit. We are currently in a grace period on import checks, and this week we've seen warnings from food suppliers about what will happen after the grace period [1]. This shows it wasn't "ridiculous".

Frankly I think the BBC did pretty well. Political parties didn't draw clear lines at first, and covering the full spectrum of opinions was probably impossible. Overall Farage got more airtime than his MP count would suggest was necessary, and he was sort of balanced by the Lib Dems.

Even with a deal sandwiches have been confiscated as a result of brexit, so in some way there really has been a threat to sandwiches [2].

[1] - https://news.sky.com/story/m-s-warns-of-price-pressure-and-l...

[2] - https://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/brexit-...

Actually kudos to the BBC for pointing out possible supply chain issues following Brexit. We should have seen more of this kind of challenge to both sides.

There are just so many things the BBC in its current form is doing wrong I don't know where to start:

    - Paying too much for too little (both quality *and* quantity of "talent")
    - Repeats, repeats and more goddam repeats in increasingly short timeframes
    - Recent actions such as putting Spitting Image on BritBox (paid commercial service), it should have been on license-paid TV ! I certainly refused to pay for it.  
    - Taking Political Correctness to extremes. Whether race, gender or disability it has become like *every* BBC programme has to fill a quota.  Don't get me wrong, diversity is important, but do you really have to cram every form of diversity into every single programme to the point where it starts feeling forced and artificial ?
    - Turning BBC News into a joke (newsreader reads summary, over to "our correspondent" who has been expensively transported to the scene to tell the viewer *the same thing*, then back to the studio for someone else on the BBC's payroll to tell the viewer *the same thing* again).

During the COVID lockdowns, I can probably count on one hand the number of hours of BBC programming I watched. Everything else came from Apple/Amazon/Netflix and perhaps one or two services.

If you want the BBC summarised in a nutshell, just look what happened when DoE died. They cleared their schedules across pretty much all TV and radio channels ... to broadcast the exact same mirrored content ... for god knows how many hours it was (48 ? 72 ?). Completely nuts. I mean one channel fine .... but the entirety of your major broadcast channels?

I think the BBC needs to reject the premise of celebrity entirely and start summarily getting rid of people when they start demanding exorbitant fees. Particularly for programmes which are factual, Huw Edwards and Gary Lineker are simply not worth their fees, people are tuning in for the content.

Spitting Image is made by ITV not the BBC.

If you watch less than 5hrs of BBC content a year, perhaps you aren't best placed to comment on it?

This criticism is so hackneyed it could have been copy pasted from a 2002 Daily Mail comment section.

> If you watch less than 5hrs of BBC content a year, perhaps you aren't best placed to comment on it?

I see the point I was making flew right over your head.

The point is that I am aware of exactly what the BBC schedules during the year, but none of it is attractive (i.e. either repeats and more repeats, or just generally unattractive content).

I can tell you as someone who works at the bbc is that the reason it feels like there’s a quota, is because there basically is. Well rather a target. Same for hiring (50% women and 20% minorities). And we’ve been explicitly told managers are evaluated based on hiring and promoting to meet these targets

hasn't the bbc always been outspent by commercial production houses?

what happens when the streaming giants start focusing on pumping out low risk crap as they mature into what they're replacing?

i always thought the thesis of the bbc was that you didn't need huge budgets to produce high quality programming. and that, in fact, the opposite is true: moderate budget in the hands of the capable and passionate can produce outstanding results.

> What happens when the streaming giants start focusing on pumping out low risk crap as they mature into what they're replacing?

You can stop subscribing and stop giving them money.

How dreadful would life be if Auntie went radio only? It’s the only content I really care for. TMS, Radio4 to Radio2 inclusive, and a 198LW service detectable in the deepest of valleys.

The gutting of the R4 schedule with repeats and the downsizing of the radio news team could happily be reversed.

The jewel in the crown is R1Xtra. It’s absolutely at the cutting edge. How?!

Oh, and erm The Last Kingdom, I guess. Thanks Netflix for saving it.

> How dreadful would life be if Auntie went radio only?

Pretty awful for those of us that enjoy (some) of their TV output.

> It’s the only content I really care for.

And this is where the problem lies, because the BBC has to try and please everyone you get people assuming because everything doesn't appeal to them then the rest should be axed.

How dreadful would life be if Auntie went radio only?

I'm glad someone else has asked this! I spent some time earlier this year thinking about the responsibilities of the BBC and given the diversity of freely available video now, I think they could satisfy most of their cultural and journalistic obligations with radio/podcasts for a fraction of the budget. (BBC1 alone takes up 28% of the BBC budget. Their entire radio budget is less than their annual government grant.)

I say this as someone who loves BBC documentaries but is also trying to be realistic about resources and waning public appetite to pay the license fee.

I have often thought the BBC ought to create individual youtube channels for their tv series and put teasers for new episodes as they release on iplayer, along with the most popular clips from those shows.

An audience of young people who almost certainly visit youtube regularly would then have a chance of being able to be notified when a show they actually like on the BBC releases.

Why isn't everything the BBC has ever made available on a streaming service for license free payers? I'd love to able to watch the TV news for days when interesting things happened; old dramas with `low production values' but actual acting and writing and stories and no constant gratuitous cuts and close-ups …

I believe there is historical reasons. When they started iPlayer they were told they coudln't just put up everything the BBC had produced in it's history as it would be "an unfair commercial advantage" or some other bullshit.

>Why isn't everything the BBC has ever made available on a streaming service for license free payers?

1. Rights issues. The BBC doesn't actually own the bundle of exclusive rights to a lot of the content that they commission. The rights belong to the independent production companies that actually make the shows.

2. Regulation. The BBC has often been blocked by regulators from having a comprehensive SVoD service other than for catch-up, because it was seen as a threat to commercial entities (like Netflix).

3. Missing archives. Not so much an issue these days, but historically archiving was not a priority, at all. Many programmes were broadcast and then forgotten about. There are episodes of classic Doctor Who which are just lost to time now, for example.

I believe that the BBC can provide value for money and remain relevant if and only if there is an internal recognition that any competition they face as an organisation is against the best social value that a public broadcasting utility can provide. Any notion of commercial competition needs to be squashed.

Be honest, would anyone really be worse off if the iPlayer left out asking you to login, choose a profile, confirm you have a TV licence, decline the parental lock and click through the add roll?

"Instead, they’ll be reminiscing about watching a Twitch streaming millionaire child screaming racial slurs as he rail-guns his opponents on Fortnite."

This perspective is reductive and insulting. There are many great, wholesome creators on YT/Twitch who put a lot of work to make their content welcoming and intellectually engaging, even if they are seemingly just playing video games. Just because the author doesn't like it doesn't make this remotely accurate to the real world.

It’s a reference to one of the most popular youtubers, who had the highest subscriber count for years.

"The BBC’s legitimacy is predicated on it being a universal service."

And this is the issue. Once they got super political they ceased being universal :p

The BBC are super political?

Witness Laura Kneussburg (chief BBC "zampolit") fawning all over Boris Johnson when she should have been giving him a hard time about his fuckups!

BBC News is basically Pravda these days: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43463496

That was reporting on the opposition leader.

The best thing about these comments is trying to guess whether they are about to complain the BBC is too left wing or too right wing.

Indeed, that's has always been my argument for the BBC. Both sides are constantly claiming that the BBC is biased the other way so they are probably falling in the middle for the most part.

BBC ceased being universal and viewed as legitimate when it delved into politics and political issues. PBS in the US made the same mistake.

The era of publicly funding TV should have ended years ago when information and news became free (essentially when US household internet or smartphone penetration reached 85%+)

> BBC ceased being universal and viewed as legitimate when it delved into politics and political issues. PBS in the US made the same mistake.

I've been watching a bit of PBS Newshour recently (easy, since full episodes are on Youtube), and if it's done that, it's done it to a far lesser extent than the commercial cable networks.

Also, you can't have a good news program without "delv[ing] into politics and political issues." Often times when I see similar criticism, the real issue is the programming is not 100%-yourside inoffensive, but you won't get that from anything that's not Yourside-Pravda.

I'm interested to know which years you consider the BBC and PBS to have been "non-political" or not engaged in propaganda (propaganda in the dictionary sense, not the pejorative sense)? I've watched both for 30 years and also significant amounts of archival footage from both as a hobby/interest in broadcast history, and it's very clear that they have always had politically motivated narratives.

If getting the BBC more money is the issue, do what Canada does with Foreign Movie/TV Productions, and tax the revenue to return back to its state-owned production company, the ONF/NFB. They can't get by on TV licenses and their deal with AMC Networks forever.

I like the original programming content the BBC produces. I don't like the BBC, and BBC news in particular, at all.

They propagate bias in insidious ways like 'creative' titling of articles, pushing articles off to side channels, and cutting HoC footage, all the while claiming impartiality. Their quality of their writing on the site has truly tanked in recent years, too.

And that's not to mention the harrassment of people who don't pay their license fee. Complain about Netflix's content all you want, at least they aren't lying about having signal detecting vans and sending threatening letters calling you a criminal. (To the non-Brits, the license fee is optional if you don't watch TV. But even if you tell them you don't have a TV, they'll send you letters every single month threatening you with court[1])

[1] http://www.bbctvlicence.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv2ZqZmC7u0 is worth a watch on the subject too

The bias in BBC's reporting is well known. For example, anti-India bias. Lots of other examples here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC#Specific_...

I can’t take an article about the BBC seriously that only talks about TV

MSM is sh*t and it's dying, what else is new?

And how exactly is this a bad thing? >inb4 it allows misinformation [...]

That has always been the case, and the generations that grew up under the 'protective umbrella' and the golden age of news corporations are the most despised ones(not to mention it promotes the "lack of filter").It's not a new thing, and that's why people are excited when a new medium arises: because usually the old dogs are not there at first.[to regurgitate their rhetorics, if i might add]

State funded propaganda has always been a bad idea. Maybe the BBC is the best example of a bad idea but either way, good riddance.

The truth about untrue truths changes the moods of the crowds.

[F] https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9958679/BBC-admits-...

Nobody applauds...

As an American consumer of BBC shows and web news, I've got mixed feelings about this.

I really like shows like 'Dr. Who'. I find the news interesting, but am puzzled by the focus on American politics (and always from the left side. I feel they truly don't understand the conservative half of America.)

I wish them luck. I wish they'd present a more balanced view of America, but I wish them well.

> Don’t get me wrong. I love the BBC, and I’m always the first in line to defend it from its many stupid critics.

Ah, one of the "everyone who disagrees with me is stupid" types. Good of him to make that clear right up front so I didn't waste any more time reading.

>Even if you don’t engage with Newsnight’s coverage of the Namibian Presidential Election6, or you don’t tune in to hear what the fishing conditions are like in the North Sea, it’s good that at least someone, somewhere is being paid to care about these things.

Why?

You’re being downvoted but I think this is a fair question. I don’t accept this assertion as true at face value. Presumably the BBC, as with any other government-controlled revenue source, acts as some sort of patronage mechanism, and a lot of these roles exist as a jobs program rather than something the taxpayers actually extract a benefit from.

> The BBC, as with any other government-controlled revenue source

Point of fact, the BBC was not intended to be "government-controlled", and it is not a "revenue source" for the UK government.

https://www.quora.com/Is-the-BBC-the-state-owned-and-state-c...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#

The BBC is government-controlled in that its money is collected by the government, which can punish people for not paying, and organizations know where their funds are coming from and attempt to prevent those funds from being stopped.

Reread. I used the word "intended" deliberately. There are many indirect mechanisms, that are open to abuse. You described one. It's not the same though as direct control.

>The BBC is government-controlled in that its money is collected by the government

No, the licence fee is collected by the BBC, by law.

Section 365(2) of the Communications Act 2003:

>Sums which a person is liable to pay by virtue of regulations under subsection (1) must be paid to the BBC and are to be recoverable by them accordingly.

> No, the licence fee is collected by the BBC, by law.

And the government punishes you if you don't pay.

I declined to make a distinction without a difference.

“Revenue source” meaning “source of revenue for patronage programs”, not that it makes money for the UK Govt.

Because we need to know what is going on in the world, whether its profitable or not.

News should not be entertainment. News should not be for profit.

> News should not be entertainment. News should not be for profit.

But why?

If "news" isn't profitable or entertaining (and FWIW I agree those shouldn't be preconditions for quality news), then it will have to be subsidized by someone. Who will do that? What is their reason for putting up that money? And - most importantly - who decides whether the end product is "good enough", and what changes can they demand for the subsidy to continue?

> Democracy should not be entertainment. Democracy should not be for profit.

But why?

If "democracy" isn't profitable or entertaining (and FWIW I agree those shouldn't be preconditions for quality democracy), then it will have to be subsidized by someone. Who will do that? What is their reason for putting up that money? And - most importantly - who decides whether the end product is "good enough", and what changes can they demand for the subsidy to continue?

I think its a fair question and wanted to respond. I don't think people should just downvote.

There are a lot of things that we as a society have decided we need, and that everybody should contribute to paying for whether we like it or not.

We pay police salaries to try and prevent crime. We all pay to have waste collected regularly.

But lets be clear, we are not talking all that much money. Australia's ABC runs on about 7c a day per taxpayer. I would happily pay 10 times that.

I think the question of what is "good enough" and how the organization should be run, and how independent it is, are all good questions and something we should all have a say in.

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