BBC says 'irreversible' trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul | Hacker News Reader

BBC says 'irreversible' trends mean it will not survive without major overhaul

theguardian.com

28 pointsbeardyw87 comments

People complain about the BBC's bias. And since everyone has a different idea of what "unbiased" looks like, it's almost impossible to please everyone.

But it struck me how few serious, general, global news outlets there are left in the world that aren't tied to some major interest. Fox News, CNN, WSJ... So much stuff is owned by Murdoch or by some other mogul. The Guardian is pretty good IMO but does not even pretend not to have a lefty skew.

I was thinking about the spiral of death that happens to so many media outlets where serious news doesn't pay the bills anymore, so they either have to rent themselves out to some deep pocket, or chase clicks for ads, losing veracity in the process.

BBC is one of the few organisations left that's somewhat immune to that. I won't claim all their stuff is unbiased, but they're just as likely to publish something left- as right-biased. So now I'm rooting for them and hope they make it. Apparently it is the second most trusted news source in the US, right after the Weather Channel. So truly a global phenomenon: https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/52272-trust-in-media-2025-...

The news coverage is in general OK compared to commercial news, and especially to US propaganda outfits, but Channel 4 (also public sector) are also pretty good. The UK politics coverage is abysmal. They have become cautious stenographers and promoters of whichever party Farage is heading at the time. Not surprising when you see what happens to reporting that genuinely challenges power.

Agree that Channel 4 is also pretty good, perhaps better even than the BBC for politics now. But so much UK politics coverage these days has moved to podcasts – some of them staffed by ex-BBC people.

I tend to find Sky has the best serious political coverage now, despite being Murdoch-controlled. They are a very different beast from Sky Australia.

BBC Question Time has been a joke for a while. One of the previous producers was actually busted for trying to source colourful characters for the audience, often from the far right or UKIP/Reform crew.

As I say above, apart from regional factors, the BBC has a built in bias against Scottish independence because it would lose 10% of its licence fee funding if it occurred.

The most obvious example of BBC bias (to me anyway) is their coverage of the British royal family. It is incredibly sycophantic. In fact, I notice they tried to bury the Andrew story on several occasions and it never went away.

They have an institutional bias against Scottish independence, since they would lose 10% of their funding if it occurred.

I'd add Al Jazeera to decent media. They are heavily skewed about the middle east, and readonably neutral/disinterested for the rest of the world.

As a non muslim EU inhabitant, they tend to open the window where our media stay silent.

I refuse to pay the license fee and watch BBC content simply because how TV licensing is enforced is grotesque and the cover ups of child molesters committed by the BBC.

Put it behind a subscription and give me a choice whether the BBC deserves its revenue, my current opinion falls firmly on no.

I'm sure you feel the same way about Sky News and the tabloids, right?

You're not legally required to pay for either of those simply because you own a television.

I have a lot of love for the BBC and its history, but the license fee is very difficult to justify.

You aren't required to pay the licence fee simply for owning a television. It's required if you're using it to watch OTA channels and/or iPlayer, as I understand it?

> By law, each household in the UK - with some exceptions - has to pay if they:

> watch or record programmes as they're being shown live on any TV channel

> The rules apply to any device on which a programme is viewed, including a TV, desktop or laptop computer, mobile phone, tablet, games console or set-top box.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz9k27yy839o

The justification is pretty simple, even if you disagree with it. It goes something like this: we, the people of the UK, believe that a non-commercial broadcaster and news and production company are of significant value to us, and that in order to fund these social goods we will levy a license fee on the use of any television within the UK.

Now of course, you can disagree about the value proposition, and you can disagree about the choice on how to fund it. But that's the justification, and it's not hard.

If that justification held up, the BBC would have no trouble staying afloat through voluntary subscription fees, pay to watch content and advertising revenue. Instead, they harass anyone who doesn't pony up the license fee and put the onus on them to prove they aren't in violation.

The BBC was set up to be advertising free, so that option is not a part of the current structure.

The license fee was established because of fundamental beliefs about issues like free riding, externalities and more. You might prefer a subscription based model - I'm sort of on the fence myself, but it's not obviously wrong - but the BBC license fee was set up out of an explicit disbelief that such systems would work. Granted, some of the issues were technological - you couldn't actually stop people watching OTA broadcasts at the time. But even though those have changed, the beliefs about the funding structure have not.

The BBC does have some advertising on it, if you can call it that. Most of it tends to be inhouse. So in addition to TV programmes, in the past I have seen them advertising "Radio Times" (a magazine they used to own giving TV listings), tie-in books, TV licences, DVDs/VHS, and their other channels and digital services. They also cross-promote their material. When David Tennant was playing Doctor Who, you would frequently see BBC News 24 being featured in the programme.

Nowhere near as bad as other channels in that sense, but still there.

Historically, there have been also been substantial numbers of people who watched the BBC without licences in the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands, but they couldn't do a thing about it. The BBC tended to be watched in the east of the Republic of Ireland and near the border with Northern Ireland. (Not so much in France from what I can tell.) Many of the houses in Dublin used to have massive tall TV aerials to receive it. Most have been removed now. (Within the Republic of Ireland, RTÉ is funded by their own licence system, but also has proper advertising on it, unlike the BBC. It has had similar questions about it.)

> The BBC does have some advertising on it, if you can call it that.

No, I can't.

Well, I can. I'm old enough to remember "Radio Times", and other magazines, being advertised quite openly on BBC1 and 2 as well as their radio stations. I think they had to sell their share in "Radio Times", after government pressure, but they still do many tie-in books. (Especially true of their science fiction franchises such as "Doctor Who", which has dozens of official books based on it.)

The other advertising includes heavy promotion of BBC linked charities such as Comic Relief, Children in Need and so on. These charities make big money and there have been some questions about how that money is used and where.

BBC advertising is less obnoxious than commercial channels, but it is still there. In addition, the BBC owns BBC America (which carries commercial breaks), as well as having shares in services accessible in the UK including the "BritBox" streaming service, and the digital channels "Dave" and "UK Gold" which all have normal commercial breaks.

1) I suspect that I am older than you, but either way, probably the same cohort.

2) I have a very hard time considering a media organization mentioning its own products and activities in its content as "advertising". If you want to use the word that way, be my guest, but my understanding (and I think most people's understanding) of the term implies a 3rd party paying a media organization to include marketing content in their output.

3) Fair point about BBC America, but I don't think it really invalidates the point.

The BBC does not carry advertising in the same way as ITV, but a certain amount of content qualifies. I don't include trailers, but I do include promotion of their own non-TV products, the TV licence, promotion of the corporation as a whole (the BBC has done a number of nostalgia reels and songs — their cover of "Perfect Day" years ago would qualify.) and so on.

The BBC has a perpetual Catch 22 around self-advertising, much like the NHS.

How, dare I ask, does one "opt out" of a govt subscription service ?

Some private companies make it so hard these days (Adobe & NYT being the kings of subcription dark patterns), I am curious how the process goes with a govt entity like the BBC ?

One tells them to fuck off when they turn up at the door. And off they fuck.

> How, dare I ask, does one "opt out" of a govt subscription service ?

Currently, by not using a television.

Here

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/t...

Quite easily. I haven't had a licence for over twenty years.

TV Licensing has no right of access to your home, so if they turn up, you can turn them away. You also ignore their letters. TV licensing is actually a private company separate from the BBC and the government.

In order to get access, they have to apply for a warrant to get into your home. To do that they have to fill out a lot of paperwork. If you have a TV (and I don't), it should not be visible or audible from anywhere outside these little toerags can hear/see it.

The BBC also behaved indefensibly when covering Israel's genocide of Palestinians.

Their behaviour is largely what led to me siding with the Palestinians plight some years ago, the use of words on Israel's side VS Palestinians was enough to lead me down a rabbit hole and I have never seen the BBC the same since.

It is literally state news with amazing bits of other content.

The BBC continually tries to convince the government that their problems are due to illegal action that must be stopped.

They do everything in their power to distract from the real issue - that the landscape of television has changed beyond recognition since the tax was brought in.

It's completely clear to everybody that the TV licence is an outdated model that makes no sense in today's world of competing commercial streaming services, but they're desperate to control the narrative to avoid losing their income stream. Which is understandable I suppose, from their narrow point of view. But for the country's point of view, we need a politician with balls, to step up and reform the system. But I'm not sure those even exist anymore.

The BBC obviously wants to avoid losing their income stream, and the current UK government has made clear verbal statements that they not only want the BBC to avoid losing their income stream but that they also want a change to a more sustainable and enforceable model for this. The BBC has not argued that the current license fee is the only model, but they have argued that if this is the model that is going to be used, something about it needs to change if they are to have the income stream that they need.

It also isn't clear to me that the TV license is an outdated model in entirety. The notion that a country would levy a fee on more or less any instance of an activity in order to fund a non-commercial institution related to that activity doesn't seem strange to me at all. What is true is that the nature of the activity and the enforceability of the fee have both changed, and that therefore something probably does need to be done.

They will probably end up following the Australian model where it is funded directly by taxation. Of course this will undermine the BBC's supposed quasi-independence.

The BBC is ridiculously slow to pick up on trends. BBC pop radio (Radio 1) only came in as a response to pirate radio. Its streaming services aren't as good as they could be, and they have the double paradox of showing the same content over and over (such as "Dad's Army" made before I was born), while keeping a lot of classic content unavailable.

Personally I'd choose an arbitrary point like the year 2000, and split the BBC into "heritage" (nationalized body that holds all the archives, like the British Library or the British Museum), BBC Radio (taxpayer funded by DCMS, this is not very expensive) and "continuity TV" (commercial body that has to fund itself like any other).

This does mean Doctor Who getting split in half, but that's not the worst that's happened to him/her.

BBC News?

> the corporation said 94% of people in the UK continued to use the BBC each month, but fewer than 80% of households contributed to the licence fee.

That's a pretty good ratio no? Plenty of services survive with lower ratios than that. Do they really expect every household to pay? Or is the issue they have much bigger spending plans than they make from it.

They're legally require to do so! People are sent to jail for not paying the tax! https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/feb/29/tv-licence-fee...

(what that stat actually means is that the missing 14% are pensioners who are exempt)

Easy fix: make the BBC a paid subscription and let people choose.

That is not part of the conception of the BBC as a social good, a non-commercial institution that provides value to the UK (and the world).

You can argue that this conception has to change, and that's fine. But the BBC was established by the UK government, with stated intentions and goals, and it currently isn't and never has been seen as a "pay-to-watch" sort of thing.

It may not be seen as "pay to watch", but that is effectively what it always has been. Back in the early days, that idea could be excused — because TV was basically them and ITV, and Channel 4 in the early eighties — since there was a good chance you'd be watching their content. Back in my childhood there were so few channels you could often guess what someone had watched the night before, and you would chat about it. Not anymore.

Since the emergence of VHS/DVDs, satellite television and the internet, their viewing share has reduced considerably. They've gone from being 2/3 of the available channels to 1/2, to about a dozen out of hundreds of channels.

Right now, more British under-30s are watching YouTube than the BBC, which has undermined their stranglehold on TV. Many people simply aren't watching the BBC at all. BBC3 is an attempt to appeal to the young, which has had mixed results. Many children simply don't watch BBC content anymore.

By "pay to watch" I was referring to "pay <X> to be able to watch <Y>". I was not describing "you must pay something to watch anything".

The whole idea of the BBC was a cultural force that wasn't subject to commercial considerations. I'm not going to die on that hill, but we need to recognize that it is a very different idea to e.g. how many viewers are.

If the decision is to change that fundamental conception of the BBC, so be it, but don't try to sneak it in the backdoor. That said, some might argue that the bulk of contemporary BBC-produced content has already eroded it so much that the distinction is moot.

Lord Reith did envision the BBC as a cultural force for sure. I would certainly argue that they aren't producing enough highbrow content.

The BBC has shown some commercial considerations. For example, some of its documentaries and dramas are aimed for resale in foreign markets. In the past, the BBC has made money off magazines and books, DVDs/videos, music (including live concerts) and so on.

Their scientific and nature programming is decent, but very much aimed for sale to the American market, with the possible exception of the "Sky at Night" (which is only monthly). Their music programming is alright — some decent classical and jazz. Their sports coverage, again, tends to be very anglocentric (so if you're Scottish, Welsh or (Northern) Irish, don't expect much UK-wide coverage of your teams), but is better than ITV's.

Their drama has been going downhill for some years now (and is dominated by soap operas and crime dramas), and their historical/political content is often tendentious and anglocentric (not even that — Londoncentric). The BBC has traditionally best period dramas but is failing in that sphere now.

They are moving to a stricter pay to watch system. iPlayer for example asks you if you have a TV licence if you watch it.

I didn't pay the license fee here in Switzerland for a long time because I didn't have a tv or radio (I guess they didn't know about my car). In 2019 (I think) they just said 'fuck it, everyone pays' and changed it so you pay whether you have a tv or radio.

I could say that I don't watch Swiss tv but then the tv series Tschugger came out and made a few years of payments worth it. Otherwise it's just watching endless Jass (Swiss card game) tournaments.

Serafe is completely crazy. For business it's based on turnover, so every financial company gets screwed. And for students 300 CHF is half your semester cost if my memory serves me right.

The BBC's Annual Plan for 2025/2026[1] is an interesting read.

They spend a lot of money (billions) on making and delivering content, but that's still not much compared to other large for-profit media companies[2].

The TV License has been the model since World War II[3], and the entire mass media landscape has completely changed since then.

The proposals to replace the TV License with ads or subscriptions are enshittification. The BBC is not a for-profit media company and should not be treated like one. It is a soft-power organization (cynically: propaganda arm) for the British government. There isn't anything inherently wrong with spreading your government's/culture's messages, especially when it's as obvious as the BBC, but it should not be expected to make money. How much is it worth that Britain stays relevant throughout the Anglosphere and beyond? Or that British points of view are available everywhere with a shortwave radio or VPN?

So fund it like it's defense spending. Maybe if the next leader of a foreign country has a fondness for Del Boy or Red Dwarf, negotiations will go a little more smoothly.

As an American, I think I'd prefer having an official propaganda arm like the BBC instead of whatever quiet public-private partnerships (cynically: backroom deals) we have instead. I'd hate it, but it'd be good to have something concrete to direct my criticism at, instead of constantly wondering if NPR is really presenting unbiased facts or the movie about our Navy jet fighters being the best, most freedom-loving planes flown by handsome rascals is just a good time.

1: https://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/documents/bbc-annual-plan-...

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21st_Century_Fox#

3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un...

The BBC operates independently of the UK government. It is an autonomous entity that is publicly funded. It is not a “propaganda arm” of the UK government in the manner of state television.

I am happy to pay for the BBC licence fee if they stop harassing old grannies.

How about the young grannies?

This thread is quite eye opening. A lot of comments bemoaning the lack of agreement on what constitutes bias, mixed with claims the BBC is right wing and even a Nigel Farage fluffer (that's a howler). I didn't see anyone mention that, just a couple months back, two very high profile BBCers were forced to resign over the doctoring of Trump's Jan. 6 speech to completely alter its meaning. That simply doesn't happen unless it's a very serious scandal.

Imagine needing a government licence to look at a screen.

Its a hypothocated tax.

Its not required to "look at a screen". its required to watch broadcast TV and use the BBc's online TV services. You can watch as much as you like on Youtube or Netflix or whatever without paying it.

it was very good value for money when half of all TV output (and the better half) was from the BBC and ad free.

> You can watch as much as you like on Youtube or Netflix or whatever without paying it.

Careful here because there is live TV on Youtube and a valid licence is required to watch that. There are also live shows on Netflix, which may count as "live TV programmes" so requiring a licence.

You're moving the goalposts.

Watching non-live BBC programmes in the UK legally requires a license fee. The same is not true of Netflix.

The way it’s worded it is that any thing that could be deemed “live TV” is liable for the tax regardless of who produced the content.

Are you suggesting that there's significant ambiguity about what "live TV" means?

Yes. TNT shows live TV for example, last I checked they were produced by the UFC rather than BBC.

The UK law is specifically designed to cover this. It's not some weird thing. Any "live TV" requires a license even if you watch it via streaming services.

If the law intends this, this is specifically a very weird thing. Why would the law intend to make people pay the BBC to watch UFC?

The law did not really intend this as it was written when "live TV" meant sitting in front of an actual TV. Since then it has been interpreted as covering everything, I think to protect revenues and deter even more people from ditching their TV licence.

> Watching non-live BBC programmes in the UK legally requires a license fee. The same is not true of Netflix.

Agreed but this is not what I commented on (no goalpost moved...)

It has to be television. So i think it depends on the particular live stream you watch - e.g. one that is also on a TV channel at the same time.

https://www.gov.uk/find-licences/tv-licence https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/faqs/FAQ33

The example given by TV licensing is Sky News. it has to be part of a "television programme"

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/part/4

Yes, you highlight that a TV livence may be required for some content on Youtube. It is apparently also required for some content (live) on Netflix [1]. For example it seems that WWE Raw, which is live and on Netflix is deemed "live TV" [1]:

"Services include YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Now, Sky Go, BBC iPlayer, ITVX and more. Live TV or events can include:

Champions League matches or live channels on Amazon Prime Video

WWE or NFL events on Netflix

News or sports channels on YouTube"

It's a bit of a mess...

[1] https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/w...

It's a historical accident. At first there was no TV, so when the BBC started broadcasting I suppose it made sense. Moving away from that seems to be difficult without them introducing advertising for live TV, which would be a quick fix, but that seems to be a diminishing market.

For streaming it's easy to manage.

It's not an accident. Funding state media with a licence fee instead of from the taxes/state budget, makes it harder to exert political control over said state media.

Yes, good point.

No accident at all, in fact Lord Reith wanted the BBC to create the correct British values, i.e. to speak with a particular accent, to be loyal to the royal family and not to get involved in anything that was a threat to the system. The service was very much centred on London, with some paltry "regional" services.

The creation of ITV was supposed to provide an alternative, but was all too cosy and even today ITV pushes much the same programming as the BBC in outlook and news etc. The first real threat was pirate radio, which proved more popular than the BBC, and forced them to introduce Radio 1 for pop music.

Channel 4 was supposed to provide further competition, but in fact it was VCRs and video hire that really undermined the BBC's monopoly in the 80s. By the 90s, they were outclassed by satellite broadcasting (particularly sports and films). By the late 1990s, internet was breaking the state stranglehold on news and information... Leading to a crackdown in the 2010s with whatever scarestories they could come up with like cyberbullying, terrorism, pro-ana, porn etc.

Now the BBC are saying they want a fee for mobile phone and internet usage, although they haven't succeeded in that yet. Both of which are pretty much mandatory now.

You mean like digital ID? Don't worry, we'll all need it to watch screens soon.

In Turkey and Israel you need a licence for radios as well.

Sounds like cope.

I have not paid for the TV licence in over twenty years. I refuse to pay for state propaganda and repeats from forty or fifty years ago.

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