Bbc

[neonplanet40]

The fact that we HAVE to own it if we use a tv really gets to me. I watch VERY LITTLE on the BBC because I find most things below power to be honest.

Once and a while something great comes along like Planet Earth. However its an expensive fee to pay every year. The fact we don't have a choice makes it sting more because most of the time there is very little on that interests me. On the whole we have very little say on how the company is run which is why our money will just go to waste on talentless bums.

Just like our tax money was used on the banks without our saying so ( and huge bonuses paid to them useless miscreants for getting us into that situation) will it be the same with the BBC.

And basically everything else which we HAVE to pay. Its just the government taking everybody and their money for granted and I dont see that ever changing.

[Raz316]

Thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded, I am forced by law to pay Mark Lawrenson to sit through football matches and complain about how boring they are.

This above all else annoys me the most, at least a lot of the 'most talented' halfwits put a lil bit of effort into their performance.

If I could in some way pay half the license fee and stick to the BBC website alone I'd be happy.

[Saracen]

....

Well, I'm a licence fee payer, and also a 'foul-mouth'- I think swearing is great. And I think I'm entitled to my money's worth of swearing from the BBC for my £140 a year.....

Well, the BBC does have a remit to educate, so perhaps educating our kids in the notion that being foul-mouthed on TV is the norm is "education". I'd question how much of a public "service" it is for a public service broadcaster, though. But you certainly don't need someone like Ross to be paid a reported £6m a year by the BBC to get your share of swearing. You've just got to turn on just about any gritty drama, any night of the week, on virtually any channel to get your fill of it. So please don't try to kid us that we need over-paid poseurs like Ross to fulfil it.

I have no problem, personally, with foul language. Hell, you ought to hear me when I'm listening to most political poseurs ... sorry, "MPs" .... as they try to lecture us. I'm surprised I haven't melted the screen ... and I have blistered the wallpaper. I'm perfectly capable of being as potty-mouthed as the next bloke, and I have a better vocabulary for it than many. One of my old uni flatmates taught me some really juicy Arabic swearing, and it would not only make a camel blush, but all those glottal and spitting sounds really sound the part too.

But I don't need it on what's supposed to be a chat show, especially when I'm watching it with my mother-in-law. If swearing adds realism to the drama, fine. But Ross, and a fair few others, do it just for effect, to try and shock. I don't think they've yet worked out that we're not in the '60s or '70s any more, and that swearing for swearing's sake is neither original, cutting edge, shocking or even mildly amusing, let alone funny, any more. It might have been shocking 40 years ago, but Lenny Bruce won that war in the '60s, and Ross et al are just cashing in on that bandwagon.

Do I have a problem with Ross being on late night TV, of people want to watch his particular monotonous brand of drivel? Nope, it's a free world and you're right, the BBC (at least within it's remit) is supposed to be providing content for all. What I object to is him being paid the kind of obscene sum he's reported to be paid. And the BBC does not need to be paying it. I'm sure they could get someone else to primp and preen, and pose, and ask gratuitously offensive questions for a lot less. Hell Rave, you could do it. You could <bleep> away to your heart's content, and I'm sure you'd be happy with a lot less than £6m a year to do it. What do we need Ross for, we've got a replacement right here.

That's why I get so offended by Mark Thompson's notion that this is in any way, shape or form "talent". It's not. It's celebrity. Ross has built himself a niche, and is milking it for all it's worth. Well, good luck to him. But the BBC is a public service broadcaster, and unlike a commercial station, is supposed to be providing a service, not just pandering to the public''s liking for salacious claptrap.

That's my point.

Thompson and his team have shown some signs of starting to get it, with the refusal to (again, reported) pay the demands of Chiles and Bleakley. I don't have anything against either of them, and they both do a perfectly competent job. But "talent"? What they have is a well-known face, an element of "fame", celebrity ... albeit B or C-list. And that's what they want to be paid for. My issue is not whether they, or Ross, get paid what they want, but that it's the BBC paying it.

Follow the logic. Some unknown gets a chance on a show. He/she does okay, and gets a bigger show. And a bigger one, maybe as a lead. And all of a sudden, they're demanding huge salaries. Is it talent they're being paid for, or merely that their face is now known? In my view, it's overtly the latter. So when they start to get too demanding, show them the door. If they're right about being worth what their egos tell them they are, they'll have no problem getting it out in the commercial world, in which case they get their lucre, the public still get to see them, and the BBC gets to bring on new talent and keep it's cost down at the same time. It's a win-win all round.

But all the likes of Chiles and Bleakley have is the same ability to front up in front of a camera that large numbers of people that haven't been given the chance to try also have ..... and a bit of public familiarity. Hence my stance that it's not talent but minor celebrity. The BBC gives an unknown a chance, gives them the public exposure and is then expected to stump up inflated wage demands because of that exposure? Hell no. Do for someone else what they did for Chiles and Bleakley, and bring on another relatively unknown instead.

That exact argument works for TV's paid gobs like them, and it works for the Paxman's and Ross', and so on, too. Though in Paxman's case, I'll at least give him credit for being a real journalist, knowing his subject and his history of his subject. But he's far from the only one that does.

[usxhe190]

The BBC sucks.

I hate paying over £10 a month for 80% of the crap they make.

[Saracen]

....

Edit to say that:

....while I think the specific points I'm arguing are important (I wouldn't bother otherwise), I should point out that the licence fee is, IIRC, about £140 a year. If the BBC were to cut the salaries of their 'top talent'....and their directors, who it seems are equally overpaid, I really can't see the overall cost of a licence fee going down by more than about a tenner a year, or 3p a day. The BBC makes thousands of programs a year, runs one of the most useful websites on the planet, runs the World Service and dozens of foreign language news channels.....I could go on. Does anyone really believe that trimming the salaries of a few stars or directors is going to make any significant difference at all to their overall budget?

Two things ..... ethos, and appearances.

"Appearances" is pretty obvious. In these times of "austerity" and "savage cuts", in these times of discussions whether public services are going to be cut by 40%, or "merely" 25%, the BBC ought to be very visibly doing it's bit to be joining in.

If nothing else, it's in it's own self-interest if it wants to keep the licence fee arrangement, and not have it's entire funding arrangements up for debate. And that comes up for debate in a couple of years .... right about when the worst of the current "cuts" in government spending are going to bite. So we're going to have a government that's likely to be about as popular as typhoid Mary pulling a cart of especially pungent fresh chicken dung in a perfume factory, and perhaps looking for a diversion. What better than to tackle a "spendthrift" BBC? So, Mt Thomspon, be careful that you aren't painting a target on not just your back but that of the BBC too.

And on the subject of appearances, we have a BBC that thinks about 50 of it's executives deserve to be paid more than the Prime Minister, and in some cases, well above 4 times as much. Yes, Mr Thomspon, I mean you. And, according to the newspaper reports, Thompson's pay in his first year was about 70% higher than the pay of the man he replaced (Greg Dyke) in his last full year. And, according a Telegraph article is January, Thomspon's £834,000 salary is less, in real terms,than when he joined (or rather, re-joined) the BBC five years ago.

Then, there's ethos. The ethos of the senior BBC management is that they have to pay top money to get top talent, and clearly, they class themselves in that category. They are set to pay top whack in their ethos. And the problem is that that is by a "corporation" that doesn't have to sell it's product to it's customers, and that has the full weight of legislation behind a body that is quite prepared to use the court system to enforce it's "sales" if customers refuse to pay. Thomspon seems to think he has to operate as a commercial company would, and compete with them. Okay .... dump the licence fee and give your "customers" a choice about whether hey want BBC services at all! If he wants the BBC to operate like a commercial company, them let it do so!

The ethos ought to be about getting value for money, and fulfilling the remit, not about competing commercially. He does not have to have the best, just good enough.

So, set the ethos by refusing to pay prima donna demands, and by heavily curtailing excessive management salaries as well. A need to Thomspon at 70% more than Dyke was getting is just daft. If he wants that kind of paycheck, go back to C4 and get it.

You're right that in a £3.5bn budget, saving a few million here by not kowtowing to Ross, and a few million there by reigning in lower-paid staff won't make a lot of difference to licence fee. But it could be a start in a seed change in attitude, and it could what service they provide. For instance, the proposed (now reversed) closure of 6Music was to save, what, £6m a year. So .... Ross or 6Music? One prima donna or an entire station?

It's the opportunity cost principle. If they spend millions on management, and millions on prima donnas, they either have to charge us a lot more, or they have to not do something that would provide us with content. They can't spend it twice. So it;s about jhow they choose to prioritise spending. Excessive pay for stars and management, or content for us. IF they were commercial, they could pay "talent" and management whatever they wished, and could afford., But they aren't. They're a public service corporation paid for by us via a licence that is very close to mandatory, and aggressively enforced.

In this day and age, both because if their mandate, and because of the financial situation the country is in, they would do wll not just to cut their cloth more sensitively, but to very publicly be seen to be doing so.

[santa claus]

Two things ..... ethos, and appearances.........cut........but to very publicly be seen to be doing so.

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. So eff off Rave

[TheAnimus]

As the BBC has a unique funding, I can't help but think that if Ross is so awesomely great, he should be moved on to those higher bidders, that way his fans could see more of him (as they would have to capitalise more from the increased investment) and the BBC would find another fowl mouthed fellow with a speech impediment who likes to bully old legendary actors. Surely this could only serve to grow the entertainment economy, whilst please the fans who drive it?

[jim]

the BBC would find another fowl mouthed fellow

?

[Steve]

the BBC would find another fowl mouthed fellow

?

[SeriousSam]

That's a joke... I say, that's a joke, son

[scaryjim]

Of course, there is an alternative to paying a TV license.

Don't watch broadcast television.

Pretty much everything worth watching is available on catch up somewhere online, and if there's something that's an absolute "must-see" take a bottle of wine or some tinnies round to a friends and watch it with them (like I did with Going Postal). It's been several years since I paid for a TV license, and I can honestly say I don't miss broadcast TV...

[DavidM]

Just wish there was more repeats: some great programs in the past that never seem to re-appear (Without paying for some paid channel or other!)

[Saracen]

Of course, there is an alternative to paying a TV license.

Don't watch broadcast television.

Pretty much everything worth watching is available on catch up somewhere online, and if there's something that's an absolute "must-see" take a bottle of wine or some tinnies round to a friends and watch it with them (like I did with Going Postal). It's been several years since I paid for a TV license, and I can honestly say I don't miss broadcast TV...

That's why I said the licence was "close to" mandatory, and not just "mandatory". But not watching any TV at all is a high price to pay for avoiding paying the licence fee .... especially if the watch relatively little of it, and don't watch the BBC.

As for watching online, not everyone has a computer, and not everyone that does has a net connection. And of those that do, not everyone has a fast enough connection to use online TV services, or has a large enough screen or one where where they have a comfy chair. And what about when the whole family want to watch something? Are they all supposed to huddle round the PC in the study or office?

Most people want to watch some TV. Some watch a lot. Some, like me, are pretty selective, and don't watch that much. But when I do want to watch it, I want to watch it in comfort, not on a PC over a net connection,

[Rave]

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly. So eff off Rave

I laregely agree, as it happens. I just think that a) your original post was clumsily homophobic, and b) we have more important things to worry about.

[usxhe190]

That's why I said the licence was "close to" mandatory, and not just "mandatory". But not watching any TV at all is a high price to pay for avoiding paying the licence fee .... especially if the watch relatively little of it, and don't watch the BBC.

As for watching online, not everyone has a computer, and not everyone that does has a net connection. And of those that do, not everyone has a fast enough connection to use online TV services, or has a large enough screen or one where where they have a comfy chair. And what about when the whole family want to watch something? Are they all supposed to huddle round the PC in the study or office?

Most people want to watch some TV. Some watch a lot. Some, like me, are pretty selective, and don't watch that much. But when I do want to watch it, I want to watch it in comfort, not on a PC over a net connection,

Side point - the irony is you could actually use the money you spend on the bbc licence to get you a fast broadband connection and then they can watch catch up TV as thought they had SKY (i.e. watch it when they want without the ads).

[jim]

And of those that do, not everyone has a fast enough connection to use online TV services, or has a large enough screen or one where where they have a comfy chair. And what about when the whole family want to watch something? Are they all supposed to huddle round the PC in the study or office?

Agree about the internet speeds, but with more and more people having a Nintendo Wii/PS3/Xbox360 and more and more TVs coming out that are internet-enabled, increasingy numbers of people genuinely can watch iPlayer and so on through their TVs.

So I would say that the "sitting at your desk" argument will only grow weaker over the next few years.

Could be interesting actually, as more and more programmes come online and more and more people have internet-enabled televisions, there may be little need in a while to actually have a TV license. At which point I expect the rules will change