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Thread: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

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    Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8545020.stm

    I say yes.

    They're cutting areas which won't detract from serious programming - £600m is no small amount of money (someone noted that it was larger than BBC2's current annual budget) and more than enough to give their programming a healthy kick up the arse. The main websites that people use are news and sports (and of course iplayer/listen again). Click and Blast are a little redundant on the internet in general, and I admire Thompson's honesty when he says that Channel 4 should be bearing the standard for that. There are quite a lot of sites which simply aren't necessary and it would be nice to see them focussing more on the big hitters in a world which is moving more and more towards online journalism (even though they're dropping the budget there too).

    6 Music is a bit of a toss up, it's a digital station which already narrows the listening market - although it is online too - and it's got music that could well be slotted into a combination of Radio 1 and Radio 2. The Asian Network I can see being missed, but there are plenty of other local Asian radio stations which may be just as good. Again, these are both digital channels so they don't have nearly as many listeners as R1-4. If there is public demand then they claim they'll leave off, but to be honest I won't miss them. I get all my music from Last.fm recommendations and Spotify these days.

    Staff cuts are inevitable and naturally the unions are going crazy, but then they always do. If there's 600m to throw around, odds are there'll be some jobs opening up too.

    (I see there's a thread in lifestyle news too, to comment on the "cut executive pay packets" bit, yes that'd save a bit - it wouldn't come close to £600m in freed up cash)

    Discuss!

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    My view on the BBC's money.

    They can spend or do whatever they want with their money, it might come from the public, but so does Tesco's profits of billions every year.

    Pretty much sums it up really.

    BUT - We own a hotel, and the money paid every year to watch TV is just stupid, and we now have heard that even for guests to listen to music or listen to freeview music we need a Music license now. What a joke.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    The question I've got is why these were all started if it's costing £600m the BBC don't have.

    If they were a bit more transparent, I wouldn't mind. For instance, "We're cutting BBC 6 Music, so that we can spend more on developing original British dramas on BBC1." Or, "We're cutting BBC 6 Music, so we can cut the license fee next year."

    As things stand, they're cutting services with no real indication as to why they need to free up those funds.

    The whole executives argument is daft, since they're in direct competition for recruiting execs with commercial business, but I won't go there.
    Last edited by jim; 03-03-2010 at 09:57 AM.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by SammEl View Post
    BUT - We own a hotel, and the money paid every year to watch TV is just stupid, and we now have heard that even for guests to listen to music or listen to freeview music we need a Music license now. What a joke.
    ...and yet you don't need a licence to use iPlayer :

    http://iplayerhelp.external.bbc.co.u...ayer/tvlicence
    Last edited by mikerr; 03-03-2010 at 10:33 AM.
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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by Whiternoise View Post
    I say no. There are plenty of alternatives to Radio One, but no alternatives to Asian Network and Radio 6. It'll be a sad day indeed when these stations close

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    In regard to staff cuts and cutting wages first, start from the top i say......

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...-salaries.html

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/t...an-100000.html

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    ....

    As things stand, they're cutting services with no real indication as to why they need to free up those funds.

    The whole executives argument is daft, since they're in direct competition for recruiting execs with commercial business, but I won't go there.
    The cynic in me says it's a political move intended to show they're doing something, concerned about Tory comments and about the next licence fee round.

    But I don't agree about exec's pay, or that it's a "direct" competition. BBC execs aren't in the same environment as commercial ones. They want to have their cake and eat it. If they want commercial pay, go into the commercial world and get it, where customers can vote with their wallets if they don't produce wanted material at prices and cost levels people are prepared to pay, instead of an environment where "customers" get a bill whether they want the service or not and regardless of cost structures. Besides, it's circular - the commercial world argues that the BBC's deep and non-commercial cost-insensitive pockets drives up both management and "talent" remuneration unnecessarily.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    The cynic in me says it's a political move intended to show they're doing something, concerned about Tory comments and about the next licence fee round.

    But I don't agree about exec's pay, or that it's a "direct" competition. BBC execs aren't in the same environment as commercial ones. They want to have their cake and eat it. If they want commercial pay, go into the commercial world and get it, where customers can vote with their wallets if they don't produce wanted material at prices and cost levels people are prepared to pay, instead of an environment where "customers" get a bill whether they want the service or not and regardless of cost structures. Besides, it's circular - the commercial world argues that the BBC's deep and non-commercial cost-insensitive pockets drives up both management and "talent" remuneration unnecessarily.
    What I'm saying is that the BBC has to recruit executives through the jobs market, just like anybody else. If they want to employ someone who's going to make a difference, then they'll be up against the entire FTSE 100 when they make the offer of a position.

    If we want to cap the BBC's executive salaries to £100k, fine. But they'll all be guaranteed to leave. And they'll be replaced with people who just aren't of the same calibre, therefore reducing efficiency as a result - or quality of broadcast/£ - however you want to describe it.

    It's exactly the same as the whole MP's wages scandal. I, personally, want top graduates from Oxbridge/LSE/UCL/Warwick/York/Durham etc to sit there and think "I want to be an MP". I don't want them to sit there and think "I would be an MP, but let's face it, the money's rubbish. I'll go into IT." MPs wages were introduced for a very good reason... to make it a genuine job.

    Public services might be paid for by the people of the nation, whether they want to or not, but it doesn't change the situation. If all of these executive wages would be arbitrarily lowered by 10% with no negative effect then it would've been done a long time before we could pontificate over it.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    They won't all just leave, because due to the size of the BBC, that number of free jobs just don't exist. And I don't buy the notion that efficiency or job performance are directly proportional to salary either. People get what they can, and good luck to them. But if they were all to leave, the BBC will muddle through, and you may well find that the people come up to replace them do just as well .... or better.

    A big salary is not proof or even a decent measure of job competence, especially in a distorted, bureaucratic and non-commercial environment. For example ..... Gordon Brown - big salary, utter muppet.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    For example ..... Gordon Brown - big salary, utter muppet.
    Give us a break.

    And he isn't even on a big salary, honestly, if anything, he should be on 10x what he is on right now, same goes for any leader.

    Unless you make money on the side (like Tony Blair did exceptionally well at).

    The BBC isn't just some UK broadcasting service, they are absolutely massive, worldwide audience.

    When your in control or have a big part of something like the BBC, you need to be on a big salary.

    All these "bankers" and "execs" being paid too much etc does my nut in, honestly, we have no say it on at all, the world they are in is totally different to what we are in, in "our" world £1m is a dream, for them, it's worth as much as a £10 note.

    All it is, is jealousy.
    Last edited by SammEl; 03-03-2010 at 12:41 PM.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    They won't all just leave, because due to the size of the BBC, that number of free jobs just don't exist. And I don't buy the notion that efficiency or job performance are directly proportional to salary either. People get what they can, and good luck to them. But if they were all to leave, the BBC will muddle through, and you may well find that the people come up to replace them do just as well .... or better.

    A big salary is not proof or even a decent measure of job competence, especially in a distorted, bureaucratic and non-commercial environment. For example ..... Gordon Brown - big salary, utter muppet.
    I don't know about that... maybe down the local job centre there aren't opportunities aplenty, but if you took an exec on £500,000 and cut his salary to £100,000, I don't doubt for a second that he would be able to find an improvement on £100k with another company. There are a lot of big earning firms in the UK that would happily take an experienced exec with the hope of increasing profits yet further... and loss making firms that need to shore up.

    And no, job performance isn't directly proportional to salary. But it is generally proportional to salary. You're not telling me that companies pay people £200k because they want to, when they could find somebody equally good to do it for £50k - any CEO worth his salt would put a stop to the practice if it didn't improve company profitability.

    As you said, you may find that these replacements do the job as well as the original people, but that's a massive assertion. There's always someone out there who'll offer to do it cheaper, and it's usually with good reason.

    I disagree about Gordon Brown... I don't believe it's possible to gauge the performance of an individual when it comes to government - certainly not until we're writing the history books at least. Everything's drowned in spin and media bile...

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by SammEl View Post
    Give us a break.

    And he isn't even on a big salary, honestly, if anything, he should be on 10x what he is on right now, same goes for any leader.

    Unless you make money on the side (like Tony Blair did exceptionally well at).

    The BBC isn't just some UK broadcasting service, they are absolutely massive, worldwide audience.

    When your in control or have a big part of something like the BBC, you need to be on a big salary.

    All these "bankers" and "execs" being paid too much etc does my nut in, honestly, we have no say it on at all, the world they are in is totally different to what we are in, in "our" world £1m is a dream, for them, it's worth as much as a £10 note.

    All it is, is jealousy.
    Brown is on about eight to ten times the UK average income, depending on how you calculate average.

    The Office of National Statistics ASHE survey (Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings) put the mean gross annual earnings across all jobs at £26,020 but the median (midpoint of population) was £20,801, in their 2008 survey.

    As an MP, Brown earns £64,766, which by most people's standards is a pretty good whack. He then gets a ministerial salary on top of that, of £132,923, giving him a total MP and ministerial salary of £197,689.

    According to ASHE, £44,881 puts you in the top 10%. Brown well and truly qualified for that. £118,027 puts you in the top 1%, and £150,000 in the top 0.6%.

    So yes, by any sensible measure, he earns a big salary .... especially given the damage the idiot did to the country as Chancellor.

    As for the "massive worldwide audience", if they want highly paid execs, they can pay for it. The point of the BBC is a UK public service broadcaster. If that element of BBC output that goes worldwide is separated from that (like the World Service) and commercially based, then fine, let them operate on a commercial basis and pay what they like. But the core of the BBC, paid for out of what boils down to a tax, is not there to entertain the rest of the planet at taxpayer expense. It's there to provide public service broadcasting.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    I don't know about that... maybe down the local job centre there aren't opportunities aplenty, but if you took an exec on £500,000 and cut his salary to £100,000, I don't doubt for a second that he would be able to find an improvement on £100k with another company. There are a lot of big earning firms in the UK that would happily take an experienced exec with the hope of increasing profits yet further... and loss making firms that need to shore up.

    And no, job performance isn't directly proportional to salary. But it is generally proportional to salary. You're not telling me that companies pay people £200k because they want to, when they could find somebody equally good to do it for £50k - any CEO worth his salt would put a stop to the practice if it didn't improve company profitability.

    As you said, you may find that these replacements do the job as well as the original people, but that's a massive assertion. There's always someone out there who'll offer to do it cheaper, and it's usually with good reason.
    If that exec can find a better-paying job, then fine .... don't let the door hit him in the ass on the way out. I don't believe for a nanosecond that only those currently paid such vast sums are the only ones capable of doing the job. They are merely the current beneficiaries of BBC largesse and decades of empire building.

    The BBC is such a large employer in the section that it has close to monopoly influence, certainly it has oligopoly level influence, and if it cut its remuneration to more modest levels (and those are your figures, not mine) and people uniformly left as a result, they'd flood the market and we know what happens when supply significantly exceeds demand in a competitive market, don't we? And bearing in mind that the rest of the media are having hard times, they're not going to absorb several hundred highly paid executives without getting severe indigestion.

    It's a bluff. "Pay us or we'll walk." Well, fine .... bye bye.

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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Lets face it the BBC hasn’t fulfilled its contractual obligations as a responsible public broadcaster for at least 15-20years. Yes it has produced some really great programs but that has been down to specific individuals, e.g. Sir David Attenborough, rather than strategic intent. These days it is little more than a public funded commercial channel system with a few “highlights” in a sea of dross. Unless it can find itself again as a broadcaster for the betterment of the public rather than an appeaser / entertainer of the masses I’d say scrap the whole thing and start from scratch.

    On the subject of executives pay I’d rather have someone that believed in what they were doing rather than technologically proficient but mercenary.

    On the plus side I would say that the BBC News / Sports website is probably the best source of news and information, even if it is woefully biased in many respects; Politics and Climate Change being the most glaring.
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    Re: Are the BBC right to shift their budget around?

    Quote Originally Posted by Whiternoise View Post
    6 Music is a bit of a toss up, it's a digital station which already narrows the listening market - although it is online too - and it's got music that could well be slotted into a combination of Radio 1 and Radio 2. The Asian Network I can see being missed, but there are plenty of other local Asian radio stations which may be just as good. Again, these are both digital channels so they don't have nearly as many listeners as R1-4. If there is public demand then they claim they'll leave off, but to be honest I won't miss them. I get all my music from Last.fm recommendations and Spotify these days.
    Ignoring the fact I am an incredibly loyal 6Music listener, I think it is pretty short sighted to be looking at cutting this just yet. The government is talking about another round of digital switchover with FM being swapped for DAB, regardless of your opinions on that debate, if FM is switched off in the next few years, you are massively increasing your potential listener base for these two stations.

    I believe that most radio is listened to in cars, this was mentioned in a R4 interview about the digital radio switch over a few months back. In fact I'm sure a lot of poeple on;y listen to radio in the car, this is certainly true for my parents who have a DAB radio in the kitchen, it doesn't get used as they just listen to a CD/iPod in the house. If my mum had a DAB radio in her car she would listen to 6Music as well as she doesn't like local radio (it's pants here), Radio 1 is obnoxious, and much of Radio 2 she just find boring. She does like 6Music when she is in my car.

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