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Meanwhile Ofcom has revealed the latest UK pay TV and telecoms complaints figures.
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Meanwhile Ofcom has revealed the latest UK pay TV and telecoms complaints figures.
We decided to get rid of Sky Q a few month back as their fibre broadband, line rental and tv (everything but sport & movies) was coming in at over £100 per month. We have changed over to BT TV which has full record functionality of Freeview channels and we pay an extra tenner for some of the premium Sky channels like GOLD, Discovery and so on albeit in SD. The BT stuff costs us just over £45 per month which is a great saving, we do also have Netflix which can be watched on the BT box so all is good.
The pay tv services like Sky are just becoming a rip off, last 12 months Sky put their prices up 4 times which is what made us decide to get rid. When the BT contract is up I will be calling their retentions to see if I can keep our current deal as it was an 18 month offer and if not we will change to TalkTalk for 18 months with it being similar price and deal.
Surprising that Sky are the least complained about as i know quite a few people with vitriolic opinions of Sky. I wonder if they are considering all Sky Customers, even those without broadband...
Sky broadband is pants, their satellite TV is a fairly robust system though that has gone through many iterations to get where it is. It costs a fortune though. I kicked it into touch about 5 years ago now, only wanted it for football, Sky One and the occasional movie and it was costing £88pm for that in HD and an additional box in the bedroom......I'm still surprised how many people I know who complain about not being able to afford x or y, yet have a full Sky package..Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabbykatze
As replies to the above - Sky broadband is OK. It's pretty cheap. Talk Talk however complaints are on the rise and they are the most complained about broadband supplier by far. Sky Q seems to be just too expensive, however as a Virgin customer here with 200 meg broadband and 2 x Tivo V6 boxes I don't enjoy paying £100 a month but the missus does get full use of it and we have a nice projector/surround sound setup in 1080p that looks awesome. So for us, although it's expensive I feel it's just about acceptable. Our broadband is about 265 meg down as well ;)
Does NowTV have the channels you want? I think most content is 720p rather than SD, and it is £8 per month.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ferral
Actually it's less than that, if you buy the cards from Argos or wherever it's £15 for 3 months for those channels. Even better when you go to cancel after a few of those and then pay £3.50 a month for a while, rinse and repeat (similar for movies as well). Plus you get boxsets. Watching on a Roku means 1080p.Quote:
Originally Posted by DanceswithUnix
Well if the BBC stopped paying over the odds for presenters, maybe they could put that into original programming. As to what they define as original, too much reality TV rubbish, no more decent sitcoms etc. Can't imagine why they are losing viewing figures, perhaps it's to do with the rubbish they all produce.Quote:
BBC, ITV Channel 4 and Channel 5's £2.5bn combined network spending on original UK-made programmes in 2017 represented a record low – and was £1bn (28 per cent) less than the 2004 peak of £3.4bn.
A list of BBC science and nature programmes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Iota
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/genr...technology/all
Presenters such as Sir David Attenborough, (Blue Planet and numerous spin offs)
Professor Alice Roberts (Natural sciences)
Helen Czerski. (Physics, technology and natural sciences)
Professor Brian Cox. Astrophysics, Technology
Dr Michael Mosely Human health research
etc, etc, etc
Sky's pricing has been way over the top for a good period of time now.
We're with Virgin Media at the moment. Paying £88 a month.
That package includes our internet (speeds below), TV including Sky Sports, the full HD package and Netflix. We also have a phoneline with them but don't use that.
Considering the speed of the internet package we receive, as well as the reliability and the Sky Sports, £88 is a lot of money, but we get our use out of it with generally over a TB per month being downloaded.
Which is all fine if that's what you want to watch (I prefer reading those subjects....)Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
I buy the sports passes for NowTV when I want to watch Sky sports, other that I think I have a £3 a month fee for a few extra channels on the Youview from Plusnet, but dont bother with any other subscription TV, everything is Netflix/Amazon Prime/Youtube. I get BT Sport free with my £33 a month Plusnet package.
But hardly rubbish...Quote:
Originally Posted by Iota
BBC shouldn't have any of those programmes. Period. It shouldn't be paying for broadcast rights for expensive sports events either. It's taxpayer funded, and someone who doesn't want to watch BBC content but something else has to pay the BBC £150 a year. Reduce BBC's expenses further, cut all expensive comedy shows and sports events and replace them with smaller events that give more people an opportunity to be on TV. Eg a League 2 game instead of top tier and a local comedy club instead of Michael Mcintyre's biggest events. Replace overpaid hosts and stars on almost all shows and replace them with promising student actors/hosts etc. Then increase funding into educational programmes.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iota
Then cut the TV tax significantly, as it will be a service that can benefit the nation and not just those that want to watch bad TV shows.
Also sell the rights to major TV shows and offer a refund to previous TV tax payers.
So then you will have to pay to say watch the world cup with a subscription, because if the BBC does as you suggest all the other channels will become subscription. The BBC would exist for just news and historical content and no new content would be made by them. They would also be forced to probably drop the other channels and just be BBC 1. I'd imagine that all the radio channels would disappear as well. Is that such a good idea?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wozza365
Its remit is to provide programming for all tastes, including niche as well as mainstream, so it can make programmes that would not necessarily be viable in a fully commercial environment.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wozza365
There are programmes the BBC put out that I don’t watch (soaps in particular) but others find them compelling.
It’s a bit like any other tax - you are paying for services that you might not be using yourself (education if you don’t have children, for example).
Personally I find the output of the main free view/freesat channels more than sufficient to satisfy my viewing needs, and £12 month compares very favourable with the subscription services like sky/virgin that offer very little additional content that would be of interest to me.
And the Radio channels without intrusive and repetitive advertising... bliss.
This. So much this peterb.Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
£12 per month really isn't that bad. However, don't get me started on their stupid "you need to pay twice as much for the first six months" rubbish; that really rubbed me the wrong way.
The BBC are obliged by the terms of their charter to produce content for the whole TV audience whether that be high-brow arts and science programmes or terrible game shows and everything in-between. The BBC produce more content, for a wider audience than any other broadcaster in the UK and, don't forget the online services and all the educational work they do.Quote:
Originally Posted by Iota
As for presenter pay, the BBC pay a lot less than the commercial TV companies.
I didn't mention educational programs as rubbish...Quote:
Originally Posted by peterb
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wozza365
When I mention "they", I didn't mean for it to be taken as me singling out purely the BBC as producing "rubbish reality TV programs". Perhaps should have made that a little more clearer in my original post to avoid confusion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Friesiansam
I definitely don't mean educational programs, I meant programs such as these...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...ion_programmes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...ion_programmes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...ion_programmes
In regards to the BBC comments directly, I think Ofcom have pretty much got things covered in what the BBC is required to produce in their 2017 report. However, they definitely don't need to pay presenters these sorts of salaries;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44792074, regardless of how they perceive the value of those presenters, as pointed out they could recruit new and upcoming presenters for a fraction of those costs. That isn't good value for money.
I wouldn't so much mind the BBC paying their presenters as they do if most of thrm weren't clueless talentless idiots. That applies especially to political commentators, with Newsnight topping the list of idiots. They turn a half-decent idea into nearly unwatchable garbage with their egos and arrogance. The worst, IMHO, is Evan Davies. When will he realise that want we want to hear is the guests, not the idiot presenter. The number of times he asks some long, rambling question, by the end of which I've not only lost track of the point, but lost the will to live, but then says "I mean .... " and launches into another long, rambling soliloquoy restating in different words what he's just asked. I timed one of these once at 66 seconds, with the bemused guest sitting there with a WTF expression on his face. Then, about halfway through an answer, he cut the bloke off and said "We have to stop there, we're out of time". No s.... poop, Sherlock. And why exactly do you suppose that would be? Idiot.
Now, I record Newsnight and mostly skip the presenters. Why? Because I have a new-ish TV, and don't want to throw a brick through it.
Ironically, on his radio interview slot, Davies is pretty good. Succinct questions and let the guests get an answer in.
What is it about Newsnight that instantly causes presenters to run off at the mouth and let their brains drip out of their ears? It's as if the moment the ontro ceases, they all tirn into 5th rate, clueless, Paxman wannabees.
Not surprised about TalkTalk. But they are also all over radio/tv.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3dcandy
Am considering getting rid of Sky. Football is spread out over many channels.
The only thing is once you invest in Netflix, Amazon prime and the other one... you end up paying same.
Yes, there should be little new content made, except educational. I don't believe they should be paying to broadcast the world cup out of tax payers money, unless TV tax became optional. Yes a lot of channels would be dropped in the process, but I would certainly continue the support of local radio stations.Quote:
Originally Posted by 3dcandySo then you will have to pay to say watch the world cup with a subscription, because if the BBC does as you suggest all the other channels will become subscription. The BBC would exist for just news and historical content and no new content would be made by them. They would also be forced to probably drop the other channels and just be BBC 1. I'd imagine that all the radio channels would disappear as well. Is that such a good idea?Quote:
Originally Posted by Wozza365
And someone else pointed out paying for education as an example of paying tax for something I may not use. Education benefits everyone, most of the stuff on the BBC just rots brains.
Interesting topic all.
I am thinking of getting a share in a Netflix Ultra sub. Might be £4 monthly maybe a little less. Can anyone tell me if that would be workable on a roughly 20mbps ADSL connection (PlusNet - though they do seem to be getting perhaps slightly slower recently :/ )
Doubtful, I've not used 4K Netflix but 4K YouTube would use between 30-40mbps. No idea what Netflix uses but probably similar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Millennium