Is this the beginning of the end of the BBC?

[Drew]

They should make the Irish pay the licence fee along with how ever many other countries seem to be able to watch BBC without paying for it!

Seriously though, I think the licence fee is more than worth it, most decent tv programmes are made by the BBC in the UK.

[Daniel]

If they need to save money, they could start by dropping kickball, speeding cars and other sports the commercial broadcasters would be more than willing to broadcast themselves. Instead they will probably cut the indepth news coverage and the interesting documentaries they now produce

Tbh i think they should drop football. Someone else will pick it up and I'm sure they'll do a decent job.

[Brown, Jon Brow]

Tbh i think they should drop football. Someone else will pick it up and I'm sure they'll do a decent job.

The BBC shows football?

I'd happily pay £145 so i can watch F1 without adverts.

[Sleeper]

The BBC shows football?

I'd happily pay £145 so i can watch F1 without adverts.

Along with the forum and the 5Live comentary its definitely worth it IMO.

[MrMetro]

They should make the Irish pay the licence fee along with how ever many other countries seem to be able to watch BBC without paying for it!

Seriously though, I think the licence fee is more than worth it, most decent tv programmes are made by the BBC in the UK.

well, the BBC need to encrypt the sat signal, as it's on a free to air sat, which technically means anybody is allowed to watch it.

[Dave B]

The cost of preventing the relavitely low number of people who "freeload" (and that includes the RoI, ex-pats in the Costas, and those abroad who circumvent the geolocking on the website) would be prohibitive and gain pretty much nothing.

Plus there are people in the UK quite legally watching the BBC on non-Sky satellite receivers, not all of which have a deccoder slot. They'd be stuffed.

[Dave B]

"[BSkyB's] Average revenue per user, a key metric watched by analysts, grew from £469 to £514 year on year." (source: Guardian, 22 Oct '10)

Puts the £145.50 licence fee into perspective, doesn't it?

[wedge]

All complaints of bias against the BBC are purely in the eye of the beholder. It is a fine institution, and I would gladly pay £145 a year just for Radio 4 and now the World Service. I mean that quite genuinely.

Wait a minute, newspapers (regardless if they're affiliated to Murdoch or not) aren't struggling with readership?

[Dave B]

Wait a minute, newspapers (regardless if they're affiliated to Murdoch or not) aren't struggling with readership?

They all are. In September 2010, the best performing paper was down 2% year-on-year. The "quality" daily papers are suffering even more, down approximately 13 - 16% year-on-year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/page/2010/abcs2010

Of course what those figures don't show is whether or not the readership is migrating to online versions. The e-ABCs are hopelessly unreliable, depending on unique visitors. That's not a fair comparison: if I visit A's website every single day for hours at a time, my visit carries the same weight as if I visit B's website just once and immediately leave.

[Garry Walker]

It's sickening to remember that the very first person to meet with David Cameron after he became PM was Rupert Murdoch. The same guy whose newspapers (and, in more subtle ways, his news channel) lobbied for the Conservatives. Lest we forget, the political editor of The Sun is on recordas saying "It's my job to see that Cameron f***ing well gets into Downing Street".

You seem to have a problem with that, but do you also have a problem with leftie papers promoting their idols?
Were you bothered by many parts of US media when they kept hyping Obama during the election process?