Is this the beginning of the end of the BBC?

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

The thing that makes the BBC great is that it has succeeded to be relvent where most public broadcasters are not. That said, commericial sponsors and having some sponsorship of broadcasts could supplement what the BBC does. Ya...commercials helping subsidize the BBC. It is how the CBC in Canada does business. Hockey Night in Canada and some of their more popular shows subsidize the rest of the programming lineup. While the Fed's here give them money, the fact is, it has only subsidized the bloated bureaucracy that does NOTHING to create better and more relevant TV.

In the case of the BBC, I have no idea if there is waste or not, but the idea that people PAY a license fee to keep it alive in the modern era is rather quaintly socialist and old fashioned. Let the BBC put out some broadcasts and get commercial ad money for them and then take less from the government. Novel eh? Capitalism...it works...what a thought!

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Yes, it works so well that the BBC will be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and show only reality shows, game shows and TV shopping network like other channels financed by ads.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

Yes, I watch it regularly. The government of the day always seems to be criticised, whichever side of the House they sit. The reason the audience is hand-picked is precisely to ensure a reasonable balance of political view, social and economic standing, gender and race.

Every single one? They get tens of thousand of applications for each edition, with only a couple of hundred making the cut, and yet "every single one" of yours slipped through provided you ticked the right boxes. Something doesn't ring true here. How many are we talking about?

Edit: for accuracy, my figures are incorrect but broadly in proportion. This article explains that 150 people are picked from a typical 4000 applicants for each show.

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Well we've just had 13 years of them giving Labour an easy time, no matter what blunders they made the Beeb gave them an easy ride.

No they hand pick it to make sure the left wing bods get an easy ride and are made to look better.

4000 maybe in London and Birmingham but not for small towns, no way 10% of a town apply to go on QT. My town is about 60k so not a chance 4k applied.

I sent in 6 in total, all 3 left wing applications were accepted all 3 right wing ones ignored - blatant fix. Feel free to work out the odds based on your figures.

Out at the mo but I will explain it to you tomorrow but you clearly dnt understand how selection process works, nothing to do with odds.

I know how it works already, if they have an audience of 150 they bin all the right wing ones and pick 150 pro left wing applications.

Very unlikely that they would ignore all 3 right wing applications and pick all 3 left wing ones if it was random.

It's NOT random that's exactly the point. You're embarrassing yourself. Explain in full tomorrow I promise.

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Originally Posted by Dave B

It's NOT random that's exactly the point. You're embarrassing yourself. Explain in full tomorrow I promise.

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No I am not, stop being so up yourself.

They hand pick it to ensure a massive left wing majority. You clearly haven't watched the show, if you had you see that the selection process is working as the questions do not match the general feeling of those that text in messages. The texters are more representative of UK as a whole, the audience isn't.

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Originally Posted by Eki

Week ago, my cable TV operator made previously free BBC World Service a part of a pay TV plan. I'm very disappointed, but if they think I'm going to pay, they are sadly mistaken. I didn't pay for live Formula 1, and I'm not going to pay BBC World Service.

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Now they are sending the Japanese NHK World and some South Korean channel for free instead. Great.

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Originally Posted by Eki

Yes, it works so well that the BBC will be dumbed down to the lowest common denominator and show only reality shows, game shows and TV shopping network like other channels financed by ads.

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Why is a national broadcaster necessary in the first place? High standards of quality will find niches in the private channels. We have 200 plus channels on my TV right now and some of the stuff created to fill this 200 channel universe is very much what you would like. I don't NEED the government to create TV....once upon a time the concept of a national broadcaster made some sort of sense, but not now....

ITV and Channel 4 manage quality programmes yet they aren't funded that way so that whole argument falls at the first hurdle.

I like the BBC on the whole but it isn't above cuts / reality / shake up.

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Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa

Why is a national broadcaster necessary in the first place?

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The alternative is private broadcasters pushing their agendas. Taken to its logical extreme you end up with a media landscape that looks like the newspaper situation in some Australian cities.
The only true "fair and balanced" media outcome is lots of different players from different political colours. Too much control in either direction is a bad thing IMWPO.