OMG Now they say they can't guarantee BBC4's future

[NotMushroom]

www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/06/bbc3-no-guarantee-future-bbc4-danny-cohen

If that goes I'm selling the telly. It's practically the only channel I watch.

I know that's v sad, but it is.

[DollyParsnip]

I love BBC4, one of the pleasures of it is the ability to turn it on pretty much any time and find yourself engrossed in a subject you knew nothing about. I was up til 1am the other night watching something about historic cartography (?).

The media is dumbing down so much, ditching interesting things left right & centre for more house porn or reality tv. So sad.

Still pleased we they saved 6 Music though.

[southeastastra]

they can afford to re-build the eastenders site at a cost of 15m

that's where the licence is going.

love bbc four and the other bbc channels are crapola

[NotMushroom]

I agree with every word you say Dolly. I love BBC4.

Yes also to R6! (we have the same viewing/listening tastes).

I'd be happy to support any campaign to keep BBC4.

[Ubik1]

Hopefully we'll get some better programmes on BB1 and BBC2

[NotMushroom]

15million to rebuild EE?? I'd be happier if they spent that tearing it down.

[Piscivorus]

I doubt it Ubik The BBC is aiming for the lowest common denominator all the time

[ouryve]

What about the Friday night music and the Saturday night forrin stuff? :(

[NotMushroom]

They'll have a hard time justifying a license fee to a broad audience if the usual dross is all that's on offer.

[EthelredOnAGoodDay]

Oh no! I love bbc4.

[SwedishEdith]

I'll be seriously pissed off if this happens? What other channel does serious music documentaries? They could stop with the Johhny Winter Jumpin' Jack Flash repeats though

[NotMushroom]

I esp enjoy the music (and Johnny Winter!). The recent Danny Baker programmes were brilliant.

[Bunbaker]

I love BBC4. It's grown up telly.

[guineapiglet]

why don't they ask each licence payer to vote for the services they want their fee to cover??.... results would then be clear to the beeb who wants what.... there are so many programmes on beeb 1 now that we never watch...Saturday night is execrable, for example. realised that we watch beeb 2 and 4 more than most, radios 4 and 6 and largely 5US ( when the bloody channel is working!!)....we watch nothing regularly on bbc1 now except maybe match of the day and final score ...

[WanderingAway]

Guinea - that is a good idea. I watch bbc3 more than 1 or 2.

I really dont see why we need a license fee anymore.

[babyheaves]

Arse. DH and I watch BBC 4 loads. It's our fall back channel most of the time.

[ThursdayLast]

I heard on the radio yesterday that BBC3 is being reduced to an online channel which is good news for BBC4. I understood the situation to be that one or the other survives.
I will vote BBC 4 every time, mostly for Only Connect

[LEMmingaround]

Does that mean the tv licence will go down?

[Oldandcobwebby]

No point having a TV without BBC 4 and BBC 2. Why can't they shout down BBC 1 instead? I really can't think of anything we ever watch on there.

[Oldandcobwebby]

Or even shut down.

[clairealfie]

I'm not too surprised really. Remember where the BBC was ten/fifteen years ago. BBC 1, 2 and a few radio channels. I think they were wrong to expand as much as they did if they couldn't promise to sustain it. Not happy about the cuts, but I'm not surprised.

£500M for formula 1 won't have helped! Makes the eastenders budget look like peanuts.

[ParsingFancy]

Bring back the Reithian ideal.

Reith's concept was to mix and match, so the viewer turning away at the end of Eastenders would have their interest caught by the programme on historic cartography. And the person who'd only switched on for the historic cartography would find themselves wandering into the music programme or enjoying the property porn.

He aimed to give the viewer what they didn't know they wanted until they saw it.

All this fragmentation and specialisation has undermined that serendipitous exposure to new things. Our worlds are bursting with choice these days, but we can actually navigate increasingly narrow-minded paths through them. Don't get me started on personalised Google results.

[fussychica]

Take away my foreign fix on Saturday nights and I'll get really evil

[fishybits]

BBC 2, 4 and on demand house here. Don't watch anything else live.

[IslaValargeone]

It's the only channel we watch.
£15 million on EastEnders, you have to be kidding me?