TO SAY I LIKE THE BBC....but the near £300 license fee needs questioning..Lets question

[ScousyFogarty]

BBC and COMPULSORY LICENSE FEE...(Paid by rich and poor alike.)

It has been suggested that the Beebs automatic cash-flow from rich and poor, should be looked at as the fee gets closer to £300 a year.

Victoria Derbyshire mentions this on her TWITTER site. (Dont know if she has ever done it on her programme.?)

You will notice that when a big name has a book out; they get interviewed on many BBC TV and radion shows. (They are usually rich and could be charged a fee for the free book plug.)

There will be many other ideas as to how the license could be REDUCED or the money RAISED by other means.

Do you have any ideas. ? Or are we going to sit back and watch the license fee go to £300 a year? (Its food for thought.

Victoria Derbyshire and Gabby Logan may well have ideas on this . Ask them if you feel like doing so.

I'd defend the licence fee ( if I had a TV and a licence )

The BBC produce a vast range of programming, some of it is pretty good. All of it free from advertising. It is highly respected worldwide and is a flag bearer for the country. That in itself deserves national support IMO.

It isn't often that I defend something run by the British government but the license fee is good value for money. Living here in the US we pay $100 a month for our basic package plus football (they don't even show the games live). GBP145 per year is not a bad deal as it includes 2.5 television channels (Channel 4 is part subsidized by the BBC) and lots of radio channels.

My only wish is that they would come up with more original programs. Gavin and Stacey was great as was the Inbetweeners. In my humble opinion reality television is lazy cheap television. I left the UK as they were expanding the digital network and while I think it is great to increase the number of channels I don't think they should be covered by the license fee. If you wish to watch these channels then you should pay a subscription. This would keep the license fee cost as low as possible.

thecrackfox I'm not singling you out honest :o I just wanted to follow up by saying just because Barbara Walters fronts prime time shows in the US it doesn't mean that American broadcasters are not sexist. what proportion of US television executives are female? That said, I still agree with your sentiment that there aren't enough women on tv, and certainly not enough older women. That applies across the channels, though of course as we pay for the BBC it's more important that they get it right.

WRT your point about female doctors, there are lots and lots of women working in tv too, especially at entry level. What I'm more interested in is how many get to consultant level? I don't know how it works in the medical profession but I imagine to get to consultant level requires a huge input of time and effort, even more anti social hours, even more time away from the home. Because the lack of equality in our society, the lack of childcare options etc for some reason or other fewer women make it to the top level than men. It's particularly true in industries where long antisocial hours are the norm.

want2besupermum That £145 doesn't only pay for 2.5 channels, it's nearer 8 or 9 (plus a few subsidiary channels), 7 radio stations and BBC online, the most read website in the world.

I know quite a few female directors of accountancy firms and partners in law firms. All of them mothers.

I also know quite a few nurses - that well known male dominated profession with oh so easy hours.

Frankly, if the BBC wanted to change its culture it could but it doesn't want to. Are the long hours anything other than presentism? Strange how 30 yrs ago when women were quite happy to work for pin money that the hours at tyhe Beeb were probably far less but as soon as women decided that, actually, they would like the good jobs too that long hours crept in. A culture created to deliberately exclude women.

I'm not quite sure what your question about long hours and presenting? I don't present and I work long anti social hours. Out of a team of 70 10% are women. I used to work in another department with even poorer figures, about 5% women.

I get your point about nurses, I do really. And I agree the BBC isn't perfect, it's no reason to scrap it. And for what it's worth, scrapping the licence fee would mean scrapping the BBC in it's current form. No money for minority programming (that means you too kids, children's commercial channels have much more foreign bought in programming) no money for religious programming, much more reality shows, many more Sico productions. Less regional news (Sky has no regional news, ITV regional news is on it's knees), less original programming (how many award winning Sky dramas/natural history programmes can you name?)

Sure if you want wall to wall shit on the TV interspersed by adverts every 10 minutes then by all means scrap the licence fee.

Head fairy I accept what you say but it is still compulsory to poor people' and people who never watch or listen to the BBC (coincidentally, a lot of them are poor)

Are you working for the corporation?

Gster Yer wot? Book advertsing for millionaire authors is advertising. (are you working for the BBC?) These answers are familiar to me. I have heard Beeb peopleYe,s Claig the BBC watch their backs ruthlessly or they would be posting in this debate/ s

Scousy. Actually I work for Sky. The department I work in is roughly 50% female. My boss is woman, the dept. head of the dept. is a woman and the head of the entire division ( probably around a thousand people ) is a woman.

You can hardly compare the odd plug on the BBC to the amount of advertising on commercial channels.

headfairy When I have visted the UK I have not thought much of the additional channels. This is probably due to the expansion being done too quickly and the quality suffered.

Another point is that some within the BBC are paid far to much. If they want to earn more go work for ITV/Sky whoever else. I was shocked to learn what Jonathan Ross was being paid. They have big pay packages for major anchors here in the US but that is paid for by subsciptions, not a compulsory fee which is in effect a tax.

As for older women on television, here in the US the female presenters are older but you have to remember that women entered the workforce earlier here compared to the UK. Also, due to the population size being larger, there is a larger pool of women for networks to choose from.

claig, I'm not quite sure of the point you're making; 2.5 million people watched and a tiny proportion of that amount of people complained, nearly all of whom hadn't even seen it and were driven to complain by a fundamentalist group of Nutjobs called Christian Voice; this is the group btw that has stated that marriage vows form a contract consenting to sexual intercourse meaning a man is entitled to have sex with his wife against her will. Oh, and it'e leader supports the Ugandan death penalty for homosexuals.

Your repeated assertion that they were ignored by the BBC is nonsense, the issue was a matter of repeated committee meetings and a full meeting of the entire board of governors of the BBC.

It also went to Ofcom who dismissed the complaint and the High Court who cleared the producers of charges of 'blasphemy'.

If I'm honest how ever much you might side with those who campaigned against it being shown, the BBC standing up against archaic censorship like that is a good thing imo.

I actually do not think the BBC should be scrapped but it has to change its ways. It really needs to up its game.

I've never worked there, but I know people who have. It does by their accounts sound like a bit of a dinosaur internally. In a 'three people and twenty forms to change a light bulb' kind of way.

You won't hear me disagreeing with you about over paid stars want2besupermum, I've never seen the attraction in Jonathan Ross and his salary was disgraceful. The DG is paid too much too. Greg Dyke was paid less than half what Mark Thompson is paid.

Scousy, you don't have to work for the BBC to treasure it and want to keep it in it's current form. Doesn't mean that some changes aren't long overdue. They are. But I think the licence fee is the cornerstone of what the BBC does, without it it would be just one more crap commercial channel among the 400 or so other crap commercial channels.

gster the lightbulb thing is a myth (I also have friends who work there).

headfairy. Not from what some of my colleges who have worked there have told me. I'm not literally talking about light bulbs being changed obviously, but compared to the way things run at Sky they are quite undynamic. People a bit stuck in the past. This is in their design areas.

It's just what I've heard. I'm a huge fan of the BBC, I think they get far more right than they get wrong.

< I do of course love Sky too just in case I'm being monitored :) >

hahah Gster :o

Ok, I'll 'fess up, I have in my time been known to receive remuneration in return for services provided to the BBC... :o and in news I could certainly get a lightbulb (or anything else for that matter) fixed in double quick time.

Where they fall down is in career development. Big footing is endemic (you work hard on a project and someone more senior to you comes in at the last moment to claim the glory). There isn't enough flexibility between departments, it's really hard to move around between departments. I am skilled in two different roles but it's impossible to do shifts in both roles as each department has a different rotering system and the two are non compatible (ie I can't be on two different rotas even if those shifts are different days) I think things like this can really stifle creativity.

OK, Chen, forget the 'nutjobs', but the Church of England said

''The Church of England said it was disappointed by the outcome and said the programme had caused "significant offence".'

The BBC listened to the large number of protests (larger than the usual number of protests that they recieve) and decided that the programme had 'outstanding artistic significance'.

I doubt that the majority of the population would have agreed with them. But they just pay for it, they have no say in it.

They're not even allowed to see what their money is spent on. There are the BBC mandarins who treat the public like tambourines.

headfairy

I imagine the BBC suffers a bit from being a corporation and it's cultural history.

I kind of imagine coming across technical staff in brown coats, cup of tea in hand, sucking air through their teeth saying ' ooooh, not sure if we can do that till next Wednesday love'

At Sky they are very open to people's suggestions. If I wanted to change roles ( and I have ) they are at least willing to listen to someone's case and give them a chance.

Headfairy point taken. BBC it must be nice to have a guaranteed income dished out from HMG via the license payer. (No other business is cosseted thus.)

"the ODD book plug" Odd statement, all 20 big selers at Christmas are advertised on one radio/TV channel or another. Written by millionaires. You either believe in fairness or you believe in stuffing poor people, needlessly.

We have a greedy society at the top/ A lot of them work for the BBC...
I asked my wife if a BBC star should be paid 5 times as much as a nurse. She said "NO" that was a decent answer unfettered by the greedy "market"

Whose side are you on? I am no feminist though greer is brainy. Its a question of decency. Change the crackpot greedy MARKET

It wouldn't surprise me if the person who came up with the word 'outstanding' in the face of tens of thousands of complaints and the Church of England's concerns, received a swift promotion up the hierarchy with a commensurate salary increase from the public purse.

Oh when I complained about the PreWatershedDismemberedCorpse not only did they tell me it's down to me to monitor my kids' TV (it was between 8.30 - 9pm on a Sunday night on BBC1, and we were channel hopping), but they also told me that because it was done in a humourous way it couldn't possibly do any harm.

So that's alright then. A little bit of gore desensitisation on a Sunday night. Cunts. We pay, so those fuckers should be a little bit more accountable than they are.

:o Gster. I've never seen anyone in a brown coat (and we're not allowed tea in technical areas) but I have seen a few socks and sandals combinations.

If something's broadcast critical it gets fixed pronto. I work in direct broadcast areas so everything I break that gets broken gets fixed within minutes.

claig Do you work for the Daily Mail? :o Mandarins? public tambourines? You are most definitely allowed to see what the BBC spends it's money on. 2010 is the latest available

Bitterness at the BBC getting a "guaranteed" funding doesn't mean it should be scrapped, not a valid argument in my book. And it's not guaranteed, charter is up for review every 10 years. So far no one has seen fit to get rid of it. Oh it must mean that the majority think it's worth £145 a year. This year has seen the BBC's funding cut massively, it's most definitely not guaranteed, no one in the BBC thinks so. In fact the tenuous nature of funding for the BBC makes most people very nervous. Without it, and in the absence of an established commercial background the BBC would disappear.