to not want cuts to the BBC?

[Mintyy]

Can anyone explain to me how cutting the BBC massively will actually improve my life?

I hardly watch tv. I do listen to a lot of radio. But I fervently hope the BBC isn't going to change too much.

It is something that the rest of the world envies us for and I fear it may be one of those things we don't miss until it has gone.

Sorry Dadfrom i see you did mention £150k. If you don't think that's fairly restrained for a top exec compared to what they were getting before, well, I can point you to what Rebekah Brooks got when leaving News Int: [http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/12/rebekah-brooks-news-corp]

Andy Coulson got a paltry £600k on the other hand:
[http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/apr/25/andy-coulson-affair-rebekah-brooks-david-cameron]

Sorry (again) the links didn't work. Rebekah Brooks got £16m, by the way.

don't watch much BBC 1 but the occasional bit of lesser channels and cbeebies (mostly sky etc) but have historically watched Spooks, borgen, bake off and don't believe these would have been made without the licence fee - its all too easy to say commercial channels would have made it once it became successful but you need someone to take the chance.

also don't think the news/talk radio (R4 etc) will survive a commercial environment

iplayer is massive user-friendly innovation - start charging for it (access to be free to licence fee payers) and allow overseas access to content too but charge (and charge sky etc for carrying for all those who don't watch it live!!!)

this is a political /ideological move to undermine the bbc - handsoff

The biggest single reason women in this country are sent to prison is non-payment of licence fee fines.

This makes a mockery of any claim we have to be a civilised country IMHO.

I would rather some kids got to grow up with their mum looking after them than Graham Norton got a payrise or tennis coverage is up to the standards the home counties prefer.

I also think the BBC is not as impartial as it makes out e.g. Scottish election or coverage of Saville scandal/paedophiles in high places.

It's just an upper middle class gravy train most of the time.

Really TheOracleofSelphie? No mention of that figure here it states theft and handling are the top reason women are jailed

www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/WomenbriefingAug12small.pdf

Yes really.
Two-thirds of TV license convictions are female.
Google gives you many examples,
Including this from the bbc themselves. Was going to use a different link with more in depth detail, but know it would be shot down with claims or inaccuracy.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23792388

marshmallowpies I don't regard examples of obscene payoffs from the Murdoch empire as justification for slightly less obscene ones from the BBC, not least because the BBC gets money in an entirely different way. Don't forget, the £150K cap still doesn't restrict payments to what employees would be contractually and legally entitled to - it's still, as another poster observed, a cosy (upper) middle-class club run for the benefit of its members.

Two-thirds of the prosecutions for non payment of licence fees being against women isn't the same as that crime being the top reason women are jailed overall though

It's not a gravy train - only the top names get paid a lot. Lots of people want to work in TV, consequently pay is low.

NB when you talk about pay-offs, you often need to take into account that if not paid off the employee concerned could have brought a tribunal claim for unfair dismissal and/or discrimination, for a higher level of compensation if they won, plus issues of the cost of defending those claims, management time and reputational damage. It's not sufficient in many cases just to pay them their notice monies.

Twugaroon If the BBC is conducting employee relations in such a defective manner that they need to make a lot of massive payouts to avoid tribunal cases, then that is just one more way in which the organisation is being badly managed. It is a gravy train for senior folk - maybe not for everyday workers.

I've boycotted the BBC.

No more tv licence!

We went over to dm's to watch the Murray federer match but that's the only live tv I've wanted to see.

It's a rip off.

Why should people in poverty pay a big chunk of their income so that loads of beeb execs get 7 figure salaries?

They are politically biased, spend too much on material for people who can afford to pay for it, too London focused, and they hid Savile and co for decades.

I can't wait til it dies a death.

They do make good prog's though Athena that's the dilemma. (for me anyway). I agree with everything else you say. I've lived in Australia, France and Italy. Believe me, TV here, BBC anyway, is a million times better....

The trouble with the license fee, IMHO, is that it is not necessarily expensive if you watch the TV for hours every day. But many years ago in Ireland I was given a TV by people who kindly thought I must be really, really poor if I didn't have a television. So we would watch two hours a week of television. When you have to pay a license fee for such limited viewing, it is really expensive.

But what I really hate about the BBC is how totally biased its news programmes are.

Dad - it is the norm in this country for senior people to be fired without the benefit of a full and fair performance process - not flavour of the month, out of tune politically, new senior manager prefers their own person, etc, and to pay these people off. I work for a fairly well run organisation that is massively smaller than the BBC, and this kind of pay off happens quite frequently.

Twugaroon But your "fairly well run" organisation isn't funded by a compulsory licence enforced by criminal sanctions is it?

The BBC and their fans keep on banging on about the unique way it is funded - but then they expect to act like Sky or ITV in every other way. If the BBC wishes to behave like the rest of the market, it needs to get the funding from there, otherwise they need to recognise they are funded differently and act differently. Byford had never worked anywhere else.

Dismissing senior people without full process is considered to be worth it financially to get someone better into critical senior posts asap, without the high risk fall-out of a key person who is no longer wanted going through a long drawn out performance process. It's often not practically possible to dismiss someone fairly (so as to avoid an unfair dismissal claim) or without risk of a discrimination claim in those circumstances. That's how the system works.

Twugaroon I am well aware of the practise of compromise agreements of these type - you're missing the point I think. I expect the BBC to be different because of where the money comes from. Just repeatedly stating "that's how it is done" isn't going to get me to approve of it, I'm afraid, and I'd put money on folk at the BBC getting money they needn't have - even allowing for the broken system you keep describing over and over as if that makes it OK.

I'm saying that that is what people in business do, because in their view it makes most sense for the business - most sense financially. If they didn't do this, there would be expensive operational consequences. The government is quoting these figures out of context, to make the BBC come across as far more spendthrift than it actually is. It does that in every sphere, to for example exaggerate the problems of immigration, of welfare fraud, of how much welfare people are getting, etc etc. You are buying into this.
I've dealt with the BBC quite a few times, as I have a DC that has done some work for them on a few occasions, and they are extremely careful about how much they spend - eg expenses are cut to the bone.

The BBC isn't "in business" - that's my point.

I didn't know the government had been quoting these figures - do you have a link?

I'm not a fan or a supporter of this government, but I do think the BBC has lost its way. Being parsimonious with expenses but giving undeserved fat payoffs to senior bods doesn't cut much ice with me - nor does trying to pretend "it's what everyone does" as if that makes it OK.

I will say it one last time and then shut up because I'm clearly not making it clear enough - the BBC has a unique funding model, and that means it has to behave in a unique way - not like everyone else.

It has to behave sensibly, as far as money is concerned, which is what businesses, if well run, do. So if it is behaving completely differently on financial matters, that is likely to be bad news.

I hope the Beeb learn here that being the mouth piece for the gov't doesn't do you any good in the end.