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.

If it's live on Sky news, isn't that still just live tv so you need a licence?

That's exactly what it is goingwild, the Tories have a bee in their bonnet about the BBC.

Yes its live, they advertise in breaks.

I am amazed at people here who seem to think that the BBC should pay well below industry standards just because it is funded from the licence

I think you will find that below the top level, those working directly for the BBC are generally paid more than industry standard, so yes it's not unreasnoble to question wages with regards to output.

Also this license scam.
It's for live tv right?
Then shouldn't all broadcasters get a cut? After all they are all live TV providers.. But for some reason the other live TV broadcasters have to self fund.

SwedishEdith Yes one would need a licence to watch Sky TV News live.

MitzyLeFrouf It is sad that it's the Tories doing this as I didn't and don't support them at the election (didn't vote Tory) but I agree changes need to be made.

I also didn't vote tory! The bedroom tax drove my friend to suicide. So my views on this are not anyway based on the conservatives.

I am about as far from a Tory as you can get. This isn't about party politics.
I'm sure the BBC would like to play the victim and pretend that 'the man' is out to get them but there are genuine concerns about the way they operate. One major concern for me is that they utterly refuse to investigate ways of scrambling their signal for non-payers. That would be fair right? Those of us who don't want their service can't get it for free and the ones who do want it have to pay. But they won't do this, citing technical issues (bollocks - Sky seem to manage to get money out of people), possibly because they don't want to be subject to the same scrutiny as other channels and lose their guaranteed income to piss away as they see fit

I wasn't making a reference to anyone on this thread being a Tory I'm saying the Tory Party have a bee in their bonnet about the BBC. And they do.

Oh I agree with you, they do seem to most likely money reasons like normal. as much as we don't agree I respect your opinion completely, for me it's just irritating paying for something I don't use when money's tight enough.

I don't pay for Sky because I don't like Murdoch and his empire (and I think it is exceptionally poor value).

I don't pay for the BBC because I find it gut-wrenching that they think it's fine to pay one person millions in redundancy, then give him airtime to plug his book.

I also resent the way they give airtime to convicted criminals, like Vicky Pryce. I am in favour of rehabilitation, but surely they must be able to find more deserving cases.

I also find it unforgivable that they not only caved in in very odd circumstances to Neil Hamilton's libel action but later went to help his glittering TV career once he'd been found out.

And that's without Saville et al.

Unfortunately because of the uniquely crazy way the BBC is funded, not wanting to participate in their media/establishment love-in with my cash also prevents me from watching anyone else's live TV.

With that said, it's been liberating not to have the temptation to flop down and watch whatever happens to be on - and I don't miss it anything like as much as I expected to.

I grudgingly pay the license fee to access other channels but on balance spend a minimal amount of time watching its programming. I wouldn't miss it at all if it was gone/extremely scaled back to a newswire service only and my license fee was adjusted down accordingly, then market forces would prevail and any decent presenters/programming would be picked up by other channels.

Like Dad I tend to agree that I find the salaries paid to some aforementioned entertainers is egregious and found the letter published by a number of TV personalities (at the BBCs bequest it seems) puzzling, of course a load of people on the gravy train would want to sign that?!!

Moreover the manner in which the institution as a whole first enabled abuse and then subsequently closed ranks and refused to acknowledge the endemic problem within the organisation is deeply worrying. It should lead us all to question why we'd want to continue sponsoring that?

Out of interest I just googled how much money the BBC took in on an average year... Over 5 billion pounds. I think they can probably manage on a bit less. No wonder they are getting million pound salaries.

There is s lot of misinformation on this thread, please people read up on the licence, you could save yourself paying £145 a year plus watch the Youtube videos on how to handle the goons from Capita that think they have some sort of authority, when they don't.

I love the BBC and would pay double. The reason they've lost a lot of the sport is they can't afford it. They've just lost a fifth of their budget. Cuts I would make would be all red button stuff, radio 1 extra, 2 euro vision, 4 extra, 5 extra, bbc4, combine cbeebies and cbbc and cut a couple of orchestras. Though doubt that would get to a fifth of the budget.

Unfortunately Cherrypi lots of people like different parts of the BBC - you might pay double for a version with all those changes, but I don't think I would want to pay if they got rid of BBC4 and kept all the Eastenders and Strictly stuff.

I do think we should have a debate about how the BBC is funded given the fact that the broadcasting world has changed so much since the licence fee was introduced. But not if it means if they reduce their history and natural history to the dumbed down advert-ridden stuff that channel 5 peddles, and I'm prepared to pay for the soap opera stuff on the BBC if that's the trade-off.

VulcanWoman not sure what you mean by "misinformation". You appear to be advocating illegal activity. To be clear, my non-payment is entirely legal, because I don't watch live TV.

The question of enforcement of illegal evasion is a whole other can of worms.

I think you will find that below the top level, those working directly for the BBC are generally paid more than industry standard

That is simply not true at all.

What a lot of the media seem to be missing in the proposed BBC changes is this isn't just the conservatives having a bee in their bonnet about the BBC - the charter that governs the way it's run and funded runs until 2017 so whichever government was in power right now has to have this consultation and go through this process.

I think it should concentrate on doing less things better, it's far too big and the layers of management are too cumbersome, but in principal I love the BBC and think it just needs to continue to adapt to the new ways that people now consume media.

When the last charter came in 10 years ago the way people watched TV was completely different to now but the BBC has actually been at the forefront of iplayer development that the other UK channels had to keep up with, I think all TV will eventually be streamed like that rather than in a linear way - which is why I can't really see why people kicked up about bbc 3 moving to the equivalent of an online only netflicks type service

Oh and the loop hole allowing people to watch BBC content on iplayer and not pay for it needs closing as part of the changes, it's simply a case that technology has moved too quick for it to be implemented yet

I don't understand the logic behind 'the BBC should be free but we pay to watch Netflix'.

PrimalLass

There isn't any logic to that, and I don't think that's what anyone (much) is saying.

I am happy for the BBC to stop me watching iPlayer unless I pay for it. I am less happy for the BBC taking money off me to permit me to watch anyone else's content.

Dad the weird situation re the licence fee and iplayer has come up, as I said because technology has moved quicker than the ability to change the laws surrounding it, I think it'll be something that's definitely altered in the new charter without a doubt

Radio 4 is the soundtrack of my day. I get vaguely panicky at the thought of it not being there and would pay the licence fee for R4 alone. Definitely think it's a case of not valuing something until we're in danger of losing it. We've lived in several countries and the BBC is far and away superior to all other TV/radio/news outlets etc. We do watch Al Jazeera, but as always with the media cherchez le money.

Think about what would happen if we went down the US model and most of our news was driven by Rupert Murdoch.

Some media salaries are incredibly bloated (Jonathon Ross etc) but BBC programming can be superb and the variety is outstanding.

They should forget any nod to reality TV, concentrate on drama/documentary/news/arts/sciences which they do so well.

The TV licence is outdated and unfair. We don't watch BBC or listen to BBC radio yet pay licence fees. It should be a subscription, like sky.

Unrelated but the BBC's murky past riles me also.