To think they should reduce the size of the BBC and cut the license fee?

[bluewedge]

I think BBC 4 is great for example... but would those shows not have fitted on BBC 2 in previous years...

I stopped using BBC years ago. I have no TV aerial and no license. Netflix and Disney Plus both cheaper, Sky News is free to view.

I know lots of people doing this, for me the BBC is expensive and poor value.

@BonfireStarter

I stopped using BBC years ago. I have no TV aerial and no license. Netflix and Disney Plus both cheaper, Sky News is free to view.

I know lots of people doing this, for me the BBC is expensive and poor value.

For me it is excellent value. I watch and listen to a lot of BBC output

I mostly watch BBC when watching TV, especially BBC4 which they are considering getting rid of - I think it is the best channel. I don't listen to the radio but do look at the BBC news website daily.

People keep saying it is excellent value. Anything is excellent value if every household pay for it, regardless of whether they like it or not.

The thing I don’t get is, if people love what the BBC do, it would work on a voluntary subscription model.

I often think that there is a snobby subtext here that people ‘should’ want the BBC content and, if they are too stupid to realise how good it is, they should just subside everyone else.

Either it is wanted enough to survive on a Netflix type model, or it isn’t.

I was looking at the listings and thought many of the shows on BBC 1 tonight for example would fit just as easily on a commercial channel

Does Netflix do daily multiple news and current affairs programmes, and on multiple channels (I mean both radio & video?) Do they have correspondents around the world covering breaking news (mostly freelance in small countries, to be fair).

Do Netflix have a legal obligation to deliver free content to elderly people on benefits?

Does Netflix have a diverse website including things like weather forecasts, educational programmes and sports stories?

I can't help but think modern day producers, apart from stand alone's like Strictly Ballroom and Bake Off, mainly want to do "down with the kids" stuff, and think to be associated with anything else is naff and embarrassing and detrimental to their career.

Stalwart supporter of the BBC here. Quality programmes, David Attenborough etc, no horrid adverts, worth the 40p per day etc. That was a few years ago.

Not any more. The quality has gone down. Particularly journalism and not putting reports into context, eg lengthy articles may talk about climate change worsening without actually defining what worse is - cooler, wetter, hotter, goldfish falling from the sky? Needs context. Articles about inflation rising without expressing the % change and what it means. Articles are written for 12 year olds - it’s just bloody lazy - and I want more than that.

This stalwart supporter is fairly growing cold and I believe the BBC should compete with everybody else. It’s not about the licence fee, it’s about shaking the laziness and complacency up.

@bookmum08

The licence fee is less than half a penny a day.

Do you mean half a pound?

@bookmum08

Stuck for that was me that said the licence was half p per day - I had a moment of maths brain fart !! I know it isn't half a penny 😂

Whoops, exactly why I should have rtft. Carry on!

Yes I completely got my sums wrong tinnitus ! As soon as I posted it I was thinking "wait..... that's not right". Bit embarrassing really

@honeygirlz

Which streaming service provides a significant proportion of the news, local content, radio and other elements that the BBC does?

NOW TV? (except for radio)

What local content do you get through Now TV? I must have missed it.

It’s not about the licence fee, it’s about shaking the laziness and complacency up.

I think closer investigation might show that it is about the licence fee - or rather huge cuts to the BBC's funding which has had an effect on the content it can provide. There aren't as many people as there used to be and they don't have as much time.

I can't help but think modern day producers, apart from stand alone's like Strictly Ballroom and Bake Off, mainly want to do "down with the kids" stuff, and think to be associated with anything else is naff and embarrassing and detrimental to their career.

What makes you think this, @WeWantSweet?

(BTW it's called Strictly Come Dancing and Bake Off is made by Channel 4)

I'd think the BBC and licence will be untouchable for a few years. Since they managed to provide 13 weeks worth of Education for the nations kids in 4 different education systems at the drop of a hat.

Nobody would want to rock the boat while we are at risk of another lockdown.

admit that people who say they never watch any BBC output whatsoever mystify me. Do they never watch comedy, music, sport, films, documentaries, David Attenborough, travel shows, drama, crime drama, cookery shows, other lifestyle TV, news, quiz shows, soaps, reality TV, children's TV, educational programmes, religion, wildlife programmes, big events?

The BBC doesnt have a monopoly on those things. I dont have an aerial (I watch TV exclusively through my Chromecast and NowTV sticks), I never watch the BBC and dont watch live TV at all so I have registered that with the TV licencing so longer pay the licence fee.

I can still watch ITV, C4 and C5 on catch up so still get that content (I just can't watch it live, which I never do anyway due to work etc) and I watch various things on YouTube etc. I also get most of my news online, the same with local news - I get it through local newspapers and local media pages on Facebook, so I dont need the BBC for local info.

Additionally I have Netflix, Disney+ and Now TV subscriptions which covers most of that list (Many older BBC shows are now on Netflix, as are others on the channels available on Now TV). I also get BT sport access on my phone (which I can stream to my TV via my Chromecast) for £3 a month in my phone contract and everything else is stuff I am not interested in. If there is the odd thing I want to watch on the BBC, I will watch it at my parents or at a friends, but that is very rare.

Netflix - £6pm so £72/year
Disney+ - I paid £50/year for their introductory rate.
New TV- should be £6pm for the entertainment package, but I get regular deals/vouchers so I rarely pay more than £4 a month (I just finished a deal where I got it for £1.80 for 4 months) so averages about £48/year

£72 +£50 + £48 = £170 a year that gives me access to pretty much everything available entertainment wise except the BBC.

I could pay the BBC licence or I could pay just a small amount more and get everything else. As someone who earns not much more than minimum wage as a single parent if I had to pay the licence fee I couldn't also afford subscriptions on top, but I can afford all of them instead of the fee.

Additionally all of my subscriptions are rolling monthly subscriptions (except the Disney+ as it was an introductory offer, but there is a monthly subscription option) so for example if I am going on holiday for a few weeks I can suspend my subscriptions while I am away and restart them when I return. Or if I find I am not using a specific platform, I just suspend my subscription until I want to watch it again, and it takes seconds to reactivate it. It's not a huge saving but it means I'm only paying for things I'm actually using and if the budget is tight I can cut my subscriptions for a couple of months. You cant do that with the BBC, you have to pay whether or not you use it and have no options of a sliding scale of licence fee based on your usage.

Oh and as for radio - I never listen to the radio. I use Spotify and can listen to the music I want to hear - and there are plenty of playlists for pretty much any genre - and use it to listen to podcasts. I can also connect it to my Google Home speakers so that I can stream my podcasts/music playlists into my home muc the same way as I would listen to a radio talk show/music station.

You can get a subscription for £9.99 a month which is ad free and a few other functions but I use the free version which is fine for what I use it for as there is only the occasional advert (always less than 30 seconds) in music playlists and podcasts only have adverts before/after, there arent ads within a show unless the podcast itself has sponsors, which would happen regardless of the version you use.

I think it should be pay per view. Sick of paying for services I don't use, when the only one I do use doesn't require a license (bbc news online). I watch some bbc shows via netflix, but assuming netflix pays for use of these shows, which will be reflected in my subscription fee? I never watch anything on any of the main channels, and haven't watched anything on the iplayer since the disappointment that was his dark materials (should have been done by hbo who might actually have done it justice).

It's starting to feel like a total con/rip off!

I don’t love everything on the bbc but who does? It’s an eclectic mix which is the point. The commercial channels are pretty dumbed down. I May Destroy You and Killing Eve is would have been on channel 4 a few years ago, but it’s now mainly property porn and benefits bashing. So many of the other digital channels rely on bbc repeats. I’ve also found the streaming services to be pretty patchy quality wise. Murdoch is obviously threatened enough by them to put pressure on our government to destroy the BBC, which is another vote in its favour!

@yeOldeTrout

Couldn't Strictly or Eastenders be sold to ITV/C4/C5?

No. Its 23p a day and no adverts.
I’m so fed up of people like you.
Go watch the BBC programme about Murdoch and then comment.
It offers so much to so many people.

You know Netflix currently runs at a massive loss so that’s no business model.
People like you are unable to see who is starting these anti bbc campaigns.
If we end up with bloody brexit and no bbc I’m leaving the country.
BBC radio
All the channels
IPlayer
All the websites but especially
BBC bite size
BBC sounds
CBeebies
So many things
ALL FOR 23p a day.

This is a campaign led by Murdoch and The poxy daily mail. Do you want all your news and tv controlled by very rich men with their own agendas?!

43p a day, and good value IMO. Netflix would have fewer shows without its BBC content.

The thing is I like a lot of what the BBC has to offer:
Comedy
Music
Crime drama
Other drama
Cookery shows
Quiz shows
Documentaries
Wildlife programmes

Radio - I WFH now and have radio 2 on while I am working. when I commuted to work I used to listen to BBC local radio for local news, weather and traffic reports. When we had the awful floods last autumn (I'm in South Yorkshire) the local BBC teams kept us up to date.

I know the local commercial radio stations woud have had similar coverage, but the constant adverts interrupting shows drives me round the bend. At least on TV you can record everything and fast forward through the adverts.

When DD was little she watched CBeebies and CBBC. Bitesize got her through her GCSEs, and I'm sure she wouldn't have achieved an A in English Literature without Bitesize.
Website

How much would a Netflix licence be if everyone was forced to buy one?

I sometimes think a lot of the supportive posts are by BBC staffers-and there are plenty of them with plenty of time on their hands to do so.

The debate should not be about whether the content is good or not but whether a massive entertainment business, only a tiny part of which could really be classified as public service broadcasting, should be funded using a poll tax.

The answer, to me, is an unequivocal ‘no’.

If I suggested that The Times has excellent content (I think it does) and that the whole country should buy a licence for it (don’t worry, it will be really cheap and ‘good value’), there would be outrage.

But just because the BBC has always worked like that, it is not only tolerated but embraced.

The poster above who is moaning that she never listens to the radio because she has all she wants from her personalised Spotify service is a textbook case of how atomised individualistic and shortsighted many people have become since the bbc was put in place.

Tamsin Little the violinist was interviewed by Michelle Hussain at the start of the lockdown talking about the devastating impact of corona on orchestras and classical performers. ‘You must do ok surely from all those thousands and thousands of Spotify downloads reaching audiences around the world’ says Michelle to world-acclaimed violinist. Actually no, she replied. They have earned me 23p.

As Joni Mitchell said ' don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got til it's gone'.

The BBC will be missed when the right have dismantled it.