to think the BBC has had it's day and it really is over now?

[hamstersarse]

Obviously this debate has been rumbling for years, but it seems to me that the tide has turned very quickly in recent months.

They genuinely do not seem to represent anyone well, and the license fee model is just so broken and irrelevant to how we now consume our art, news and content.

It remains a great idea (possibly fundamental to a civilised society) to have a non-biased media outlet, but the BBC just do not seem up to the job.

Does anyone still feel they are a reliable source of news? Does anyone agree with the license fee model? Can we not get their type of content elsewhere, by choice?

@Tanith

The BBC is so much more than TV, radio and news.

I know it suits certain people of a political persuasion to get rid of it (the Op for one), and it certainly suits one odious newspaper proprietor, but we will regret it if it goes.

I'm not sure this is fair. It's possible to believe in the idea of a national broadcaster, but also think the one you have has completely lost the plot.

Interesting that lots of posters go on about how politically biased it is - from both points of view. Clearly people only see what they want to see.

@Ginfordinner

Interesting that lots of posters go on about how politically biased it is - from both points of view. Clearly people only see what they want to see.

I don't think it's politically biased at all. It's more nuanced than that and isn't drawn along political lines. They have their own agenda which isn't the usual party A=good, party B=bad. At times they're equally against both main parties, but they still have the agenda they're following.

Sometimes, they're just like the sneery "comedians" they seem to love - it's the smug "we know best" attitude shining through.

Its an outdated model and needs changing. I dont pay the licence because I only use netflix now and read latest news from various sources on the Internet. Havent listened to the radio in a decade!

Cyclingmad do they chase you for a licence fee and refuse to believe you when you say you haven’t got a tv?

@Ginfordinner

Interesting that lots of posters go on about how politically biased it is - from both points of view. Clearly people only see what they want to see.

There's a socially liberal /'woke' bias at the BBC and an establishment bias at the BBC (it's state media and part of the establishment).

This is why it gets it in the neck from left and right alike.

The BBC is supposed to be independent of government but look how much governments interfere. In 2016 they forced us to administer OAPs' licence fees - previously a function of the DWP - and Parliament didn't even get a look-in on that decision. Why do they interfere so much? Because governments always want to control us. When Labour were in, it was Alastair Campbell ringing up individual journalists straight after news bulletins and screaming at them down the phone that he was going to get them sacked for broadcasting such bullshit.
@Furtwangler you keep referring to "us". Do you work for the BBC?

Peter Sissons was a newsreader for both ITN and BBC News so he saw how both companies operated. If a spin doctor phoned ITN and demanded control over the lineup, he'd be told where to go. Alastair Campbell rang up the BBC and insisted that Tony Blair's keynote speech should be right at the top of the agenda and the BBC tugged their forelock.

On the issue of free licences for the over-75s, they managed without until the year 2000, it was merely a vote-buying bribe by the then government.

BBC bias isn't so much overt party political, it's more cultural. There's no diversity of experience in the BBC's intake of new talent, they're all middle class, did similar courses at similar universities etc. Therefore they view the world as a homogenous group. It's more of a liberal bias, hence the current outbreak of wokery.

Some output is still good (Natural History Unit for example). Other parts of the portfolio are the same sort of popular drivel which might as well be produced by the commercial channels. The way they throw money around is appalling too, they took way more staff down to Nelson Mandela's funeral than ITV did but can anyone really say that the coverage was discernibly better for it? If you got rid of the Match of the Day studio, Lineker et al and replaced them with a faceless continuity announcer introducing each set of highlights, would the viewership drop much? I doubt it, I'm pretty sure that most viewers are only there to watch the football. They do appear to be more interested in chasing ratings than the commercial channels, surely that should not be a concern for a public service broadcaster.

What can posters living in the US tell us about PBS?

For CBeebies alone I would cheerfully pay triple the license. Radio 4 is full of wonderful stuff.

Just because it doesn’t align with any obvious bias doesn’t mean it’s lost it’s way, it’s it supposed to be biased.

It’s not perfect but it’s wonderful. We’d be poorer without it.

You might be right, but I hope you're not.

I still trust the BBC for news. I don't think they're perfect, I don't think any source is, but I think they're more trustworthy than most commercial news sources.

The license fee should die in a fire. I say fund the BBC from general taxation. But that would mean stripping Capita of their billion-pound contract to "administer" the license fee, so I'm not holding my breath.

I think the BBC does produce stuff other stations don't. Children's TV without advertising is a big one for a start. And while of little direct interest to most British people, I agree with the view the World Service has a role in British diplomacy and upholding our reputation worldwide.

I have pretty much all the various subscription services & still return yo iplayer the most frequently - the quality of their dramas & particularly documentaries are still second to none, which I think is incredible in this day & age. Not to mention their children's output (I couldn't live without it).

The fact the BBC doesn't have to be entirely profit driven means it really can provide a public service - whether that be through children's tv, local radio etc. It is world renowned. I know not everyone sees the benefit, but it would be awful to lose it - once gone, it would be gone forever.

They have increased listeners worldwide (I think it means the World Service) to almost half a billion.
That is a good advert for the UK internationally.
It was mentioned here
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000lzjb
the interview with the outgoing DG of the BBC, Tony Hall

Correction it's iplayer which has built its users worldwide, not the World Service

I say fund the BBC from general taxation.

They can find themselves. BBC studios is the commercial arm of the BBC and they made £1.4Billion profit recently.
BBC studios own UKTV, ad supported cable channels like Dave are on UkTV.

If they just cut out the waste of money, they'd have more than enough. Look at the FOI information. The waste of license fee money is astronomical.

I fonf the BBC news unwatchable now. I want facts presented neutrally, not lectured at length by individuals being interviewed for their indoctrination abilities.

Some if the dramas are good - eg Vanity Fair - but I feel a lot of them use shock and horror by portraying women and children as victims, in place of better characterisation and writing. At one point it seemed that every drama was using a slight variation on divorced woman horribly attached, swiftly followed by child disappearance and murder.

For me, the bad now outweighs the good and the news is awful, so dumbed down it feels as if it should be the children's news, and the adult news found sonewhere else

Agreed on the news. I dislike how they tell you their opinion first, for example "Dutch lockdown may be risky" for example. Before telling you the details. That sort of thing (but worse)

I like the BBC a lot. Need it as much as ever.

Does anyone still feel they are a reliable source of news? I do.
Absolutely yes. Fantastic.

Does anyone agree with the license fee model? Yes I agree with it.

Can we not get their type of content elsewhere? Not me, not really. I listen to NPR & CBS podcasts, follow AlJazeera-RT-CNN-France24 on Twitter. None of them have the timeliness, breadth and depth that I get from BBC radio for politics, science, business, education news.

I can get weather from MetOffice instead, but not presented in a true narrative way that really gets a feel for what the day will be like. Maybe ITV or Ch4 weather would do instead, I guess.
I can get cycling coverage from ITV or Eurosport.

So I guess BBC weather & sport coverage I would not miss.

I like the BBC because I like a lot of the content that they show - comedy, period drama, crime drama, music, wildlife programmes, documentaries, quiz shows (Pointless anyone?), travel programmes, cookery shows. I don't really watch many films. I don't watch sport, but it is there for those who do.

TBH all the crime dramas that I have enjoyed recently have all been BBC productions.

Other channels also show programmes that I enjoy, but I would hate to get rid of the breadth of programming that the BBC provide. I would be happy to watch it on a pay per view basis, then maybe the naysayers will stop sneering at it because they won't be watching it.

The what? Oh the BBC, I remember now. Nope don't miss it one jot since we ditched them.

Tomorrow Lord Hall, director general of the BBC is leaving and handing over control to Tim Davie.

Tim Davie was the head of BBC studios and increased the commercial arm of the BBC and owns Alibi, Dave, Drama, Eden, Gold, W, Yesterday.
BBC studios also owns video publishing company 2 Entertain with products dual branded 2 Entertain and BBC, Demon Music Group. Doctor Who and Top Gear-branded online shops.
Operates the BBC Motion Gallery.
12.2% stake in production company Left Bank Pictures.
25% stake in Cliffhanger Productions independent production company.
25% stake in BBC Children's Books, an imprint of Penguin Group who hold a 75% stake.
Licences the publishing of magazine titles to the Immediate Media Company. The titles were formerly published in-house by BBC Magazines.
Licences audio content to Penguin Random House UK for global sales and distribution. Titles were previously published in-house by BBC Radio Collection and BBC Audiobooks and later by AudioGO, in which BBC Studios held a 15% stake.

In partnership with ITV, launched a SVOD service BritBox in March 2017 in the U.S, has since expanded into the UK and Canada.

@Furtwangler

Full disclosure, I work for BBC News so maybe that's my impartiality on the whole subject out of the window. I know a lot of good people, journalists and techies, who are very much motivated by the BBC's ethos - impartiality, inform, educate, entertain and all that. But we are also massively exasperated by the BBC's management, they can be unbelievably hopeless. Just take that latest row over the n-word. NO WAY should using it on air even have been considered. It doesn't matter that the victim's parents wanted it used - editorial responsibility is ours, and can't be outsourced to someone else. I think the vast majority of BBC journalists were really annoyed that we dropped ourselves in it once again. And the earlier decision on Naga Munchetty saying she disliked what Trump was saying. We got it right in the end, but only after making massive idiots of ourselves to begin with. So, I'd say, be careful what you wish for. The BBC is supposed to be independent of government but look how much governments interfere. In 2016 they forced us to administer OAPs' licence fees - previously a function of the DWP - and Parliament didn't even get a look-in on that decision. Why do they interfere so much? Because governments always want to control us. When Labour were in, it was Alastair Campbell ringing up individual journalists straight after news bulletins and screaming at them down the phone that he was going to get them sacked for broadcasting such bullshit. The Tories favour beating us up behind the Westminster bike-sheds and stealing our (your) dinner money. Is all that because we're rubbish, and no-one cares what we say? Or the opposite?

On impartiality, we're hamstrung. Owen Jones said recently that the most important attribute of journalism is not impartiality, it's independence, and I think he's right. The BBC's hallowed on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other even-handedness just doesn't work in these days of constant barefaced lying by politicians. Trump is an obvious racist, but the BBC can't say so. Johnson tells massive porkies and operates blatant double standards, but the BBC can't say so.

A tip: be like @Muminho and stick with BBC Radio, especially Radio 4. No other outfit will ever fund a radio station like it. Nip over to LBC at 10 for James O'Brien, who IS allowed to say what's obviously true, and stick with it at 1 for Shelagh Fogerty, ex-BBC but now doing her best work in the commercial sector. Back to Radio 4 for the World Tonight, calm and collected current affairs without the feverishness of so much news output these days.

Well, that just confirms what we all expected. BBC News employee, calling out the negatives on Trump and Boris only, and recommending James O'Brien (seriously???) and Shelagh Fogerty. They have such a left wing agenda and genuinely don't seem to see it at all!

I did notice that too MrsDoyle

James O’Brien is dreadful. Even as a liberal Remainer I find him overbearing - he thinks he speaks for the people . (I do like Shelagh Fogarty though).

And no comment from someone in BBC news on their editorial stance when reporting on this story - posting again in case I can induce anyone at the BBC to reflect on their commitment to truth and accuracy:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-lancashire-53410019

I give you these...

www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-53917432

they do this from time to time, here is another joy

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52848793

No BBC would be a huge loss. I don’t think it is getting everything right at the moment but it’s depth and spread are unparalleled. Am a huge supporter.

Regardless of what people want, is it likely that any government would actually end the licence fee?

I could not imagine parenting without CBeebies. Fabulous quality programming with no adverts. It doesn't exist anywhere else.

I personally enjoy Radio 3. Again, advert free and excellent selection of music.