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

[jobhunter7]

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

No, you can never fully appreciate the breadth of service (and it is a service) provided by the BBC

But we don’t want all of the service. It’s like going into McDonalds for a coffee and being expected to pay for a few Big Macs and some happy meals for other people’s children.

Why should we have to pay for the parts of the service that were not interested in? I appreciate that the breadth of service would reduce, but I’m not convinced that anyone would miss much of it. The bbc should be broadcasting in response to what it’s customers want, it should not be telling us that we need all this stuff and making us pay for it when most of it is irrelevant to us.

But we don’t want all of the service.... Why should we have to pay for the parts of the service that were not interested in?

Replace BBC with NHS, or schools if you don't have kids; roads if you don't have a car. All sorts of services.. and the BBC is still a service not a commercial commodity!

It’s like going into McDonalds for a coffee and being expected to pay for a few Big Macs and some happy meals for other people’s children. Really that should be it's like going into McDonalds and refusing to pay the % of the charge that covers the staff in head office, buildings you have never seen, pension pots you won't beneft from, etc etc

I'm really baffled at some of these responses

Living in another country certainly didn't make me think better of the BBC

Why does it matter if the BBC goes? And why should it go? If the people who want it pay for it, it will stay.

I think the Beeb should go to a pay per view service - that way, the licence fee could be scrapped and those that want the BBC can pay for it.
Either that or allow adverts. As per a PP most slebs on there have something to flog, whether it be their new film, book, album, etc. I find it rather annoying tbh.

It's unfair that even if you genuinely don't watch any BBC channels you still have to pay the licence fee.

I don't know who is writing some of the online news stuff, but recently I've seen "lightening speed" and "heard immunity" so I think some money needs to be diverted into proofreading...

I'll forgive them a lot though for their music funding. They employ five orchestras and the BBC Singers are the only full-time professional salaried chamber choir in the UK. Might not be sexy in terms of funding, but they do an awful lot of community work, and contribute hugely to the amount of live orchestral music heard in the country.

I think they should make it a subscription only for the BBC not for all live TV.

I haven't paid the license fee for years.

I don't need to.

I don't miss live TV at all it's mostly complete tripe.

@Yubale

I think they should make it a subscription only for the BBC not for all live TV.

Yes! Let's run headlng into a wholly commercial life.

What else? Becaue once you remove one and the public don't protest, the rest will follow!

Health
Roads and other infrastructure? Think toll roads...
Public transport paid for at full cost?
Education?

But we don’t want all of the service. It’s like going into McDonalds for a coffee and being expected to pay for a few Big Macs and some happy meals for other people’s children.

You could say the same about Netflix, Sky, Amazon Prime - in fact, anything that you pay a flat subscription for. Amazon Prime also gives you the right to get the majority of what Amazon sells the next day, but I can guarantee that you will never order more than a tiny fraction of what they have for sale.

Your council tax means that you can go repeatedly to the tip with a car-load of rubbish, tens of times a day; you could read every single book in the town library, but you won't. If you aren't on a water meter, you can leave all your taps on full 24/7 and do whatever you want with Olympic-sized swimming pool amounts of water. But you don't want or need all that water, so you wouldn't dream of doing that.

Most subscriptions are based on the average/expected amount of usage. No one person is ever anticipated to want/be able to use 95% or more (maybe 99%+) of what's available, but the charge is based around the small percentage that you will use. You might as well demand to not have to buy a whole dictionary and only pay for the pages/words that you actually didn't already know.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

But we don’t want all of the service.... Why should we have to pay for the parts of the service that were not interested in?

Replace BBC with NHS, or schools if you don't have kids; roads if you don't have a car. All sorts of services.. and the BBC is still a service not a commercial commodity!

But in a way, this is already true

I don't drive so I don't pay road tax.

And the BBC isn't a service...it is if you pay for it I guess...

Would pay the licence fee for R4 alone. BBC not perfect, but much of the content is second to none. There is currently a series on R4 'How to vaccinate the world' which is excellent - no hyperbole, intelligent people discussing pros and cons.

Do get a bit narked about some R4 programming obviously broadcast to attract a younger audience - they don't change the R1 schedule to attract an older audience!

Definitely one of those things that we won't know what we've got 'til it's gone.

Like the NHS, it needs looking at, and core values (news and current affairs, documentaries, music, drama etc) strengthening, stop trying to be woke central, reduce staffing levels, but the BBC is still the best broadcaster in the world.

If you say cut services and reduce the fee everyone will have a different bias opinion on what should be cut.

Personally I would only want eastenders and cbbies.

It would be better to let people tailor what they want like with sky.

They probably don't need as many radio channels as well. They could just keep the 3 most popular and sell the rest.

@CuriousaboutSamphire would be happy to pay for any of those (and mostly did anyway). I have private healthcare, paid for private school fees and if tolls meant roads that weren't full of potholes with fewer queues then bring it on.

@Bluegrass

Interesting to say that the BBC isn’t even bothering to be impartial when that is one of its central tenets and a key part of the editorial guidelines that its staff have to abide by. To compare its output to truly partisan organisations like Fox is complete hyperbole.

With regards to Brexit, half the country voted against it and their views needed to be represented. Claims about the benefits also needed to be subject to scrutiny. I’ve seen people claim vociferously that the BBC actually helped make Brexit happen by giving such an inordinate amount of airtime to Nigel Farage and his ilk, and by letting Brexiteer pundits assume the same credibility on panels as e.g. experts in trade and international relations.

It seems impartiality is often in the eye of the beholder, and is very susceptible to confirmation bias (if you assume there is bias then bias is all you will ever see).

It’s like those right wing pundits who constantly appear on all the networks, write long newspaper articles and fill their Twitter feeds with claims that right wing voices like theirs are being silenced!

YES

My apologies @DappledOliveGroves, I forgot MN is full of people with a lot of cash! Maybe I should remember that not everyone is dependent on living in a welfare state for such things as health and education.

And people who think that roads are paid for via road tax, which doesn't exist anymore, it's car tax VED and roads are paid for from general taxation pot. So yes @AcornAutumn you do pay for roads!

Replace BBC with NHS, or schools if you don't have kids; roads if you don't have a car. All sorts of services.. and the BBC is still a service not a commercial commodity!

Are you trying to say the bbc is as essential as schools and hospitals? Seriously?

We all benefit from an educated society, we all benefit from healthcare being available if we need it, we all benefit from roads that allow our food to be transported etc.

We do not all benefit from numerous tv channels and radio stations and website content.

Are you trying to say the bbc is as essential as schools and hospitals? Seriously?

Maybe not to you, but that might be because you aren't dependent upon any part of it in any way! Many people don't think news, information sharing is at all important.

And the BBC do have a very large Education section... all sorts of education!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

It’s like going into McDonalds for a coffee and being expected to pay for a few Big Macs and some happy meals for other people’s children. Really that should be it's like going into McDonalds and refusing to pay the % of the charge that covers the staff in head office, buildings you have never seen, pension pots you won't beneft from, etc etc

It’s nothing like that at all.

It would be up to the business to decide what is reasonable to charge for a cup of coffee considering that they need to pay for head office staff, pensions etc.

It’s then up to me to decide whether that is a reasonable price for a cup of coffee or not. Simple. I pay what it costs for that one thing or I don’t. If I decide I don’t want to pay the asking price for a coffee, no one tries to ban me from having a milkshake instead. I’m allowed to chose what I want from the menu instead of being forced to pay for everything on the menu when I only want one thing.

God! In trying to repsond to each criticism of my posts it looks as though I think th BBC needs to remain as it is. I don't, far from it.

But it does help critique it if you are aware of what else it does besides radio, televisiion and some website pages!

It isn't the output that is the real issue. Its the bureaucracy that stifles it, wastes so much of the funding!

I think we'll have to disagree @NailsNeedDoing. That analogy only goes so far and I think we ay have exhausted it!

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Are you trying to say the bbc is as essential as schools and hospitals? Seriously?

Maybe not to you, but that might be because you aren't dependent upon any part of it in any way! Many people don't think news, information sharing is at all important.

And the BBC do have a very large Education section... all sorts of education!

Is anybody in this country as dependent on society having healthcare and education as they are on having telly and radio? If genuinely be interested to hear how.

But, if that’s the truth, and tv and radio really is that important, then it should be like other essential services that are free at the point of use and everyone can access them whether they pay in or not. You can’t have it both ways.

I'm happy with the bbc and their content. Some of it is shit, but plenty isn't.

Personally I think the BBC is fantastic, particularly in radio format, but also for podcasts and TV. I think we might really suffer if BBC news in particular is constrained- We have other news channels which are great, but the BBC set the original standard. Removing it would me a mistake. Internationally as well the world service gives us a way into other countries which simply does not exist elsewhere.