People have been complaining for years about its "wokeness" relating to modern episodes of stuff like Doctor Who, and now obviously Donald Trump's after them for $1BN for allegedly "Doctoring" a recent interview.
Thoughts?
They have BBC America.
Should the BBC be scrapped?
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Rich-Allen1976
- Honorable Member
- Posts: 9373
- Joined: 03 Sep 2022, 14:31
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Should the BBC be scrapped?
I don't beee-lieve it!
Should the BBC be scrapped?
The BBC is supposed to be impartial and accurate in it's reporting, so editing together unrelated snippets of a speech is definitely shady.
People moan about the licence fee but the licence fee is currently £174.50. This equates to £14.54 per month for an add free service.
Netflix = £12.99 or £18.99
Amazon = £8.99
Disney+ = £8.99 or £12.99
Apple = £8.99
So it is a bit pricey, but considering the range of programs, not wildly so.
The principal problem is that you HAVE to have a licence to watch live TV from ANY service, and that does seem a bit unfair.
You want to watch a live concert on Netflix/Apple/Amazon etc? You HAVE to have a TV licence, so you end up paying the BBC to watch something that has been payed for and broadcast by another service, and you have already paid a subscription to that service. You end up paying twice.
People moan about the licence fee but the licence fee is currently £174.50. This equates to £14.54 per month for an add free service.
Netflix = £12.99 or £18.99
Amazon = £8.99
Disney+ = £8.99 or £12.99
Apple = £8.99
So it is a bit pricey, but considering the range of programs, not wildly so.
The principal problem is that you HAVE to have a licence to watch live TV from ANY service, and that does seem a bit unfair.
You want to watch a live concert on Netflix/Apple/Amazon etc? You HAVE to have a TV licence, so you end up paying the BBC to watch something that has been payed for and broadcast by another service, and you have already paid a subscription to that service. You end up paying twice.
To those just starting on the journey of life I say...
Bang your own drum. Walk your own path. Live wildly. Love fiercely.
As you near the end, look back with no regrets.
Bang your own drum. Walk your own path. Live wildly. Love fiercely.
As you near the end, look back with no regrets.
Should the BBC be scrapped?
Firstly, where's the "yes" option? Asking a black or white question and lumping one side under "other" is a bit of a polling no-no.
A better question would be "Should the BBC license fee be scrapped?".
To that, I would argue yes. As @Ojisama says, it's unfair to not be allowed to watch live TV on other platforms. Change the license fee into a BBC subscription to watch their content and it becomes more fair.
I'd propose the following as the best methods long term for the BBC -
1. Subscription model.
2. Open the model to a worldwide audience, not just the UK to increase potential customers.
3. Allow advertising as one of it's packages to reduce the cost to subscribe.
4. Keep it as publicly owned.
5. Trim down the BBC. It is massively bloated - a lot of unnecessaries in this age of streaming.
6. Initially for the transition - government subsidies. This is unavoidable, assume only half of households subscribe to the new service as opposed to 90%+ under the current regime - massive shortfall. Have this be for the transition period.
7. Some BBC services remain under long-term government subsidy after the transition (we're talking a cost of couple 100 mill) with a remit for essentials that may not be otherwise viable but desirable. Everything else, similar to channel 4, allow the BBC to decide itself.
8. Merge Channel 4 (which is also owned by the UK public - something a lot of people don't know!) and BBC into one publically owned company. Brings experiences of both into the same house and economies of scale. Channel 4 already has experience handling advertising and working without a cash hand out, so this helps a lot.
If this is not done, then within 10ish years, with technological changes only accelerating, you will see a government eventually abolishing the license fee under less favourable terms whereby what is left is sold off to different companies (ie: fully privatised - Reform could potentially do this - depending on how mean they're feeling they could split up it's production studios, it's platform and channels and sell off to different companies to rub salt in the wound).
A better question would be "Should the BBC license fee be scrapped?".
To that, I would argue yes. As @Ojisama says, it's unfair to not be allowed to watch live TV on other platforms. Change the license fee into a BBC subscription to watch their content and it becomes more fair.
I'd propose the following as the best methods long term for the BBC -
1. Subscription model.
2. Open the model to a worldwide audience, not just the UK to increase potential customers.
3. Allow advertising as one of it's packages to reduce the cost to subscribe.
4. Keep it as publicly owned.
5. Trim down the BBC. It is massively bloated - a lot of unnecessaries in this age of streaming.
6. Initially for the transition - government subsidies. This is unavoidable, assume only half of households subscribe to the new service as opposed to 90%+ under the current regime - massive shortfall. Have this be for the transition period.
7. Some BBC services remain under long-term government subsidy after the transition (we're talking a cost of couple 100 mill) with a remit for essentials that may not be otherwise viable but desirable. Everything else, similar to channel 4, allow the BBC to decide itself.
8. Merge Channel 4 (which is also owned by the UK public - something a lot of people don't know!) and BBC into one publically owned company. Brings experiences of both into the same house and economies of scale. Channel 4 already has experience handling advertising and working without a cash hand out, so this helps a lot.
If this is not done, then within 10ish years, with technological changes only accelerating, you will see a government eventually abolishing the license fee under less favourable terms whereby what is left is sold off to different companies (ie: fully privatised - Reform could potentially do this - depending on how mean they're feeling they could split up it's production studios, it's platform and channels and sell off to different companies to rub salt in the wound).
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