BBC coverage to be given the "Olympics treatment"

[James Bolivar]

Couldn't bare to watch so much coverage of Glasto if I wasn't there. Would be torture. In fact if I ever didn't get a ticket I think i'd have to leave the country for a couple of weeks.

[hawkzred]

I wish many more at the festival would.

Edited February 1, 2013 by hawkzred

[whisty]

They make you pay for it, but they don't make you watch it.

Did we win?

Edited February 1, 2013 by whisty

[neilloggie]

Oh no question. The BBC is the best about. And thats from an Irishman who doesn't have to pay the license fee.

So, err, cheers for paying everyone!

[strummer77]

I use the BBC website a hell of a lot, watch the odd show and listen to some of their stations (6music). I also have benefited from their fine educational products whilst at school.

That's just scratching the surface. The BBC is boss.

[Bisque]

I hope Adam & Joe return for Glastonbury.

I guess its going to be Greg James & Fern Cotton doing the main presenting duties. I think Edith Bowman just does TitP & Reggie Yates has left R1 but no reason not to return. Radcliffe, Laverne, Lowe & Whiley for the late night highlights?

[fatyeti24]

I hope Adam & Joe return for Glastonbury.

I guess its going to be Greg James & Fern Cotton doing the main presenting duties. I think Edith Bowman just does TitP & Reggie Yates has left R1 but no reason not to return. Radcliffe, Laverne, Lowe & Whiley for the late night highlights?

[Bisque]

just how in the name of that is tasteful and decent did Radio 6 Music's otherwise excellent weekend line up become sullied with Edith Shitting Bowman and Colin Shitting Murray?

[Guest]

But, and especially for a public service broadcaster, spending lots does not always equate to high quality. A few years ago, probably six or seven, I watched two factual documentaries on the Beeb - one made by them, with lots of expensive effects and beautifully filmed, if unnecessary, travel footage, the other made for them, on a shoestring, by the Open University. The OU programme won hands down in terms of content and delivery; it was interesting and hugely informative. The Beeb programme was just a succession of glossy images with virtually no content.

You can do innovative stuff with little money, but Auntie is the Civil Service in make-up and drag and so real innovation is shown the door. Of course, if you have a great creative team and a huge budget you get Band of Brothers, but that's a different story.

[neilloggie]

Can't comment on Murray but I find Bowman incredibly boring. I guess its the now the norm for the "older" last generation of R1 DJs to transition to R6 or R2 as R1 aim to get a younger audience. Buxton clearly carried Bowman on their Saturday show & to me it was occasionally clear that he wasn't happy with his new temporary sidekick.

(Read earlier breakfast show listeners are down but bosses at Beeb are hitting a younger target audience. Used to listen to Danny Wallace on XFM & now Christian O'Connell on Absolute but mostly listened to the podcasts whilst flying)

[James Bolivar]

Probably since they got rid of Chris Moyles the older listeners have turned to Chris Evans on Radio 2,as their figures have shot up.

[Alcatraz]

(Read earlier breakfast show listeners are down but bosses at Beeb are hitting a younger target audience. Used to listen to Danny Wallace on XFM & now Christian O'Connell on Absolute but mostly listened to the podcasts whilst flying)

[eFestivals]

But, and especially for a public service broadcaster, spending lots does not always equate to high quality. A few years ago, probably six or seven, I watched two factual documentaries on the Beeb - one made by them, with lots of expensive effects and beautifully filmed, if unnecessary, travel footage, the other made for them, on a shoestring, by the Open University. The OU programme won hands down in terms of content and delivery; it was interesting and hugely informative. The Beeb programme was just a succession of glossy images with virtually no content.

You can do innovative stuff with little money, but Auntie is the Civil Service in make-up and drag and so real innovation is shown the door. Of course, if you have a great creative team and a huge budget you get Band of Brothers, but that's a different story.

you can do innovative stuff with little money, but not always and forever - only occasionally.

If it was that easy to do all the time then all broadcasters would be doing it and making themselves loads more profit - cos why would they spend more than they had to to make great output?

C'mon .... join up the dots!!! I'm not trying to defend excess here, I'm merely saying it how it is. The only way that the Beeb can hugely reduce its costs and not also hugely reduce its quality against other broadcasters is if all other broadcasters were to do the same.

[James Bolivar]

Where Auntie is competing with other broadcasters I take your point - an old girlfriend used to work there in the costume department and said that many talented designers were lured away to Hollywood, but she also said that the remainder were driven away by the bureaucratic nature of the organization.

In areas where Auntie is not competing - factual programming, arts coverage and so on - there is less of a clear case for supporting five-star expenses. Sky Arts has shown that it is actually possible to have a varied and interesting arts schedule on a shoestring budget; though it achieves this by commissioning or buying programming and not by spending £40 million a year maintaining orchestras. Sky Arts output is now much larger than BBC TV's arts output; a tad less hidebound by old-fashioned middle-class aesthetics as well.

The main reason I hate the BBC is that I actually want there to be good quality Public Service Broadcasting, but, and not unlike the library service, Auntie has lost it's way. When so much populist content is available elsewhere, what does it even mean to be a public service broadcaster? For me, at least in part, that is covering the stuff that is not commercial; chasing large audiences is anathema to the PSB ideal. Auntie could avoid excess, and have a clearer sense of itself, if it actually stopped trying compete and did its own thing.

Edited February 4, 2013 by James Bolivar

[eFestivals]

Sky Arts output is now much larger than BBC TV's arts output

and so it should be, given that Sky have a massive amount more money for each and every hour of TV programming it broadcasts.

So what you should really be asking yourself if you're applying the same criteria all round is why Sky's output isn't massively better for everything, instead of being massively worse (on average) for everything as it is.

The main reason I hate the BBC is that I actually want there to be good quality Public Service Broadcasting, but, and not unlike the library service, Auntie has lost it's way. When so much populist content is available elsewhere, what does it even mean to be a public service broadcaster?

a good question.

But if you marginalise it by saying it can only do the programmes which are not economically viable for commercial broadcasters then the question changes into "why is everyone having to pay for stuff that few people are interested in?", and end up with no public broadcaster at all.

For me, at least in part, that is covering the stuff that is not commercial; chasing large audiences is anathema to the PSB ideal. Auntie could avoid excess, and have a clearer sense of itself, if it actually stopped trying compete and did its own thing.

You are James Murdoch and I claim my five pounds.

[James Bolivar]

and so it should be, given that Sky have a massive amount more money for each and every hour of TV programming it broadcasts.

[eFestivals]

Sky's total income is a shade over £6 billion, the BBC's about £4.2 billion. The BBC broadcasts 12 tv channels, many not 24/7, Sky carries about 350 channels. Even looking at "Sky" branded tv channels - there are dozens of movie channels alone. So £/minute airtime is in Auntie's favour.

you're forgetting:-

1. the beeb also does a huge amount of radio for that money. You might think that radio is far cheaper, but it's not when PRS fees for the music they play is taken into account.

2. most of the 350 channels that Sky carries are nothing to do with Sky.

So your analysis is hugely flawed.

Auntie could do better - it used to do better,

it did - before people with your agenda undermined its basis, and which you continue to do. It's getting worse because of your choices and not in spite of them.

And there in lies the rub. I cannot answer that, I simply don't know how to make people love the BBC enough to pay for it when it doesn't deliver the programming they want - after all, that's the position I am in.

demanding that it does less as you're doing certainly won't restore it, will it?

It's people like you demanding that it does less which has caused it to do less. And so it carries on, until it reaches the point where you say it's completely pointless - the point you've reached already in your case.

And meanwhile as it does less the quality of the opposition falls too 9which it undoubtably has, and continues to do) - thus proving the 'quality threshold' idea that you refuse to recognise that you're benefitting from, because you're unable to see the quality in the channels you watch falling in front of your eyes. But hey, it's your view and only your view that counts, and you should get what you pay for and fuck everyone else.

Of course, most people are happy to pay for schools and libraries and aircraft carriers they have no personal use for

and yet the people who support them the least are the people with your attitude - that if you're getting nothing personally from it, why shou;ld you have to pay for it?

And so Thatcher wins the day, and the w*nkers are too stupid to see what they've done.

If you reduced Auntie to a couple of tv stations showing innovative factual and arts programming and an "unbiased" news channel along with a couple of progressive radio stations then it would only cost a fraction of the current £4 billion and nobody would mind that cost; probably. The danger in this is that the BBC will become a sort of middle-class, liberal arts ghetto - a bit like The National Theatre.

yeah, cos Sky News is real quality and nothing like Fox at all. That's what the BBC should be doing, and all for 5p. PMSL.

Sometimes I'm surprised that shoe-laces get tied each morning, cos that requires joined up thinking too.

Edited February 4, 2013 by eFestivals

[James Bolivar]

you're forgetting:-

1. the beeb also does a huge amount of radio for that money. You might think that radio is far cheaper, but it's not when PRS fees for the music they play is taken into account.

2. most of the 350 channels that Sky carries are nothing to do with Sky.

So your analysis is hugely flawed.

[eFestivals]

I would argue that it is because people with a popularizing agenda marginalized the real public serivce broadcasting.

I would argue that chavs get what chavs want and then force chavness onto others as a result of those chavs own stupidity.

While that's an exceedingly crude way of putting it, it is indeed what has happened. And it's in essence your own agenda and effect.

You want the beeb dumbed down to what you want, on the basis that it can't compete on the cut budget you've demanded for it and which has lost you what you might have appreciated in the first place.

Of course, a more post-modern analysis might be link it to the end of deference and its concomitant privileging of a particular, class-based, aesthetic.

that's all very well, until you think about your own demands for it - narrowing it even further.

Which is merely self-serving stupidity.

I really feel that Auntie lacks the confidence to do innovative Public Service Broadcasting

and how do you think it might meet your demands when you cannot define them?

And that's the point - no one can define what public service broadcasting is, tho they all say "more of what I want" (the irony of which passes you by entirely). Which gets to prove that it's pretty much meeting its remit, aside from where the likes of you complain about a cut in quality that has come about by your own demands about not wanting to pay for what you claim not to watch (but then expose yourself as having lied in the first place, the 2nd place and all places).

The problem is that idiocy such as yours has taken control, not that it has no sway.

And of course it has, because Murdoch is running the country as well as Sky. The public are not setting the BBC agenda, it's your w*nky hero that is.

I'm not even asking for a reduction in the licence fee

except that you are - it was exactly at the point where you did that I started posting here. "Why should I pay for it" is exactly that.

I simply pointed out that they could offer more PSB output for much less money.

You might as well be saying you want the moon until you can define what PSB actually is, why the beeb should be limited to just that and not give all-round entertainment (after all, it satisfies that need in a huge proportion of the population, which it might surprise you to know is more than just you ), and how it's possible to make the quality you say you want on less of a budget than it has now.

I am actually asking for more PS output. What is destroying Auntie is people insisting it should be popular.

PMSL ... you really can't see beyond the end of your own nose, can you?

What has destroyed the BBC is people like you saying it shouldn't be popular and demanded that budget is cut so that it's not popular (all to the benefit of your corrupt TV hero) - when you then complain that because4 it's not popular it serves no purpose and shouldn't force you to pay for it, and round things go again

But be happy, because I'm under no illusion that the morons have won. Murdoch owns the world, and bought your own brain for two and half pence.

Edited February 4, 2013 by eFestivals

[James Bolivar]

I don't claim to have never watched the BBC, simply that I do not watch the BBC; they produce nothing that is appealing. So, out of pure self-interest, and I don't see why that is bad, I argue there is no reason for me to subscribe. However, I am not entirely motivated by self-interest and see the need for social policies and institutions that do not directly benefit me, but to which I might need to contribute, Unfortunately, the BBC claims to fall into this category of useful social institutions, but I honestly do not see that it does. Left to uncritical supporters, such as yourself, the BBC would disappear up its own populist agenda, serve no social purpose and also completely destroy the market for commercial companies who have to turn a profit and who cannot guarantee what their income will be in three years time.

You seem to be arguing from the perspective of a zealot - the BBC is this and so must be better, but the evidence is that commercial companies have demonstrated that they can deliver on the old Reithian values, unfettered by the BBC's need to not offend anybody - which is where their unique funding ultimately takes them. Even BBC stalwarts such as Armando Iannucci, raised in the finest Liberal Arts traditions has asked for a second, subscription, BBC which could actually produce worthwhile broadcasting. By implication, this is because he feels that the BBC has everything it needs to make good telly, but isn't doing so.

[eFestivals]

I don't claim to have never watched the BBC, simply that I do not watch the BBC; they produce nothing that is appealing. So, out of pure self-interest, and I don't see why that is bad, I argue there is no reason for me to subscribe. However, I am not entirely motivated by self-interest and see the need for social policies and institutions that do not directly benefit me, but to which I might need to contribute, Unfortunately, the BBC claims to fall into this category of useful social institutions, but I honestly do not see that it does. Left to uncritical supporters, such as yourself, the BBC would disappear up its own populist agenda, serve no social purpose and also completely destroy the market for commercial companies who have to turn a profit and who cannot guarantee what their income will be in three years time.

You seem to be arguing from the perspective of a zealot - the BBC is this and so must be better, but the evidence is that commercial companies have demonstrated that they can deliver on the old Reithian values, unfettered by the BBC's need to not offend anybody - which is where their unique funding ultimately takes them. Even BBC stalwarts such as Armando Iannucci, raised in the finest Liberal Arts traditions has asked for a second, subscription, BBC which could actually produce worthwhile broadcasting. By implication, this is because he feels that the BBC has everything it needs to make good telly, but isn't doing so.

you don't watch it and they produce nothing that's appealing to you - a contradiction in itself.

Add in all your other comments about its biased news (it's the most unbiased news in the UK, not perfect but better than anything else), and how to perfect it in your own mind, and I have to give myself a slap for previously dismissing claims of telepathy as mumbo jumbo.

Out of self interest you don't want to subscribe, but (from previous posts, and repeated again) you're not a selfish type that stops good things for others. OK.

And you that don't watch it but still know it's not serving the PBS purpose that you're not able to define. Another OK from me.

You think me an uncritical supporter, proving readings skills to rival your telepathy skills, and say I'll cause it in the future to serve no social purpose even tho you say it doesn't serve a social purpose now. It gets better.

And then you say it'll destroy the commercial sector that has expanded hugely during all times of the BBC's existence, and which continues to grow stronger each year. Even better.

I don't ever have to get around to telling you that the BBC has flaws, not when there's so very many from the person who says the BBC has flaws beyond redemption.

The commercial sector has only ever got remotely close to 'the old Reithian values' because of the legislation and regulation it has to abide by - but which has been weakened in recent years at the request of the very people you claim to uphold the standard. Not only that but a standard set by the very organisation which you say isn't capable of reaching high standards under the same constitution it's always operated by.

It had passed me by that all people don't like some things. Thanks for the reminder.

[dingbat2]

Total Wipeout is quite funny though

[eFestivals]

Total Wipeout is quite funny though

Personally I think it's balls, and come the revolution hammond and that fakely nice woman will be first against the wall. But each to their own, the viewing figures don't lie.

If it didn't serve up just about something for everyone then it certainly would be failing in its remit as a public service broadcaster - because the first bit of that is 'public', the public that it serves ... and serves well by the viewing figures against what other broadcasters manage, despite doing so on a less-per-programme spend (or will someone claim that people are forced to watch it same as they're forced to pay for it, and that they watch it out of spite because they've been forced to pay for it? ).

It does all of inform, educate and entertain ... none of which ITV can be accused of, as a comparison.

[James Bolivar]

you don't watch it and they produce nothing that's appealing to you - a contradiction in itself.

[thesecretingredientiscrime]

I'd very much argue the BBC has a liberal bias when they've consistently glossed over the destruction of the NHS, and have a guess which political figure has appeared most on Question Time ever? You've guessed it, the unelected kitchen table fascist rolled in wotsits.