BBC White Paper - Glasto reference

[incident]

20 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Well yeah those bits take a long time. But that's balanced by the bits where they go "and here are the headliners" and have a couple of hours off. And that is the majority of that 80 hours of content. Footage of bands. Obviously, that's what people want to see. There a very few bits of 'roving reporter' style bits - maybe half an hour total per festival? (6x5min bits) - and they're generally done by the same two people for the entire festival while Jo Whiley etc. seem to sit back stage and do links. Most of that could even be done off-site.

For comparison, the Worthy FM crew is 30 people and they broadcast 24 hours a day for 7 days. Twice as much content as the BBC with 10% of the people. Obviously it's audio only, but then so is a majority of the BBC output.

I think you're playing devils advocate here a bit, because you seem to have a basic knowledge yet a lot of what you're saying is just outright bollocks?

No, the majority of the BBC output isn't audio only (they may have more scheduled radio hours than tv hours, but that's obviously not the same thing). Last year they streamed over a hundred hours of video on iplayer and all of those recordings required camera operators, sound techs, editors, etc. I think obviously you know that decent quality video takes a lot more people to produce than audio.

So no, the Worthy FM crew isn't even close to being a viable comparison.

No, they couldn't do the links off site if they want it to look remotely decent / authentic and to have in person interviews with bands etc. Jo Whiley would struggle to go into Adeles dressing room if she was 200 miles away.

Even if they were prepared to do links etc from London, they'd still have to pay the presenters so any cost saving would be comparatively minimal - I think it's pretty safe to assume that for most presenters their salary will vastly outweigh the costs of any travel / hotel / other expenses.

Basically - if there's anyone who genuinely believes that 300 people / £2 million is an excessive number for what's produced then they're not worth engaging with. If it's getting down to the micro level of counting individual presenters, then it's safe to say that it's a pretty tight ship.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, incident said:

Last year they streamed over a hundred hours of video on iplayer and all of those recordings required camera operators, sound techs, editors, etc. I think obviously you know that decent quality video takes a lot more people to produce than audio.

Okay, filming five stages (Pyramid, Other, West Holts, John Peel, Park) - average of 8 hours per day (Pyramid is more, other stages less). 8 hours is a reasonable day's work. So call it 4 camera operators, 2 sound techs, 1 live video mixing person, 1 post-show editor, 1 broadcast tech for captions etc and 1 runner per stage. So a ten person crew per stage, total of 50 people. Let's say I've underestimated and they need more cover, add on 50% why not (and I probably forgot BBC Introducing but that'll be a smaller crew), so 75 people.

Now lets assume for every one of those tech people, there's one in presenting/support/management. It's high but nevermind. That gets you to 150.

Which is half what the BBC send.

And I don't doubt for one minute that the lead camera operator on the Pyramid works his arse off and doesn't see much of the festival. It's where the others fit in

Quote

Basically - if there's anyone who genuinely believes that 300 people / £2 million is an excessive number for what's produced then they're not worth engaging with. If it's getting down to the micro level of counting individual presenters, then it's safe to say that it's a pretty tight ship.

I'm counting presenters because that's the publicly available figure. I can't look at cameramen or boom mic operators because we don't know how many they send. Presenters didn't factor into those 100+ hours of streaming video at all, they were mercifully absent. The amount of presented content the BBC put out vs the amount of people they sent... if they're sending 2-3 times the number of presenters they actually need, then it's not unreasonable to wonder if they're doing that elsewhere.

As I say, I'm a huge fan of the BBC, and I think that, even with what they spend on it, what they get in return is well worth it. But I do think there's something to the claims that they over-staff it.

[fatyeti24]

4 hours ago, Yokel Again said:

A world without the BBC isn't worth thinking about - 10 minutes watching ITV or listening to commercial radio would tell you that.

 

I beg to differ. I regularly spend time out of the UK and without access to the beeb. The world is still great

[incident]

50 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

But I do think there's something to the claims that they over-staff it.

In that case, so would every comparable media organisation. The numbers are extremely low relative to what their competitors send to large scale events, and that's ultimately the only measure that matters.

[musky]

4 hours ago, DeanoL said:

Okay, filming five stages (Pyramid, Other, West Holts, John Peel, Park) - average of 8 hours per day (Pyramid is more, other stages less). 8 hours is a reasonable day's work. So call it 4 camera operators, 2 sound techs, 1 live video mixing person, 1 post-show editor, 1 broadcast tech for captions etc and 1 runner per stage. So a ten person crew per stage, total of 50 people. Let's say I've underestimated and they need more cover, add on 50% why not (and I probably forgot BBC Introducing but that'll be a smaller crew), so 75 people.

Now lets assume for every one of those tech people, there's one in presenting/support/management. It's high but nevermind. That gets you to 150.

Which is half what the BBC send.

That's a fairly detailed breakdown, but I'm guessing you've googled around a bit and taken a stab at what you reckon is reasonable? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but to a person with no live broadcast production experience there appears at least one fairly big error in your calculations.

[fur_q]

32 minutes ago, musky said:

That's a fairly detailed breakdown, but I'm guessing you've googled around a bit and taken a stab at what you reckon is reasonable? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but to a person with no live broadcast production experience there appears at least one fairly big error in your calculations.

I don't think that post is anywhere near what it takes to film a stage like they pyramid, for a start there's probably double the number of cameras and when filming a show like that each camera operator will have there own assistant, + there's no way they are running that with one runner per stage. 

 

Theres a other stuff like radio shows being broadcast live from the site, whilst you could say that this isn't necessary, those radio shows would still be being produced if the where in a studio in London rather than, for example, back stage in the park, and so those presenters and technical crew would still be doing those jobs whether at Glastonbury or not. 

[DeanoL]

5 hours ago, incident said:

In that case, so would every comparable media organisation. The numbers are extremely low relative to what their competitors send to large scale events, and that's ultimately the only measure that matters.

It's not though, is it? Not when Glastonbury is quite clearly being used as a stick to beat the BBC with. You can yell that it shouldn't matter as much as you like (I agree) but it's still being used.

2 hours ago, musky said:

That's a fairly detailed breakdown, but I'm guessing you've googled around a bit and taken a stab at what you reckon is reasonable? Forgive me if I'm wrong, but to a person with no live broadcast production experience there appears at least one fairly big error in your calculations.

While I've a fair amount of experience in live productions I've none in the broadcast side. Yeah it's Google, some observation, some knowledge of what's been done on a smaller scale, and a whopping great 50% margin of error I left myself.

I would love to get a breakdown from someone more 'in the know'- the Beeb won't publish it.

[incident]

12 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I would love to get a breakdown from someone more 'in the know'- the Beeb won't publish it.

Ask them. Anyone can put in a FOI request.

[eFestivals]

15 hours ago, fatyeti24 said:

I beg to differ. I regularly spend time out of the UK and without access to the beeb. The world is still great

the world might be great, but many of the TV stations are shite.

Having the 'quality' of USA TV would not give us better TV.

[___S_o_m_a__]

16 hours ago, fatyeti24 said:

I beg to differ. I regularly spend time out of the UK and without access to the beeb. The world is still great

Just wondering - when you're out of the UK do you never go on *any* BBC website?