Inform, Educate, Entertain What has the BBC ever done for us?

[Seat68]

There is grumbling in the BBC News Bias thread about the wider BBC and if there is a need for them, or indeed the license fee. Thought it would be a good opportunity to start a new thread. 

One thing I see, more on other forums than here, is "I don't watch programmes live, I watch them on catch up, so why should I pay the license fee". My answer to that, is without the license fee would those programmes on catchup be able to be made?

Another is that people don't watch the BBC at all, lets assume that they also don't look at the BBC for news on the web, or listen to local or national travel updates on the radio, or music or sport on the multiple radio stations. Lets say that all of a persons viewing is streaming, the BBC is a training ground for comedy and drama, so many actors, writers and technical staff started or had their break via the BBC, Brian Cox in Sucession? Netflix didnt give him his start out of theatre, it was the BBC. Ashley Walters of Top Boy, he started on the BBC. The point is, the BBC helps people to make an impact. It takes risks, it tries out new comedy. It brings a vast range of music, it brings viewers and listeners sport.

If the BBC was a streaming service, and you looked at its entire offering, £13 per month, for TV, Radio, Web and News. That's a ludicrously low price.

[icouldtelltheworld]

Has its faults but we would soon miss it if it was gone IMO.

News coverage isn't the best, but at least it has the semblance of neutrality, I could see us descending into American-style polarisation if we all depended on more partisan sources of information

[Mark Albrighton]

 

[tonyh29]

£13 a month to give Gary Lineker a political platform , have women’s football rammed down my throat and supply all their staff with Palestinian flags seems an absolute bargain…. If they throw in membership to the Labour Party with it then it would well be worth at least another £5 a month  

i suppose the question would be , would the programmes they make still get made by another company if the BBC didn’t get funded by the license fee ? I tend to watch their documentaries , the rise of the Nazis , the Afghanistan one , the one about partitioning of India and the current Caesar one have all be top notch  , presumably Disney or Netflix wouldn’t make them , but history channel or National geographic could have ?

news wise I watch France 24 for world news , the BBC news doesn’t  give anywhere near as much detail or even as much global news  as F24.

sport they barely cover these days , they can’t compete with Sky etc 

i guess  it needs more funding to compete and continue to survive , I just wonder if it wasn’t “compulsory “ how many people would actual subscribe to it ?

.

Edited December 5, 2023 by tonyh29

[Seat68]

7 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

£13 a month to give Gary Lineker a political platform , have women’s football rammed down my throat and supply all their staff with Palestinian flags seems an absolute bargain…. If they throw in membership to the Labour Party with it then it would well be worth at least another £5 a month  

i suppose the question would be , would the programmes they make still get made by another company if the BBC didn’t get funded by the license fee ? I tend to watch their documentaries , the rise of the Nazis , the Afghanistan one , the one about partitioning of India and the current Caesar one have all be top notch  , presumably Disney or Netflix wouldn’t make them , but history channel or National geographic could have ?

news wise I watch France 24 for world news , the BBC news doesn’t  give anywhere near as much detail or even as much global news  as F24.

sport they barely cover these days , they can’t compete with Sky etc 

i guess  it needs more funding to compete and continue to survive , I just wonder if it wasn’t “compulsory “ how many people would actual subscribe to it ?

.

It isn't compulsory, a large number of people do not have a TV license. You know this I am sure, but if you aren't watching live television, you don't need a license. As for the programmes being made? We will never know, would a proper version of Radio 3, 4 and 6 Music exist without the BBC, I think not. As for comedy, I think potentially Dave would make the programmes that the BBC would make, but as Dave is massively reliant on BBC content, in time that wouldn't exist either.

[Wainy316]

It's not perfect but I will support it purely because it annoys all the right wing, dumb shit, throbber crowd.

[bickster]

30 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

It isn't compulsory, a large number of people do not have a TV license. You know this I am sure, but if you aren't watching live television, you don't need a license. As for the programmes being made? We will never know, would a proper version of Radio 3, 4 and 6 Music exist without the BBC, I think not. As for comedy, I think potentially Dave would make the programmes that the BBC would make, but as Dave is massively reliant on BBC content, in time that wouldn't exist either.

You need a licence to stream BBC iPlayer too

[mjmooney]

48 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I watch France 24 

Had me fooled up to this point. Somebody contact Tony and tell him his VT account's been hacked. 

[Seat68]

7 minutes ago, bickster said:

You need a licence to stream BBC iPlayer too

Ah I missed that, I thought it was all non live TV, I am incorrect.

[mjmooney]

I will happily pay the licence fee for (a) no adverts, and (b) BBC4. 

[Seat68]

I am of course pro the BBC, even the news in its short form and away from opinion I am more likely to trust over other sources, with critical thinking attached to that. I like their drama, the comedy, the music coverage. When they produce a documentary, on the whole it is done very well. There are elements that I don't particularly watch or want to watch, but I don't have to. I love iPlayer, and BBC Sounds, all of which are essential for me. I never listen to Liza Tarbuck live, always on Sounds. 

[tonyh29]

53 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

It isn't compulsory, a large number of people do not have a TV license. You know this I am sure, but if you aren't watching live television, you don't need a license. As for the programmes being made? We will never know, would a proper version of Radio 3, 4 and 6 Music exist without the BBC, I think not. As for comedy, I think potentially Dave would make the programmes that the BBC would make, but as Dave is massively reliant on BBC content, in time that wouldn't exist either.

yeah , that's why i put  quotes around compulsory  

majority of people (i think) believe that you have to have one 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

news wise I watch France 24 for world news , the BBC news doesn’t  give anywhere near as much detail or even as much global news  as F24.

Imagine preferring to watch the state broadcaster of another country (one you don't even like) because your own state broadcaster has had it's budget slashed and it's impartiality pushed to the limit (and beyond)

BBC News used to be the gold standard of international news reporting

[NurembergVillan]

Outside of VT, I wonder how many people are against the licence fee simply because they have a dodgy Firestick?

[mjmooney]

1 minute ago, tonyh29 said:

majority of people (i think) believe that you have to have one 

Dunno about a majority.

I know several people who believe that you don't have to have one, provided you don't watch live BBC. 

[tonyh29]

1 minute ago, bickster said:

Imagine preferring to watch the state broadcaster of another country (one you don't even like) because your own state broadcaster has had it's budget slashed and it's impartiality pushed to the limit (and beyond)

BBC News used to be the gold standard of international news reporting

 France is ok  ...  its just the French people   

I had the news on one random evening and  I think  the BBC / Sky had devoted the main news to Rylan having new teeth  , someone from made in Chelsea having botox  and a celeb I'd never heard of separating from another celeb I'd never heard of because he'd slept with yet another celeb I'd never heard of  ... When I flicked through the channels France 24 had stories about some civil war going on in Africa that hadn't even been mentioned over here , an indepth report on the Saudi's butchering people in Yemen and something interesting and indepth about an election in one of the South American countries  ..followed by news from all around Europe  , china etc 

As someone who likes to keep abreast of world events / current affairs the difference was staggering 

I guess that could be down to lack of funding , but it also seems to be a kind of dumbing down / trivialising of the news over here ... maybe they know the average person doesn't give a monkeys about conflict diamonds or dead babies in Yemen ? 

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

I guess that could be down to lack of funding , but it also seems to be a kind of dumbing down / trivialising of the news over here ... maybe they know the average person doesn't give a monkeys about conflict diamonds or dead babies in Yemen ? 

Its both, celeb news is cheap and dumb

[tonyh29]

12 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Dunno about a majority.

I know several people who believe that you don't have to have one, provided you don't watch live BBC. 

I get them writing to me constantly at work as they think I should have a license  ,  I seem to recall from the letters before they go in the recycling bin  , that you  need a TV license to watch ANY live broadcast , not just the BBC , this would include Ch4 , Sky etc 

the other thing from the letters seems to be that you can watch  iPlayer etc on a tablet / phone via your home TV license (at work)   .. BUT if you plug the device in the wall to charge it , you then need a license for that premises 

[Jonesy7211]

I'm torn about this. I don't think there's a lot of prime time output that I enjoy, and the news is incredibly biased in favour of the Tories. How the BBC haven't held them to account as our nation's broadcaster is an absolute disgrace. They should have torn into them when it became obvious the Tories were only serving themselves. It shouldn't be left for the comedians to do it.

That being said, they sometimes have fantastic content on bbc2 and bbc4 that no other content provider can hold a candle to.

The radio stations are awful now though. Every single one of them.

Massive improvements could be made by removing anybody with a history of serving or working with the government and then enshrining that in their employment law.

Finally, there's the old saying of you can't please everyone. With the output needing to serve an ever more diverse audience, there's going to be many times when we don't like the output, or at least will not be familiar with it. (Diverse meaning age, gender, sexuality, religion, not just race).

[sidcow]

2 hours ago, icouldtelltheworld said:

Has its faults but we would soon miss it if it was gone IMO.

News coverage isn't the best, but at least it has the semblance of neutrality, I could see us descending into American-style polarisation if we all depended on more partisan sources of information

Isn't it though?  Compared to what?  The Daily Mail? Sky? The Grunaid? The Sun?

I think it probably actually is the best, maybe of a bad bunch but you at least get a modicum of sane reporting.

In an age where most are relying on Twitter and Tictok they're a bastion of reporting.

and yea, without it we're looking at a Fox v CNN situation.