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Post by John Green on Jul 23, 2024 12:23:33 GMT
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Post by Peter Stirling on Jul 23, 2024 13:16:15 GMT
Just remember that when the BBC goes the vacuum left will be filled by something else..a foreign multinational most likely which will plaster in commercials and switch your TV off at will. |
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Post by John Wall on Jul 23, 2024 14:57:55 GMT
The argument against getting rid of the licence fee and replacing it with adverts is that the pond is pretty well finite and increasingly thinly spread.
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Post by John Green on Jul 23, 2024 15:59:38 GMT
Just remember that when the BBC goes the vacuum left will be filled by something else..a foreign multinational most likely which will plaster in commercials and switch your TV off at will. For three or four years, I watched only a news channel on TV. Then they seemed to go on a smaller loop, with a repeat every 20 minutes. I'd stopped watching most contemporary TV shows perhaps ten years back. I remember I'd try an episode of the new Doctor Who every six months or so. Granted I'm in their most loathed demographic-palid, old, and rarely identifying as female (Friday nights 7-10.30 p.m.), I can understand that their attitude might be "Get lost, you bar steward", but it does seem reasonable to ask if there might not be some content they could produce which would slow the boycott? I've heard of only one of the BBC stars who are earning-or at least, getting-over 300,000 quid a year (a former footballer). I don't know which of the others look on while other folks cook, dance, clean house, brush their teeth, whittle, spit-for-distance, etc. I realise that many of their shows are quite popular. I'd rather watch grass dry, or paint grow. |
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Post by anthonybartley on Jul 25, 2024 12:54:17 GMT
Just remember that when the BBC goes the vacuum left will be filled by something else..a foreign multinational most likely which will plaster in commercials and switch your TV off at will. "Who invests in the BBC? Our significant donors include the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, several UN agencies, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation, Global Affairs Canada, and many others." (from a simple Google search) Hardly very "British" is it? And it's probably been like this for decades. |
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Post by richardwoods on Jul 29, 2024 19:47:33 GMT
I cancelled my license a few years ago for reasons its best not to discuss here, and have been download only, used no BBC services and watched no live TV since.
I haven’t felt like I’ve missed anything at all, apart from, perhaps Talking Pictures TV as I find that the Encore catch up site is inadequate for watching more than a couple of episodes of series at a time.
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Post by richardwoods on Jul 29, 2024 19:52:36 GMT
Just remember that when the BBC goes the vacuum left will be filled by something else..a foreign multinational most likely which will plaster in commercials and switch your TV off at will. Couldn’t care less really, I don’t watch any of their recent programming anyway. I just hope that when the inevitable happens, proper arrangements are made to care for the archive. |
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Post by nathangeorge on Jul 30, 2024 6:40:38 GMT
It's partly that Capita, who have the contract to collect and chase non-payers, and those breaking the law are awful. Capita - like the vast majority of 'middle management' firms / outsourced contractors - take the money claiming to 'streamline' or 'fix' the client's issues and then spend the next five years doing just enough to make themselves look slightly less stinky plops than their nearest competitors. I've worked for several middle management firms or 'service providers' and I stopped paying the license fee years ago, so I'm speaking from experience. It's easy to dodge paying the license fee because Capita don't do anything besides a few half hearted letters. They got their money, as per their contract with the BBC, so why would they bother employing inspectors of deploying TV detector vans? I suspect many wouldn't cancel if it wasn't so damned easy.
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Post by John Green on Jul 31, 2024 16:33:19 GMT
"The numbers of young people tuning into live TV in an average week has dropped significantly as they increasingly turn to video-streaming platforms, according to a study. But while traditional television is losing its grip on household leisure time, radio is making a comeback, says the study. Research by the media regulator Ofcom found that less than half – 48% – of young people watched live TV each week in 2023, droping from 76% in 2018, with most turning to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok instead. Those aged between 16 and 24 were found to watch just 20 minutes of television each week, while those aged between 25 and 34 watch live television for 35 minutes in the average week." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/31/less-than-half-young-people-uk-watch-live-television-ofcomFor "less" read "fewer". |
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Post by tom rogers on Aug 1, 2024 16:03:03 GMT
"The numbers of young people tuning into live TV in an average week has dropped significantly as they increasingly turn to video-streaming platforms, according to a study. But while traditional television is losing its grip on household leisure time, radio is making a comeback, says the study. Research by the media regulator Ofcom found that less than half – 48% – of young people watched live TV each week in 2023, droping from 76% in 2018, with most turning to platforms such as YouTube and TikTok instead. Those aged between 16 and 24 were found to watch just 20 minutes of television each week, while those aged between 25 and 34 watch live television for 35 minutes in the average week." www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jul/31/less-than-half-young-people-uk-watch-live-television-ofcomFor "less" read "fewer". For what it is worth, I don’t think that this is an issue solely in the UK. The license fee aspect is certainly a UK matter but this has been my experience as well here in the states. My kids are in their late 20s/early 30s and neither watches TV unless they cannot stream whatever they are watching. Personally, I got tired of the ever increasing number and level of commercials on TV here, as well as the lack of quality programs, and switched a number of years back to watching stuff from my personal library and/or streaming. News I get from the newspaper, radio or online. I haven’t regretted it one bit and don’t expect to ever go back to traditional TV viewing. |
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Post by John Green on Aug 9, 2024 15:18:08 GMT
www.theguardian.com/film/article/2024/aug/08/traditional-tv-is-dying-can-networks-pivot-and-survive"While traditional TV companies struggle with managing the decline in their legacy businesses, with drastic rounds of cost-cutting after a decade of profligate spending on content in the first decade of the streaming wars, Netflix points to a viable future. The streaming giant, which once struggled with mounting losses running into tens of billions of dollars, has seen its market value surge by more than 50% over the past year after turning the profitability corner while continuing to see significant growth in subscribers. WBD’s chief executive, David Zaslav, who has considered breaking up the company but concluded that is not currently the best option, said the market was being hit by a “generational disruption” that requires traditional TV companies to take “bold, necessary steps”. Richard Broughton, director at Ampere Analysis, said: “Legacy TV businesses are in decline but the shift is not so rapid that it can’t be managed. There are still a lot of broadcast TV viewers, they have the time to pivot to profitability in the streaming world.”
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RWels
Member
Posts: 2,890
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Post by RWels on Aug 9, 2024 18:40:29 GMT
It's not really shocking though, is it?
And profit doesn't equal quality. While it is just my personal opinion, they all seem to go for pumping out as many hours as possible of fiction (with the occasional docudrama). Several netflix programs seem to me to be imitations of the BBC's golden age classiscs.
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Post by anthonybartley on Aug 10, 2024 11:39:40 GMT
At this point in time, paying for a TV license makes about as much sense as paying for a license to own a lawnmower. It's just another tax on the poor, much like the national lottery and tobacco. Anything to squeeze a few pence out of the masses so the government can then piss it down a drain. news.sky.com/story/scrapped-rwanda-scheme-has-already-cost-700m-in-most-shocking-waste-of-taxpayers-money-ever-seen-home-secretary-says-13183364 In case you missed it, that's 700 million British pounds taken out of everyone's pay packet and flushed down the drain. You'd think people would go to jail for something like that, wouldn't you? No, the grim reality is that not only will nobody go to prison - but millions of people will continue to vote for these people and allow them to hold seats of power so they can keep doing it. The only surprising thing about the TV license is that we're still being forced to pay it or pay a penalty if we don't. |
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RWels
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Posts: 2,890
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Post by RWels on Aug 10, 2024 14:50:30 GMT
Hey? Didn't those people just suffer a historical loss at the last election?
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Post by John Green on Aug 10, 2024 18:13:31 GMT
At this point in time, paying for a TV license makes about as much sense as paying for a license to own a lawnmower. The only surprising thing about the TV license is that we're still being forced to pay it or pay a penalty if we don't. But the great thing, of course, is that we don't got to. (As the Americans might say). You haven't even got to forsake the Glass Teat. (Title of a set of TV reviews by Harlan Ellison which I still haven't read). You can still stream, and at present there's no tithe that you have to pay to do that. |
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