The Future of the BBC

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I wonder what the position is if you watch MOTD on your laptop in a local cayfe with WiFi access. Or on the bus Licences aren't personal, are they - they relate to addresses.

I think it's regarded in the same way that portable tellies (do they still exist?) used to be - as long as the address at which the device calls home has a Licence, then it's regarded as being Licensed?

[teamsaint]

I wonder what the position is if you watch MOTD on your laptop in a local cayfe with WiFi access. Or on the bus Licences aren't personal, are they - they relate to addresses.

Good question.

What about unauthorised streams? Are they " live" television ?

[Beef Oven!]

Btw, when you watch BBC tv on your laptop, I notice that you are asked to click on one of the tabs - "I have a licence" or "I don't have a licence". What happens if you click 'don't have"?

[french frank]

Btw, when you watch BBC tv on your laptop, I notice that you are asked to click on one of the tabs - "I have a licence" or "I don't have a licence". What happens if you click 'don't have"?

I think it takes you (escorts you) to the TV Licensing website

[french frank]

Cayfe - did you mean that?

Goon Show - Finkel's cayfe.

[Beef Oven!]

Goon Show - Finkel's cayfe.

Before my time

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i find the discussion of payment methods and administration besides the point .... we live under political conditions in which it is virtually impossible to argue for the common weal, the public good ....everything is reduced to distributive and consumerist 'fairness' .... exactly the kind of quibbling that the neoliberal gangsters want us to indulge in to divert our attention from their theft of public assets ...

it seems essentially a sane proposition to me that we should agree what the BBC is for, and how it might realise any such aim, before we debate methods for paying for it ....

we do not pay for health provision, education or justice because we as individuals use them as clients, but because a society in which all have the benefits of education, health and justice is a much superior form of life for us all .... [please feel free to try the alternative but somewhere else please]

we invest in science, infrastructure etc because it makes us all wealthier but not in ways that Goldman Sachs cares to measure [net cash to them]

i wonder if Parliament could withstand the level of scrutiny it has just applied to the BBC?

watching the news last night i was struck by the similarity between IS smashing antiquities and the cowboys in the cabinet and their piecemeal decentralisation of the NHS in the North West - a blatant piece of opportunistic cowboy politics if ever there was .... how can we debate the future of the BBC with such people in power? they want to sell it to Murdoch Rothermere and the Barclays ....

[french frank]

how can we debate the future of the BBC with such people in power? they want to sell it to Murdoch Rothermere and the Barclays ....

The committee didn't show much appetite for that.

One question they asked was about the BBC's 'public purposes'. Our response was that the BBC only had one 'purpose' - to provide public service content. So the question is, What constitutes public service content?

For the record, I don't think the government does want to sell the BBC to anyone. They may want to make it smaller - but I'd guess that would mean they will have to take back certain financial responsibilities.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Before my time

Before frenchie's mesuspects - Finkel's Café was a radio series starring Peter Sellers in the mid-1950s, but without Seacombe or Milligan and written by Frank Muir & Denis Norden.

http://andywalmsley.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/radio-lives-peter-sellers.html

[french frank]

Finkel's Café was a radio series starring Peter Sellers in the mid-1950s, but without Seacombe or Milligan and written by Frank Muir & Denis Norden.

Quite right - I didn't hear it. But I wonder if The Goons took it up later, as I do remember the pronunciation Finkel's Cayfe - which my brother said was a pun on Fingel's Cave.

Anyway, this 'ere report does envisage another 10 years more, at least, of the BBC as a public corporation. More, probably as they also say a supplementary 2-year Charter may be necessary as the goverment has hardly left enough time for a new 10-year Charter to be settled, given that the committee is proposing another shake-up of the BBC governance.

[Beef Oven!]

Before frenchie's mesuspects - Finkel's Café was a radio series starring Peter Sellers in the mid-1950s, but without Seacombe or Milligan and written by Frank Muir & Denis Norden.

http://andywalmsley.blogspot.co.uk/2...r-sellers.html

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

The committee didn't show much appetite for that.

One question they asked was about the BBC's 'public purposes'. Our response was that the BBC only had one 'purpose' - to provide public service content. So the question is, What constitutes public service content?

For the record, I don't think the government does want to sell the BBC to anyone. They may want to make it smaller - but I'd guess that would mean they will have to take back certain financial responsibilities.

watch that space

[french frank]

watch that space

Prof Steven Barnett, commentator on the BBC (and some might say one of its chief cheerleaders) was frequently quoted in the committee's report. One of his statements:

"When giving papers at international conferences, I am frequently struck by the genuine astonishment of audiences when I describe the regular attempts to dismantle, privatise or significantly reduce the BBC."

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Prof Steven Barnett, commentator on the BBC (and some might say one of its chief cheerleaders) was frequently quoted in the committee's report. One of his statements:

"When giving papers at international conferences, I am frequently struck by the genuine astonishment of audiences when I describe the regular attempts to dismantle, privatise or significantly reduce the BBC."

see also

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/27/seumas-milne-on-pinkoes-and-traitors-by-jean-seaton-review-my-father-the-bbc-and-a-very-british-coup

much of the following discussion reflects the polarities and diversities of views found on this forum

ref the inability of the political system:

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/24/british-politics-past-use-by-date-election-2015

[Dave2002]

It does reflect what happens now which I also feel is not fair. A household consisting of four adults, all in full-time work, and perhaps two children, collectively pay the same amount as one person, living alone on a pension. In the larger household, one person effectively pays the fee and all the others pay nothing at all (or they each contribute a quarter of the fee).

You seem to be forgetting the Poll Tax. I thought that the Poll Tax was actually not a bad idea - that each adult person able to pay/contribute to a community should pay something towards it, but the problems that seemed to cause in Scotland meant that there was a very quick reversion to more traditional per household levies.

Regarding young people, my own experience is that very many of them (yes, I have met some/many) are quite happy to rip off everyone with "free" downloads, and they really don't see why they should have to pay. When challenged about how they're not being supportive of the people that "feed" them, they often agree in principle, but usually seem to feel that they are a special case, and the rules don't apply to them personally. It's similar to locals driving at 50mph through 30 mph areas, and taxi drivers doing 60mph in the same areas. Rules are only applied selectively.

I find it hard to comment on the BBC, and whether it's worth paying for. Personally I think it is, and I thoroughly detest other models based on advertising. However, I don't really see why I should have to pay for a lot of the rubbish that is put out by the BBC (mostly on TV - e.g Strictly ...) - but apparently that is popular, and most people aren't interested in hearing works by Bruckner, Turnage or even medieval lutenists.