The Future of the BBC

[Barbirollians]

Frankly , 10 year charter reviews are an error . It has led to a horribly defensive culture at the BBC and far too much political interference and bullying - over the last five years they have adopted a craven fawning position to the Conservative led coalition - including during the election campaign where they gave an extraordinarily disproportionate amount of coverage to the Tories scaremongering about a Labour/ SNP coalition and completely uncritical coverage of the Tory manifesto - crawling to the Tories has unsurprisingly done them no good .

[aeolium]

So do I.

And I.

2010: BBC must take over funding for World Service from F&CO, but breathe a sigh of relief: they win the battle over taking on over-75s licence funding after all.

2015: BBC must take over funding of over-75s licences from DW&P, but breathe a sigh of relief: no legislation to decriminalise non payment of licence fee after all.

2019: Non payment of licence fee decriminalised, but breathe a sigh of relief ………………?????

And so on, until the licence fee payer is footing the bill for more and more and the BBC is getting less and less for making programmes.

You forgot the previous wretched licence fee settlement which Thompson cravenly agreed to, another coup by the government without any kind of proper scrutiny or discussion. So much for BBC independence.

The licence fee is a government's great weapon for attacking the BBC.

As well as being a wholly regressive form of funding, asking the poorest to pay the same as the richest.

[french frank]

You forgot the previous wretched licence fee settlement which Thompson cravenly agreed to, another coup by the government without any kind of proper scrutiny or discussion. So much for BBC independence.

Six-year freeze on increases?

As well as being a wholly regressive form of funding, asking the poorest to pay the same as the richest.

Yes, indeed: I find it harder to decide on 'Scale and scope' than funding. Or rather, what I do feel would be hugely unpopular

Just because something is 'distinctive', 'high quality', isn't being/wouldn't be produced by the commercial sector, and is a hugely popular BBC brand doesn't seem to me to be justification for the BBC doing it. But the BBC has become a large part of the leisure industry.

[Frances_iom]

As well as being a wholly regressive form of funding, asking the poorest to pay the same as the richest.

Does SKY charge pensioners a lower rate ?, likewise do utilities (gas, elect, water etc) charge less per unit consumed yet these are more important to life then consuming whatever soap opera is in vogue - there may be a public welfare attraction is giving the needy some solace in their misery but that welfare requirement should not be imposed on the supplier.

As a non consumer of TV (either live or on demand) and increasingly no longer listening to much BBC radio I would object to a tax based system to provide entertainment for the masses - the only fair system to me is a per item cost paid at the point of consumption - given a potential global audience for BBC material this should esaily bring in more than the current licence fee but would obviously require strong encruption on all channels but with the switch off of FM this becomes feasible for radio (maybe via daily rate for a channel) - maybe keep free to air for public announcements, political education and anodyne music.

[french frank]

I would object to a tax based system to provide entertainment for the masses

That was the point I was getting at as regards 'scale and scope'. The quid pro quo for having the general taxpayer paying for it would be that the definition of 'a general good' would need to be a bit more tightly defined as far as the BBC was concerned.

[aeolium]

Does SKY charge pensioners a lower rate ?, likewise do utilities (gas, elect, water etc) charge less per unit consumed yet these are more important to life then consuming whatever soap opera is in vogue - there may be a public welfare attraction is giving the needy some solace in their misery but that welfare requirement should not be imposed on the supplier.

Does SKY have any public service remit? And there certainly have been energy social tariffs though they are now being phased out. You might as well say let's make every public service simply a consumer item and forget about any kind of progressive funding method. But as it stands, virtually every other public service is paid for from some form of progressive taxation; only public service broadcasting is not.

[Frances_iom]

... You might as well say let's make every public service simply a consumer item and forget about any kind of progressive funding method. ...

but 99.9% of the BBC is NOT public service but like "the Archers" initially intended to teach modern farming techniques, has beome merely entertainment (tho not being a listener I bow to those with more time to do a deeper analysis)

[aeolium]

but 99.9% of the BBC is NOT public service but like "the Archers" initially intended to teach modern farming techniques, has beome merely entertainment (tho not being a listener I bow to those with more time to do a deeper analysis)

I suppose that brings us back to the question of what constitutes public service broadcasting. Only by having an extremely narrow view of what PSB was could you come up with a statistic like that - and in that case the BBC has never at any stage of its existence been delivering PSB.

[Frances_iom]

... Only by having an extremely narrow view of what PSB was could you come up with a statistic like that - and in that case the BBC has never at any stage of its existence been delivering PSB.

I don't know what PSB actually is - is it presenting content that is non-commercial (eg by topic (religion), small audience(eg Welsh language), too expensive (eg investigative journalism)) or is it merely a channel that remains uncontrolled by either commercial or goverment - this latter could be handled for journalism by something akin to the Scott trust that pays for the Grauniad by which commercial activities done at arms length from the Grauniad make up any deficit - thus the highly successful R1 + R2 could go sufficiently commercial (adverts) to keep R4 alive, R4X, R5 (sports) are easily transformed into subscription channels - to be honest I cannot see R3 surviving in any form other than an anodyne CFm lookalike - Local radio could be partly funded by the new larger regions

[MrGongGong]

Surly two points about the licence are that it's not

1: A tax that everyone HAS to pay (an increasing number of people choose NOT to have a TV)
and
2: It's not the same as buying something in a shop.

We either believe in supporting culture or we don't, it does seem at the moment that people have bought the whole "wasteful BBC" story and really do object to paying for things they don't use.
Some of the "problem" with this whole business comes from (IMV) treating everything as a saleable commodity.

[french frank]

Surly two points about the licence are that it's not

1: A tax that everyone HAS to pay (an increasing number of people choose NOT to have a TV)

It doesn't mean they don't watch television - just that they don't have TV sets. They use the iPlayer, iPhones, iPads &c &c. Which is why I think that loophole SHOULD be closed - if the licence fee is maintained.

and
2: It's not the same as buying something in a shop.

We either believe in supporting culture or we don't,

So, are you saying we should believe in supporting culture? Like universal education, health provision &c? In which case it should come out of general taxation, organised in some way, not a licence fee? I would agree with that.

[Frances_iom]

...
We either believe in supporting culture or we don't,....

which culture ? - I'm not generally in agreement with Johst - "Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning" but rather like opera reviewing I prefer the concrete to the abstract

[aeolium]

Surly two points about the licence are that it's not

1: A tax that everyone HAS to pay (an increasing number of people choose NOT to have a TV)

It has a lot of the properties of a tax though - not least near universality. As of 2013-2014 96% of UK households were liable to pay a TV licence; as a comparison that is higher for instance than the percentage of UK adults liable for income tax. And it is widely perceived to be a tax in character whether it is one in name.

and
2: It's not the same as buying something in a shop.

While I agree with this, the implication is rather at odds with your first point. I believe in public service broadcasting because it is - or ought to be - a public service, like education or health or legal provision. It is not something you want anyone to opt out of, any more than you would those other services. So the "choice" of not buying a TV licence (or ideally supporting PSB in some more equitable way) is a poor one, something that (if the BBC is doing its job) is impoverishing for the individual and society.

We either believe in supporting culture or we don't, it does seem at the moment that people have bought the whole "wasteful BBC" story and really do object to paying for things they don't use.

I'm one who believes the BBC has been very wasteful in the last 15 years or so, with spiralling executive salaries, levels of management, celebrity pay, IT projects etc, and has not been properly accountable in this area (or indeed as a whole). That doesn't mean I object to paying for public services whether or not I use them. I just happen to think that the licence fee is a rotten way of paying for public service broadcasting.

[MrGongGong]

So, are you saying we should believe in supporting culture? Like universal education, health provision &c? In which case it should come out of general taxation, organised in some way, not a licence fee? I would agree with that.

It probably should
BUT no-one is going to suggest more tax are they?

We might support "our" money going to the BBCSO et al but that's a minority view.

[french frank]

"Wenn ich Kultur höre ... entsichere ich meinen Browning"

The Pied Piper of Hamelin?