Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

jamesomalley.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 183 posts

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#91

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

msla wrote: post #83
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The BBC, as with any other government-controlled revenue source Point of fact, the BBC was not intended to be "government-controlled", and it is not a "revenue source" for the UK government. https://www.quora.com/Is-the-BBC-the-state-owned-and-state-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#

The BBC is government-controlled in that its money is collected by the government, which can punish people for not paying, and organizations know where their funds are coming from and attempt to prevent those funds from being stopped.

Reread. I used the word "intended" deliberately. There are many indirect mechanisms, that are open to abuse. You described one. It's not the same though as direct control.

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#92

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

iso1210 wrote: post #71
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with all of that. Streaming is about choice, but linear TV is about an event and/or serendipity. I have a lot of movies on Plex, but when we browse them it's rare for us to select one. On the other hand, we often watch those movies when they're on TV. "We have that on Plex" has become a household joke.

Netflix have a "watch something" button. I've never used it, but I assume it's there to match the serendipity aspect. Amazon I think have a "watch party" feature, but that's not the same as 10 million people all watching Mr Blobby get gunged. There seemed to be a small amount of cultural "togetherness" with the guy doing the PE (Joe Someone?) during lockdown, not sure as I didn't watch it (too busy working). But yes,…

Yep, I've never used the watch something button either.

I also think the shared experience of many people watching the same thing is part of the "event" nature of TV.

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#93

Post by QuercusMax »

asdff wrote: post #87
iso1210 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Netflix have a "watch something" button. I've never used it, but I assume it's there to match the serendipity aspect. Amazon I think have a "watch party" feature, but that's not the same as 10 million people all watching Mr Blobby get gunged. There seemed to be a small amount of cultural "togetherness" with the guy doing the PE (Joe Someone?) during lockdown, not sure as I didn't watch it (too busy working). But yes,…

The problem with the watch something button is that its not truly doing what linear TV did. Linear TV was still programming. You settled on a channel that you knew was going to have decent enough stuff on at the time. You hit "watch something" on netflix and it might pull, best case, stuff from all over my watch history with no particular rhyme or reason, when really what I want is to throw on adult swim for an aqua…

That seems like an easy problem to solve, if somebody at Netflix wanted to. Make it easy for people to create their own curated playlists / streams, and then you can just turn on "Jimbob23's Stupid Funny Stuff" or "Best of Late Night Cartoons" or something.

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#95

Post by mrlonglong »

deadbunny wrote: post #76
EricE wrote: post #48

"The BBC’s legitimacy is predicated on it being a universal service." And this is the issue. Once they got super political they ceased being universal :p

The BBC are super political?

Witness Laura Kneussburg (chief BBC "zampolit") fawning all over Boris Johnson when she should have been giving him a hard time about his fuckups!

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#96

Post by nivenkos »

deadbunny wrote: post #76
EricE wrote: post #48

"The BBC’s legitimacy is predicated on it being a universal service." And this is the issue. Once they got super political they ceased being universal :p

The BBC are super political?

BBC News is basically Pravda these days: https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-43463496

That was reporting on the opposition leader.

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#97

Post by kmeisthax »

klelatti wrote: post #36

It's worth noting that the BBC's reputation has also been harmed in the course of the divisive debate over Brexit with commentary that has kept neither side of the debate happy. On a lighter note (which I admit reflects my personal inclinations): they should buy back live coverage of Test Match Cricket from Sky - a series of broadly unifying national sporting occasions that used to have distinctive BBC coverage (and…

Is it even possible to cover Brexit in a "neutral" way that everyone likes?

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#98

Post by xqcgrek2 »

BBC ceased being universal and viewed as legitimate when it delved into politics and political issues. PBS in the US made the same mistake.

The era of publicly funding TV should have ended years ago when information and news became free (essentially when US household internet or smartphone penetration reached 85%+)

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#99

Post by mattl »

dreen wrote: post #30
chrisseaton wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> BBC World Service, which is an entirely commercial entity This is not truthful - the World Service is funded by the rest of the BBC, not the other way around, and until recently was also funded by the FCO.

Yea I got the name wrong and mistook it for BBC Worldwide

now called BBC Studios after a merge.

Re: The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

#100

Post by mattl »

swalls wrote: post #47

I like the original programming content the BBC produces. I don't like the BBC, and BBC news in particular, at all. They propagate bias in insidious ways like 'creative' titling of articles, pushing articles off to side channels, and cutting HoC footage, all the while claiming impartiality. Their quality of their writing on the site has truly tanked in recent years, too. And that's not to mention the harrassment of p…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv2ZqZmC7u0 is worth a watch on the subject too
Post reply on HN