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The bargain at the heart of the BBC is fraying

jamesomalley.substack.com

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

#131

Post by Bluecobra »

teamonkey wrote: post #62
spinningslate wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't argue with the your observation on consumption: I see the same with my children. However: there's nothing intrinsic to the BBC that requires linear delivery or consumption. iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. I dearly want to see the BBC not only survive, but to prosper. That may be rose-tinted/delusional/whatever. Why? Because it represents a…

> iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. This is absolutely worth remembering, iPlayer was revelatory 12 or 13 years ago. Infuriatingly the innovation seems to have stopped there. Case in point, it's a corporation nearly 100 years old, yet its back catalogue is extremely poor. You should be able to watch every episode of Doctor Who on demand since the o…

> When I lived outside of the UK I would have paid a subscription fee equal to the licence fee to gain access to iPlayer. It's worth paying for! But there's no way to give them money for services other than be a licence payer within the UK.

This drove me nuts! There were a bunch of great series I was into that were simply not available in US even if I purchased a premium cable subscription to BBC America. Another show (programme?) I really enjoyed was Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. The UK version was much better than the over the top version we got on FOX in the US. I ended up paying for a cheap VPC in the UK that I would SSH into and use it as a SOCKS proxy so I can watch the shows I wanted. I would have gladly given BBC/Channel 4 money if I could.

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

#132

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

function_seven wrote: post #125
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.

I don't think I've ever sat down and watched The Shawshank Redeption or Goodfellas . Like, made plans to watch either of those. But I've seen both movies probably a dozen times at this point. It's always been a matter of me stumbling upon it while channel surfing (1990-2005) or "guide scrolling" (2005-2018), landing there to kill a few minutes, and watching through to the end. A couple of times I've gotten lucky and…

Recognise that feeling when you watch a movie for the fourth time and go "I don't think I've seen the start of this before"!

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

#133

Post by petercooper »

gorgoiler wrote: post #50

How dreadful would life be if Auntie went radio only? It’s the only content I really care for. TMS, Radio4 to Radio2 inclusive, and a 198LW service detectable in the deepest of valleys. The gutting of the R4 schedule with repeats and the downsizing of the radio news team could happily be reversed. The jewel in the crown is R1Xtra. It’s absolutely at the cutting edge. How?! Oh, and erm The Last Kingdom, I guess. Thank…

How dreadful would life be if Auntie went radio only?

I'm glad someone else has asked this! I spent some time earlier this year thinking about the responsibilities of the BBC and given the diversity of freely available video now, I think they could satisfy most of their cultural and journalistic obligations with radio/podcasts for a fraction of the budget. (BBC1 alone takes up 28% of the BBC budget. Their entire radio budget is less than their annual government grant.)

I say this as someone who loves BBC documentaries but is also trying to be realistic about resources and waning public appetite to pay the license fee.

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

#134

Post by traceroute66 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #127
traceroute66 wrote: post #49

There are just so many things the BBC in its current form is doing wrong I don't know where to start: - Paying too much for too little (both quality *and* quantity of "talent") - Repeats, repeats and more goddam repeats in increasingly short timeframes - Recent actions such as putting Spitting Image on BritBox (paid commercial service), it should have been on license-paid TV ! I certainly refused to pay for it. - Tak…

If you watch less than 5hrs of BBC content a year , perhaps you aren't best placed to comment on it? This criticism is so hackneyed it could have been copy pasted from a 2002 Daily Mail comment section.

> If you watch less than 5hrs of BBC content a year, perhaps you aren't best placed to comment on it?

I see the point I was making flew right over your head.

The point is that I am aware of exactly what the BBC schedules during the year, but none of it is attractive (i.e. either repeats and more repeats, or just generally unattractive content).

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

#135

Post by deadfish »

kazinator wrote: post #110
iso1210 wrote: post #16

My kids have no concept of linear TV. My 9 year old came back and told me that a friend had a broken TV as when they turned it on, the program was already half way through. Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to w…

What works well is Linear TV with a history, so you can go through a calendar, say, going back 30 days. All the Japanese IPTV streamers work that way and it's a very natural integration. You can watch the current streaming, or just go back in the calendar to whatever you want in your selected channel. And the past items flow from one to the next as if they were live. You watch through last Monday's 8:00 p.m. one hour…

I worked on a project a while back called Freeview play in the UK which I think works in a similar way to how you described. You can watch live TV over the air or scroll backwards in time along the EPG to stream recorded content over IP.

I think the BBCs childrens content is one of its strongest assets. I don't have any data for it, but I would say most families in the UK with small kids consume a lot of CBBC and CBeebies content. It's much better quality content than children's content on YouTube or Netflix.

Peoples viewing habits are more fragmented and from a wider variety of sources than 10 or 20 years ago and the BBC definitely doesn't have the same mindshare that it used to have when there was only X channels. But, I think when people are looking for some high quality curated content in the sea of 'please like and subscribe' then they will come back to iPlayer - I know I do.

Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part?

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

#136

Post by marcosdumay »

boffinism wrote: post #2

It's worth saying the BBC has been 'doomed' for as long as I can remember. Simply pointing out that it doesn't make sense doesn't seem to have much effect on its continued presence.

Oh, the Monty Python Flying Circus has an entire season with jokes about that.

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

#137

Post by adventured »

dageshi wrote: post #106
OneEyedRobot wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I were forced to choose between Netflix and BBC's back catalog and current programming for the same price, I'd say that BBC comes out far ahead.

Would that be true in 10 years time when Netflix has been churning out content at its current rate and cost?

I'd be curious what Netflix is going to cost in another ten years. They're intent on aggressively hiking the price of their plans. Their standard plan, which you need to get HD content, is close to $14 now (in both the US and the UK). Another ten years, I'd bet on $22-$25 or so.

Some of this value proposition question will depend on what the BBC is going to do on their pricing. We can be certain what Netflix is going to do.

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

#138

Post by 908B64B197 »

ChrisKnott wrote: post #128
908B64B197 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The BBC aren't on the government's payroll But where's the money coming from?

Mainly (70%) from a TV licence, the rest from selling their IP to other markets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_...

> Mainly (70%) from a TV licence

Whose existence is voted and that is managed by... the Government?

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

#139

Post by jay_kyburz »

gamacodre wrote: post #52
jay_kyburz wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because we need to know what is going on in the world, whether its profitable or not. News should not be entertainment. News should not be for profit.

> News should not be entertainment. News should not be for profit. But why ? If "news" isn't profitable or entertaining (and FWIW I agree those shouldn't be preconditions for quality news), then it will have to be subsidized by someone. Who will do that? What is their reason for putting up that money? And - most importantly - who decides whether the end product is "good enough", and what changes can they demand for t…

I think its a fair question and wanted to respond. I don't think people should just downvote.

There are a lot of things that we as a society have decided we need, and that everybody should contribute to paying for whether we like it or not.

We pay police salaries to try and prevent crime. We all pay to have waste collected regularly.

But lets be clear, we are not talking all that much money. Australia's ABC runs on about 7c a day per taxpayer. I would happily pay 10 times that.

I think the question of what is "good enough" and how the organization should be run, and how independent it is, are all good questions and something we should all have a say in.

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

#140

Post by 908B64B197 »

tablespoon wrote: post #102

> For example, Disney reportedly shovels $25m per episode into its prestige Marvel shows. The Crown on Netflix costs7 between $6.5m and $13m per episode, and so on. > With the best will in the world, there’s no way in hell that Doctor Who is ever going to have that sort of money spent on it8... > My fear for the BBC is that as generational turnover takes place, the BBC will remain outpaced and its cultural relevance…

> Oh no, it can't afford to make superhero-themed stuff. We're doomed!

They absolutely can.

If you make a show people want to watch, they'll pay for it.

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