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TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

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Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#441

Post by ballenf »

faceplanted wrote: post #406
scotty79 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people will ever notice how socially and psychologically toxic is advertisement business and regulate it stringently.

People have clearly noticed the social and political issues with advertising for a very long time now. The issue is that it's hard to rally against one of the most lucrative businesses ever to exist that inherently has an extreme amount of messaging power to defend itself.

It's also worth noting that advertising is nearly a necessity in an industrialized society. Production of goods has high capital upfront costs and marginal costs that become negligible at scale. You can't get that scale without advertising or a government-mandated monopoly. Or, at least, you can't get that scale quickly enough.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#442

Post by thesuitonym »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #419
doctorfoo wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. I and others I know use a TV only as a screen for videogames and do not watch TV in any form. You explicitly do not need a license just to own a TV.

A lot of people say that but it is "not readily believable" to use a Civil Service Circumlocution. In that case why are you and those others not using a monitor.

I know you're just engaging in discussion, but non-TV monitors are typically more expensive than a similar sized TV.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#443

Post by faceplanted »

eplanit wrote: post #430
scotty79 wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if people will ever notice how socially and psychologically toxic is advertisement business and regulate it stringently.

Less toxic than law enforcement knocking on my door to see if I have a damn television. I'd rather reign in authoritarianism.

They're not law enforcement

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#444

Post by Silhouette »

laurent92 wrote: post #409
flower-giraffe wrote: post #211

I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK. Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere. The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s. Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as…

> What is absolutely clear from history is commercial media outlets fuel political bias, and it seems to be increasingly damaging to society. Public broadcasting fuels political division a lot. The most worrying is that you don’t notice it. It is increasingly worrying because when people are exposed to the other side, they immediately « catch fire », wonder why they have been lied to, and never trust public broadcast…

The thing with the BBC is that people on both sides of the political spectrum claim it's biased towards the other guys. That at least suggests that its overall balance is relatively neutral, even if specific individual programmes it broadcasts may not be.

I do feel that in recent times, the BBC's big name current affairs programmes have often given politicians of all parties an easy time in interviews, which I think is more worrying as a trend. I think the BBC should still challenge government representatives to explain and if necessary defend their policies, and should also still challenge the Opposition and smaller parties when their own representatives make dubious claims even if they're not currently in power to implement them.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#445

Post by overscore »

arethuza wrote: post #376
overscore wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BBC News has always been the de facto propaganda arm of the British government. It may only be apparent to you now, but their reporting has always been overly biased. Examples are any reporting on the Troubles (especially British crimes there), the Iraq war (especially the lead up and the Camp Stephen killings), and anything about Brexit.

Slightly odd then that one of the names for the BBC used by Brexit supporters was the "Brussels Broadcasting Company" because they thought it was far too pro-EU.

As I'm sure you're aware, the British government was pro-EU during the Brexit campaign.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#446

Post by LatteLazy »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #274
LatteLazy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for YOUR response! Sorry if mine was too confrontational. I definately know what you mean. I've spent more time vegitating in front of Brooklyn Nine-nine than watching enriching educational material myself. May I recommend 2 BBC podcasts for science etc as our ships pass in the night? The life scientific 40 to 60min interviews with scientists about what they do, how they did it, why they ended up in the field.…

There's tons science courses, maths courses and stats courses on the internet where you learn these things in depth. Most documentaries are often 'pop' takes at things.

I think the BBC are actually really great at avoiding the pop trap. They either do it very well or they just don't do it. I'd point to a lot of popular podcasts as "pop" rip offs of BBC pieces.

"Stuff you should know" is really just "In Our Time" with easier topics and no experts for instance. Plus no 500 episode backlog over several decades.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#447

Post by throwaway3699 »

Silhouette wrote: post #444
laurent92 wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is absolutely clear from history is commercial media outlets fuel political bias, and it seems to be increasingly damaging to society. Public broadcasting fuels political division a lot. The most worrying is that you don’t notice it. It is increasingly worrying because when people are exposed to the other side, they immediately « catch fire », wonder why they have been lied to, and never trust public broadcast…

The thing with the BBC is that people on both sides of the political spectrum claim it's biased towards the other guys. That at least suggests that its overall balance is relatively neutral, even if specific individual programmes it broadcasts may not be. I do feel that in recent times, the BBC's big name current affairs programmes have often given politicians of all parties an easy time in interviews, which I think…

I think BBC is biased towards the establishment, not left or right.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#448

Post by carschno »

saberdancer wrote: post #255
boffinism wrote: post #128

The BBC is currently dedicating hours of airtime a day to educational content to match our primary and secondary curricula because the schools are shut and lots of kids can't access online provisions. And still people complain about the licence fee in terms of whether or not they enjoy BBC gameshows...

What is the point of this license fee in this day and age? Everyone has a TV, so everyone pays the license fee. Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a part of the taxes already collected to go to BBC. My problem with this type of license fee collection is that it bring forward a number of costs associated with it that could be removed if it went directly from taxes and that today everyone has TV so it doesn't really "t…

No, the idea never was to "tax the rich". The license fees as present in many European countries are not taxes because the broadcasters are independent from the governments, including full control over what they do with _their_ budget. The idea is that the governments cannot (threaten to) cut their budgets to enforce pro-government reporting on public broadcasters.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#449

Post by hef19898 »

stkdump wrote: post #438
hef19898 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the edit. In Germany, the means are to put people leaning to certain parties in top positions. Or people with the right connections. As a result, the bavarian contribution, the BR, is not necessarly known for its liberal agenda. Others are more left leaning. One other way is to have former press and spokes persons from a government taking up positions at the braodcasters. When the current (?) spokesman of…

Is public broadcasting more prone to these things than privately funded broadcasting? If yes, why?

No, if anything I'd say even less. Private broadcasting can be influenced by add customers, politics and so on. Public briadcasting more or less only by soft political influence. Which tends to balance itself out between parties anyway. So if anything, basic bias tends to be the best reflection of the current center I can think of.

Re: TV detector vans once prowled the streets of England

#450

Post by richardARPANET »

flower-giraffe wrote: post #211

I think the funding and governance (by Royal Charter) of the BBC have historically provided a huge benefit to society in the UK. Advertising free children’s TV (and radio) may have delayed the onset or rampant consumerism fuelled by commercial TV elsewhere. The BBC microcomputer project is arguably the origin of ARM CPU’s. Initially the license fee was for radios, I can’t find a reference but I remember being told as…

The BBC is a propaganda arm of the state, IMO they should be defunded significantly.
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