I cannot believe what I have just heard on the radio. Some european quango has said that the BBC should be more like "other" commercial radio stations.
They haven't got a clue.
It's precisely because they are commercial free that I listen to BBC radio (Radio 2 (I don't consider myself to be a TOG) and Three Counties).
d**n them Euro gits!!
I'm thinking of starting my own "people's campaign"
What do you think??
GF.
:-\
Hmmm, dont know about the euro gits, but not sure that my licence fee should really be used for a service that I can get commercially anywhere else. Radio 4 seems to me a public service in the way that Radios 1 and 2 are not. Commercial stations cater for both audiences over and over, it's the kind of music/entertainment available all over the wavelengths. Radio 3 is probably the only station which can do long pieces, sometimes live, in a way which cannot be supported by commercial stations. Think this debate will run for a long time before any decisions are made...anyone else got thoughts?
???
Possibly a scare story. We're told that part of the reason why we pay a licence fee is that the BBC doesn't get revenue from advertising (it goes back to when the BBC was government-owned and was the only station boradcasting in the UK). The real question is whether we want the BBC to be in the pockets of the advertisers in the same way that commercial stations are. Oh, and the licence fee doesn't cover radio anyway - you can own as many radios as you like without a licence, it's the telly you're paying for! All that said, I for one would support a campaign to keep one or two high-quality radio stations on the air.
I think that anyone who listens to 3 counties (apart from when Luton are playing) should definitely consider themselves a TOG, it's awful :'(
I love the BBC despite its faults. It is the greatest, freeest and widest provider of TV in the world. It doesn't pander (always) to the lowest common denominator for ratings. The BBC is one thing us Brits can, and should be, totally proud of. It is repsected the world over and is the fist choice for news for many an oppressed people. People who work for the BBC will back that up based on the respect saying that attracts. Protect is with every last breathe in your body. Yes it should get better, but that doesn't mean it is broke (sic). Never ever let commercial influence into the BBC!
Have to agree that the BBC is definitely my first choice - especially now that we have BBC4 on tv to widen the choice. We pay for cable tv too but sometimes I wonder why because we watch terrestrial nearly all the time. I do wonder whether BBC get revenue from the commercials shown on all the BBC UK channels on cable and satellite tho ???
Beeb is my first choice too, we did purchase cable for a short while and dumped it in favour of Freeview although I have deleted probably half the channels of that. ::) Commercials irritate me beyond words. ::)
I have defended the BBC to the hilt over many years, but over recent times I am beginning to (very sadly) conclude that it is vigorously engaged in stabbing itself to death.
The licence fee is supposed to ensure that we get entertainment (yes), but also to educate and inform (now dubious).
Various recent bods in charge - no names - openly decided to follow the commercial route, and in consequence the content of many programmes has suffered badly e.g. one of the main 'educational' programmes was to be shared with the Americans, and so it was dumbed down specifically to favour that market. I've got no problems with the BBC making two versions (one for us, for for the US), but to simply annihilate the standard is distasteful and repellant.
Most documentaries are now pale shadows of their predecessors, with fancy camera work and graphics supposed to camouflage the paper-thin scripts. Have a good listen to the narrator's blurb... and suddenly it strikes you how many fatuous statements are being made without any form of factual confirmation e.g. Gorgeous footage of sunspots and solar flares, coupled with grey repetitive informationless commentary and suspect blanket orations.
The BBC make huge use of 'focus groups' to determine their programme content, yet we, the viewers, are unable to access the data collected which results in this dumbing down - it is 'not available' to those who pay the licence fee, even when they quote the Freedom of Information Act. Hence there is no possibility of examining the skew in these groups, the methodology of data collection, and its validity. It's all highly whiffy.
One classic example of this is our graphically overwhelming, information-bereft, all-singing, all-dancing non-weather forecast. All brought about because of focus group what-nots and politically-correct, scientifically-ignorant managers.... who concluded we were all 'disenfranchised' with the old weather forecast. So now, instead of a beautifully presented, scientifically apt forecast which started with the Atlantic Charts (overall picture) and then moved onto the details... we get grinning folk gurgling inanities (they've been told to cut down on weather terminology) in front of large font 'idiot boards' which have something like 'very sunny' splashed across them; then we get a slanting deluge of blue moving over a desert of sludge brown, with 'the north' disappearing on a vastly reducing scale into the wild blue yonder (because it was decided that 'the horizon' would provide super on-screen graphical impact), before having 50% of the forecast devoted to swanning about the nation showing what commuters in cars will be experiencing at either the evening or morning rush hour. It took major protests to even get 'the wind' reinstated, since this was now only deemed to be relevant 'if part of the story'.
This 'new weather' classically illustrates the self-destructive mayhem & major cracks in the BBC. It is supposed to be a Public Service Broadcaster with a remit to educate and inform, as well as entertain, but instead it has plumped for the graphics - often without having a clue what to do with them - and ditched the intelligence.
The News has disintegrated into a repetitious nonsense with newsreaders emphasising EVERY other WORD with LOTS of INHERENT implication. Take a good look at virtually any BBC news report:
- main presenter says what the report is about. Says hello to reporter.
- reporter says hello to main presenter. Repeats the intro to the report.
- reporter repeats intro (again) then adds a little more generality, but usually without straight facts. Lots of voice modulation implying various things - without actually saying anything out loud.
- main presenter asks reporter a question
- reporter occasionally answers this, during another non-entity spiel, occasionally repeating (again) what's already been said.
- main presenter thanks reporter.
[any maps/graphics will be zooming about without scale, or reference, or suitable presentation of 'the point']
This is a deliberate form of presentation, designed to make the news more accessible (?), specifically incorporating endless 'live reports' from their reporters, most of whom manage to struggle through by dint of repetition, fact elimination, and lots or 'ers' and 'ums'.
It is no coincidence that 'the weather' was reduced to 'tellytubbies puddles' when the News Department took over the management of the Weather Department.
And all of this is happening with the tacit approval of the Board of Governors, and the various watchdogs - for nothing has been done to halt this decline into dumbed-down commercialisation of the BBCs factual output.
In consequence, the BBC is no longer fulfilling its remit, and as such there could be major ructions ahead. If it loses its licence (quite possible given the continual downgrading of its output), then that will leave us with only the commercial broadcasters... fine for run-of-the-mill entertainment, but not much else.
The Beeb has spent a fortune on various enterprises (mainly electronic and digital) whilst actively hacking away its own foundations. It exhibits scant respect for both programme makers and viewers by flooding the screen with self-advertising - usually before a programme has even finished! How to destroy viewing pleasure, in one easy move. That smacks of total disrespect; total disdain. It also shows how little they rate their programmes, since the necessity of 'hooking' an audience now ranks (and rankles) of greater import than the viewing experience. It had also curtailed much output that fell into the 'marginal zones', programming that had small - but loyal - audiences. This has recently been part-remedied through the introduction of BBC3 and BBC4 (how nice it is to have foreign language films back!... even if the endings are all ruined by incessant BBC self-advertising), but for years these programmes were notable only by their absence.
Courtesy, creativity, programme integrity, audience respect, and common sense... have been systematically replaced by superficial gloss, lip service, and self-ramping.... The BBC may be good compared to the alternatives, but it's pretty shabby compared to its old self.
Auntie has left the building.
:(
Come Back!
Quote from: redclanger on May 24, 2006, 00:15:51
I love the BBC despite its faults. It is the greatest, freeest and widest provider of TV in the world. It doesn't pander (always) to the lowest common denominator for ratings. The BBC is one thing us Brits can, and should be, totally proud of. It is repsected the world over and is the fist choice for news for many an oppressed people. People who work for the BBC will back that up based on the respect saying that attracts. Protect is with every last breathe in your body. Yes it should get better, but that doesn't mean it is broke (sic). Never ever let commercial influence into the BBC!
i'm sorry, i find some of the BBC reportings to be biased and blatently wrong in some instances. i take their reportings with the same pinch of salt as most commercial stations. they have fallen a long long way in recent years.
The off button gets a lot of use in my house and as far as I'm concerned they can shove their "innovative" camera angles where the sun don't shine. Why do "we" have to pay top whack for cutting edge equipment and first class cameramen and then have them filming while jumping up & down on a trampoline or something? This does not make the programme more interesting, it's just rubbish.
The content has been gradually deteriorating over the last 25 years as far as I can tell, is this caused by the lowering of the attention span of the population or visa versa?
Thank the Lord that people like Attenborough are still around
I know I've already commented on this thread and have nothing much to add, but I just HAD to congratulate Gadfium on his/her wonderfully articulate comments. My biggest gripe with the so-called News nowadays is that so much of it covers celebrity gossip and/or sport (Sven might be replaced by some other opportunist carpet bagger, yawn; some talentless actress/singer has just squirted out a sprog, vomit; some ex game show host's daughter's dogs have been stolen, fall back in total boredom, and so on, ad nauseam). I have a theory about that (as I have about just about everything - I am very old, you know). Escapist froth always pops up most often when society is feeling depressed/threatened (note the resurgence of Doctor Who mania at a time when we are feeling very threatened by Those Weirdos Out There, just like sci-fi and spy dramas held people spellbound during the Cold War).... OK, I'll shut up. Gadfium was much more erudite (a joy to read, thankyou). :)
Although I listen mainly to radio 4 and often to radio 2, I will avoid the television based BBC rubbish. I get so very sick of seeing 5 - 6 "adverts" for its programming at every oppertunity. Im also fed up of the way the whole BBC supports a theme, a good example of this was the africa season a while back, it seems every program suddenly devloped a link with Africa for that week, -Easterenders went there, Holby was suddenly a field hospital but nothing (or very little) of it was eductional or mentioned again. A fantastic waste of my £120. I pay for Sky, which to be fair is a HUGE amount of repeats, and many of the BBC programs, you can really see the clear quality of the BBC of the past and not the politically correct better not say/do that it has become.
I am not for selling the BBc better still to give it away free they have cancelled the Big Dig again.
Better to give it all away not just radio 1 & 2 but the whole lot TV and all.