Government could ban BBC from showing top shows at peak times

So they can keep cutting the licence fee.

/edit I LIKE the BBC. They do a great job and I appreciate the licence fee allows them to produce a great deal of different content for different people without being bound by commercial revenue and the need for viewers. Having said that, the idea that they'd be prevented from showing popular shows at peak times is ludicrous.
 
I really don't get what the government want from the BBC. The message seems to be don't produce anything that's good cause it'll impact ITV's ad revenue. Radical thought - maybe ITV should produce decent programmes instead of the bilge they currently churn out.

I like the BBC. It's not perfect by a long chalk but it's a bulwark against the mindless, lowest common denominator trash TV that fills up the satellite channels and ITV.
 
This thread will be great.

"The BBC is biased in favour of the Conservatives"

"The Conservatives want to attack the BBC as they report against them"
 
It's a practically indefensible move that could never be explained away as anything other than "our donors don't like having to compete with popular BBC shows".

If it happens prime time will just shift to whenever the BBC are allowed to show their stuff, and embarrass the people at ITV and Sky.

In the age of online catch-up and PVRs, the reason I don't watch ITV shows has nothing to do with when they are scheduled.
 
Bluecube said:
I really don't get what the government want from the BBC. The message seems to be don't produce anything that's good cause it'll impact ITV's ad revenue. Radical thought - maybe ITV should produce decent programmes instead of the bilge they currently churn out.

I like the BBC. It's not perfect by a long chalk but it's a bulwark against the mindless, lowest common denominator trash TV that fills up the satellite channels and ITV.
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Pretty much it.

ITV used to create good content on a regular basis, and they used to be able to actually beat the BBC with Drama viewing figures by making good programs that people wanted to watch, in a variety of formats.
For a long time ITV seems to have given up on that idea.

IIRC this idea from the government goes back in part to ITV's news not doing well, with Whittingdale seamingly forgetting that it was ITV who decided to do away with it's main news programme at their traditional time, and playing around with it's time (so you never knew when it was on without looking at the paper) leading to people not bothering with it.
Then the BBC moved their program to that slot, having previously (for decades) having made the decision to keep it at a different time specifically so they didn't compete with ITV, something there was no point in doing when ITV were themselves moving their slot around so it was often up against BBC news.
When ITV realised that no one was going to watch their news when you couldn't rely on it being on at the same time from one day to the next and moved it back to a fixed slot the BBC didn't reorganise their schedule to accommodate.

In short ITV played silly beggers with their news for commercial reasons, BBC moved theirs to the new now free fixed slot that they'd not previously used as it had been in use by ITV (who were from memory showing the news at anything from about 9:30 to 10:45pm with their new policy), and it's now the BBC's fault that ITV news doesn't get the viewers.
 
OldCoals said:
This thread will be great.

"The BBC is biased in favour of the Conservatives"

"The Conservatives want to attack the BBC as they report against them"
Click to expand...

The BBC, warts and all, is perhaps one of the few sources of broadcast journalism where a balanced presentation is written anywhere near a charter. :p I'm not sure what the advantage of converting it to a purely streaming service, for now, would be either, since entertainment isn't its sole remit and access via the Internet vs TV sets isn't clear cut either.

As above, seems just a double whammy of trying to cut an unpopular headline figure and poking people who make life difficult for all and sundry ('cause it's their job!) at the same time.
 
The licence fee is an anachronism is the modern day. Abolish it and let the beeb run a subscription service instead.
 
Dolph said:
The licence fee is an anachronism is the modern day. Abolish it and let the beeb run a subscription service instead.
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Absolutely. Time to stop the gravy train and make them sink or swim by subscriptions just like the rest. The taxpayer has no reason whatsoever to subsidise this overgrown monster of an organisation. A sleek organisation with two channels and a handful of radio stations should be able to survive in the market.
 
It is a fair point, why should an organisation that is massively subsidised by public license fees be so actively competing with and diverting revenue away from UK businesses.

I don't see why the prime time BBC shows can't be funded by advertising money - frankly they should be looking at scrapping the license fee altogether and using advertising revenue, sales of shows overseas and/or subscriptions to fund the BBC.

If that isn't workable then maybe some ring-fenced funding from a significantly smaller license fee, tax on TV sales or simply an annual grant from general taxation could be used to help sustain the news, world service and public service aspects only.
 
I don't want adverts. I like the fact there aren't any! Sure the BBC is pretty bloated but immgald they don't have adverts or need to always think about how many viewers they'll get to sell advertising.
 
Cosimo said:
Absolutely. Time to stop the gravy train and make them sink or swim by subscriptions just like the rest. The taxpayer has no reason whatsoever to subsidise this overgrown monster of an organisation. A sleek organisation with two channels and a handful of radio stations should be able to survive in the market.
Click to expand...

This. Instead of forcing people to pay the fee they should make it an option.
 
It would be nice if there was a prevailing attitude in this country to recognise a good thing and support it, instead of some sort of system where all that matters is financial value.

We're going to lose a lot of stuff that we can't build back up before we realise what we're doing.
 
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