BBC - how does it fight back?

[johnnyboy]

The BBC wastes too much money on services where the opportunity for risk-taking, innovation, and out-there creativity is not great enough. It's paying for services which could be provided for, perhaps with a small reduction in quality, by the public sector.

But offset that risk of lower quality by transferring some services to the private sector against TV programming with greatly increased budgets which could fund the truly genius, daring, and inventive where profit was not an imperative.

The possibilities are exciting and mind-blowing. And I want the BBC (and Channel 4) to provide the lead in that.

The BBC and Channel 4 already do. The bulk of British TV exported around the world is from the BBC and Channel 4. It's very much all about what you want with little regard for what others want. You want the BBC to narrow it's focus to "innovative and out there" TV only, despite the fact you don't really know that's what everyone else wants. The BBC is not HBO. It has a responsibility to provide for all tastes and, despite what you seem to think, not everyone wants just wall to wall "out there" TV without fluff like Home Under The Hammer getting in the way. Some people's idea of good TV is the decidedly middle of the road 'Death in Paradise' and some people prefer the edgier 'I May Destroy You'. The BBC can, and should, do both. Your vision of a one note TV only BBC that's all edge all of the time isn't going to appease licence fee payers it's likely to turn off even more. Especially the Popmaster ones!

I dunno what it is but you seem to just want to disagree with me as a matter of principle.

In order to do this successfully, you're wilfully ignoring large swaithes of what I've written. Don't see why you're wasting your time responding to me, personally.

But once more, in the vain hope this actually gets through this time, I am not proposing the scrapping of services but I am proposing the wholesale transfer of some of those services in a beauty competition format to the private sector. Those services are those services which the private sector would have a more than reasonable chance of running for profit.

Therefore, all the services you and I want and don't want will remain, some in the BBC and some in the private sector.

No-one will lose out.

From the funds which are freed up from this move, the BBC invests its money on improving the services where it can add the greatest value - programmes that would simply be uneconomic for the commercial sector to produce because a) they wouldn't be popular enough or b) the return from selling advertising space in between those programmes would be insufficient to cover costs and make a profit.

In an ideal world, BBC management would be focused on creating a piece of appointment viewing (a film, a drama, a new series, and so on) once a week to increase the popularity of the corporation and people's respect and affinity for it. Because it's not doing that as well as it used to right now.

At around the 8th attempt Blobs, is that any clearer for you?

[James Martin]

In many cases the local stations were actually profitable anyway - small profits, but profitable. Global just made them more profitable by stripping them out and nationalising them - adding profits for their shareholders by stripping away value for listeners.

In a very small number of cases. Your BRMBs, Red Dragons, Capital (95.8 flavour) probably were profitable. But huge swathes of the network ran at a loss under GCap. The very successful stations in effect propped up the smaller ones.

I myself have been a director of two ILR licenses that didn't make a profit for 17 years, only when we stripped the costs, studio facilities and tech setup back to the very basic bare minimum after phoenixing from collapse did a small profit get turned.

I know Michael Betton's Lincs FM Group worked like that - two or three profitable stations propped up the others. But eventually he too took the Bauer cheque, as did William Rogers at UKRD and Paul Smith at Celador.

Even Steve Orchard has had to partially throw in the towel with Quidem by taking out a Capital brand license. As he said to David Lloyd "It became obvious that localness is no longer enough of a differentiator and the future would have to be very different." That network of stations was also stripped back to a bare minimum programming wise. According to RadioToday, as part of the deal the journos got TUPEd to Global which obviously brings with it great career opportunities for those guys, but all but two members of talent were made redundant. If a heavyweight like Orchard can't make local radio work in this era, I'd argue there's not much hope left!

[Mr Q]

The BBC wastes too much money on services where the opportunity for risk-taking, innovation, and out-there creativity is not great enough. It's paying for services which could be provided for, perhaps with a small reduction in quality, by the public sector.

But offset that risk of lower quality by transferring some services to the private sector against TV programming with greatly increased budgets which could fund the truly genius, daring, and inventive where profit was not an imperative.

The possibilities are exciting and mind-blowing. And I want the BBC (and Channel 4) to provide the lead in that.

The BBC and Channel 4 already do. The bulk of British TV exported around the world is from the BBC and Channel 4. It's very much all about what you want with little regard for what others want. You want the BBC to narrow it's focus to "innovative and out there" TV only, despite the fact you don't really know that's what everyone else wants. The BBC is not HBO. It has a responsibility to provide for all tastes and, despite what you seem to think, not everyone wants just wall to wall "out there" TV without fluff like Home Under The Hammer getting in the way. Some people's idea of good TV is the decidedly middle of the road 'Death in Paradise' and some people prefer the edgier 'I May Destroy You'. The BBC can, and should, do both. Your vision of a one note TV only BBC that's all edge all of the time isn't going to appease licence fee payers it's likely to turn off even more. Especially the Popmaster ones!

I dunno what it is but you seem to just want to disagree with me as a matter of principle.

In order to do this successfully, you're wilfully ignoring large swaithes of what I've written. Don't see why you're wasting your time responding to me, personally.

But once more, in the vain hope this actually gets through this time, I am not proposing the scrapping of services but I am proposing the wholesale transfer of some of those services in a beauty competition format to the private sector. Those services are those services which the private sector would have a more than reasonable chance of running for profit.

Therefore, all the services you and I want and don't want will remain, some in the BBC and some in the private sector.

No-one will lose out.

From the funds which are freed up from this move, the BBC invests its money on improving the services where it can add the greatest value - programmes that would simply be uneconomic for the commercial sector to produce because a) they wouldn't be popular enough or b) the return from selling advertising space in between those programmes would be insufficient to cover costs and make a profit.

In an ideal world, BBC management would be focused on creating a piece of appointment viewing (a film, a drama, a new series, and so on) once a week to increase the popularity of the corporation and people's respect and affinity for it. Because it's not doing that as well as it used to right now.

At around the 8th attempt Blobs, is that any clearer for you?

I wouldn't object to the BBC divesting itself of commercially viable content. Though I also accept there are plenty who think the BBC should be producing the middle-of-the-road stuff that brings in eyeballs. And I acknowledge the argument that by offering mainstream fare, the BBC reaches a wider audience, to which it can then showcase its more niche/cutting-edge content -- content that people might not otherwise be aware of.

That said, I think you're arguing for the BBC to do something that it probably already aspires to -- and perhaps even thinks it does -- do. The BBC does produce a range of "appointment viewing", as you describe it. You think the current offering is inadequate, which is a perfectly legitimate view. But I can't help but feel you're simply expecting the BBC to produce content that you think is great TV. And that's not the same as creating content that reaches the entire United Kingdom (and can be exported globally too).

In addition, I'm unclear as to whether you think this "appointment viewing" should be risky -- stuff that commercial outlets wouldn't invest in, because they don't know if there's an audience. Or if you mean that "appointment viewing" should be mass appeal. Because if it's the former (which I think is a good space for the BBC to play in), that necessarily means that there's every chance of investing in lots of flops in terms of audience numbers even if the production standards are best in class. And if it's the latter, then I'm not sure I understand what you think the BBC's role is or should be.

Finally, quality means different things to different people. And perceptions of quality are shaped by time and context. Part of what makes a piece of content stand out in a crowded market is that it offers something different to what people have seen before - or at least something different to what dominates mainstream consumption patterns at a point in time. While I wouldn't argue that there's only a fixed amount of creative ideas in the world, it is harder to "break the mould" if you're expected to do so every week. In short, part of what defines quality is that there is relatively little of it.

[Blobs]

The BBC wastes too much money on services where the opportunity for risk-taking, innovation, and out-there creativity is not great enough. It's paying for services which could be provided for, perhaps with a small reduction in quality, by the public sector.

But offset that risk of lower quality by transferring some services to the private sector against TV programming with greatly increased budgets which could fund the truly genius, daring, and inventive where profit was not an imperative.

The possibilities are exciting and mind-blowing. And I want the BBC (and Channel 4) to provide the lead in that.

The BBC and Channel 4 already do. The bulk of British TV exported around the world is from the BBC and Channel 4. It's very much all about what you want with little regard for what others want. You want the BBC to narrow it's focus to "innovative and out there" TV only, despite the fact you don't really know that's what everyone else wants. The BBC is not HBO. It has a responsibility to provide for all tastes and, despite what you seem to think, not everyone wants just wall to wall "out there" TV without fluff like Home Under The Hammer getting in the way. Some people's idea of good TV is the decidedly middle of the road 'Death in Paradise' and some people prefer the edgier 'I May Destroy You'. The BBC can, and should, do both. Your vision of a one note TV only BBC that's all edge all of the time isn't going to appease licence fee payers it's likely to turn off even more. Especially the Popmaster ones!

I dunno what it is but you seem to just want to disagree with me as a matter of principle.

In order to do this successfully, you're wilfully ignoring large swaithes of what I've written. Don't see why you're wasting your time responding to me, personally.

But once more, in the vain hope this actually gets through this time, I am not proposing the scrapping of services but I am proposing the wholesale transfer of some of those services in a beauty competition format to the private sector. Those services are those services which the private sector would have a more than reasonable chance of running for profit.

Therefore, all the services you and I want and don't want will remain, some in the BBC and some in the private sector.

No-one will lose out.

From the funds which are freed up from this move, the BBC invests its money on improving the services where it can add the greatest value - programmes that would simply be uneconomic for the commercial sector to produce because a) they wouldn't be popular enough or b) the return from selling advertising space in between those programmes would be insufficient to cover costs and make a profit.

In an ideal world, BBC management would be focused on creating a piece of appointment viewing (a film, a drama, a new series, and so on) once a week to increase the popularity of the corporation and people's respect and affinity for it. Because it's not doing that as well as it used to right now.

At around the 8th attempt Blobs, is that any clearer for you?

It's you who is ignoring how I, and others, have told you time and time again why BBC Radio services would likely be considerably poorer in the private sector. People would be losing out because whichever services you chose to "transfer" they're going to be scaled down to become pale imitations of what they are. In your rosy fantasy the private sector might take on these services as they are but in reality nobody is going to match the healthy budgets these stations have.

And it is you who is ignoring the question i've asked you 3 times...how do you actually know people don't value these services as much as TV and would rather sacrifice them to pump that money into more appointment to view tv. Who told you this? The BBC has plenty of appointment to view tv that people respect, and is sold around the world. Examples have been given but again it's you who has ignored this. You could sell off every "non core asset "and fill every slot on BBC's 1 & 2 with whatever it is you think the BBC should be doing and for some it still wouldn't be enough. That's because the anti BBC sentiment is being stirred up by certain media outlets with vested interests who actually don't care about the output or who enjoys what.

[Joe]

I'm a bit disappointed that this topic has become one of those 'cut this, cut that' type threads. I suppose it's interesting to read up to a point every once in a while, but ultimately it almost always descends into the kind of stuff above where people simply fall out. And in any case, it's usually a case of 'cut this because I don't use it'.

That aside, I think this thread is about far more than the budgetary stuff, worthwhile though that can be. It's about perception of the organisation, and in the end I don't think cutting 6Music (or whatever) is going to do anything for shifting perceptions – far from the public going 'ah, that's better, it's a leaner BBC now', it'll simply annoy/alienate X amount of listeners, while those who don't listen will feel they have a smaller offering, or just continue being as disappointed at the BBC as before.

I do think though that treating it as a public service means that everyone should pay for it. I currently don't use the school system (I'm too old myself, and I don't have kids), but I'm happy to pay for it because I think all of society benefits. We all benefit for a number of reasons, from the basics of having kids off the streets all day (!) through to having a society that can read and write. Same with rubbish collection, the police service and so on. I personally (and I accept many may disagree) think that we all benefit from having the BBC – the competition forces all companies to up their game. So even if I don't watch the BBC, I reckon the bar is raised overall.

That doesn't mean it's perfect, of course. But I do think it's a little simplistic to say 'well ITV are forced have a news service' – yes, but what that looks like is influenced by the BBC. It's arguable that the commercial sector would rush in and fill all the gaps on Day 1 of no BBC – after all, we have Sky News, educational shows on Channel 4, documentaries on Discovery – but how do we guarantee this is the case in two decades time, or indeed guarantee the quality?

[Toby brown]

The problem for the bbc is whatever channel they cut they will get a back clash we saw it with 6music Asian network Bbc3 etc even a channel with a small audience like bbc parlement when the bbc wanted to close it as a full time service a few years ago got people angry

[tellyblues]

That's because the anti BBC sentiment is being stirred up by certain media outlets with vested interests who actually don't care about the output or who enjoys what.

Nonsense.

So nobody is able to form their own opinion of the BBC based on what they themselves think about its output? It's all because of the media?

Why is it that when someone suggests getting rid of something they are jumped on and accused of "getting rid of stuff they don't like" yet when someone who says they are happy paying the licence fee for the content it gives them (coincidentally no mention of what anyone else gets), not a cheep?

[Steve Williams]

In an ideal world, BBC management would be focused on creating a piece of appointment viewing (a film, a drama, a new series, and so on) once a week to increase the popularity of the corporation and people's respect and affinity for it. Because it's not doing that as well as it used to right now.

Just the one?

This week they're showing a new documentary about the NHS by the acclaimed historian David Olusoga - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xwz6

On Sunday there's a new series of Baptiste, the first series of which was sold around the world, and the sequel to The Missing which was nominated for multiple BAFTAs, Emmys and Golden Globes - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p09f94d8

Next Tuesday there's a documentary from the Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen on race - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y3kq

All of these are on primetime BBC1, and I would consider them appointment viewing.

Is this an atypical week? Well, it's the middle of summer, where TV viewing is traditionally at its lowest, it's between the Euros and the Olympics and TV production was totally crippled for several months last year meaning all broadcasters have less new content. And still there is new, high profile content from major writers and directors. Seems to be exactly what is being requested.

To give it a wider context, in The Guardian's Top 50 of the best TV shows of 2020. eighteen of them are from the BBC, including six of the top ten. That's more than Netflix - https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...ws-of-2020

You could argue some of those are acquisitions and shows where the BBC are only co-producers, but Sky happily embrace programmes like Succession as Sky programmes, and we all know Netflix are happy to whack "Netflix original" on everything, regardless of how little they have to do with them. Even for the acquisitions, it relies on the BBC buying them and it means they can be seen by the widest audience imaginable rather than putting them behind a paywall.

And if you think the Guardian's chart is a Brit-centric list and outside the UK the Beeb can't compete, here's Rolling Stone's chart, with I Will Destroy You and Normal People in the top ten (plus What We Do In The Shadows, which is also on the BBC). The only British shows in the top ten, I think - https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-lists...o-1098339/

As for whether other broadcasters could do these programmes, Michaela Coel is on record as saying she turned down doing I May Destroy You on Netflix and wanted to do it on the BBC because they gave her far more creative control. So if the BBC hadn't been involved, that series absolutely would not have been made the way the talent would have wanted it to be made - https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshwilson/...0b58621fc7

And all that, while still also making Homes Under The Hammer.

[Blobs]

That's because the anti BBC sentiment is being stirred up by certain media outlets with vested interests who actually don't care about the output or who enjoys what.

Nonsense.

So nobody is able to form their own opinion of the BBC based on what they themselves think about its output? It's all because of the media?

Why is it that when someone suggests getting rid of something they are jumped on and accused of "getting rid of stuff they don't like" yet when someone who says they are happy paying the licence fee for the content it gives them (coincidentally no mention of what anyone else gets), not a cheep?

No, I'm not saying you can't form an independent opinion of the one show. I'm saying there's a narrative the likes of the sun, mail and express push that isn't always based in reality. Like how they think Glastonbury can be covered by just Jo Whiley and one camera man for example.

[AndrewP]

I had already written a response to this last week but it seems it did not send (nor did the draft save!)..

It's going to include my thoughts from some of the topics discussed previously as well as topics discussed more recently, and hence will be rather long.
Sorry in advance if I ramble too much! ?

A few people here have claimed that BBC Radio 4 is purely just for "upper class" people. Well, the programming on the World Service shares very similar (and some of the same) programming - would you call the WS audience "upper class"? I know I wasn't when I was listening to it abroad growing up, and I'm certainly not upper class listening to Radio 4 here either. I saw an article a while back saying "Radio 4 listeners aren't middle-class, just intelligent". I personally do not agree with that sentiment, mainly because I do not see myself as intelligent! I think the audience of Radio 4 are usually one with "open minds"; I'm not meaning to sound pretentious, but what I've found is that often I'll hear a name of a programme and think it's not going to be good, but then sometimes it'll be scheduled after something I was tuned in for anyways and it'll turn out to be rather quite good.. I'm going off on a tangent here..

The rediscovery of audio content surely shows that, far from removing money from radio, the BBC should be investing more money into it. I'd hazard the only radio station the BBC can truly afford to close down is Radio 4 Extra, as quite a lot of the archive content usually transmitted on that station is now available on BBC Sounds - although you could also provide a counter-argument that if it weren't for the presence 4 Extra on the station list, people may not even know these programmes exist.
I found some statistics on the BBC's national radio services (from Statista):
Annual expenditure (2019/20): [img "percentage"=50%]https://up.metropol247.co.uk/AndrewPSSP/bbcradioexpenditure.png[/img]
Weekly reach (Q1 2020): [img "percentage"=50%]https://up.metropol247.co.uk/AndrewPSSP/radioweeklyreach.png[/img]

I thought a few points were interesting. Radio 1Xtra costs peanuts to run, axing it will not really provide true financial gain in the grand scheme of things. 5 Live Sports Extra gets hardly any money at all, yet has greater reach than 5 Live, although I doubt the expenditure includes the rights (*note to BBC bosses* I wouldn't protest to the IPL being on R4 LW as well!). Radio 3, a station with a truly vocal audience gets three times as much money pumped into it than 4 Extra but has a similar reach.

Radio 1 and Radio 2 have specialist shows in the evenings and weekends. A lot of the popular commercial radio stations are mainly just mainstream pop - would these survive in a commercial world?

A few people have suggesting closing down the Asian Network, and many others have (rightly) agreed that this is a bad idea. I believe that it fulfils its own niche in the market. The other big players in the Asian radio market (e.g. Sunrise, Lyca (Dil se) etc..) are more oriented towards an older audience, with a lot of the personality and the playlist being skewed towards the 70s, 80s and 90s. Dil se used to also play a mix of modern music and conversation (à la Magic 105.4 until around 2017) but even that station has had its licence changed so that it no longer plays music beyond the 1990s. The BBC Asian Network is really one of few Asian youth-oriented stations in the UK, and it would be a shame to let that go. You could also say that if it were closed down, the BBC is shunning its responsibility as the PSB of the UK to reflect the diversity of the UK.

This may sound odd for someone on "TV Live Forum", but I don't really consume much television content at all. If I'm truly honest the only show I truly watch is Call The Midwife, which I have watched continuously since the beginning (although it was only in recent years that I began to understood nuances of the stories fully!) and it truly inspired me, so much so that hopefully I shall be going to medical school in September, if August is kind to me That being said, I do understand the frustrations of the daytime schedules that have remained practically unchanged for so long. However, I presume these programmes remain popular among their audience. Stereotypically, these would be among the older end of the demographic. Many people have this issue with some programmes Radio 4 as well, and the response is usually along the lines of 'there will always be an audience for these types of programmes, as the young people of today will become the pensioners of tomorrow'. I doubt these shows cost too much money to produce and, if it remains popular, why axe them? "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!"

I also think some people may only have this complaint after the lockdowns over the past year and a half. When we go back to normal, many of us won't be around doing nothing working from home, but the people who were at home enjoying those shows before the pandemic will continue to do so after the pandemic. So in my opinion it is rather insensitive to suggest these shows be axed, just because you didn't like them for 16 months. I think the BBC is putting most of its money in the right place in prime time, anyways, with many, many new big hit dramas being produced and shown in the evenings. I feel the schedule is catering to the widest possible audience that it can at the different time slots, as best as it can.

Most people in this country use BBC services - I do not know one person who does not have at least BBC News/iPlayer installed. Therefore, they probably do know how useful it is. What I think the focus should be is bringing the value of the BBC to society into the public consciousness. I believe someone earlier up in the thread mentioned this.
Yes, I agree that the current licencing method will be unsustainable after the current charter, but, until then, instead of sending threatening letters to those who do not pay the license fee, I think this could be a great tool to help people recognise just how vital it is to Britain (and its soft power!). It is no mean feat that it is the largest broadcaster in the world and, although it has had some managerial mistakes in the past (which I do not know enough about to comment on) the service it provides, whilst it may not have tangible benefits (like the NHS), it provides great intangible benefits, as Nicholas Parsons used to say, "not just in the UK, but around the world"! This must be protected.

To the statements saying the BBC is socialist, I do believe that it is generally more left-leaning. But I think that this is only because of its role of holding the government to account. For many years, the political leanings of the inhabitants of Number 10 have been relatively to the right, and to counter that I think the BBC does sometimes have to provide some sort of left-wing "argument"; it does the opposite too, when interviewing the opposition, albeit with less vigour. I have seen some arguments that shows such as Question Time are very left-wing. I cannot comment on this as I don't watch the programme, but its older sibling Any Questions? is very fair IMO. I feel that in its straight reporting and analysis, there is no obvious bias. There is a reason why the BBC remains the most trusted news source in the UK, and one of the most trusted around the world as well. I can't find it now, but in the US, there was a study saying that even the Americans trust the BBC more than many of their own domestic networks.

For me, personally, the importance of the BBC has increased once more. I grew up in Burma, and my family regularly listened to the BBC World Service - which was one of the ways I learnt English - and the Burmese Service. Although irrelevant for me as a young child, it was one of the few sources of true information that was not influenced by the army. After this year's coup, the importance of the BBC has increased and, even though the output has been cut, more people listen and consume BBC content than they do the VOA (although RFA is a very close competitor)...


I apologise if I've rambled on a bit, or if this post is difficult to read. It's taken me a while to think up, and I had a number of breaks writing it. I'll read it again in the morning and correct any potential mistakes or ambiguities!
I think a TLDR would be: reform how the license fee is collected, axing any of the national radio stations would not really be truly beneficial, the BBC is overall non-biased, make the value of the BBC re-enter public consciousness

[tellyblues]

That's because the anti BBC sentiment is being stirred up by certain media outlets with vested interests who actually don't care about the output or who enjoys what.

Nonsense.

So nobody is able to form their own opinion of the BBC based on what they themselves think about its output? It's all because of the media?

Why is it that when someone suggests getting rid of something they are jumped on and accused of "getting rid of stuff they don't like" yet when someone who says they are happy paying the licence fee for the content it gives them (coincidentally no mention of what anyone else gets), not a cheep?

No, I'm not saying you can't form an independent opinion of the one show. I'm saying there's a narrative the likes of the sun, mail and express push that isn't always based in reality. Like how they think Glastonbury can be covered by just Jo Whiley and one camera man for example.

Which is nothing to do with the views expressed here. I genuinely don't think that the media is influencing anyone's judgement on what they think the BBC should provide.

[dbl]

Interesting thread on the influence of British TV in the US

https://twitter.com/Jake_Kanter/status/1...0224709637

https://twitter.com/Jake_Kanter/status/1...1721243648

[Blobs]

Nonsense.

So nobody is able to form their own opinion of the BBC based on what they themselves think about its output? It's all because of the media?

Why is it that when someone suggests getting rid of something they are jumped on and accused of "getting rid of stuff they don't like" yet when someone who says they are happy paying the licence fee for the content it gives them (coincidentally no mention of what anyone else gets), not a cheep?

No, I'm not saying you can't form an independent opinion of the one show. I'm saying there's a narrative the likes of the sun, mail and express push that isn't always based in reality. Like how they think Glastonbury can be covered by just Jo Whiley and one camera man for example.

Which is nothing to do with the views expressed here. I genuinely don't think that the media is influencing anyone's judgement on what they think the BBC should provide.

I think "are all these journalists really necessary?" Is very much a part of that. Chris Moyles has mentioned this before. Comparing the public perception of the BBC, fuled by the media, of everyone sitting around burning license fee money to light their cigars while brainstorming the best ways to waste as much money as possible to his experience at the BBC of being denied paper clips because they were an "unnecessary expense".

[tellyblues]

No, I'm not saying you can't form an independent opinion of the one show. I'm saying there's a narrative the likes of the sun, mail and express push that isn't always based in reality. Like how they think Glastonbury can be covered by just Jo Whiley and one camera man for example.

Which is nothing to do with the views expressed here. I genuinely don't think that the media is influencing anyone's judgement on what they think the BBC should provide.

I think "are all these journalists really necessary?" Is very much a part of that. Chris Moyles has mentioned this before. Comparing the public perception of the BBC, fuled by the media, of everyone sitting around burning license fee money to light their cigars while brainstorming the best ways to waste as much money as possible to his experience at the BBC of being denied paper clips because they were an "unnecessary expense".

Do you even have proof that what Moyles said has influenced an opinion on here? Can't someone come to a conclusion without the need for a third party?

I think we are all intelligent enough on this forum to know how broadcasting works and are fair and unbiased with our comments, which is why it is rather annoying when someone jumps in and accuses people of wanting to get rid of stuff they don't like.

It is telling that someone who questions the licence fee is bombarded with reasons why it is important yet someone who doesn't isn't.

[Blobs]

Which is nothing to do with the views expressed here. I genuinely don't think that the media is influencing anyone's judgement on what they think the BBC should provide.

I think "are all these journalists really necessary?" Is very much a part of that. Chris Moyles has mentioned this before. Comparing the public perception of the BBC, fuled by the media, of everyone sitting around burning license fee money to light their cigars while brainstorming the best ways to waste as much money as possible to his experience at the BBC of being denied paper clips because they were an "unnecessary expense".

Do you even have proof that what Moyles said has influenced an opinion on here? Can't someone come to a conclusion without the need for a third party?

I think we are all intelligent enough on this forum to know how broadcasting works and are fair and unbiased with our comments, which is why it is rather annoying when someone jumps in and accuses people of wanting to get rid of stuff they don't like.

It is telling that someone who questions the licence fee is bombarded with reasons why it is important yet someone who doesn't isn't.

Yes, it's weird how people want to defend a national cultural institution when it's under attack?. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to say, you completely misunderstood my post and I'm bored of this now. Everyone else is probably is too.