Does the BBC give you value for money?
After all the furore over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, a lot of 5 Live listeners have been talking about the licence fee and what you get for your £139.50. It was interesting that a lot of the support for the two presenters came from younger listeners and viewers and much (although not all by any means) of the criticism came from older people.
So what's the appeal of the BBC across generations? Is there more for older people than younger ones or the other way around? We talked this morning to people of all ages about what they listen to and watch and take part in online. Have a listen to what they said.
I'd be interested in your views about what the BBC offers too.
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The BBC is good in that it allows commercial free broadcasting on the internet, radio and TV.
However, it is annoying that we are forced to pay for it in the form of the TV licence.
£12 a month is alot to pay for what you get, but again it comes down to the advertising revenues that it just doesn't have. If the scheme were made voluntary or only BBC users were made to pay then the BBC would collapse.
I like the BBC (mainly the website and radio) so let's keep it even if it does mean threatening to put anyone with a TV in prison to keep it running.
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I am not a UK resident, which means I don't pay directly for the BBC. I do however...
-Enjoy using the BBC's website, which provides highly informative news, as well as other interesting things.
-Watch the BBC World News on my local (and not-so-local) PBS stations to get a different take than most of America gets.
-Watch Doctor Who when it's on. I consider it to be the best drama on television. The acting, writing and effects combined make it excellent, plus the general tone is much nicer than most American dramas.
I would be willing to pay for more material from the BBC, if there was a way to. (BBC staff? Try and get a pay-per-view service for those of us across the Atlantic)!
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I think that the BBC is very good value for money. It is worth paying the licence fee to have advert free TV,although the BBc seem to be increasing the number of adverts for themselves!
The web site is second to none.
The i-player is really useful.
No other country in the world broadcasts radio such as R4.
The broadcast world service is listened to eagerly by those who do not have access to the web.
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I find it quite amazing that it has taken the Brand/Ross incident for the licence fee to be discussed. Like many, I think the whole thing has been blown out of proportion. But I quite like the end result i.e. Brand leaving the BBC and hopefully J. Ross too.
I have never believed that the licence fee is justified and still continue to do so. Here's why:
The ONS has said that the fee is really a tax because you really can't avoid paying it. So why not call a spade a SPADE?
How can you justify paying the vast sums of money that are paid to Messrs. Paxman, Humphrys, Dimblebys et al when all they do is read an autocue. What Paxman said at the Edinburgh festival earlier this year about people like him becoming extinct at the BBC is much worse than what Brand and Ross did. But did anyone take Paxman to task? No. Why? Because they're afraid of him. So, he's laughing all the way to the bank...with my TV tax money.
Also, if the BBC is going to simply broadcast what is in the tabloids or worse compete with the tabloids, why do they need the TV tax money? We know the tabloids need to sell for their revenue. What's the BBC's excuse? There have been so many cases, the latest being the Tory Party/George Osborne/Deripaska incident where the BBC's political editor no less thought he needed to respond to the Daily Mail, rather than the TV tax payer on why a non-story was getting so much coverage? So, the Daily Mail controls the BBC? If the BBC is hell-bent on becoming a tabloid, it should go and compete with the tabloids for the revenue and stop getting public money.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I think the BBC does give value for money, but in light of the Russell Brand/Johnathon Ross business and the resignations and suspension, I do agree with those who believe Channel 4 should be given a 'top slice' of the licence fee if the BBC is going to become a risk/edge/innovation free zone.
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Re BBC value, there are many programmes I dislike however there are so many tv and radio progammes that are enjoyable and - such luxury - NO adverts. The BBC is worth every penny. Would be good if this Ross/Brand affair resulted in less offensive language in general on the tv - far too much swearing especially in "comedy". But please do not go back to being too staid!
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The BBC is fantastic value for money and along with the armed forces the only thing we (Britain) can be truly pround off. It is the envy of the rest of the world and we must cherish it warts and all!
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The BBC should be subscription only, there is no reason in this day with the amount of channels that we should be forced to pay this tax.
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Has the BBC decided not to give the Ftse level at the end of the hourly news bullitens?
I'm in the car most of the day, and always tune in to FiveLive especially for the stock market movements.
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the BBC is wonderful, no adverts no pressure from commercial interest, please don't leave me to commercial TV and Radio
and the political predudice of Mudoch and Sky.
Brand and Ross were offensive to many, but in the interest of free speech that is the risk that has to be taken.I personally dislike both of them but many others obviously disagree, the real suprise is that the comments were allowed to go out by those responsible.
As far as I am concerned the BBC is good value for money.dont let the Tories take advantage of this situation to continue their campaign to privatise the BBC.
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Does anyone know when the next series of The Apprentice starts? I have an idea for compullsory seminars for Daily Mail readers. These will teach them how to change frequencies or channels on their radio or TV and more importantly, how to think for themselves.
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The Brand/Ross affair illustrates how mistaken the BBC has been in chasing the youth audience at the risk of alienating the people who actually pay the licence fee, many of whom, like me, have been offended by Ross's behaviour all along. Can you believe he was allowed to get away with asking David Cameron on TV if he had w***ked off over Mrs Thatcher? That went through the BBC's editorial process too. Is this the distinctive high quality broadcasting we are told the BBC signifies? If it is then the licence fee should be abolished. Ross should be sacked. The 12 week suspension looks like a lawyer's compromise and the BBC trying to have it both ways. When the fuss dies down sneak him back on air and carry on as before. The BBC used to be value for money, but you have lost the trust of the mainstream audience and I think you will now pay a very heavy price.
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I think the BBC is value for money and as far as broadcasting goes, on the whole, is superior to any other broadcaster. The problem with the BBC at the moment is its politics. it tends, no blatantly forces down our throats, liberal left multicultural ideology. People are entitled to their views but the BBC should be neutral and representative of the people of this land, who incidentally are mostly indigenous Christians. You never hear a positive counter to the liberal left views I mentioned above although in the street I hear it all the time.
BBC, start representing ALL of us and not a small minority.
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The license fee is an archaic way to raise money for a decrepid and outdated broadcasting company. Isn't it time we came into the 21st Century, and allow the BBC to compete with exisitng programme providers on an even keel? If they are providing such a good service then there will be no worries in the BBC surviving.....At the present time they cannot compete with the likes of sky or setanta and they pay their star performers too much money-- J Ross for example...who do not deliver!!
Lets get rid of this tax, and allow freedom for competition in the broadcasting world and hey what a quick win for any political party--- an extra £11 quid a month in our pockets in these hard times what a bonus!!!!
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I want to suggest that series one of 'mad men' is re-shown in place of the ross show.
it's 45 mins long and 12 epidsodes. and one of best things I've seen tv.
Alot of people wouldn't of seen it,as it was on bbc2 11.20pm last spring. and series 2 will be starting early next year, it's popular for all ages. so let's get it on.
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All those who are complaining that the licence fee should be stopped and the BBC should be privatised and compete with other companies are forgetting that capitalism is literally bankrupt.
Look at the financial state of ITV and a lot of other digital channels or are the taxpayers going to bail them out as well?
We need to retain the licence fee for this reason so like or loathe the concept we need a public service broadcaster to fall back on. Licence fee payers should simply have more say about how the corporation works particularly who its top executives are. What happened was a cowardly capitulation by the Director General to the right wing and that may be due to him being pretty right wing himself! If there was more democrasation of the organisation where executives were held to account it might have been prevented.
There were only two initial complaints out of two million listeners to the Ross and Brand broadcast that caused such a furore. The subsequent 30 thousand complaints a few days later stemmed from the hysteria whipped up by the likes of the Mail and later Tory right wingers who have a clear political agenda against the BBC and will exploit any degree of irreverence to argue for selling the orgainsation off. The whole thing also eclipsed far more important issues which the BBC should be taken to task for over its coverage of vital political and economic issues.
I feel that many BBC co presenters themselves jumped on the bandwagon to pander to this right wing attack. For example, when a comment or email was read out in support of Ross or Brand certain 5 Live presenters, (Peter Allen comes to mind on the Drive programme)always had to supplement it with their comment that 'that view is a minority view'or similar words. Why bother? Its up to listeners to decide what is a minority view not the presenter because meeker or more indecisive listeners might decide to abstain from that view because they are told its a minority!.
Also we were constantly updated with knowing how many complainants there were about the fiasco. To that end, whenever a text or email is read out on any issue can we have a running update on how many complaints or messages of support there were about that text or email.
Nobody should have been sacked, or suspended. Get them back!
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tv aside, which could theoretically be made subscription only, i personally hate the constant competitions and adverts continually spouted by commercial radio stations and i would be very sad to lose R1, R2 and R5.
happy to pay for it, as they also employ a lot of people in this country and our news services is highly respected throughout the world.
i'm sure in the not too distant future a lot more money will be made by the beeb through selling their product to us and the reset of the world, and i expect the license fee to be reduced based on this additional income.
i also suspect that sports coverage on the BBC will be made pay per view within 10 years, the costs are astronomical and it does feel unfair to force everyone to pay.
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Of course the BBC gives value for money. There is so much that it does for a start!
Even for myself who primarily listens to Radio 5 for the sports events and news.
I do think that Radio 5 has been dumbing down for a while now, and I don't think that there should be a political bias (to any political party) in the way that the news programs are selected and reported.
I feel that there is such a bias operating at this time and it devalues the value of the news service.
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I am a Brit and I am very proud of the BBC. I don't know how much Sky costs these days, I walked away from them years ago mostly because it cost too much for the quality of the programs they offer.
I am an F1 fan and I'm delighted that from next season I will be able to watch it live, without adverts. For the last few years while F1 has been on ITV I have had to record it and start watching with a 30min. delay so that I could zap through the maddening and repetitive adds.
The BBC give me very good programs, Spooks, Waking the Dead, Dr Who, Merlin, I could go on for hours. I watch very little ITV stuff because in the main it's rubbish interrupted by adverts! I do accept that not all BBC programs are great (Hole in the Wall!!) but a good deal of it is.
For a relatively small amount of money we get all their TV channels (some in HD apparently), Radio's 1,2,4,5live, world service, 24hr news, Local news and weather. and a great web site. For all of those who say "I don't want to pay because I never watch it" should think of what they do actually watch or listen to over a 24hr period, I'll bet the BBC will be in there somewhere.
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Even at double the current price, the fee would be worth every penny.
Think about the actual shows you watch, listen to and the content you read on line. For the equivalent money you would get less than 4 months SKY Sports coverage. And when you actually calculate what most people actually watch, it would probably work out at about £5 per match and a couple of quid to watch 24 and Footballers Wives. The sheer number of high quality shows on the tv alone means it is easily worth the money. Think about all the repeats of shows sold to UK Gold, Dave and the like - they simply would not exist in the main without the unique funding that BBC receives.
As for making BBC tv and radio commercial, you could argue that the way forward would be to have a certain percentage of the funding come from the commercial arena. Unfortunately a dual funding would be almost impossible as the traditional commercial companies would rightly claim unfair competition.
The problem the BBC has is that everyone can find things they don't like. What people have to do is look at the programming they DO like.
Moreover, the source of the BBC's funding means that there is less pressure for every show to win the ratings war at any given time of day. Ironically, the BBC DOES win the ratings war on television, radio and internet more often than not. But would a SKY or ITV be able to sustain Radio 3, Songs of Praise, Arena, BBC Four and such an indepth, wonderful website as bbc.co.uk? Which is without doubt the best website in the world. If you disagree, just go on skynews, cnn or any other general news site.. they are a shadow of this one!
So, keep it going I say, increase the cost in line with inflation and get the PR folk to tell everyone the positive things we all get out of this wonderful institution. But keep doing what you're doing, pay the best stars - because that's who the MAJORITY want to watch and the market demands they receive the salary they do. But at the same time make sure there is money for cutting edge comedy and superb documentaries (like the Prescott one I'm watching now - how out of touch is he???).
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The BBC does waste loads of public money on terrible dumbed down ITV esq programs. Presenters (of which there are far too many) do get paid far too much public money as do the usually inept out of touch management BUT the BBC is still good value for money as it does only cost me about £10 a month for which I get - Have I Got News For You, MOTD, a few decent documentaries, a decent web-site, BBC news 24, radio4 and of course 5live although the latter has gone down hill a little of late due to the BBC dumbing down process, BBC news24 likewise.
So much of the BBC output is dumbed down rubbish (the likes of Fawlty Towers and Only Fools have been replaced with Cash in Atic and Casualty spin-offs) and so much money is wasted (Davina McCall, Jeremy Vine etc) I can understand why people question the licence fee but I don't think it can be argued that the small amount of decent programming the BBC does provide isn't easily worth alteast £10 a month.
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The simple answer is no. But for me it goes deeper than the Ross/Brand affair. For example:
1) last night (3/11/08) I started watching a program which looked into celebrities relatives who had fought in the "Great War". All very interesting but why choose celebrities? My licence fee has paid for them to be able to do something I would be intersted in doing and my Father has spent many hours researching in his own time with no imput from a professional organisiation.
2) Joanna Lumley fulfilling her childhood dreams of seeing the aurora borealis in Norway... Paid for with my licence fee money. To add insult to injury she made very little sense.
3) Eastenders :- It's just dreadful rubbish.
4) All the re-runs. Stop already!
These are just some of many examples of the BBC supporting their own and bad television. Do these "celebs" really attract that many viewers and should the bbc be chasing ratings so hard?
If I choose not to watch anything made by the bbc and not to listen to bbc radio I still have to pay the licence fee. How can that be right!
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It can be of no suprise that the younger listeners were less concerned about the cost of the BBC. They are unlikely to be paying the license fee.
Faced with paying £12 a week from their incomes (at the expense of tobacco & alcohol) they would all be watching ITV and listening to Heart in a flash.
BBC should retain BBC1 and 2, Radio 4 and 5 (which should be brought back to past intelligent levels with less giggling interviewers) and its world servic obligations. Everything else should be either closed down or sold off.
The license fee could then be brought down to around £40 and represent better value for money.
State monopoly broadcasting will never be either efficient or responsive to its real audience.
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If you ask 16 year olds if fags are good they say "yes", if you ask 16 year olds if alchohol is good they say "yes". These are hardly persuasive reasons to promote the smoking of fags and binge drinking.
Similarly its no surprise that 16 year olds or the core Radio 1 listener think ringing up an Oap and humiliating him is not offensive. Of course if we rang up their grandparents and did it they'd probably not find it so funny.
More worrying is the fact that the BBC took comfort that this section of their audience found the stunt funny.
I assume the BBC also takes comfort from the fact that most 5-8 year olds also have no objection to the broadcast ?
The BBC, out of touch, out of tune and hopefully running out of time
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People like Ross, Clarkson and Hammond et al make huge amounts of money from activities outside the BBC such as endorsements, newspaper columns and adverts. They should count themselves lucky that they are able to market themselves with BBC airtime; it would be in their interests to work for beeb for a nominal sum; there is no credibility in the argument that the BBC should pay vast 'market rates' for 'talent'. If the stars decide to leave they will be replaced by people just as talented - the exposure on BBC will turn those newcomers into stars too.
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I think that the licence fee should be on a sliding scale, according to income and ability to pay. It is the same principle that I thought was important when objecting to the poll tax. I could put up with some advertising or sponsership if necessary.
Otherwise I do think the BBC offers excellent value for money. (I may not take advantage of all of it, but that is due to lack of time and my choices as to what I watch and listen to.)
PS I did complain about the Ross/Brand call, but do not see that incident as being an argument, in any shape or form, for the abolition of the licence fee.
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I like alot of what the BBC has to offer, but no matter how you look at it the licence fee is a tax.
And what Ross and others earn is a joke........BTW does the Beeb use Mercedes cars to ferry all its presenters to work? I bet it does.........Do you get a free lift to work Victoria?.........on the Beeb gravy train,
Easy money if you ask me.
Any jobs going?
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I endorse the views of non-english given above.
I am total agreement with what BBC did with those two in phone message incident.
Many young people may overlook the ''sex'' in the message and approve the subsequent ''forgiveness'' of the grand-daughter involved.
However, it hurts to think of the effect the phone message would have had on the Grandfather.
Listening to the apologetic phone message makes my blood boil ... the utter callousness from these two highly paid men is totally demeaning and mortifying.
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