Whether you agree with the license fee or not, the BBC is not in any way comparable to Netflix/Disney.
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I don’t pay but if they broke it up into subscriptions and did the childrens content CBBC/CBeebies at say £1.99 a month they would have me paying. The kids are more than happy with what Netflix and Disney provide though.
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It feels more and more inevitable to me that the BBC has had its day and it’s only a matter of time before sweeping changes happen.
I’d personally opt for a much reduced service that provides news, investigative reporting and (I guess because someone has to) coverage of things like the Queens funeral as well as the world service and some other radio shows / content.
Everything else can belong to private subscription service models. If someone wants to pay to watch 25 seasons of strictly they can, but we shouldn’t have to contribute just to keep important things like the news service going.
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Pretty much. Some - like Dr Who or in the past Top Gear - are revenue generators that make them quite a bit of money. But things like Strictly, I’m pretty sure they are just costs.
I’ve always been an advocate for the large BBC catalogue. Knowing that there are things there for everybody was a great idea. Want to learn how to cook? There are programmes and connected websites for that. Want to listen to live music and watch summer festivals? They’ve got ya. Sports your thing? We have a selection of shows and associated website. Really in to history? We have programmes, podcasts and a magazine!
Not every show was for me but I knew something there would be.
But the way the government has been going after them I won’t be surprised if the licence fee model goes through a huge overhaul and IF we pay anything it will be tiny for a tiny offering. It will be a big shame.
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I think the government is broadly right that the licence fee model doesn’t work in the media environment of the future. I’ll always look back on the BBC fondly, but broadcasting just isn’t nearly as important or essential as it once was in the age of streaming platforms. There’ll need to be some sort of major reform.
The problem to me is what the government and the Tory press really want is to can the news parts, because a fact checked, independent news service that people trust is highly troublesome for the way they would prefer to run the country. That’s the part I think we should preserve at all costs.
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They’re not all tax payer funded. I think the World Service is mainly paid for by the Foreign Office. Some programmes are paid for by BBC Worldwide (their commercial arm). There’s also a number of joint productions like Dr Who (Disney) and many documentaries (mainly Open University but also PBS America) among others.
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And yet with the rise of deep fake videos and state influence in apps like TikTok, it’s possible that high quality broadcasting will take on a new importance soon…
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High quality news and content yes absolutely, it’s never been more important.
By broadcasting though, I mean live distribution - that part is going to become less and less important which is why the licence fee model has a limited lifespan.
Personally I don’t see the link between transmission and licence fee. It could move 100% online and still need to be funded to maintain the obligation of entertainment/education/impartiality. I’ve always thought of the licence fee as a way to secure funding for impartial news PLUS niche shows that may not be commercial successes and survive somewhere like ITV.
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It’s hard baked into the licence fee model.
The model doesn’t really work if it’s only online - right now if you are online only, you only pay for the licence fee if you consume BBC iPlayer content, this is a big issue because on that model it becomes a much more optional streaming service and lots more people are opting out and just saying ‘I’ll watch other services’. If it’s left at that with no major reform BBC funding will tank anyway.
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But is that only because policing who has a TV is easier than who has a tablet? Because otherwise how is it different to a subscription model. We pay monthly and they produce content.
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‘Who has a TV’ is no longer the criteria. It’s now ‘if you watch live TV or if you watch BBC iPlayer’
The basis of the model is that the vast majority of people watch live TV, but that will change. It will rely more and more on the second part - in which case it isn’t different at all to the other subscription streaming services - people will opt in if they think it offers them more than Netflix or whatever.
The problem is, if it becomes that then its capacity to produce things like high quality news will diminish because realistically that doesn’t draw people to iPlayer. We are already seeing this - they are scaling down newsnight for example. If we want it to be another Netflix we can leave it untouched, but I don’t think most people do want that which is why it needs a new model that doesn’t rely on people watching broadcast TV.
There’s also the fact nobody under 40 watches live news these days.
It’ll be news you saw on X posted two days ago.
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Oh I know this part I just always assumed that with the right offering people would just pay to consume the content online. If there hadn’t been a concerted effort to convince people the BBC is somehow terrible/evil/biased/a scam (insert latest facebook conspiracy theory here).
It will be a shame if it becomes a purely commercial proposition.
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Yeah I ditched Sky a few years ago and don’t watch any live TV anymore. I mostly watch Netflix or Apple TV. But there is just enough left on BBC that I would miss it. The world can can keep ITV though.
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Not true, because:
It’s already hard enough to avoid watching some news-related programming in the morning on the weekend.
In any case, I’m fully in Camp The License Fee Freeze Should Be Unfrozen, because the current cuts in the BBC’s output are already intolerable, and keeping the fee frozen will only make things worse.
For example, Doctors has been cancelled because the BBC can’t afford to make that much new daytime drama content any more. And regardless of what anyone thinks about the quality of the show, the fact is it was about the only training ground left in the UK for actors and crew wanting to get experience on a proper production (not dissimilar to Neighbours in Australia, and the gnashing and wailing down under about where the next Guy Pearce or Margot Robbie could possibly come from without it).
Not for me! Even if I cut off 99% of the stuff that I could take or leave, there are still, currently, three things that are non-negotiable for me:
- University Challenge
- Only Connect
- ToTP repeats on BBC4
Also the classic drama repeats on BBC4; they did loads over the last several decades last year for 100 years of the BBC, and this year they’ve been doing '90s dramas like Cardiac Arrest and Hamish Macbeth. Maybe I could buy them on DVD or pay to stream them over BritBox, but I do appreciate having them on BBC4.
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I was more expecting the I’m under 40 and still watch the news so it can’t be everyone 
I’m under 40 and sometimes watch the news, only if it’s on at feeding time.
Surely some minimal beats with no vocals etc rather than some depressing news.
I fully get the background noise though, my wife puts films she’s seeing a million times on like Die Hard whilst working.
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