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Absolutely. ITV doesn't have Hustle.
As for the comment about only wanting to watch Channel 5, I'd suggest that person broadens their horizons a little...try using the channel buttons on the remote control - they're a wonderful thing.
What a load of shit. Since when did the BBC have a bottomless pit of money (let's see some proof, please!) Do job cuts and restructuring not tell you something i.e. that the BBC realise that efficiency is needed because there is no bottemless pit. Since when did they have no incentive to create programmes that viewers can appreciate and enjoy? You make it sound like they create utter crap all the time and have no viewers (again, let's see some proof, please!)
"Insidious nonsense" - cut the pompous crap. If ITV can advertise their own shows to death, I see no reason why the BBC can't. And if they choose to avoid blatant adverts, instead promoting their programmes within other programmes, then so be it. Or are you one of these dipsticks that believes in freedom of choice and that we shouldn't be fucking influenced by anything!
It does, it is not subject to any commercial constraints.
If they run out of money, they just bung the licence fee up by an exorbitant amount. 5% increases because the BBC cannot budget itself properly.
Not really.
Why else is that Irish fuckhead Norton on a multi-million contract? Why does Jim Davidson suck half a million big ones from Aunty's titties every year? Why does Aunty Efficient pay half a million smacker to a local news reader of all people? Anne Robinson does the square root of naff all yet she sucks a million quid out of the Beeb every year. So does Davina McCall, Jeremy Clarkson, Gaby Roslin and Chris Moyles; oh, and Chris Evans too, for that matter.
Why do the BBC need to take four times as many staff as ITV to the world cup? Why do they need to put them all up in top quality hotels? Why were the BBC hiring out exclusive hotel suites for the Commonwealth games technical staff when there's a purpose-built international media centre across the street in Melbourne?
Why do the BBC spend hundreds of thousands of pounds giving Peter Schmeichel "media training", and then pay him off with yet more hundreds of thousands of pounds when he didn't grasp how to read an autocue?
How can the BBC afford to send a crew of hundreds to Ibiza and Ayia Napa every sodding year if it has a restrictive budget?
Efficient my arse.
Because the BBC sells itself by being advertising-free. And steals £130 out of my wallet every bloody year to pretend that it is.
Yup, I'm a dipstick that believes in freedom of choice.
I should be free to watch the BBC's superior competitors without having to pay the thieves at Television Centre for the privilege.
I should be free to choose to turn my TV on and not get sent to jail for not handing over a gigantic wedge of readies to a bunch of corrupt, thieving scum.
The BBC should be shut down and sold off. Now is the time to do it. In a modern society thieves like Aunty have no place existing. Time to put the old bat out of my misery.
Interesting that the original post comdemned several channels in the mistaken belief that they were all funded by the licence fee. The one channel which wasn't criticised was the BBC. Funny that.
Oh, as for adverts. The BBC use their own station to mention their own products. Why is that a problem? It highlights the things which you have already paid for...
Oh and despite the few cases mentioned, the BBC is notorious for paying it's staff quite poorly.
Doesn't the fee also pay for all the antenna's, television transmitters, etc? of which ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 benefit?
No they don't.
The viewers decide what gets put on. No viewers = no advertising revenue = ITV going bust.
A programme attracting 10 million viewers would never be pulled from ITV to make way for another programme. Don't believe the BBC bullshit.
Ah yes, my mistake. The local newsreader has to live in a box because her £600,000pa salary is so crap.
And as for the DG, a man so great he bites people he doesn't like, I see him having to sleep on a park bench because of his paltry salary.
I know the NUJ like to pretend they're hard done to, but they're not. They're all going on strike because the BBC has dared to shove their overpoaid cushy jobs from London to Manchester, the poor diddumses. Anyone going on strike about the BBC cost-cutting should be instantly dismissed.
As for the BBC, they can spend £20m on a programme nobody likes, and not even feel the pinch. It may well be before your time, but I remember Eldorado, and that shower of shite is symptomatic of the disgusting way the BBC steals my money and then pisses it away.
Word. :thumb:
Well I'm sure the CEO of McDonalds gets a big fat paycheck too, does that mean that all the workers do? Does it fuck. The BBC pay their basic workers less than independent companies like Sky.
Don't give me any of that "before your time" bullshit. Your one year older than me for fucks sake. Yeah I do remember Eldorado. It was expensive. It was shit. And it was pulled after one year. Independent comapnies do the same thing all the time. This an example of the BBC continuing to make a programme that no-one likes? Why d'you think it was stopped after a year then?
What's wrong with that though?
The BBC do exactly the same thing. That's why you'll never see a pro-Conservative news story on BBC News, for instance.
And the BBC isn't exactly dripping with news stories about how its a huge waste of money and it should be shut down.
If that happens to be true, and I have my doubts, then that is exactly how it should be.
The staff at the BBC shouldn't have a job at all really.
A lot of people don't remember it.
At a cost of £20m to the people of this country.
How many people were dismissed for that?
I should really add Rhodes and Gormenghast to that list of expensive flops. Between then £65 MILLION of MY MONEY went down the lav because of the BBC's gross incompetence.
And the reason why the BBC continue with this gross incompetence? It's because they are not responsible to anyone for anything. When I can vote out the DG, and when I can vote to get rid of racists like Davidson, then perhaps the BBC might possibly have a leg to stand on.
As it is it sucks my wallet dry, and offers me nothing in return that isn't done better and cheaper by independent companies.
I agree with everything you've said about the BBC in principle (though I don't care that much because I would voluntarily pay for it given the chance). But the only way to to have a BBC that is truely accountable that would be to replace the license fee with an optional BBC service, but most importantly, one that relies on subscriptions instead of, not as well as advertising for revenue.
But it doesn't though.
Sure you won't get a programme sponsored by B&Q extolling the virtues of Wickes, but big deal.
When was the last time Aunty Pickpocket told us all to watch ITV because it was better?
I'd agree with that.
If the BBC was set up as a commercial organisation it would be accountable to the people paying for it. If they made shite telly and kept paying "stars" such as Christa Ackroyd £600,000 a year then they would go bust. They would be acting on a level playing field with the independent commercial operators, and that is exactly how it should be. If the BBC brand is strong enough the company will swim; if it isn't, it won't.
The problem I have with the BBC is that it is funded by theft and kept afloat with extortion. Either I pay those thieves £130 or I go to prison. Where's the accountability and choice in that?
The BBC then chooses to act as a commercial organisation and drive its competitors into liquidation because it has a guaranteed income every year. BBC Worldwide exists solely to sell programmes I've already fucking paid for back to me on DVD. BBC Magazines debunk the theory that the Beeb is advertising-free- why is it that at the end of every programme there's an advert telling me to buy the commercial magazine if the BBC doesn't do advertising? And the worst thing of all is BBCi- no other company can get a decent web presence because the BBC pours hundreds of millions of pounds of my money into a website that acts solely as a commercial operator.
The BBC uses its privileged and protected status to drive independent companies out of business. That is completely inexcusable, and its about time that independent commerce was protected ahead of the corrupt and inefficient BBC.
Oh I agree with you about the BBC though. Anyone notice the blatant Apple advertising in Spooks, for example. But I still think they offer the programming that is least compromised by advertising. That's why if the BBC was to go private, it should keep it's policy on non-advertising, but I'm not sure if this would be viable while remaining competitive (would more people subscribe voluntarily if they promised to have no adverts).
To an extent perhaps, but really I think the main reason is that television and radio platforms are heavily monitored and licensed, and you are not allowed to broadcast unless you are conformist.
Why else would it be a criminal offence to broadcast a radio station without having a government-approved licence?
Your comments about Sky choosing what channels to carry on its system equally apply to the BBC's Freeview platform. And the BBC is notoriously anti-competitive when it comes to the radio platform, it is a well known fact that competitors to the BBC find it largely impossible to gain national FM frequencies. Many of the BBC's closest commercial competitors such as Galaxy only get around it by owning many local stations with existing frequency rights, and some competitors such as Virgin don't get around it at all.