All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Steve P: because then they wouldn't be able to pick up weak signals....
Tuners work within certain parameters - and generally, a good brand will mean a reasonably sensitive tuner. If its too strong, its much easier to lower the strength than boost a weak signal.
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Iain Davies: yet BBC3 has a bigger audience than BBC4....you might think its tosh, but many BBC3 viewers might be equally unimpressed with their regional programming.
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Ian: You would be one of a tiny number of people who never use any BBC services, if indeed that was actually the case. Brianist has posted data which reports that about 97% of the population does use some BBC services, and despite people swearing blind that they dont watch or listen to the BBC, I am more inclinded to believe the research.
As for scrapping the licence fee - think about it for a couple of seconds. There is only so much advertising revue to go round - companies do not spend twice as much because there is more space available. The BBC has a big brand name, is already watched by the majority of the population, and has both popular programmes and a huge archive. If they enter the market, ITV is basically stuffed. As Brianist pointed out the other day, no rivals ever suggest this, because it would kill them.
Betamax man - BBC3 is losing its broadcast channel, and will lose most of its funding, retaining just £30m for production. The internet part is obviously an attempt to make lemoande out of lemons - better to think of it as a premier online channel for productions that will end up on BBC2. As I keep pointing out, its the production that costs money - the transmission costs the same for a blockbusting drama as it does for a bloke with a sock puppet.
I suspect that BBC3's age range (teenagers to thirties) probably has a slightly higher rate of broadband use than most - 42% of the general population, but that age range has a larger amount of internet use than any other age group. And they also use mobiles to go online.
Charles Stuart: I totally agree that the Iplayer loophole should be closed. When this is mentioned on newspaper comment boards, people try to justify it with some vaguely libertarian nonsense, but bascially its freeloading. Sky wouldn't allow it, so why should the BBC?
In fact the BBC is launching pay-per-view BBC to charge licence payers £5 to download favourite shows in challenge to Netflix and iTunes | Mail Online , and the Global Iplayer App costs about $10 a month. For most of us, we just need put a unique number from your TV License into the Iplayer app/software, in exactly the same way that Netflix, Now TV, etc work. A cookie checks that your License is in date and thats it. If you use it, then you should pay for it. The Germans certainly have that mindset.
The really crazy thing about being proud of just watching the BBC online is thats its far less less flexible than having a licence and being able to record. Not everything is online for very long, and if your watching TV on a monitor, the biggest you can reasonably get is 29", and most are smaller than that - thats basically a portable TV. The World Cup is really going to be great on that...
I'm not sure that we have the best TV in the world, but I'm sure that we have a pretty good standard of TV, and certainly US TV goes from excellent to awful, and the number of ads is just vast. Basically, we get a very good deal, and Brianists recent article on comparative costs of European broadcasters shows we are pretty cheap.
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MikeP: We should also remember that all channels, especially the commerical ones, show 'adverts' for their own programmes. Thats natural - its to remind viewers what else is available, what coming up and whats on demand, etc. People may not like the 'ads', but obviously they work, which is why they are used.
As for the idea of the 'survival of the fittest', as MikeP points out ' if the BBC were to try taking advertising revenue then some other medium will lose out'. That other medium might well be something else that we also value.
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Andrew Way: Yep - its Sky's world, although they are really looking for a PBS style BBC - minimal funding, always under threat, horribly worthy and with a tiny market share.
Spoof or Grant Shapps plan for the BBC? I suspect the latter. Of course Mr Shapps has other things to worry about at the moment. The Twitter tag #torybingo is a joy, and someone has even set up a site just to make your own #ToryBingo Poster Generator
As the quote goes from T2 - 'John Connor: The whole thing goes: The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves'
Lets make sure this isn't the future of the BBC.
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Briantist: At least he BBC has seemingly been much more savvy this time round. Last time, as the article pointed out, Thompson basically had no game plan, and just caved on the grounds that if they did complain, the government would hurt them more.
This time, although a settlement is going to be hard fought, no matter what government is in power, the BBC has at least come out fighting. Tony Hall has made the case early for a licence fee in line with inflation, and has warned very early about what will happen if the settlement does not increase revenue - goodbye to BBC4, local news, etc (some might see this as the 'Blazing Saddles' defence).
Even Daily Mail readers, who might regard the BBC as the Bolshivik Broadcasting Corporation are going to hate that. Perhaps they dont watch/listen to the Proms apart from the Last Night, but they like to know its there. MP's (perhaps even Andrew Bridgen) might not like a deluge of outraged letters from Middle England. By 2017, it will be 9 years since the credit crunch, so 'austerity' will no longer work as an excuse. If the Tories want to starve the BBC, they are going to have to come up with an idea which passes the smell test.
Hall has also fought hard to answer the push for decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee, which at least means the legislation will be enabling, rather than immediate. Hopefully, when the BBC do prosecute, they will be as ruthless as Sky is.
And he has come out strongly against moochers just using Iplayer without paying the licence fee - the problem is going to grow, so its wise to try to kill that loop-hole as soon as possible. Again, Sky would simply not allow that to happen, so why should the BBC be any different? TrevorHarries's legalistic sophistry not withstanding, if your viewing content, you should pay for it.
The idea of restricting revenue as a political weapon is one learnt from conservative circles in the US. Amoungst 'shrink government and drown in bathtube' types, this is known as 'starving the beast' (read Thomas Frank's 'The Wrecking Crew' for more background). However, it can rebound. Mitt Romney argued for, and the GOP actually tried to defund PBS - this led to articles like this Don’t Mess With Big Bird - NYTimes.com and cartoons like this:
imgur: the simple image sharer and this: Internet Gets Big Bird's Back After Romney Says He'd Defund PBS | Underwire | Wired.com . (the F & U is particularly good) It did not end well for them.
Brigden probably didn't think it up himself, but it fits in well with the gradual erosion of the BBC's finances. I suspect that the bulk of the MP's that currently support the move are Tories, apart from the occassional 'useful idiot' from LD or Labour circles. If the BBC is to survive, it has to make it clear that any politician will pay a very high price for harming it.
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Alvin Pritchard: 'People will just loose interest and give up the ghost with the beeb in the end then refuse to cough up for the annual licence fee on the grounds that the beeb has broken up into a non recognized or required service they wish to pay for.' -
As far as the current government is concerned, that is a not a bug, its a feature.
Frankly, the above article reminded me a little of 'V for Vendetta'.
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trevorjharris: There are some things you can rely on in life, and one of them is you saying the usual factoids and opinions, but supplying no evidence to back them up.
Of course if the BBC does become extinct, will you have the same sympathy for the poor of the country who will have little choice but to pay for the fat cats of Sky? The channel MD is paid about £7m a year in total, and Sky's tax situation means that at one point in the 1990's, it had paid no UK corporate tax for 11 years.
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trevorjharris: The whole point of Radio 3 is not to play the same 30 pieces over and over again.
If you want to hear 'The Best of the Classics' CD collection, then Classic FM is for you. There was a recent discussion of their 'Hall of Fame Top 100 Film Themes' on Britimovie. The consensus was that that the audience must have listened to about 10 bits of music in the last 20 years. I loved the comment of one contributor 'North by Northwest at 98? Korngold's Robin Hood at 89? Behind Twilight? Sweet mother of....Tiresomely predictable for Classic FM. I am always stunned that with an infinite variety of music, they have a playlist.'
If the BBC plays 'wayout classical music', why is that a bad thing? Radio 3 is not commercial, it does not have to please its advertisers, and thus can do something a little different, which might actually broaden the minds of lts listeners. Thats an advantage. Besides, wouldn't catering for Classic FM's market be 'commercial'?
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Saturday 15 March 2014 11:25PM
Nina: Check you connection to the recorder - if its scart, make sure its pushed in properly, and if HDMI, could be duff. Also check that the settings are on standard. TV's can make allowances for different sources, and offer a time delay. That can be useful, but in your case, it might be the root of the problem.