All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Betamax man: How would they save any money? If your not showing BBC news on 1 at say 4am, you've got to fill it with something else. The electricity bill is a very small part of the budget, and your paying for the transmitter in any case. And since your paying for the news anyway...
And I like BBC 3 and 4!
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MikeP: Agreed - there does seem to be an obsession with turning off transmissions late at night, as though it will save any money. Apparently Harry Warner used to go round the Warner Bros lot turning off the lights at night that had been accidently left on. It might have made him feel better, but in the grand scheme of things, it made no difference to the bottom line.
And there are lots of people who are up at all hours, as well as those who missed recording something the first time round - they get a second chance.
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MikeP: True. Despite the fact that VCR's have been pretty much standard in UK homes for the last 30 years, 69% of adult viewing is still done 'live'. 16% is recorded, and only 5% is using catchup like Iplayer. 3% is Love Film, etc. TV and radio demographics: a BBC time bomb?
OK, on demand viewing via the web is going to increase, and certainly younger people and childen are watching somewhat differently, but technologies often move faster than people.
Firstly, you need to be on the web, and as MikeP says, you need a fast enough broadband speed to watch TV reasonably. Even if you have that, many still dont have any way of accessing those services, and even when they do, they often dont use it, or only very seldom. Thats going to change, but its going to take time, and a lot of content is only available for a relatively short amount of time.
As I advise customers, 'record when you can, stream when you must'.
And frankly, very little money would be saved. Its the content that costs, not the electric bill. The BBC must pay for the transmitter whether they are broadcasting or not, and after that, its just a continuity announcer and someone making sure its all going out correctly. News 24 is just that, a 24 hour operation anyway.
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Willie Bone: If you mean the news that Classic FM uses, its OK in its own way, but its hardly groundbreaking. There is no way that it could cover the world in the same way that the World Service does. In fact the World Service is excellent (the daily Ebola report has been facinating), and thanks to online and DAB, we can now listen to it all day, rather than listening to it only during the early morning when R4 was off air (its how I kept awake when my kids were babies and they couldn't sleep..).
I agree, the Governement should be stumping up a fair amount for what is basically one of the best examples of 'soft power' the UK has, but the BBC got ambushed in the last settlement.
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Peter: A postcode would be helpful, but if your getting worse reception, its generally a problem with your system, perhaps a loose connection or frayed wire, etc. Check which transmitter your on - if you've retuned, you might not have the best transmitter. Are there any trees in the way? And remember that while you and your neighbour might both have problems, they may not have the same cause.
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Brian Rawlinson: But relatively few listen to LW - five years ago it cost £100 per head, and thats probably increased now.
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Anthony: Your not familiar with the phrase 'sweating the assests', are you? Your scheme might have been OK for about 1968, but its not going to fly now. Present that to investors and they'd laugh - dead air makes you nothing. So as long as you can make more money by showing anything at 4am than its costs you to broadcast it, you'll do it.
And yes, I record stuff I missed first time around in exactly the way MikeP describes.
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Rob: You claim your not handwaving, and then proceed to handwave, all over again.
' i seen it in black and white'. I dont know what you've seen in balck and white (you refuse to tell us), but if you mean how much senior people at the BBC are paid, thats easy. Its on the BBC website, right down to what they claim for expenses. However, context is everything, so once again, I ask the question, if they are overpaid, in relation to who?
Could you bother to give any examples? No. You replied 'so its totaly up to you to find out.... am not giving you examples' . So yes, your just handwaving.
And on the matter of taxi's, having been on TV years ago (largely to make up the numbers on Kilroy), they wanted us in the studio, which was in Teddington, and I certainly wasn't going to get there under my own steam at an ungodly time of the morning. So they picked us up by taxi. Which was reasonable, considering there would have been about five people in the presence of the orange one in the studio when the show went out live, if they had not provided transport.
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Adrian: I'd start with signal levels - are they bery high on the glitchy channels?
And a postcode would be helpful...
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Wednesday 10 December 2014 10:34PM
Briantist: I've always liked this quote from John Rogers about Rand:
'There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.'
As for Fred Perkins point, I've never held back in criticising the BBC when I feel its due. Payoffs, the mess over Saville, often poor coverage of key subjects, and sometimes a tin ear - all of these are perfectly valid points. I know Brianist has highlighted issues with the BBC. But any criticism should be fair, objective and constructive. And the problem is that the attacks on the BBC are all too often none of those.
The BBC is an international brand, and where content is concerned, its one of many, and that does include Google, MS, etc. However, the BBC is not the biggest broadcaster in the UK by revenue, Sky is, with close to 8 billion in revenue. Even ITV's share of revenue is 2.3 billion this past year. The BBC gets some 3.5 billion, which is a fixed sum which has been frozen for some years, and may fall further in real terms.
Remember that the BBC is expected for its money to do things that the market simply does not. Original UK produced childrens programmes? Forget it on ITV. And Sky? Regional programming and local news? ITV's presence is far less than it was. Nature programmes? The BBC is pretty much the only game in town - the costs are simply not attractive to the commercial market. Current Affairs and documentaries? C5 really doesn't bother much, and ITV's current affairs is minimal. The regional language services, like Alba, etc? The market really does not care. In fact the BBC is now going to be paying for both its own service and S4C. Its good that UK produced drama still does well on C4, and that ITV has raised its game so much. There are even occasional highlights from Sky. But the BBC produces more drama than any other single broadcaster on earth. And lets not even start about radio...
So when I ask for evidence to back up the claim that BBC executives are paid too much, its not because I refuse to listen to any criticism about the BBC. Its simply because I want to judge fairly if they are or not. I want data. Someone's opinion does not trump actual facts. So where are they?