All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Dan H: the suggestion of a subscription service has been suggested many times, but dies a death when it comes to practcially and cost. There are no recording devices out there capable of being a 'Beeb box', they would have to be designed and built. There would need to be a huge roll out of such boxes, and who would pay for them? Do you get one free? Do you buy the next one? Who knows. What is clear is that it would cost billions, would make a lot of useable kit obsolete, and be a total pain. If Sky is any guide, it would require a quarter of any revenue stream to maintain such a system, and of course if takeup is less than 100%, will require even more money per household than present, plus the need to cover the costs of making the subscription model work.
So having a sort of partial system makes even less sense. You've got all the costs, but people get a lot of it free? If I'm paying a subscription, I dont want any freeloaders, and what is 'popular entertainment' anyway? And you've still got to pay a licence fee?
On the other hand, I would like more archive stuff (people will complain about repeats, but then they are often the same people who fork out for UKGold) - there is some great stuff on Iplayer already, but we could certainly have more.
Dave Hagen: A report two years ago reckoned that the move was generally well handled, although some of the relocation packages were too generous. People in the North rightly complain that much of the media is too London based, and it was right to move much of BBC production out of expensive London. Who knows what savings there will be, but if they had stayed, people would also have complained. As for Gary Lineker and co, they are in a competitive market, and you dont get something for nothing. And as Brianist pointed out, the total 'talent' costs are a relatively small part of the overall budget. Its a bit of 'look over there - a squirral!'
Its worth wondering just how much the columnists who go on about how much the BBC pays for Chris Evans, etc, actually get paid themselves? And their editor. I suspect they are not on minimum wage, and possibly far more than they would be if they worked for the BBC.
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Brianist: You might be interested in this:
BBC deprivation study made people change their views on the licence fee: "Being without the BBC was absolutely dreadful"
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M
Can I stop paying Sky and use my satellite receiver to get FreeTuesday 25 August 2015 3:06PM
Macclesfield
Tricia Camm : If there is an aerial connection upstairs, then give it a try. On a previous post you gave the postcode, and digitalUK reckons that your just going toi get the Light transmitter at Whitby, but its easy and it wont cost a penny.
If you want to got via a dish, then it might cost you. Have a look at the dish, and look at the bit that sticks out at the end with the wires coming out. If its got two spares apces for extra cables, then you've got a quad LNB - great. If its just two, and no more spaces, then thats not. Each sat. receiver (Freesat, generic or Sky) has to have an LNB. If you have just two, you'll have to add more. You can replace the twin with a quad, and run extra cable or (which might be easier, especially if the bedroom is a long way from the dish), just put up another dish.
Satcure has loads of info about it, and so you could put it up yourself. A twin LNB dish with wiring should be about a hundred pounds or less if you want to get someone to do it. DIY is cheapest, but might be more stressful! The TV might even have a sat tuner built into it, but if not a Freesat box can be easily had.
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M
When you can't quite hear the TV, subtitles are criticalWednesday 26 August 2015 7:33PM
Macclesfield
MikeP: The 575 series is a great little number, but it not designed to output from two sources, and neither were the Samsung's until the year after - not a big problem unless its something you need to do!
Actually, there are three audio outputs - the 3.5mm jack (analogue), digital optical and the ARC HDMI port. Since my 'new to me' LG flat screen has no audio outputs at all, thats sounds good to me!
If the soundbar was via the 3.5mm jack, then a simple split would be fine. LG's want you to chose one output, so if your using the optical, thats it. However, Maplin does sell an optical splitter for a whole £1.43, and that, a second optical lead and a DAC (there is one on Amazon for £6.95) should give you the option of running both with (kind of) seprate volumes. Its a bit Heath Robinson, but its should work!
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Brianist: I'm not sure about the DOGS (although most channels have them now), but I certainly agree that the BBC should point out to licence fee payers what they are getting for their money, and why thats a good thing. Of course the Daily Mail will decry it as propaganda, but since they think Antiques Roadshow is propaganda, who cares?
Martin Baines: Sadly, the same cannot be said for 'voluntary subscriptions'. This is a piece of magical thinking, which is only trotted out by people try to reconcile an ideological position with its practical flaws. What emerges is a simply economic and behavioural nonsense. When Netflix, Amazon Prime and Sky all have 'voluntary sibscriptions', we'll think about it, but until then its simply nonsense.
You also seemed to jumped to the wrong conclusion about the 'deprevation experiment'. If the BBC went subscription (which is often suggested), then it would basically disappear for those unable to afford the (much more expensive) subscription, and its doubtful that much of its radio content would survive. Likewise, if it was starved down to the PBS style broadcaster of 'very serious stuff', then much of the things that people like about the BBC would simply disappear.
Would other stuff be snapped up? The commercial sector could have commissioned Great British Bake Off, Horrible Histories or Sherlock. They didn't. They could have made Wolf Hall, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (and shown it on a Sunday night!) or An Honourable Woman. They didn't. They could have come up with a programme about ballroom dancing, or devised a way to watch programmes on the internet. But they BBC did. No one is going to make Radio 4, nor The World Service. I'm pleased that money is going into production from ITV and Sky, and C4 (as a state owned company) has always done well. However, if you think changing the BBC would not have consequences, the experiment clearly shows your wrong.
The experiment actually provides some data to answer many of the sort of meme's that people always trot out.
I never watch or use the BBC, so why am I paying for it?
I wouldn't miss the BBC if it was gone
Its too expensive for what you get
Its rubbish - who watches it?
Everyone does the same sort of thing - whats different about it?
The BBC could do adverts - I dont mind them at all
How did it turn out? After just 9 days (so about two episodes missed froma weekly show or about 5 episodes of Eastenders), two thirds of the 'did not want or should pay less' crowd changed their minds. I'm actually wondering if some of the others might have also had those sort of feelings, but knowing the cussedness of some anti BBC types, they just refused to admit it. And if the study had lasted longer, who knows what might have happened?
However, the comments do tend to refute the memes. Firstly, they did watch the BBC, and as one person said, a lot more than they thought. It turns out that they really didn't like adverts all that much, and some brought up the quality of the alternatives to the BBC. Personally, I have no idea if the ITV weather is better or worse than the BBC's, but someone though so. They also missed the BBC, and the sort of programmes it did.
The other thing that stands out is that they seemed to realise suddenly that the licence fee was only 40p a day, and that they actually got good value from it.
If you look at the data and match to various opinion polls, then the difference if that experiment is pretty stark. Normal polling reckons the licence fee is OK with about 50% to 69% of the public. They lost 1 from the 21 full supporters, so a drop of around 4%. However, they then add around 20% of 'converts', which makes around 85% willing to pay the licence fee at its current level or even more. Thats a pretty big change.
The ones that stayed as they were tended to say they hadn't missed it, or wanted to pay less often gave the reason of cost (although I'm slightly stumped as to what they could get cheaper) and ' the obligatory nature of the licence fee was often a secondary rationale'. Thats as much an ideological/personal view as anything, and if perhaps difficult to change.
I think what this experiemnt did was show people that you dont know what you've got until its gone, and its perfectly acceptable that the BBC reminds people of what they are paying for, and its relative cost.
I like this quote:
'At the conclusion of the experiment, families were given £3.60, a rebate for the nine days of BBC access they had foregone. For many, that was a watershed moment. That's what, £12 a month, said one unnamed participant, who was initially against the licence fee. And we pay £70-odd a month for Sky. That's a bit of a shock to be honest.
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Martin Baines: I notice that you've abandoned 'voluntary subscription' for a slightly more tangiable solution, of actual subscription. Yet, your still engages in magical thinking.
A software upgrade? Its as easy as that? In that case, why is BT Sport available via an app on smartphone/tablet, Sky or their own BT box? And although Sky has Sky Go (and of course Now TV), I've seen nothing to indicate that they are giving up their boxes any times soon.
As MikeP has so ably pointed out, most TV's (and PVR's) are not able to be reconfigered via a software update (they were never designed for that), and even if that were possible, how would they work for subscription services? Neither my TV or my PVR have the capacity for any sort of return path, and the previous TV had no CAM slot at all, and the PVR has none. In fact, if you read Brianists page about the birth of Freeview, CAM cards were deliberately left out of PVR's and set-top boxes Popular misconceptions 3: looking back at DG Greg Dyke
So a decent part of the population will have to change their set-top box, PVR or TV, or buy something extra.
Even for smart TV's, I'm not sure the software upgrade would be supported by all brands, and we all know how much even a small change can make big problems. And I'm not sure how secure CAM cards would be, anyway (Brianist - can you explain?). If it was web based communication, what about the people who dont have web access?As for Firesticks, etc, thats easy, but only 5% of viewing is streamed at present, so what about the other 95%? Online only viewing in 5 years? Have you seen the average speed of rural broadband? You might as well promise everyone will have their own jetpack!
Have a look at the BBC webpage about this: BBC Blogs - About the BBC - Why subscription isn't the best way to fund the BBC , and then answer the question they ask about radio - who will pay for that? Its impossible to encrypt, so if I am a subscriber, then I get to listen to BBC radio, but so does everyone else as well.
And you havn't bothered about the cost. Fewer subscribers means higher costs per subscriber. Even if we accept this amazing 'software' idea, will it cost less than the roughly 3% it costs to collect now, and what will the actual cost be? Sky spends a quarter of its revenue on maintaining its subscription system, so I'd love to know what the figues would be for your plan. And one other thing - 97% of licence fee payers access the BBC on a weekly basis, so what is the point?
Personally, I'd like Brianist to do an article on this subject. I know relatively little about subscription security systems, and it would be interesting to know how they could work, if other equipment could be 'upgraded', and what sort of costs would it be to operate. Frankly, the whole is nonsense, but I'd like some hard data to show it.
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Briantist: The two most often repeated comments on any newspaper article about the BBC is 'why cant they just have ad's', and 'if they are so popular, why not just have subscription'. Often followed by 'sorted'.
Frankly, at that point you want to just want to say 'I'm afraid its a bit more complicated than that' (I got my mate the Ben Goldacre T-Shirt last year Bad Science - Fighting Pseudoscience - next my shopping list), but it would better to have a well considered article from you that we can just link to. Think of yourself as the SkepticalScience.com of the broadcasting world!
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David: I'm sure Brianist has some figures somewhere, but probably not a huge amount. The content is relatively cheap, because the audience isn't huge. However, it would be amazingly unpopular, judging by my Dad's viewing habits, and I suspect there would be rioting in the streets, although it would be relatively slow moving, judging by the audience demographic.
It also would have a 'Life on Mars' vibe, since if you look at the BBC's excellent Genome project, BBC Genome , thats pretty much what happened in about 1973. Its of course why you watched 'Farmhouse Kitchen' and 'Crown Court' on ITV if you were a kid off ill from school in the 1970's - there was nothing else to watch.
NJ, I totally agree that both the BBC and the Met Office important national assets (and should be defended), but both are between a rock and a hard place. The Met Office is a Government Agency expected to make more money, which means they must maximise revenue. At the same time the BBC has had a large cut in real terms funding over the past 5 years, and has had to shoulder costs that it previously not have to (the World Service and S4C, for instance). And now its expected to pay for the over 75's (who of course will rise up as one should they stop broadcasting 'Cash in the Attic'). So something has to give, and they would be breaking EU rules if they didn't put the contract out to tender. And they have to look for best value.
BTW - you've got the wrong end of the stick about digital switchover. Brianist quotes from Greg Dykes book some times ago Popular misconceptions 3: looking back at DG Greg Dyke - which explains that the whole point of rolling out Freeview was the exact opposite.
'Freeview was also important to the BBC defensively. Opponents of the licence fee always argue that once everyone can get pay television the licence fee as a means of funding the BBC will be unnecessary... Freeview makes it very hard for any Government to try to make the BBC a pay-television service. The more Freeview boxes out there, the harder it will be to switch the BBC to a subscription service since most of the boxes can't be adapted for pay TV.'
Please read it - its an interesting article. I wish someone as clever and ruthless as Dyke was running the BBC now.
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M
Which 29 stars wrote Prime Minister Cameron to ask him to proteSunday 30 August 2015 6:14PM
Macclesfield
Nick: Somehow, I doubt I could sway you in any way. I would of course argue that you view of the BBC are at odds with the facts, but your entitled to your opinions.
However, two things did jump out when reading your last post.
Firstly, 'The occasional program I do watch I can use iplayer and I listen to the radio a lot. Non od these need payment. '.
Setting aside the question of why you are watching/listening to an organisation you cannot abide, its worth pointing out that niether Iplayer or the radio are actually free. Yes, they are free at the point of use, but someone has to pay for that content to be made. In the case of Iplayer, the loophole will hopefully be closed very soon, and you will require a licence to download, in exactly the same way you do to watch live. Of course you cannot encrypt or block radio signals, so if you are listening to the BBC's excellent radio output, we are all still paying for it.
The second thing is 'I see far more arguments against the BBC on the internet than the occasional person like you who is for it. ' . All polling shows that the BBC is really very popular, with 69% supporting the licence fee (and possibly much higher than that, judging by the recent experiment). BBC news is far more trusted than the press, and certainly far more than politicians.
Its relatively easy to find many adverse comments about the BBC, and there are several sites which are just anti-BBC. However, if people are happy about something, they are generally far less likely to comment than the people who are unhappy in some way. And of course if your looking for anti-BBC comments, than you can be subject to 'comfirmation bias' - you tend to see what your looking for. I would suggest that online is not a reflection of the real world.
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Tuesday 25 August 2015 9:29AM
Macclesfield
MikeP: I think you have an LG, which now the only brand that does not allow you to split the audio between the TV speakers and another source. Sony and Panasonic have had this feature for years (I think its called audio splitting on Sony's), and apparently Samsung finally added it last year.
I found out the hard way about this after a customer bought a Samsung some years ago. An excellent TV, but he'd neglected to mention that he used a pair of headphones, while he wife did not! The best workarounds we could suggest were :
a) If you have a soundbar which has a 3.5mm output (which is all of them), you can connect that and a headphone via a cheap 3.5mm splitter adapter. The soundbar can have its own volume and so can the headphones, as long as the TV volume is on.
b) If the TV allows more than one audio output (so 3.5mm jack and digital optical, TV speakers, etc), you could use the 3.5mm jack for the headphones, and then the optical for the soundbar. Or even better, have the optical running via a DAC and outputing to the headphones, with the speakers doing their normal job (or possibly via optical and dac to headphones and optical to soundbar). Unfortunately, I think LG's only allow one output at a time.
Needless to say, this is all a bit of a faff. Your solution is probably the best for your setup, but without RCA outputs on the back of the Sky box, you'd be stuck.
Hoepefully, LG will follow the other makes - its something thats increasingly useful for customers, and just makes life a lot easier. If someone is buying a new TV, and has hearing problems, then ask the person in the store to show you how things work - it will mean you finding a TV that meets your needs, rather than looking for a possible workaround.