All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
LindaB: The real problem is that the 'BBC seem to be a perceived leftist bias, news and current affairs reporting that is either partisan or carefully controlled' is a perception, and no more than that. The reality is rather the opposite, as a lot of research shows.
As for 'consensus' over science, if you mean on climate change, then the BBC actually qualifies the hell out of any climate change science, when it is clear that every scientific academy on the planet, the CIA, the Pentagon and 97% or more of climate scientists agree with AGW being real and man made.
As for those finding an alternative to the licence fee, try to find one which does not involve government directly controlling the BBC budget, which does not involve politically impossible ideas such as tacking it on to Council Tax, etc, and does not involve killing the ad revenue of the commercial TV sector. And as for the idea of adding £10 to the sale price of TV's/ laptops - £10 is the gross margin for a laptop in a store, and not much more than that on a TV - the BRC would kill such an idea instantly.
'When the impossible has been eliminated, what remains, however unlikley, must be true' - thats the licence fee.
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Rob: Your right, the technical/commercial problems with using a subscription model means it just isn't viable at present.
'The license fee has to go and be replaced by an easy to administer form of mass funding that bears some relationship to income without being subject to political manipulation. '
Try to find one! Anthing to do with government revenue (Council tax, PAYE, general taxation) means that government has direct control over the finances of a broadcaster, and thus its editorial line. Advertising is a finite resource, so if you get the BBC to show ads, that has an impact on other players.
As for Michael's idea of 'Why not put £10 on all new TVs and other receiving equipment like lap tops etc' - thats the gross profit margin on a new laptop or TV. Good luck with getting the BRC to agree to that, and of course annual revenue is dependent on both the amount of spending on devices in any one year, and the desire of government to pass on the full amount they collect.
And is it really the case that ' threatening letters they send through the post cost millions', or is this just handwaving?
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trevorjharris: How could I guess your views on climate change.....
I suggest you look at the Royal Societies/NAS report on climate change
Climate change | Royal Society
or www.skepticalscience.com . And its worth pointing out that a statistical link between smoking and cancer was shown by Isaac Adler in 1912, and by 1929, German researchers had published studies strongly linking cancer to smoking, with their government strongly backing anti-smoking measures right through the 30's. Dont confuse what the media says with what peer-reviewed science says.
And if there is a consensus amoungst cardiologists that you need heart surgery, do you ignore them in favour of the person on the net that has no medical qualifications, but says you'll be just fine?
Your still suggesting solutions which are impractical at present, and have been shot down many times before. There is no way to introduce a Beebox without a great deal of expense, and equipment which could take a subscription card are few in number. If you want such a move, its going to take years for them to be universal. And again, how is having yet another player in the TV advertising market going to help existing companies - the same pie, cut more ways is not going to give the BBC the income it needs, or allow decent programming from anyone else.
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Michael Frost: If you click on the link called 'R + T Investigations' next to your question, you'll see that Crystal Palace seems to be fine. In fact, at just 2km away from the transmitter, I suspect a bit of wet string would give a decent signal, so I'm afraid its almost certainly your aerial, or the cable leading from it, which is at fault.
Check the usual things - is the cable actually attached to the TV, are there any breaks you can see on the roof, etc.
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Briantist: Is there a figure for total TV ad spend? C4 and C5 obviously would add to the figure, as would the smaller channels, and I did see that Sky's ad revenue was £440m. In theory, BBC1 could take part of all the spend, but your diagram makes it very clear that the pie is only so large, and everyone would just get less.
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Briantist: Thank you - so the total ad spend of all TV is less than the licence fee - I'm sure someone will keep suggesting this, but its basically insane.
Trevor Harris did make the point (with regard to a BBC subscription) that 'The assumption 4 out of 5 homes willing to pay £18pm for the BBC channels is ridiculous when Sky offers 35 channels for £21.50 pm with 11 million subscribers'.
My question is, what would you get for that £21.50? Is it Sky, or Sky plus/HD? And what are these channels? I'm assuming that the BBC ones would disappear, but whats left? And would ITV and C4 use a subscription system for part of their content? Basically, what is the cheapest Sky package, and what do I get for my money?
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trevorjharris: Once again, you've guessed a figure in your head, rather than using actual data. Its true if you ask in the average saloon bar/Daily Mail readers comments about getting rid of the licence fee, you might get 40%. However, when they try to think up an alternative, it gets difficult....
And we've already been through the advertising problems, there simply isn't enough cash to cover all the outlets. True, Sky manages the neat trick of getting people to pay to watch advertising, but its not easy to see how this would work elsewhere. And its worth remembering that its ad revenue for 2013 was static at £440m, out of a total revenue stream of over £7 billion. And how would the BBC pay for those Free-to-air channels?
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Briantist: I think we can sum up the technical problem as getting a device which uses ethernet/wifi (now standard on most TV from 2013), plus possibly 3G (for those who dont have that, although what about 3G coverage?) for encryption, plus outputs for RF, Scart, RCA (why not?) and HDMI. It should probably be preloaded with Iplayer/BBC News/BBC Website. And, God help us, a card slot for those who having nothing at all to communicate with the world at large.
Thats doable. In fact thats largely a streaming device with a digibox. Thats not the problem. The problem is getting them in tens of millions of homes, whose going to pay for them, perhaps install them, and the costs of keeping it secure, functioning and up to date. And of course getting people to put yet another box by their TV.
When you think about it, to please the ideological whims of a tiny number of people who have a TV, but choose not to pay the licence fee, or an even smaller number of people who have a TV, and apparently are convinced that they (or anyone in their household) never use the BBC, this is daft.
Its totally and utterly insane on any practical level. Its an ideological problem (plus a fair amount of self interest from certain media rivals) thats driving this. Its a mixture of dappy techo optimism ('if Sky and Virgin can do it, why not the BBC?'), vandalism of a great institution, and total ignorance of reality.
Truely, as in so many things, we live in 'The Age of Stupid'.
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Briantist: 'whilst forgetting the BSkyB burned though losses of £2.479 billion [1] from the launch of Sky Digital 1998-2002, and they made no profit to 2007, and a loss again in 2008.'
Absolutely! Although you could argue that News Internationals 'interesting' tax arrangements might have played a role...
Security isn't cheap, which shows again that the subscription model for the BBC means for the moment that the game simply isn't worth the candle.
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Sunday 30 March 2014 11:06PM
Andy: Steve Cannon's article is avery good overview of whats happening in Smart TV's, but there are some barriers to the possible trajectory of whats outlined above.
The first, judging by all the above comments, is broadband speed and penetration! Its doesn't matter how smart your kit is if you have such slow speed that all you see is a little buffering circle. And, looking at the Guardian yesterday, Your call is important to us. Please hold on for the next nine months | Money | The Guardian , just 5 miles from the centre of London you can still not get decent service. And even though government wants us all to have 2mb as a minimum, thats barely enough for Iplayer, and certainly not enough for the sort of use that an average family will be wanting in five years.
I'm certainly hearing people in East Anglia investing in satellite broadband as well!
Smart TV's are now standard. Certainly my employer is stocking nothing else this year, but what I suspect is happening is that a lot of people are not using many (or any) of those features that already exist on their TV's, etc. A lot are not even linked to the net (and since they now all have wifi, its not even difficult), and when they are, perhaps Iplayer and little more is used.
I'm also noticing that some manufacturers are pulling certain features that you would have thought would be a saleable feature. Samsung, for instance, is to stop including a Skype camera as part of their 7000/8000 series (apart from one or two). Samsung were the first to include this feature a couple of years ago, and even Sony has finally included one on their lovely W955 series. For some of my customers, it was actually useful (unlike the motion sensor technology which the camera could use). So I'm wondering if manufacturers are looking more at what people will use, rather than just adding new features.
Since people still watch 90% of their viewing live, some 30 years after the VCR became almost universal, I'm wondering if ' Telehealthcare' will be something that many people will use.
UHD TV is the next step, but there is a chicken and egg situation. Until UHD sets fall to such a price where there is a mass market (thus bringing economies of scale), or whether there is enough content available to warrent buying a set, they will be only for the early adopter. True, a 55in 4K is available for £2799 at present, and that might fall in the next year, but we need content as well (as well as a universal standard for 4K!). It will be interesting to see what happens during the World Cup, and what sports broadcasters do. And of course, if 4K is to available via demand services, will broadband speeds be fast enough to allow it?
I think the phrase 'consumers and installers will have even more products to purchase and install and clarity will be required on the functionality of these products and how to install and operate them', is very true. Its going to be interesting!