All posts by MikeB
Below are all of MikeB's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
Alvin Pritchard: Since Brianist has spent considerable timepointing out that the even if the BBC was to capture the whole of ITV's advertising revenue, thats £1.6 billion would just cover BBC1 with a little bit left over, and the subscription idea has a huge number of practical and economic problems, how exactly is this ' fully commercial set up' supposed to work?
Frankly, for £150 a year, I get a hell of a lot more value from the BBC than I do from Sky, who want me to be tied into their hardware, and for £21.50 a month apparently wish to supply me with the doubtful delights of E!, Alibi, Sky Living (no kids channels, I notice). Yes, there's Sky 1, Atlantic/Arts and Sky Living, but overall, for for the money, there is a lot of filler, and a lot of repeats. Even at 20p a day, the licence fee looks better value than Sky's basic at 28p per day. And Sky still make me watch adverts. So much for that 'competitiveness', especially since BBC 1 on a Sat. night can get something like a 40% share.
trevorjharris: As Stephen Colbert put it, 'facts have a liberal bias'. Brianist has already pointed out that 98.2% audience reach is achieved by BBC1 in a week - so basically, if you have a TV, pretty much everyone watches BBC1. Even if you dont, your probably watching something else on the BBC, using the website or listening to the radio. As you admitted last year, you might not watch the BBC, but your wife apparently likes Strictly, The Paradise and Call the Midwife. Everyone pays, and everyone gets something back.
If the 'poll' you refered to was this BBC wants you to pay TV licence fee even if you don’t own a set, as shows go on iPlayer for longer - Telegraph - then I'm not surprised at the result.
Apart from the tone of the article being somewhat biased(!), the title of the survey was hardly subtle 'Would it be fair to pay the licence fee even if you do not own a television?' If the question had been 'should people pay the licence fee if they use Iplayer?', then the polling would have been a little different. And since one of the three answers is 'No - this would be exploitative', you could see where the Telegraph was going with this. Frankly, I dont think the BBC is out of touch, rather an ideologically driven astrotruf campaign has a somewhat loud voice. Most viewers couldn't really care less.
Amoungst the usual blatherings and nonsense in the comments (which seems very much like what often appears here), there was this comment:
'To put the TV Licence Fee into perspective. I have been paying £936 per annum for Sky plus service, with HD on one TV set. Although this is by no means compulsory it does provide an expensive comparison with £145.50. Who would you say is overcharging for their service?'
BTW - how many Sky personnel are going to Brazil, and will this also be a 'jolly'?
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Colin1951uk: As I said on another thread, my CRT/digibox setup seems to be going to widescreen as standard, rather than 4:3. Thats fine. However, my wife was recording a programme on 4-7 (Com 6) earlier this evening , and my Sony HXD895 was recording it in exactly the same way that Dave Lindsay described. Since I'm getting signals from Waltham, I think your right, its a national thing.
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DemThonp: Firstly, this is an unoffical site, so asking anyone here to 'put the full service on' or 'make the transmitter stronger' will have zero effect. Actually, it would have zero effect anyway - the signal strength and transmission area is what it is.
If you enter your postcode when posting next, we can see where you are, the path to your various transmitters, and what they are. However, if you can only get Dallington Park, read the part at the top of the page as to why you can't have the full number of channels.
20% strength is rubbish, but so is an indoor aerial...
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trevorjharris: Why is the BBC 'bullying' people to stop distributing what is basically pirating software? If you had a shop, and people kept nicking stuff, would you let them?
I had a quick look at something similar for Sky streaming content - there's one as well. However, are Sky 'bullying' when it seeks to protect its paid for content from being available for nothing? Or are they simply being sensible?
'I understand that the 98.2% means that in any week 98.2% of people who watched TV that week watched BBC1. Some of those may have only watched one BBC1 programe and so unlikely to to pay £145.50 for one program a week. ' True, although you avoided the point that they may well be using any amount of other BBC services as well. However, wouldn't that logic also hold up for Sky subscribers as well? If you watch nothing on Sky apart from ITV3 and one hour each week of Game of Thrones, isn't that very poor value?
'If you investigate I think you will find that the Murdoch family has no financial interest in Sky UK. News International does not even exist. Murdoch is more interested in Newspapers rather than TV'. I realise that as an unpaid Sky PR person, you dont tend to check out such stuff as fact, but I did.
The Murdochs owned 12% of News Corp International, but this gave them 39% of voting shares, I think still the largest single holding of voting shares. After the company was split into New News Corp (publishing) and 21st Century Fox (most other media holdings), all shareholders got 1 new Newscorp share for 4 old ones. Assuming Fox was using the same system, the Murdochs retained their holdings % and voting rights. It should also be noted that for a company that has little do do with the Murdochs, the post split print companies logo is even based on R. Murdoch's (the CEO) signature!
Ok - News Corp owned 39% of BSkyB, and until both the Vince Cable scandal and then phone hacking, was going to buy the rest up (I bet they will try again at some point). In reality, its always controlled BSkyB, and that has not changed since the corporate split, since 21st Century Fox still controls the company. The CEO of 21st Century Fox - R. Murdoch. Former CEO of BSkyB - R. Murdoch, who was then followed by J.Murdoch (until the phone hacking broke).
Corporate profits were £979m on turnover of £7.235 biliion (they did at least pay tax...). Murdoch may not understand the net, and prefer print, but not far off £1 billion in profit per year does make almost anyone interested in TV. You don't have to play 'Six Degree's of Seperation' to link BSkyB and Milly Dowler's phone....
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As I said, start with your postcode - just put into the My UK Free TV settings on the right hand side at the top of the page, or put in your postcode when you ask a question. That will give you lots of information.
If you look at this thread, you can see these links by Barrys question - it includes links to the DigitalUK tradeview - which will tell you which transmitters you should be able to get, which direction they will be, and how likely you are to get them, as well as what channels are available. The 'home to mast plot' is very useful, since you can see what distance the transmitter is from you, and if the signal is blocked by hills, etc.
Your signal can only be good if there is nothing in the way, if your pointing in the right direction, and if your aerial is right for the job. It might be that none of these things are right for you.
Your indoor aerial is probably not very good (they tend not to be), so its best to replace it with something which is higher up and more sensitive. But give us your postcode, and we can help a lot more.
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a jamieson: If BT take away your Vision box, then just get a Humax recorder (£179.95) - they are pretty much the same thing (just Iplayer). The Youview version of the Humax is called the DTR T-1010 (so the nearest to your current box) and is currently £249.
There is a new version of the BT box (a bit smaller) is out for retail sale http://www.johnlewis.com/…9313 at £199.95, and you might get one of the slightly older model, which was £169.95.
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a jamieson: Since I dont have such a box/BT contract, I cant say for certain, but apart from not being able to get the BT channels, I assume everything else should be fine. I dont think its like Sky, where not contract means no recording.
BTW - the irony of your possible move to Plusnet (which gets good reviews) is thats its owned by BT!
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Steve: Your closer to Waltham than I am, so you should be getting excellent reception. There is the possibility of a problem with the bax, but if its happening on a second unit, then its more likely to be something else (and you could check by connecting it to someone else aerial, just to see if the box is ok).
Firstly, check that your not tuning into another transmitter. Waltham is on 67 degrees and channel 49, but Belmont is 42 degrees and is on channel 22. My cheap digibox will often pick up Belmont first after a retune, so check that.
The other problem could be your system. I dont know what 'a bit of noise' means, but if you need to retune after bad weather, it sounds like water is in the system, perhaps via a degraded connection or coax cable.
If you can check your box/tv with another system, try it. And if someone has a spare digibox, try it on yours, and look at what the signal is like, and just eliminate the possibilities.
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Craig D: A postcode would be really helpful, since you can then check any probablems with the signal path etc (I grew up in Bournemouth, but I dont know the topography of the area that well!).
OK - two possible problems. One is that your set has picked up a transmitter other than Rowridge, so you need to check for that. However, Rowridge is on channel 24, so its normally first in the boxes search, so its unlikely.
Secondly - if you just getting BBC channels, which are normally the strongest, is something wrong with your aerial? If your using a box, check with some elses system, etc.
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Saturday 5 April 2014 10:38PM
Christopher Pugh: I've recently noticed that most transmissions normally now go to widescreen (ie - bars at bottom & top) automatically on my CRT via digibox looking at Waltham. Frankly, I wouldn't worry about it, and its nice to actually see the sides of the frame....