All posts by Fred Perkins
Below are all of Fred Perkins's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
To John: Showcase can be viewed online, via the InformationTV website, which streams all their channels.
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Would the BBC work better as a company, charity, instead of a nMonday 24 November 2014 1:58PM
Richmond
I think most would agree that the BBC is good value for the licence fee.
But as Martin Baines has put very well, We (and even more, the BBC), has forgotten its purpose. It has become selectively very 'commercial', and being the recipient of a huge amount of what is in effect a 'tax', is going far beyond its original remit.
The BBC is now competing heavily with commercial broadcasters which can and do achieve much of what the BBC chooses to dip its toes into, and without the constraints or disciplines of a commercial company, but able to distort the commercial market in ways which don't necessarily benefit the viewer. Almost by definition, the BBC's success in achieving its remit should NOT result in a quest for audience ratings - but it does so, because it can afford to do so. It is also stifling innovation in the creative industries, by virtue of its scale. It benefits from legally-enforced additional licence 'fees', index linked, and further supported by it providing 'free' licences to pensioners - which government 'pays' for, even though it doesn't cost the BBC a penny to provide the service to them. Smoke and mirrors!!
The BBC has substantially abandoned the part of its remit that is about 'educating' the public. It appears to be leading the 'dumbing down' of TV, rather than focusing on higher ideals.
Most countries have a 'state broadcaster' - and nowadays that is mainly about producing news, which is expensive to do properly, and difficult for commercial broadcasters anyway.
Incredibly, Ofcom doesn't even regulate the BBC as to whether it's biased - the BBC is its own judge and jury. That too, surely needs to be changed - all other broadcasters who broadcast news have to abide by Ofcom rules.
Arguably, the BBC could achieve its remit with a budget a fraction (10%??) of the licence fee revenue - giving government something else on which to 'spend' the surplus.
Let's just accept that the BBC must be provided with state funding for its core remit, but must be prevented from interfering in areas beyond that, either by cross-subsidy or excessive cash in its coffers to 'play' in other areas.
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Would the BBC work better as a company, charity, instead of a nTuesday 25 November 2014 11:13AM
Richmond
@MikeB: I don't want to get into a slanging match throwing insults at each other.
I said that I respect the BBC. I'm a broadcaster myself, and have been for 11 years. I know what broadcasting costs, and haven't been 'seduced by an ideological viewpoint'.
My point is simply that much has changed since the Public Service Broadcasting remit of the BBC (and our other PSBs) was originally set up.
Any single organisation handed close to £4 Billion a year by the state cannot fail to have an impact on its sector. We in the UK have one of the finest broadcasting regimes in the world, and the creative industries collectively contribute around 8% of our GDP.
Briant Butterworth opened this thread with some valid reasoning for change. The last few years have seen immense disruption and change in 'television' in its many forms.
The BBC has no monopoly of truth nor of wisdom. Nor indeed do politicians. It must surely therefore be time for a re-examination of the BBC's role in what is a much wider canvas than could ever have been envisaged when it was set up. In most industries, the Competition Authorities worry about dominance of any single organisation over the sector.
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Would the BBC work better as a company, charity, instead of a nTuesday 9 December 2014 8:05AM
Richmond
It's a sad fact that virtually all forum discussions about the BBC always become hopelessly polarised.
There are those who resent everything about it, largely driven by the 'tax' nature of the licence fee, or its (to them) political bias . And there are those who defend it to the death, and don't see any need to change any aspect of it, or its funding.
I happen to be neither extreme. But when it's not possible to engage in a constructive debate, there's little point in pursuing it, which is a pity. All we can really do is to blame the politicians, who won't let either side "vote with its feet".
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Would the BBC work better as a company, charity, instead of a nWednesday 10 December 2014 9:13AM
Richmond
Oh MikeB, for pity's sake, drop it! You're never going to accept ANY arguments from 'the other extreme', but you can''t resist the "Where is the evidence?" attack on anyone who raises any issues re the BBC!
I didn't even raise the Saville scandal, but YOU did. I'll bite my tongue and not respond.
The media attacks ANY company/body/individual where there's bad news that can make juicy headlines. Good news is boring. That, sadly, is the way journalists all too often operate, especially in the UK, where even deserved 'success' is not to be admired (cf USA, where you'll find taxi drivers determined to be entrepreneurs, rather than hoping to get rich winning the lottery).
Hacks relish persecuting anyone they can find on whom to pin "blame". Career destruction is the ultimate goal. We're experts at the art of this in the UK.
The BBC happens to be an easy target because of the sheer scale of its operations. But again, they don't have a monopoly on being the brunt of media attack, as almost every broadcaster will be aware.
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Would the BBC work better as a company, charity, instead of a nWednesday 10 December 2014 5:17PM
Richmond
@ Briantist: Hey... Why are we (or rather the BBC itself) seeing the BBC in comparison to Apple, Microsoft, Google et al? It's a state-funded public service broadcaster. As such, why on earth does it feel it's 'competing' with these media giants, who MUST be commercially successful to survive, on a worldwide basis?
My consideration of the BBC as a large-scale player was in the context of viewers' perception of TV broadcasters' activity in the UK.
Not too many of the broadcasters we view in the UK have £4Billion a year gifted to them as a cost budget, with no pressure to produce a financial return from its funder.
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Seeing something different? We are doing A/B testing on a new Tuesday 3 February 2015 12:43PM
Richmond
Brian, Much as I like many aspects of the new design, there are some that I dearly miss.
* I tried to find a way of responding to you privately. The only "contact us" seems to assume that we are all Facebook or Twitter users. I abhor them, and am not a member. Actually, I think you are breaking the law by not having "Contact us" details on the home page (I don't mean that nastily!
* I dearly miss the old homepage, which although a bit of a ratbag, gave a flavour for what was happening on the site. I miss that.
* The links to the 'main menu' and then submenus are not hotspots (so not obviously clickable), and anyway dump me into areas I didn't want to see, other than in context.
* A problem with the old site, carried over to the new one, is that many items are not dated. That is a very serious omission. I often don't know if I am commenting on a thread that is a day, or several months, old.
* There should be a "my account" facility. Today, in trying to comment on an item, I was unsure what email address I had used originally, and no way of finding it out. I submitted the item with the wrong email address (I have several), so now risk getting yet another set of duplicate emails from you. cf Digital Spy... when I load the website, their use of cookies automatically logs me in .
* The assumption that smartphone users are the primary audience is, I feel, flawed. In any event, making the website OPTIMISED for smartphone users, at the expense of desktop PC users, is dangerous. Desktop PC users are not necessarily geriatric. I have Gigabit broadband at the office, but only 50Mbps fibre at home.. so most of my browsing is in the office.
* The intrusion of the many large adverts in the middle of threads is totally understandable (and well done!) but really confusing, as it's not clear whether these are adverts or YOUR recommendations/guidance.
Happy to continue the discussion privately. I think yours is an unique website, which historically offered real help to less sophisticated viewers... but risks losing them with aspects of the new design.
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Seeing something different? We are doing A/B testing on a new Tuesday 3 February 2015 12:56PM
Richmond
PS: the submission of my post above reminds me of another issue.
Presumably your forum software auto indexes keywords it finds in contributed posts. That however results in an irritating pile of spurious diversionary links which are completely irrelevant to the posting. Best, perhaps, to turn auto-linking off, but ideally allow poster-entered links to be created, so avoiding horrendously long links to eg Ofcom material.
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An interesting debate that I've been following, but without the time to properly participate.
A few simplified points though:
* IP delivery of BROADCAST programmes (ie ones, which viewers will want to watch or record as they are broadcast) just doesn't make sense, even assuming Multicast can be seriously engaged across all ISPs. It is however great for niche-market streaming or VoD which complement broadcast channels.
* Sooner or later, it's to be hoped that the Competition Commission will step in and STOP excessive vertical market dominance , as they have in many other market sectors. It's unacceptable that the mega players can exert force on consumers to take and pay for broadband from the same supplier as the "free" content (like sports) from the same corporation.
* The politicians just don't understand the technical implications of what they variously propose to 'legislate' in order to secure the popular vote. "Superfast Broadband" for example only means the MAXIMUM speed you will get in BURST mode, and dependent on the contention on your local connection as well as your distance from the nearest connection to the internt backbone. IT says nothing about the quality of service you will actually get when trying to watch a continuous video stream requiring even only 2Mbps.
* The current battling between the myriad of competitors trying to muscle in at various points on the supply chain is just leading to more and more confusion for consumers as to just how THEY join up all the different offerings, and how they control them. Brian's 2025 Vision ignores where the 'control' resides in the consumer's home, and probably envisages an App that is somehow accessible on the consumer viewing device (a TV, or a screen with a set-top box, or what?). With a lack of mandated standards, all the players will be pushing mechnisms which favour themselves. The consumer will then have to be geeky enough to work out how to make accessible to his chosen devices the bundle of content that HE wants.
...all of which doesn't, for me, make for a happy picture, unless you accept that one MegaPlayer will dominate access to commercial content, the wholesaling of content, and all the means of technical delivery to the point of use.... as well as the consumer's personal utilisation of the communications necessary for a consumer, but which don't relate to third party content that is only available at a price.
Horrible thought.
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Monday 9 September 2013 4:15PM
What doesn't seem to be reflected in your original note, nor in the discussion, is that the BBC is LICENCE FEE FUNDED... and BBC Worldwide has become a commercial organisation, taking privileged advantage of its roots, in going well beyond the BBC's remit, and actually COMPETING with other broadcasters. It is distorting competition.
The BBC's vast resources have been used to drive, and often distort, developments in TV. Using the excuse that BBC World "returns money to the licence fee payer" is pretty lame. The BBC has no remit to compete commercially with the many broadcasters in the same market, who do not have vast amounts of guaranteed cash at their disposal, and no obligation to behave commercially.
The BBC has gone far beyond its original purpose, which was to ensure that the UK public had access to standards of TV which might not be provide without public subsidy.
The BBC has gone far beyond this, and arguably should be reduced to its core purpose, rather than play in commercial markets on the back of privileged access to programming which can be created without financial constraints which apply to its commercial competitors.
The BBC has for years been obsessed with ratings - at almost any cost.
It is currently operating with a guaranteed income of nearly £5 Billion per year - and rising, as more come into the licence fee net. Almost as much as BSkyB has to earn every year, on a commercial basis.
All this to provide "impartial public service broadcasting".
The question isn't so much whether BBC Worldwide is earning enough, but rather why it exists at all ?
Maybe government should sell it off to the private sector, with consequent benefit to the government's purse; and at the same time abolish the licence fee and let the BBC be funded out of royalties from the privatised BBC Worldwide??