All posts by Briantist
Below are all of Briantist's postings, with the most recent are at the bottom of the page.
MikeB/MikeP: On a point of nomelicture, the paid-for spots to promote products and services on TV are referred to as "spot adverts".
These are distinct from visually similar non-programming shorts for the broadcaster's own products and services, which are called "promos".
There are Ofcom limits to "spot ads" and no limits whatsoever for "promos".
Sometimes the line is very blurred. Channel 5 often does those "send a premium text and win something" so-called-quizzes. There are "promos" not "spot ads".
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Nicholas Willmott: I rather hoped that the "BBC press release Wednesday 1st June 2016" would indicate this this is one in a series of "think pieces" about what might happen in the near future with the BBC Charter Renewal process.
The first one is BBC plc, 2017. The new CEO decides between ITV and HBO | BBC 2017 | ukfree.tv - 11 years of independent, free digital TV advice
I'm not sure if the BBC is going to get a "status quo and RPI increase Licence Fee" this time. I thought it would be very helpful to think though the consequences of the changes and choices that are made.
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Basically, it's going to be about £100 extra a year for each home that pays.
About half that money will be going to Sky Subscriber Services Ltd, about 10% to Virgin Media and the rest will be swallowed up creating "Beebview".
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Ian: Some people have suggested that is exactly the whole point of this exercise.
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This research http://stakeholders.ofcom….pdf says
"Having informed participants of the current situation, they the discussed the issues and debated whether they were willing to pay more to maintain current levels of PSB provision
A majority in the deliberative research were willing to pay more for the same amount of PSB;
A significant minority were not willing to pay more but believed they would get used to a price increase;
A small minority were not prepared to pay more - who were less likely to value PSB in general
Participants' priorities centred on the following key programme types, which were priorities for plurality - UK network news, nations / regions news, current affairs, and high quality UK content (applied to a range of programme genres, including drama, comedy, children's)
When discussing whether the commercial digital channels could be used as a means of delivering 'official' PSB content in the future, participants were reluctant to have to pay a subscription for PSB content which they felt strongly should be available to everyone. Given the social importance placed on PSB, many believed that
restricting access to those that could afford to pay would be against the ethos of PSB. There were also concerns that the commercial imperatives of these channels may be at odds with PSB's aims and it may be
hard to find PSB content within the schedule, as well as raising issues about trust
When discussing whether the commercial digital channels could be used as a means of delivering 'official' PSB content in the future, participants were reluctant to pay a subscription for PSB content which they felt strongly should be available to everyone and this could limit access. Given the social importance placed on PSB, many believed that restricting access to those that could afford to pay would be against the ethos of PSB. There were also concerns that the commercial imperatives of these channels may be at odds with
PSB's aims and it may be hard to find PSB content within the schedule, as well as raising issues about trust
Research into willingness to pay to maintain current provision was undertaken in a deliberative setting in 6 workshops across the UK (approx 180 participants).
* By means of an expert witness presentation from Ofcom, participants were informed about the current funding of PSB on the main 5 channels and the economic pressures on this model due to audience fragmentation. Most participants were unaware of the PSB obligations and funding of the commercial channels and were surprised to discover this as they tended to see them as purely commercial organisations
* Having informed participants of the current situation, they were then asked if they were willing to pay more to maintain current levels of PSB provision
* It was made to clear to participants that there were no current proposals to increase the licence fee and that funding could come from a variety of sources. The objective was to gauge whether we, as a society, were
prepared to pay more to maintain current PSB provision
* Faced with the choice of less PSB or increased costs for the same amount of PSB shown today, many participants initially opted to reduce the level of PSB to ensure no price rise
- This was a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of paying more and should be considered in the light of contextual data (e.g. general perception that cost of living increasing in UK, are broadcasters making most of money available to them, e.g. presenter salaries)
* After discussion, participants fell into three main groups:
- The majority who were willing to pay more for the same amount of PSB
- Those not willing to pay more but believed they would get used to a price increase
- A small minority who were not prepared to pay more - less likely to value PSB in general
These discussions also considered the hard choice of reducing content on either the BBC or on ITV1, Channel 4 or Five, in order that there was no need for an increase in costs for providing PSB. Opinion was mixed. In the initial workshops, for many, the BBC was considered to be the prime provider of PSB and many thought it an international, respected brand and it was important to preserve its role in the provision of PSB as a matter of priority. In the reconvened workshop many participants thought the overriding priority was to maintain plurality for what were considered to be the key programme type
s was believed to be key and there were concerns that were the BBC the main - or only - provider of certain types of PSB programmes then the quality of them might decline due to a lack of competition. Overall, the main conclusion for the majority was that these choices were extremely hard and that people chose to see an increase in costs to maintain current levels of provision. It was generally thought that reducing the amount of PSB could lead to some serious consequences for the future of television generally. , Attitudes towards this are shown in the voting results from the end of the 6 workshops. While three in ten participants agreed that 'as long as the BBC shows PSB programmes, the other main TV channels should be allowed to show what they like', seven in ten thought that at least one of the main TV channels, in addition to the BBC, should show PSB programmes (72%).
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Charles Stuart: I'm currently reading A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain eBook: Tamasin Cave, Andy Rowell: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store so I'm wondering "who benefits" from this move.
I'm not sure if "licence fee evasion is becoming a bigger and bigger problem", I haven't seen anything to suggest that is the case. If you have some stats...
The problem with encrypted services is that it costs money to provide such a service. Sky's internal charging for this is about £5 a month. So it costs from £60 more a year JUST to stop people who didn't pay.
And, referring to my diagram above, this would mean that to maintain the current level of services, each household would pay £20 a month, rather than £12.
So, this is good for SSSL and Virgin, less good for the Great British Public, unless the really don't use any BBC service, which is about 2% of the population.
It seems that a "principle" is making money for someone...
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Ian: Don't worry about Sky. If this plan came to pass they would be getting £5.17 a month for encryption services from each subscriber.
And, as I'm sure you remember from Does the BBC or BSkyB spend more on programmes? | About UK Free TV | ukfree.tv - 11 years of independent, free digital TV advice that Sky subscribers spend £767m a year (31%) of Sky's programming costs are for the 116 Premier League soccer matches.
The BBC spends the money it gets on UK originations: Sky originates about half and hour a day of UK commissioned content. Sky makes £600m UK content pledge | News | Screen .
Sky might have lots of channels but the amount of time they play new British content is ... limited.
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Monday 24 March 2014 3:39PM
Charles Stuart: Oh dear. I thought that this article was my "best case scenario". I've got several others "game plays" and they are much, much darker.
I my "gameplan", I am assuming that the public service notion is blown away by the new government and that FTA-only sports list is legislated out of existence.
It's always awkward when trying to work out what to do with the programmes you don't personally like: being from a Rugby paying town, I don't understand people's obsession with association football at all.
I just don't get Snooker ... but it seems to fascinate cats, now we have LCD TVs that feline eyes can see.