Murdoch - take a hike

[Thedelldays]

They can moan about the BBC all they like, but theres a reason it is preferred, it is better, and don't give me bull**** how Sky doesn't have the money to compete with the BBC! It just doesn't have the repsonsibilities of the BBC to produce top output. Also, I think the BBC's reputation means the top TV workers and producers etc etc etc would rather work for the BBC than Sky.

BBC is average at best and wastes so much money

 

what is its flagship show...Eastenders.?

 

BBC news is good but seen as biased state owned media is some places and superb in others..

 

what the latest thing to let the BBC (imo) was when vivian westwood was on Johnathon Ross' show (who earns an obscene amount of money for what he does)...if you saw it then you would get my point..

 

Radio One is...CACK in most parts..

5Live is excellent IMO

World service is also Excellent (am a frequent listener when away)

 

is there a need for all the other Radio Stations..?..probably not..

[aintforever]

I'm not a huge fan of the BBC but anything that annoys Murdoch must be good.

 

This is fantastic: "News Corporation, which owns Sky television, lost $3.4bn (£2bn) in the year to the end of June"

 

If Sky went tits up then the Premier League would be screwed.

Edited 31 August, 2009 by aintforever

[Ash]

If you're happy to pay for a television show that appeals to the lowest common denominator, but you have no interest in, then there's no hope.

Some people like it though, they're probably similarly not bothered about some of the BBC product from the other end of the spectrum. It surely isn't that hard to understand that, given the nature of their operation, they try to make something appeal to everybody?

 

BBC is average at best and wastes so much money

what is its flagship show...Eastenders.?

BBC news is good but seen as biased state owned media is some places and superb in others..

what the latest thing to let the BBC (imo) was when vivian westwood was on Johnathon Ross' show (who earns an obscene amount of money for what he does)...if you saw it then you would get my point..

Radio One is...CACK in most parts..

5Live is excellent IMO

World service is also Excellent (am a frequent listener when away)

is there a need for all the other Radio Stations..?..probably not..

No need for Radio Four? Are you mad?

Do you think that sixty million people should contribute towards a state owned broadcaster and then consult solely one div from the Navy about what to put out?

[Thedelldays]

Some people like it though, they're probably similarly not bothered about some of the BBC product from the other end of the spectrum. It surely isn't that hard to understand that, given the nature of their operation, they try to make something appeal to everybody?

 

 

No need for Radio Four? Are you mad?

Do you think that sixty million people should contribute towards a state owned broadcaster and then consult solely one div from the Navy about what to put out?

I dont know why you brought me into it...strange response really..

does that mean you are lacking somwhere...I put a point out and you resort to think I was suggesting I (the div) should decide what is put out..

 

odd

[Verbal]

This is a bit like the NHS thread. Murdoch's slimy, self-serving assault (hardly the first, by no means the last) shouldn't hide the fact that there is a lot wrong with the BBC.

 

As someone who's made programmes for it fairly regularly, it always amazes me how little of the £1.6 billion trickles down to actually making shows.

 

The reasons are not hard to find. Walk into White City, for example, and you will see more 'HR' officers, middle managers, 'compliance' managers, technical support, department heads (and their various assistants), property managers etc., than people actually making programmes.

 

And the status accorded to programme makers is just as plain. I recall finding myself sat near a producer called Deborah Cadbury. She was bang next to a large photocopier, at a desk in an open hallway. Yet she's a BAFTA and Emmy Award winner writer and producer. The hallway she sat in was filled with spacious offices occupied by those useless HRs, property managers, etc.

 

The whole culture at the BBC is civil-service-like - and is, as Greg Dyke said not too long ago, 'hideously white'. Actually it's worse than that. It's dominated by public-school, Oxbridge-educated whites who have learned the arts of climbing the greasy career ladder and all the bullying, intimidation and brown-nosing that goes with it. Here's an example. I once attended a meeting with Michael Jackson, then the controller of BBC2. Trailing in his wake was this character doing a more than passable impression of Uriah Heep - 'ever so 'umble'. His name was Mark Thompson - now the director-general of the BBC. He's regarded by many as the worst D-G the BBC has ever had, and has presided over a series of scandals, including Queengate. He's also grossly mishandled dealings with the government on a whole range of issues, which is widely seen as having compromised the BBC's independence.

 

Whenever the BBC has a financial crisis - which is often, despite the billions pouring into it - the cuts fall first and usually exclusively on the production staff and freelancers, the people at the sharp end out there making things. For example, when a 'black hole' was discovered in the accounts about three years ago, the result was a swingeing cut of production staff, notably at the Natural History Unit, the people who make all the Attenborough series, and one of the jewels in the crown. The result was that some of those talented people left the industry.

 

If you want a graphic demonstration of waste, take a look at the BBC Birmingham headquarters at the appropriately named 'Mailbox'. A few years back, BBC Birmingham was based a Pebble Mill, an ageing but expansive piece of real estate, with plenty of studio space, etc. As a result of mismanaged property deals that ought, in my view, be considered a scandal, Pebble Mill was sold for peanuts, and the Mailbox taken on at sky-high (no pun intended) rents. how did the BBC present this? Well, because they'd wasted millions in the mismanagement of the whole affair, they put out press releases trumpeting the 'extra investment' pumped into the regions. If you go into the Mailbox now, it is a cramped, overcrowded, unpleasant place wholly unsuited to its purpose. It will no doubt eventually close.

 

Despite appearances, perhaps, I'm actually a defender of the BBC. But it needs serious and drastic reform to re-focus on its core activities, and to remind itself that it's there to make seriously good programmes. Its current output, given the resources, is truly pitiful.

 

But even that is preferable to a world in which the likes of that irritating nepotist James Murdoch dominate even more in deciding what we watch.

[revolution saint]

This is a bit like the NHS thread. Murdoch's slimy, self-serving assault (hardly the first, by no means the last) shouldn't hide the fact that there is a lot wrong with the BBC.

 

As someone who's made programmes for it fairly regularly, it always amazes me how little of the £1.6 billion trickles down to actually making shows.

 

The reasons are not hard to find. Walk into White City, for example, and you will see more 'HR' officers, middle managers, 'compliance' managers, technical support, department heads (and their various assistants), property managers etc., than people actually making programmes.

 

And the status accorded to programme makers is just as plain. I recall finding myself sat near a producer called Deborah Cadbury. She was bang next to a large photocopier, at a desk in an open hallway. Yet she's a BAFTA and Emmy Award winner writer and producer. The hallway she sat in was filled with spacious offices occupied by those useless HRs, property managers, etc.

 

The whole culture at the BBC is civil-service-like - and is, as Greg Dyke said not too long ago, 'hideously white'. Actually it's worse than that. It's dominated by public-school, Oxbridge-educated whites who have learned the arts of climbing the greasy career ladder and all the bullying, intimidation and brown-nosing that goes with it. Here's an example. I once attended a meeting with Michael Jackson, then the controller of BBC2. Trailing in his wake was this character doing a more than passable impression of Uriah Heep - 'ever so 'umble'. His name was Mark Thompson - now the director-general of the BBC. He's regarded by many as the worst D-G the BBC has ever had, and has presided over a series of scandals, including Queengate. He's also grossly mishandled dealings with the government on a whole range of issues, which is widely seen as having compromised the BBC's independence.

 

Whenever the BBC has a financial crisis - which is often, despite the billions pouring into it - the cuts fall first and usually exclusively on the production staff and freelancers, the people at the sharp end out there making things. For example, when a 'black hole' was discovered in the accounts about three years ago, the result was a swingeing cut of production staff, notably at the Natural History Unit, the people who make all the Attenborough series, and one of the jewels in the crown. The result was that some of those talented people left the industry.

 

If you want a graphic demonstration of waste, take a look at the BBC Birmingham headquarters at the appropriately named 'Mailbox'. A few years back, BBC Birmingham was based a Pebble Mill, an ageing but expansive piece of real estate, with plenty of studio space, etc. As a result of mismanaged property deals that ought, in my view, be considered a scandal, Pebble Mill was sold for peanuts, and the Mailbox taken on at sky-high (no pun intended) rents. how did the BBC present this? Well, because they'd wasted millions in the mismanagement of the whole affair, they put out press releases trumpeting the 'extra investment' pumped into the regions. If you go into the Mailbox now, it is a cramped, overcrowded, unpleasant place wholly unsuited to its purpose. It will no doubt eventually close.

 

Despite appearances, perhaps, I'm actually a defender of the BBC. But it needs serious and drastic reform to re-focus on its core activities, and to remind itself that it's there to make seriously good programmes. Its current output, given the resources, is truly pitiful.

 

But even that is preferable to a world in which the likes of that irritating nepotist James Murdoch dominate even more in deciding what we watch.

 

Good points but it does do "Strictly come dancing", "cash in the attic" and other quality programmes that you just wouldn't see on ITV. I just wish they'd get Ant and Dec back.

[Danny]

Murdoch has a point. The BBC website is so dominant in the market that almost every other form of media suffers. It's website covers all the national stories as they happen, leaving the following day's national papers almost redundant. You might not see the problem with that, but you'll miss them when they're gone.

 

This country also used to have a successful local media, which held the local authorities to account and covered news at the local level. However, the BBC website pretty much covers all the big stories now, as well as many of the smaller, local stories. It stifles the whole system.

 

However, for somebody at the top of News Corporation to talk about independence is beyond hypocrisy.

 

My advice: go out and buy your local paper every day to ensure the survival of democracy.

 

Murdoch did raise some good points (and some incredibly stupid ones). The BBC is a good service, however it's financial might is too much for anyone else to compete with. It needs to be reigned in. Allowing it to stifle competition is not in anyone's interest (I heard the other day the Beeb has twice the income of ITV).

 

At local level, the BBC doesn't break news. It depends on local papers to provide news which it then reads out on air or regurgitates for an awful lot of it's content.

 

Audiences don't realise this, so assume the BBC's first and as a the listeners/viewers don't buy papers. Papers die, BBC has less sources for stories, less gets reported, and eventually local news dies and becomes all about Sally Taylor's latest visit to a country park.

[Danny]

This is a bit like the NHS thread. Murdoch's slimy, self-serving assault (hardly the first, by no means the last) shouldn't hide the fact that there is a lot wrong with the BBC.

 

As someone who's made programmes for it fairly regularly, it always amazes me how little of the £1.6 billion trickles down to actually making shows.

 

The reasons are not hard to find. Walk into White City, for example, and you will see more 'HR' officers, middle managers, 'compliance' managers, technical support, department heads (and their various assistants), property managers etc., than people actually making programmes.

 

And the status accorded to programme makers is just as plain. I recall finding myself sat near a producer called Deborah Cadbury. She was bang next to a large photocopier, at a desk in an open hallway. Yet she's a BAFTA and Emmy Award winner writer and producer. The hallway she sat in was filled with spacious offices occupied by those useless HRs, property managers, etc.

 

The whole culture at the BBC is civil-service-like - and is, as Greg Dyke said not too long ago, 'hideously white'. Actually it's worse than that. It's dominated by public-school, Oxbridge-educated whites who have learned the arts of climbing the greasy career ladder and all the bullying, intimidation and brown-nosing that goes with it. Here's an example. I once attended a meeting with Michael Jackson, then the controller of BBC2. Trailing in his wake was this character doing a more than passable impression of Uriah Heep - 'ever so 'umble'. His name was Mark Thompson - now the director-general of the BBC. He's regarded by many as the worst D-G the BBC has ever had, and has presided over a series of scandals, including Queengate. He's also grossly mishandled dealings with the government on a whole range of issues, which is widely seen as having compromised the BBC's independence.

 

Whenever the BBC has a financial crisis - which is often, despite the billions pouring into it - the cuts fall first and usually exclusively on the production staff and freelancers, the people at the sharp end out there making things. For example, when a 'black hole' was discovered in the accounts about three years ago, the result was a swingeing cut of production staff, notably at the Natural History Unit, the people who make all the Attenborough series, and one of the jewels in the crown. The result was that some of those talented people left the industry.

 

If you want a graphic demonstration of waste, take a look at the BBC Birmingham headquarters at the appropriately named 'Mailbox'. A few years back, BBC Birmingham was based a Pebble Mill, an ageing but expansive piece of real estate, with plenty of studio space, etc. As a result of mismanaged property deals that ought, in my view, be considered a scandal, Pebble Mill was sold for peanuts, and the Mailbox taken on at sky-high (no pun intended) rents. how did the BBC present this? Well, because they'd wasted millions in the mismanagement of the whole affair, they put out press releases trumpeting the 'extra investment' pumped into the regions. If you go into the Mailbox now, it is a cramped, overcrowded, unpleasant place wholly unsuited to its purpose. It will no doubt eventually close.

 

Despite appearances, perhaps, I'm actually a defender of the BBC. But it needs serious and drastic reform to re-focus on its core activities, and to remind itself that it's there to make seriously good programmes. Its current output, given the resources, is truly pitiful.

 

But even that is preferable to a world in which the likes of that irritating nepotist James Murdoch dominate even more in deciding what we watch.

 

Can't really argue with any of that - especially the nepotist thing.

 

The BBC does just seem to be so overstaffed in the places it doesn't need to be. For example, there were 12 people from the BBC covering Saints v Birmingham the other day - Two from Solent, two from BBC Midlands, a camera man and six (!) from Radio Five (I can't remember who the 12th was).

 

In my mind, that's not a good use of the licence fee!

[BadgerBadger]

BBC is average at best and wastes so much money

 

what is its flagship show...Eastenders.?

 

BBC news is good but seen as biased state owned media is some places and superb in others..

 

what the latest thing to let the BBC (imo) was when vivian westwood was on Johnathon Ross' show (who earns an obscene amount of money for what he does)...if you saw it then you would get my point..

 

Radio One is...CACK in most parts..

5Live is excellent IMO

World service is also Excellent (am a frequent listener when away)

 

is there a need for all the other Radio Stations..?..probably not..

 

 

Yes - no doubt the people that listen to the 'other' Radio stations think there is no need for 5Live and World Service, shows what the BBC is about, diversity and appealling to the masses

[St Landrew]

I know what a commercial is, my point was that the BBC is not devoid of advertising as many people say.

 

The fact that commercials interrupt programmes is only one of the reasons why people say advertising is annoying and, to be fair, I quite like a kettle / toilet break so I can't see what the harm is in that respect.

 

The fact that the BBC trail there own shows between shows and, more importantly, employs covert advertising tactics on their news channel and also on their website, means they are not nearly as advertising free as people make out.

 

You are correct, the BBC does use trailers for their programmes, just as the commerical stations do, and do indulge in covert advertising, again like the commercial stations. What they don't do is openly interrupt their programmes with advertising, although if you occasionally watch BBC3 [which I try to avoid generally], you'll notice, for some unfathomable reason, that they break into whatever programe is being broadcast to have a 1 minute update of the news during the evening. Frankly, I can't see the point, but then I find it hard to make a case for BBC3 anyway.

 

But BBC3 is another subject. Onto the main point, which I ask people to think about. For ease of understanding, let's take an hour long programme. On the BBC, and hour long programme means between 55 minutes to almost the entire hour. It depends on the time slot, and yes, how many trailers have been played before and after the programme. But generally, we're almost getting what we expect - an hour long programme.

 

Onto a commercial channel, funded through advertising and sponsorship, i.e. we pay indirectly. I never watch the programme but, am I right that Corrie is sponsored by Cadbury's..?. Anyway, the same programme hour is subject to similar trailers, so a few minutes is lost there. Then we take away 3 breaks for advertising, during the programme, and 1 for the programme start/finish. In all, upto 20 minutes of the hour can be taken up. That leaves a 40 minute programme, in an hour slot, saving the production side of the company quite a lot of money. But not only that, what time they save on can be used to generate money. Times that by 3, and the company has saved on 60 minutes of programme making - another programme entirely - and had the hour to generate money. Seems like a good scam to me.

 

Then we get the crowd led by the Murdochs. Advertised, sponsored and directly paid for TV. On the surface it seems good - you pay only for what you sign up for, i.e. you choose. Great, I like the concept. But then they put the gems out there, and you have to take some of the rubbish with it. It used to be worse, I know, I didn't want to, but I used to help sell it as part of Comet retailing. You used to have to have most of the rubbish before you got the sport or the films, practically the only reason for SKY in the first place. So there you are, paying your whatever package price per month [not small, that's for sure], and then they have the gall to behave like an ordinary commercial TV channel. They advertise directly at you, and you are paying them to do this - really..! They save money on programming time, which they almost always buy in, not make for themselves, fill the remainder up with adverts, and then have the cheek to ask for direct payment. One or the other, but surely not both..? Incidentally, I notice a recent boast of SKY is to enjoy advert free films. I should bloody well think so, don't you..? You're paying for them, after all.

 

If anyone thinks they are being slightly conned by the Beeb, then surely they need to go back and re-examine. Whatever the Beeb's faults, and they are manifold, they are the creative yardstick in the UK. Without their lead there would be no majority quality media in this country. We lose them at our peril.