The BBC Thread

[The Kraken]

Only surprised that little rant didn’t include something about Gary Lineker.

The bbc payment model is definitely fucked, which is one thing, but there’s also absolutely a correlation between the most vociferous about it and the most weirdky angry people in general.

[whelk]

55 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

So the top 10 most watched programmes on TV this Christmas were BBC prigrammes. 

Christmas will be very different if Rupert Lowe and the BBC defunders ever have their way. 

 

That isn’t the top 10 highest quality programs though.  I think the only BBC programme I have watched over Xmas was Gavin and Stacey and that was a couple of days after it aired. Tv has changed dramatically and BBC make some utter crap. Wouldn’t miss its tv programmes myself. My kids don’t even have tv licenses 

[Tamesaint]

7 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

So subscribing to it rather than being forced pay via a poll tax won’t be an issue then.
 

It’s funny how the people who think it’s so great , are the ones who don’t want it subjected to the market.
 

If it’s good as they claim, people will subscribe to watch it. Why should people who don’t want to watch it, pay to not watch it. 

For the same reason as why the taxes of childless people should be used to fund schools. When everybody contributes to something it is better funded and normally better than when "only if it affects me" is the predominant concern. 

[AlexLaw76]

21 minutes ago, Tamesaint said:

For the same reason as why the taxes of childless people should be used to fund schools. When everybody contributes to something it is better funded and normally better than when "only if it affects me" is the predominant concern. 

What next, compare the BBC to the Health Service?

[benjii]

Spend some time in another country and you understand the value and importance of maintaining the BBC.

[Tamesaint]

18 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

What next, compare the BBC to the Health Service?

If you want to, yes

[Lord Duckhunter]

18 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

What next, compare the BBC to the Health Service?

Laughable isn’t it. Schools, roads, health care and a media company 😂. 
 

If it’s as good as people claim, they’ll have no bother collecting subscriptions. The reason they don’t support subscription is because they know full well a lot of people won’t pay for the shite they churn out. 

[Tamesaint]

1 minute ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Laughable isn’t it. Schools, roads, health care and a media company 😂. 
 

If it’s as good as people claim, they’ll have no bother collecting subscriptions. The reason they don’t support subscription is because they know full well a lot of people won’t pay for the shite they churn out. 

One by one many of the "institutions" of this country have been screwed up by the privatisation idealogues.  The Post Office. Water companies . Building societies. Trains. Power. etc etc. All now more expensive than they used to be with poorer levels of service. Now its the BBC which is in the crosshairs of the privatisation nutters. Its staggering that they haven't learnt. 

As Benji suggests go and watch television in other countries. You will soon discover shite television

 

[whelk]

My support for them hinges on who they chose as new MOTD presenter. If Kelly Cates or Mark Chapman I’m ok. If it’s Gregg Wallace or Jermaine Jenas I’m out

[Turkish]

42 minutes ago, whelk said:

My support for them hinges on who they chose as new MOTD presenter. If Kelly Cates or Mark Chapman I’m ok. If it’s Gregg Wallace or Jermaine Jenas I’m out

It'll be Alex Scott she ticks every box.

[Tamesaint]

3 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It'll be Alex Scott she ticks every box.

Ticks or Licks???? 

[Turkish]

Just now, Tamesaint said:

Ticks or Licks???? 

cool it with the lesaphobia.

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, Tamesaint said:

As Benji suggests go and watch television in other countries. You will soon discover shite television

I have watched TV & streaming services in other countries, it’s no better or no worse than the BBC. 
 

You’re so stuck in the last century. If it didn’t exist, and the Government wanted to set up a media company, paid for by everyone who owned a TV, people would think it ridiculous. It’s 2025 not 1955. 

[Turkish]

2 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I have watched TV & streaming services in other countries, it’s no better or no worse than the BBC. 
 

You’re so stuck in the last century. If it didn’t exist, and the Government wanted to set up a media company, paid for by everyone who owned a TV, people would think it ridiculous. It’s 2025 not 1955. 

Depends who was in charge. If it was Labour loads on here would think it was a lovely gesture from the caring party who really do want to make the country better. If it was the evil, nasty, lying Tories then it'd be a terrible idea from those who just want to get more tax off us to give control us with their propaganda, whilst giving large contracts to their mates to run it.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I have watched TV & streaming services in other countries, it’s no better or no worse than the BBC. 
 

You’re so stuck in the last century. If it didn’t exist, and the Government wanted to set up a media company, paid for by everyone who owned a TV, people would think it ridiculous. It’s 2025 not 1955. 

TBF Italian broadcast TV is much worse than anything on UK telly. Doesn't really matter though as I haven't watched live TV in years apart from Wallace and Gromit at Christmas so it doesn't affect me. Just don't pay the license. 

[Tamesaint]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I have watched TV & streaming services in other countries, it’s no better or no worse than the BBC. 

 

????? 

You must have struck very lucky.  The Boss sums up US TV very well. 

Nowadays this would be 157 channels. 😁

[Guided Missile]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

I haven't watched live TV in years apart from Wallace and Gromit at Christmas so it doesn't affect me. 

You realise that Wallace and Gromit wasn't actually live TV.

[sadoldgit]

The BBC is still producing a wide range of quality programming, although, granted, not as much as before. I have spent ages scanning other channels and apps for things to what this Christmas and apart from old films, can’t find much to rival it. You won’t  find high quality  things like Wolf Hall, Wallace & Gromit, international, national and local news, a wide variety of quiz and light entertainment shows, drama etc on one channel elsewhere. It’s never going to be all things to all people but I have yet to find another channel that comes near in terms of quality and diversity. Throw in the quality radio broadcasting and international coverage too. When you go back and look at the quality vintage programmes, the vast majority of them were made by the BBC. We should cherish the institution rather than try and hasten its demise.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

16 minutes ago, Guided Missile said:

You realise that Wallace and Gromit wasn't actually live TV.

From TV Licensing

Live TV means any programme you watch or record as it’s being shown on any channel, TV service or streaming service. It’s not just live events like football, cricket, news and music. It also covers soaps, series, documentaries and even movies.

So, if watched as it aired, Wallace and Gromi would be live TV. Not just because they're real, which they are. 🙂

[Tamesaint]

30 minutes ago, Guided Missile said:

You realise that Wallace and Gromit wasn't actually live TV.

A late entry for the category of most pedantic post of the year. 

[hypochondriac]

45 minutes ago, Guided Missile said:

You realise that Wallace and Gromit wasn't actually live TV.

I meant terrestrial telly. It's a live broadcast but you know what I mean surely. 

Edited 31 December, 2024 by hypochondriac

[Turkish]

The truly dreadful Bridge of lies currently on. If anything was an incentive not to pay your licence fee it's this.

[rooney]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

It'll be Alex Scott she ticks every box.

She would not have got a look in years ago as she does not sound her “g’s” at the end of a word.

 

[Weston Super Saint]

24 minutes ago, rooney said:

She would not have got a look in years ago as she does not sound her “g’s” at the end of a word.

 

There is no 'g' at the end of 'a word'...

[Holmes_and_Watson]

53 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

There is no 'g' at the end of 'a word'...

You can see the MLG ripple effect on the board after someone triggers him with "s...t...a...d...i...u...m" 🙂

Edited 31 December, 2024 by Holmes_and_Watson

[badgerx16]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

There is no 'g' at the end of 'a word'...

It is silent, like the P in bath.

[benjii]

It's not about the "quality" of programming, it's about social cohesion, the value of cultural touchpoints and shared experience. The sort of thing that's too complicated for the type of people who rant about the BBC.

Edited January 1 by benjii

[hypochondriac]

42 minutes ago, benjii said:

It's not about the "quality" of programming, it's about social cohesion, the value of cultural touchpoints and shared experience. The sort of thing that's too complicated for the type of people who rant about the BBC.

That's used to be the case for me. Can't say I've felt that much recently outside of major sporting events. 

[benjii]

29 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

That's used to be the case for me. Can't say I've felt that much recently outside of major sporting events. 

It's certainly declining, due to streaming and the yoof being addicted to TikTok and YouTube but it's something worth fighting to preserve IMO.

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, benjii said:

It's certainly declining, due to streaming and the yoof being addicted to TikTok and YouTube but it's something worth fighting to preserve IMO.

At this point I'm wondering what we are actually preserving because I genuinely can't remember the last thing I watched on the BBC where it felt like that. Maybe an Attenborough documentary or something but even those are on Netflix now anyway. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

Fucking hell, fancy relying on a poll tax to fund a media company for “social cohesion”  and “cultural touchpoints”, 😂. Like we didn’t have culture or social cohesion prior to 1946….

[trousers]

If it annoys certain people then I'm all for the licence fee on that basis alone. The more annoyed the better.

[sadoldgit]

The same people that no doubt grew up watching Match of the Day, Top of the Pops, Only Fools and Horses, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, ‘Til Death Do Us Part etc. etc. etc.

[Lord Duckhunter]

I guess some people are stuck in the last century , longing for Auntie to enhance social cohesion. Longing for an England long gone….

[benjii]

It's OK to be wrong sometimes. 

[Tamesaint]

Does anyone else see the irony when Duckie accuses people of living in the past?? 

[Lord Duckhunter]

35 minutes ago, benjii said:

It's OK to be wrong sometimes. 

Within 10 years it’ll be gone. A relic of the past. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

Fucking hell, dumbing down or what. 
 

I had the misfortune to watch “Celebrity” Mastermind. I didn’t have a friggin clue who these “celebrities “ were, but that’s beside the point. The specialist subjects and questions were just pathetic. Destiny’s  child, Nottingham Forest from 1978-92 and Ziggy Stardust, the only one who had anything approaching culture was some cooking bird who choose Claude Monet (though she seemed to know fuck all about him). I even got 9 out of 10 in the Forest section, but with questions like “who was the ex goalkeeper who was Brian Clough’s assistant when they won the league and European cups”, anybody over the age of about 10 would have done similar. As for general knowledge, fuck me, only a dope like David Lammy wouldn’t have scored 10 or 11 points. I had to double check it wasn’t a kids programme. The only highlight was the cooking bird nearly doing a Sharon Stone during her stint in the chair.  Other than that it was the kind of trash the BBC defenders claim is on foreign TV. Cheap, trashy, shite TV. I’ve heard harder questions on the Chase. 

[Lighthouse]

The BBC should basically be split in two. One an independant news service encompassing a single TV channel, radio service and website which is paid for by the tax payer. As well as news and weather I'd probably include programmes like HIGNFY, QT and a couple of other discussion/satire shows.

The rest - MotD, Wimbledon, Antiques Roadshow, Eastenders and whatever else - should be separate and forced to stand on it's own two feet through streaming subscriptions and advertising, same as any other channel.

[sadoldgit]

19 hours ago, Tamesaint said:

Does anyone else see the irony when Duckie accuses people of living in the past?? 

Absolutely 😂. Priceless.

The point is that we all pay for things that we don’t use anymore. For example, I don’t use the public baths any more but I still pay towards them. I used them in the past. I used to go to school. I don’t any more but I still pay towards them. The BBC is just like that. It is a publicly owned broadcasting institution that is there for all to use as it when it wants, if it wants to. If you chose not to others in your household might want to, or your neighbours, or your relatives in another part of the country. Just like public ally owned swimming baths and schools. It isn’t just Eastenders or Radio 1. It is a publicly owned broadcasting platform that provides us all with a service whether we actually use it or not. Just like swimming baths. We as a society all benefit from things that we use, we use sometimes and things that we never actually use ourselves. The BBC is a part of the fabric of our society along with schools, swimming pools, waste collection, Trident nuclear weapons, street lights etc. Should blind people be exempt from paying towards street lights? Should I be exempt from paying towards nuclear weapons because I don’t agree with them? Would Duckie feel so aggrieved with the BBC if it was more like GB News? 
The BBC still produces quality programmes. If people choose not to watch them so be it, but it is still an important part of the fabric of this country and provides a service for us all if we want to take advantage of it. Just like swimming pools and other public services. Just like swimming pools, even if we don’t use them ourselves anymore, or never have used them, by paying towards them and their upkeep we are helping to enrich the experiences and opportunities of those in our society. If we all start to insist that we only pay for things that we personally use we end up in a society populated by people like Duckie, hypochondriac and the other usual suspects. Can you imagine what that would be like?  
 

If the BBC was funded from our taxes, would people complain as much about paying for it?

Edited January 2 by sadoldgit

[Lord Duckhunter]

On 31/12/2024 at 07:53, AlexLaw76 said:

What next, compare the BBC to the Health Service?

Because things that our taxes pay, roads, health, schools. Etc  for are exactly the same as a media company.  😂😂.

It’s a hypothecated tax, so the great and the good clearly think it’s different than the stuff paid out of general taxation. 
 

It’s on its way out whether the dinosaurs on here like it or not. Non payment will be de criminalised and then it’ll have to move to a subscription based model. 
 

 

 

 

Edited January 2 by Lord Duckhunter

[badgerx16]

20 hours ago, benjii said:

It's OK to be wrong sometimes. 

Unless you are the Fonz.

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, sadoldgit said:

Absolutely 😂. Priceless.

The point is that we all pay for things that we don’t use anymore. For example, I don’t use the public baths any more but I still pay towards them. I used them in the past. I used to go to school. I don’t any more but I still pay towards them. The BBC is just like that. It is a publicly owned broadcasting institution that is there for all to use as it when it wants, if it wants to. If you chose not to others in your household might want to, or your neighbours, or your relatives in another part of the country. Just like public ally owned swimming baths and schools. It isn’t just Eastenders or Radio 1. It is a publicly owned broadcasting platform that provides us all with a service whether we actually use it or not. Just like swimming baths. We as a society all benefit from things that we use, we use sometimes and things that we never actually use ourselves. The BBC is a part of the fabric of our society along with schools, swimming pools, waste collection, Trident nuclear weapons, street lights etc. Should blind people be exempt from paying towards street lights? Should I be exempt from paying towards nuclear weapons because I don’t agree with them? Would Duckie feel so aggrieved with the BBC if it was more like GB News? 
The BBC still produces quality programmes. If people choose not to watch them so be it, but it is still an important part of the fabric of this country and provides a service for us all if we want to take advantage of it. Just like swimming pools and other public services. Just like swimming pools, even if we don’t use them ourselves anymore, or never have used them, by paying towards them and their upkeep we are helping to enrich the experiences and opportunities of those in our society. If we all start to insist that we only pay for things that we personally use we end up in a society populated by people like Duckie, hypochondriac and the other usual suspects. Can you imagine what that would be like?  
 

If the BBC was funded from our taxes, would people complain as much about paying for it?

Public baths 🤦‍♂️

[aintforever]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

The BBC should basically be split in two. One an independant news service encompassing a single TV channel, radio service and website which is paid for by the tax payer. As well as news and weather I'd probably include programmes like HIGNFY, QT and a couple of other discussion/satire shows.

The rest - MotD, Wimbledon, Antiques Roadshow, Eastenders and whatever else - should be separate and forced to stand on its own two feet through streaming subscriptions and advertising, same as any other channel.

 Wouldn’t be against this sort of idea. The idea of a license is dated but if it is completely turned to a subscription based model it will just ruin what is good about it IMO. Probably end up losing much of the good radio and with ads stuffed everywhere.

[whelk]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

The BBC should basically be split in two. One an independant news service encompassing a single TV channel, radio service and website which is paid for by the tax payer. As well as news and weather I'd probably include programmes like HIGNFY, QT and a couple of other discussion/satire shows.

The rest - MotD, Wimbledon, Antiques Roadshow, Eastenders and whatever else - should be separate and forced to stand on its own two feet through streaming subscriptions and advertising, same as any other channel.

lol HIGNFY. Don’t need to subsidise those smug twats. However MOTD is an institution

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Public baths 🤦‍♂️

did he used to nip there during his coffee breaks?

[whelk]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Public baths 🤦‍♂️

That actually made me read his post. Genuinely chuckled at bath/swimming pools

Edited January 2 by whelk

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Public baths 🤦‍♂️

I told you, some people are stuck in the past.

 

“The Baths and Wash-houses Act fixed the maximum fees bathers could be charged: the lowest class warm bath was 2d, while the cold version was 1d. Open-air baths were also 1d. For this price, they received clean water and the use of a towel. Higher fees were charged for the more superior facilities, which in a first-class private bath might include a carpet, chair, mirror, brush and comb.”

[Tamesaint]

5 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fucking hell, dumbing down or what. 
 

I had the misfortune to watch “Celebrity” Mastermind. I didn’t have a friggin clue who these “celebrities “ were, but that’s beside the point. The specialist subjects and questions were just pathetic. Destiny’s  child, Nottingham Forest from 1978-92 and Ziggy Stardust, the only one who had anything approaching culture was some cooking bird who choose Claude Monet (though she seemed to know fuck all about him). I even got 9 out of 10 in the Forest section, but with questions like “who was the ex goalkeeper who was Brian Clough’s assistant when they won the league and European cups”, anybody over the age of about 10 would have done similar. As for general knowledge, fuck me, only a dope like David Lammy wouldn’t have scored 10 or 11 points. I had to double check it wasn’t a kids programme. The only highlight was the cooking bird nearly doing a Sharon Stone during her stint in the chair.  Other than that it was the kind of trash the BBC defenders claim is on foreign TV. Cheap, trashy, shite TV. I’ve heard harder questions on the Chase. 

Amazing. The BBC prroduced a programme, popular to many, that a grumpy, opinionated old git considered to be dumbing down.  How dare they. 

Mind you, maybe he had a problem with his arms as he clearly didn’t have the wherewithal to try another channel which would have catered to his highbrow tastes. 

[hypochondriac]

6 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

The BBC should basically be split in two. One an independant news service encompassing a single TV channel, radio service and website which is paid for by the tax payer. As well as news and weather I'd probably include programmes like HIGNFY, QT and a couple of other discussion/satire shows.

The rest - MotD, Wimbledon, Antiques Roadshow, Eastenders and whatever else - should be separate and forced to stand on it's own two feet through streaming subscriptions and advertising, same as any other channel.

There's nothing particularly unique about the likes of MOTD and Wimbledon that couldn't be recreated on a non public service broadcaster. Just mandate that it has to be free to air if that's the issue. Agree I'd probably be a lot happier with that option. Bin off bbc pidgin too:

https://www.bbc.com/pidgin