h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The thing is that the BBC is a non representative institution. We pay our £110 but do we get any say in what it is spent on? - No.
I would gladly pay an extra £30 to the BBC if they bought the premiership rights - but apart from whinging on boards like this I can't actually get that.

There is a certain amount of public consultation and representation. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/info

I think the Premiership should be on BBC too, but only if it was charged at a reasonable rate. As it is the Premiership is just out there trying to rob as much money as they can, and it'd be stupid for the BBC to stump up all this money just for some rich footballers.

It will be interesting to see what price football rights achieve the next time they come up for auction. My guess is they will be somewhere in the region of the auction before last, at which point the BBC could afford to compete with ITV for a highlights package.

I doubt whether they would go for the live Premiership football as there isn't time in the terrestrial non-digital schedules to make it worthwhile. Plus live football is the mainstay of Sky's broadcasting strategy and they will fight tooth and nail to defend it.

Even Sky don't get live coverage of the regular saturday games, that's not allowed because it might affect gate receipts at the matches. ITV Digital only paid that money for the league teams (ie not Premiership), but the money ITV spend on the premiership highlights was also a bit wasted as the show was moved out of the prime time slot in the end..

I'm all for paying a licence fee if it means BBC being independent of government control & no advertising in the middle of programmes.
There is public consultation as has already been mentioned & plenty of opportunities for people to make their views known. But I don't want the range of programmes restricted to what a majority wants. There should be minority interest items so that there is something for everyone. I don't expect to enjoy every programme, I select what to watch & consider the licence fee good value for the amount of programmes I do choose.

"We pay our £110 but do we get any say in what it is spent on? - No."

This is a major problem with the BBC - it is overseen by London media people who are out of touch at best.

I doubt they would willingly listen to their actual audience when they can listen to the talking-heads on a focus group or some marketing people or some other such nonsense.

Having said that, lessons are being learned. I can't remember an unmitigated distaster of the last few years (in the last decade we had Eldorado - a fantastic waste of money that a child could have told you would flop, and a Year in Provence - a flop that was widely expected to be a sure-fire hit). Also, some quality television has been produced by the beeb in the last few years - Blue Planet, A History of Britain, Walking with Dinosaurs... even newcomer Spooks is getting good reviews (all of these a poke in the eye for the whining nostalgics and TV-haters who insist TV isn't as good as it used to be/is fundamentally stupid).

So, the beeb is capable of overcoming it's obstacles. And it's still miles better than dreadful old ITV

Having said that those new "inbetweeny bits" with people absailing down red cloth and dancing in wheelchairs are utterly dreadful :P

To stretch your "Piper/tune" analogy, it's like a Juke box... You pay to listen, or you don't. The selection is clearly available at the outset, and there's (usually) no way you can change it... Except, of course, if you want to watch ITV you still have to pay for the BBC... Hmmm... Not such a good analogy after all. Did I mention that I *hate* sport on TV?

here in the states we pay for our television by accepting that advertisements will come on during the show.
There are plenty of arguments to support or denounce the use of advertisements but think on this... During the superbowl (which I don't watch, I can't stand American Football) commercials are rated in the tens of millions of dollars for a 30 sec ad! Admittedly this is the worst of the worst but it makes my point, with that much money rolling in do you think the consumer really has much of a say in how the station is run?
More specifically, at what point does the station stop listening to its viewers and start listening to its advertisers?


I want to spend money for quality programming, and I do with my cable service, but I am still bombarded with adverts all day and night, The cable vompany even adds adverts to the one beeb channel I do get! At least the adverts on different channels are geared toward the viewers of that channel, so I see ads for computers on tech tv but honestly, how long will it be before they start putting banner ad pop-ups on the tube? Not long Methinks...
Perhaps we should all just stop watching the telly and maybe we'll stop caring about the ads (or lack of them) Internet is better for the mind anyway.
Well, this is long enough, but thanks for letteng me say my piece.

All that stuff about ITV is quite interesting. I'm preparing a history of the channel at the moment. To say what's relevant here:

The ITA/IBA was a powerful regulator. It ensured that ITV, as a federation of local channels which broadcast accross the network, made decent TV, or the local channels would be fired and replaced with something else. This meant that ITV was able to create some great stuff.

Then came the 1990 Broadcasting Act. The IBA became the ITC, a truely toothless regulator, which sold franchises, instead of awarding contracts, and could only investigate specific complaints. End result -- ITV run for advertisers and shareholders, but not for viewers, nothing could be done about it, and Thames got replaced with the execrable Carlton.

Still, at least it ruined TV-am. Thatcher had to admit she'd shot herself in the foot over that one.

My point -- let not such a stupid mistake be made with the BBC. Keep it as it is.