Comments on: BBC cuts, my 2p

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:01:55 +0000

With all the fuss being made about 6 Music and Asian Network the cuts to the web services seem to have been lost. I can’t say I can comment about 6 music as I have never listened to it and Asian Network is not my scene!
But the BBC have built up such a great web presence that is respected all over the world that it just seems idiotic to talk about cuts in this area. Can you name any other business that is cutting back on their internet presence in favour of other areas. It is sheer lunacy. The BBC is one of the great things about Britain and I am afraid that the MPs of all parties just don’t like it’s powers. It still makes mistakes, it’s not infallible but we would be much poorer in this country if it was dismantled. The abandonment of Regional News services by ITV (which should never have been allowed) shows what can quickly happen if we are not careful. We need to stand up for the BBC against Labour and the Conservatives.

By: Graham Majin

Graham Majin — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 09:06:21 +0000

I agree with your comments about “defensive cuts”. But is Lightly Trimming the BBC’s Publicly Funded Tree What Licence Fee Payers Really Want? The BBC is the neighbour at the end or your garden with a giant leylandii. He smiles at you and is a nice enough bloke. But the problem is his tree. It’s too big. It greedily sucks in nutrients from the soil and blocks out the sunlight. It’s an impressive tree by any standards, but it casts a massive shadow.
More on my blog: http://bit.ly/9Tb3NX

By: Russ L

Russ L — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 17:20:25 +0000

Clearly ‘successful’ in the sense of ‘popular and widely used’ is the sense in which I-Player is successful.

You don’t often hear people complaining about it being unreliable. I’m not exactly on it every week but I’ve never had a single problem.

I also (really) love the rasta connotations in the name.

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:45:28 +0000

Well I’ve never had problem accessing it that wasn’t caused by my connection, but that’s not really the point, obviously.

By: James Thornett

James Thornett — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 16:20:22 +0000

As somebody who works for the BBC I have many opinions on this topic which I shall keep to myself.

However, it is worth stating that the proposals are just proposals at this stage and if you want to input into the decision making process then the best way to do it is visit the BBC Trust website and have your say.

BBC Trust consultation:- http://tinyurl.com/yzv2fm4

By: focalplane

focalplane — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:12:15 +0000

Tom, just how successful is iPlayer? It apparently is to you, but it isn’t to me!

By: Lawson Bant

Lawson Bant — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 23:56:04 +0000

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 21:09:00 +0000

To the comment above, do you really think that if your experience was typical, then iPlayer would have been such a success? Obviously something other than the service itself is causing your problem, so how is your point relevant?

By: focalplane

focalplane — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 13:49:57 +0000

Well, Pete, you know what I think! The American Public Broadcasting model is the way forward for the BBC. Minimal but useful programming, none of the utter crap that fills up hours of the BBC schedule, etc. etc. What often amazes me is that most Americans believe the BBC is wonderful because they enjoy the creme de la creme programs that the BBC sells them. They rarely see the banal rubbish that seems to be served up on British channels.

So, cut all the services back to Radio 4, possibly keep Radio 3 as an internet station, and one TV channel. Reduce the license fee, stop sending people regular letters about non-payment of said fee even when it’s been paid, remind the remaining staff that they re servants of the fee payers, etc. etc.

The most popular radio stations in our house are Radio 4 (either streamed or broadcast FM) and KHUF Classical from PBR Houston, via Apple TV (but it could be on-line as well). Together these provide news, current affairs, life in the county of Borcestershire and uninterrupted classical music that never fails to entertain and educate.

I don’t have a problem with the BBC’s forays into designing programming for the internet, including the iPlayer, but even though we have an excellent ADSL connection, it seems to me that iPlayer video bandwidth is overloaded. I can download a file at 600kbps yet stream a program at only 40kbps with lots of stops and starts to ruin the content.

As to the competition’s wingeing – perhaps they are going the way of the dinosaur?

By: Lyn

Lyn — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:41:20 +0000

Although some of your argument may be right, using Grey Cardigan to support it kind of defeats the purpose. Grey Cardigan is meant to be an anonymous parody written from the view of someone in a newsroom, not a newspaper editor anonymously reflecting on what went wrong. Seen in that context, it is not about humility.

By: Magick Temple

Magick Temple — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:45:14 +0000

Not living in the UK I’m not a license fee payer and the politics of the move are largely irrelevant to me, but I can’t believe they intend to cut Radio6Music – it’s the only worthwhile mainstream music station in the world right now! Cut radio one ffs!

Guess it might be good for small internet stations like my own, but it can’t be good for interesting music on any level… surely the whole point of a tax based broadcast company is to not be tied to commercialism?

By: Andy Cowley

Andy Cowley — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 11:23:17 +0000

I rarely watch TV as TV. I almost never sit down to watch a TV program at its allotted time. The best thing about the BBC in my opinion is that it doesn’t matter. With iPlayer as an example and all of the other hosted content, it doesn’t matter at all. I can watch when I want, I have a raft of information from the website available to me etc. In fact, the online content from the BBC is so much better than 95% of the dross they have to stick on the TV and radio to pander to the vacuous masses. For this reason, I am happy for my TV license to be spent on stuff that isn’t TV.

Perhaps what we need is some kind of clarification, maybe a change of name from TV License to something more indicative of what it is being used for. Any suggestions?