Re: Funding of the BBC
 

Totally disagree with you. Why can't the BBC compete with all other TV channels? All the other commercial channels manage alright. If the BBC is so good then people will flock to sub to then. On the other hand if they are as crap as I believe they are they will sink without trace! I can count on one hand how many programs I watch.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

ITV, Channel 4 and Five don’t take subscriptions. Why should the BBC?

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

No reason why they should IF they think they can survive on adverts only!

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

In the beginning advertising space could be sold at a premium on BBC.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

ITV would be near destroyed if the BBC took adverts....

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

I don't know where you get that from! Advertisers will want to be on both channels equally.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

If you want to advertise to the kind of ratings ITV get there’s one place to go. Another supplier entering the market (BBC) drives down the price of advertising.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

An (alleged} prestigious channel can cater for prestigious companies at a premium.

IIRC many years ago when there were only 4 channels and it was muted the BBC could advertise for its revenue the answer was "There isn't enough advertising revenue". Now look at the amount of channels and the advertising revenue is still there.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

I wouldn't object to limited advertising on the BBC, as long as it was between programmes (rather than interrupting them) and as long as there was an advertisement free subscription streaming service with a free option containing ads.

Nothing much to object to there, in my book.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

Agree with you 100%. The BBC channels on free view and freesat could contain adverts and be provided subscription free whilst on Sky, BT and Virgin they could be advert free but come at a cost. Not sure how they'd work it mind but I'm sure there must be clever technology out there to be able to make it happen.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

Advertisers don't want to spend more so if the BBC took ads it just spreads the ad money even thinner. So programme makers would need to be even more sure of success (ad money) before they could make programmes.

The license fee covers more than just the TV channels though, all those radio stations, how do you keep ad's off FM?

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

Close most of them down. Waste of good bandwidth. Merge R1 and R2 with ads. Publically fund R4.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

1 and 2 are far too distinct to merge effectively. They could certainly afford to lose 1-Extra, run commercials on 1 and 6, bid for 4 to become some kind of state-funded special case, and cross-subsidise 2 with revenue from its commericalised TV operations, effectively using radio 2 commercial space as advertising for BBC TV. They should sell 3 to classic FM who in my humble opinion do a better, more accessible job of it anyway.

Any local stations that want to stay open would have to go commercial. In reality most of them would close. A few such as Radio Merseyside have a genuine following and would probably survive.

The BBC’s TV operations are based on a mass audience strategy and there’s no way they’re ever going behind a paywall. Absent a licence fee, they’ll go free-to-air with advertising, and will probably merge Four back into BBC2, which did a perfectly good job of that sort of arts output before Four was launched anyway.

I don’t think public funding of TV is ever going to go away completely. The day may well come when the TV licence is terminated, but it will be replaced by something else which, I believe, is likely to fund a central pot which all broadcasters could bid for a slice of in order to fund public service programming.

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

Only having HD on BBC2 Wales, I set a serial link on it for Top Gear. But the snooker overran (what a shock!) so I decided to watch Top Gear on the iPlayer.

Up popped a message telling me to sign on online to get a 5 digit PIN. Not wanting to boot my PC just for that, I took the option to call the 0800 number for the PIN ("valid until the end of the day").

Am I the only one that can forsee access to iPlayer being via an payable 0870 number at some point, or by a payable online link? And then similar for all BBC TV content?

Re: Funding of the BBC
 

The iPlayer is part of the BBC’s chartered public service broadcasting operations so they can’t charge for it, support it with adverts, or even give the impression that they’re doing so.

The BBC took a policy decision some years ago to stop using premium rate numbers wherever possible and these days you almost always find them using geographic rate 03 numbers or free 0800 numbers.