Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

If we`re talking about the BBC providing educational programs which wouldn`t get made if they were behind a pay wall then let the government fund it! Personally i can`t see being behind a pay wall would stop the BBC from making educational programs,after all it doesn`t stop channels such as the History Channel or National Geographic making such programs does it?

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

The BBC will not go behind a paywall because it is a mass-audience broadcaster. The UK pay TV market does not deliver sufficiently large audiences for the BBC to even consider becoming a subscription service.

Honestly, I don't know why some people are so fixated on the idea that the BBC could go subscription. Why is this? Is it because you see the licence fee as a sort of compulsory subscription, and therefore if the licence fee is bad it should simply be made voluntary?

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

l don't think some people realise what we have got with the BBC and would only realise how important it is if it disappears but thankfully that's never going to happen although l do wish bloody politicians would keep their nose out of it.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Well yes I don`t believe the licence fee should be compulsory. If you are paying a subscription to Virgin,Sky,or BT then why should you be Forced to pay for something i don`t care about watching? Those that want to watch it should be able to get it by paying for it through perhaps a smart card for their freeview boxes or as an additional cost through Virgin,Sky or BT. i`m sure it could easily be done except the BBC wouldn`t like it for the very simple reason they know how few people would actually want their channels!

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Your logic is faulty.

Sky is not a public service broadcaster. Nor is Nat Geo or BT. The BBC, ITV, C4 and C5, on the other hand ... these are PSBs, who have the right to occupy the top five EPG slots on all UK broadcast platforms in return for obeying certain requirements.

Amongst those requirements is that they accept the way they raise revenue is set down in law. For the BBC, by royal charter it is permitted to collect a licence fee from everyone who receives live TV broadcasts. For the others, they are permitted to run commercials (within certain limits). They are also forbidden to charge any kind of subscription.

The alternative funding model for the BBC, as a public service broadcaster, in the absence of a licence fee, is obvious: the other public service broadcasters, who are free to air and ad-supported, are the model, not special interest services like Sky etc.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

What has changed is choice and which is why I broadly agree with Old Boy's view on things.

Originally, there were a handful of broadcast channels and only a few of those were commercial. So, because shows such as Corrie could garner audiences of 20 million viewers+, they made massive revenues from ads.

Then pay tv came along and it spread those viewers across many more channels and in time, the content was spread like thin butter across the many channels too. This may, in part, be why the quality of uktv has gone done.

Now we have streaming services and other on demand choices, many of which are ad free and the programmes are available immediately.

Pay tv ate into ITV's, CH4&5 revenues. I believe streaming will have the same effect on pay tv, as we have seen in the States.

Something has to give somewhere. It can't all be sustainable.

I've said here before and keep saying that I reckon things will go full circle. We may end up with a handful of linear tv channels, perhaps from the main broadcasters, or perhaps not. But the bulk of tv viewing will be non-linear.

I don't want to watch drivel like UK soaps anymore. I used to love them, but not now. I got bored after the last serial killer/rapist/psycho storyline.

The drivel I speak of is not necessarily an individual programme, but the lack of variety on the main broadcast channels.

There was a reason they were called BROADcasters, they are meant to appeal to all. But this is not the case now as they all seem to follow the lowest demographics they can. You don't need reality programmes on the 5 channels all at the same time, or soap etc.

Where are the decent dramas, what has happened to comedy, especially sitcoms? These are largely missing from the broacast schedules. In a the evening i neither find it educational or entertaining to watch the police deal with some drunk, or watch a bloke go down the sewers, or watch an inspection of a dirty restaurant/hotel/house etc. And although it is pleasant if not a little bit envious to watch someone buy a house in a warm, sunny country, I don't need to watch such programmes EVERY day.

No one really cares about HBO, Sky Atlantic etc, but what they do care about is watching their favourite shows like Game of Thrones, or, when it was on, Breaking Bad. Two of the biggest shows in recent times, yet you wouldn't know that if you stuck to the "quality" that is the BBC or ITV.

And before someone says ITV has quality dramas like Downton Abbey, it bored the **** out of me. It was neither dramatic or entertaining. Our broadcasters should be doing a LOT better.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

And where does the government get their money from....? ;)

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

I agree, but its very hard to find the quality out of all the dross.

And as I keep saying, I'm not against shows such as NCIS and CSI, but at any one time these shows are on at least a dozen channels EVERY day.

It's very hard to find something to watch when one programme or one kind of genre ie reality, drowns out everything else.

Now if I could actually organise the channels where I want them and on the number I want, that would help.....but I've given up on that idea on cable which is why I mainly stick to Freeview for my linear tv needs.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Not really unless your`e telling me the law can`t be changed? Isn`t the government not currently looking at how the BBC is funded? Could they not take them out of the `public broadcaster` thing?
In the not to distant future I think we`l get a situation not unlike the POLL TAX in the eighties were people will simply say I`m not paying anymore! Tell me what can the BBC,government or whoever do about it if say MILLIONS of people just stopped paying for the TV Licence? I think the government are realising this might happen and are desperately trying to seek a fairer way of funding the BBC.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Yes, why not?

If the BBC is so great, it will flourish in a subscription world, won't it...?

---------- Post added at 16:01 ---------- Previous post was at 15:59 ----------

Why is his logic faulty, you haven't said?

What is faulty about having the option to pay for something or not?

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Our taxes of course! Those that want the BBC can obtain a decoding card to unlock the channels for them,paying of course through a higher tax. That would leave me and others that don`t want the BBC channels extra money in our pockets.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

I think that is an unfair criticism of the output of the main FTA channels. They do show good drama, you just have to pick it out from the other stuff; not that difficult as it usually airs at 9:00pm.

I do add to that content via streaming services, but to say the FTA channels don't show good drama is way off in my view.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

One thing I am absolutely confident of, is, the BBC will not have a say in it at all! The government will decide assuming there is a BBC in the future at all. My local MP is one among many who wants rid of the BBC completely.

Agree in part, but as said by someone else there will be higher priced non ad tiers too.

---------- Post added at 16:15 ---------- Previous post was at 16:11 ----------

For me, as someone who was always a major advocate of our broadcasters, they are dead to me as far as I am concerned.

They exist to service the lowest common denominator only and what "quality" dramas they do come up with are boring and are poorly acted and executed.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

The BBC is a major international broadcaster and employs more people than any other broadcaster anywhere in the world. That's 20,000 full time staff, in a business with revenue of more than £5 billion (more than £1bn of which comes from worldwide commercial operations, not the licence fee).

The one thing you can be absolutely certain of, is that nobody is going to get 'rid' of it, and no Government of any colour would get away with forcing a funding model onto it that would be guaranteed to destroy its audience.

I think you're allowing your dislike of the licence fee to cloud your judgment just a little.

Re: The future for linear TV channels
 

Think that's underestimating the huge lobbying power that the BBC has and the desire of the British establishment to have a major broadcaster under their ultimate control. It also suits the other broadcasters far more to have a weakened BBC supported by some form of tax than a major commercial operator taking revenues from advertising or subscription away from them.