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Originally Posted by Pierre
I think you should re-check that.
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Actually, I was partially wrong. Channel 4 DID initially recieve funding from the licence fee, but that was terminated. They are, however, debating applying for new funding from the licence to help pay for the transition to digital programming (
http://www.c21media.net/news/detail....e=22418&area=1)
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The same way they have folded die to the influx of all the sattelite channels?
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Most of the ITV channels have merged to save money. Advertising revenues have dropped massively because of fragmentation of the market (no quotable link for that, I have relatives and friends in the business and the quote comes from them).
Another way to look at it. The satellite and cable television market accounts for a fraction of the total viewing public, and, as such, the impact on ITV & Channel 4 (channel 5 was not around) was, at first, minimal. It has increased, but what effect would adding a supplier of advertising space that is the same size (or larger) than ITV have on all the channels?
The laws of Economics (particularly supply and demand) would suggest it will reduce the price of advertising space massively.
Of course, this will bring profits down (maybe not cause ITV to fold, but certainly smaller companies). However, the cost of producing decent Television will not go down. The practical upshot of that is we will get more cheap imports, more soaps and more reality TV. Purely because they are relatively cheap. Do you really want that?
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This has been said before - so what. If the BBC didn't exist the technicians, technology and services would have been available somewhere else.
NTL for that matter, you may raise your eyebrows but NTL/IBA where are just as talented in broadcast technology.
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Actually, while I am aware of NTL's track record in the broadcast industry (they are very respected), AFAIK, they did previously rely on the BBC for training.
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Also, the licence fee allows the Beeb to "carry" a series that has low ratings, but may improve. Look at "Men Behaving Badly", "Only Fools and Horses" and "Blackadder". The first series of each of those was dreadful, and if they were on a commercial channel, they probably wouldn't have been recommissioned (this actually happened with Men Behaving Badly - it's first series was on ITV and wasn't recommissioned by them).
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The same licence fee also allows the Beeb to turn out crap series after series.
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In fairness, ALL channels have good programmes and ALL channels have bad programmes. With ITV, you don't pay for them (thank God, 90% of their output is crap IMO). With the various satellite and cable channels, it's different. You pay something toward the crap they put out, but you don't have to pay for that crap.