Bye Bye Bbc Excess --- Merged Threads

[CyberNat]

Why do you need to be told? Someone who's only boundaries are "this is what the enforced rules are" is someone to avoid. It starts to sound alarmingly like someone with no sense of right and wrong beyond what some authority arbitrarily decides is. The rules (should) reflect it, not define, with a decent erring on the side of caution to avoid coming down on someone every time there's a disagreement.

Give it a rest would you.

[CyberNat]

It'll most likely be a flat rate tax on anybody connected to the internet. I believe that Germany does something similar.

Yeah it will most likely be something of that nature unfortunately which is even worse than the TV licence. At least with the TV licence you can choose to watch TV or not.

[Riedquat]

Give it a rest would you.

No answer then.

"Give it a rest" is what other people have been asking you to do though.

[CyberNat]

No answer then.

"Give it a rest" is what other people have been asking you to do though.

Ah, I've got my very own HPC stalker. How cute.

You have also been added to my ignore list. Congratulations!

[Riedquat]

Stalker? What an incredibly weird thing to say.

[libspero]

Why do you need new boxes? Don't they already have facility for encrypted channels, all that I have seen do?

Do they? I'm afraid I'm least qualified in this area.. I've never had a set top box. I only have a TV because it was a wedding present.. Completely de-tuned with no aerial attached I should add.

[The Moderators]

Enough is enough - Off topic is turning into a nasty little base for continual arguments. NO political party broadcasts and NO ill humoured sniping. If you don't want to read someone's posts then please use the ignore button.

If it does not cease then the mods will have no alternative but to lock each thread which becomes argumentative and the posters concerned will be placed on moderator preview.

The Off topic usually runs itself. If the mods have to waste time moderating it then sanctions have to be imposed.

[SNACR]

I blame Mel Gibson.

[ccc]

Whats all this nonsense chat about 'how will they manage to make it subscription only ?'

Their income last year was over 5 BILLION pounds ffs. I am sure they will manage it if they have no other choice. Everyone else seems to manage it just fine.

[CyberNat]

I blame Mel Gibson.

Invoking Jockwin's Law eh! (trademark AThirdWay)

[happy_renting]

Perhaps BBC programmes of the future could be crowdfunded.

"If we raise £12,500 before 3/6/2015 your kids will get another Jackanory"

[council dweller]

In japan we had `a set top box` which cost about £30 quid. My wife used it to get `Open University` programs.

Surely there`s no problem.....this technology has been around for years.

Btw, I`ve done without a licence now for 9.5 years! Saved myself enough money to buy a 10 year old runabout!

[OnionTerror]

Whats all this nonsense chat about 'how will they manage to make it subscription only ?'

Their income last year was over 5 BILLION pounds ffs. I am sure they will manage it if they have no other choice. Everyone else seems to manage it just fine.

How do you lock out the millions of car stereos that can get BBC radio for instance? or portable radios, or Hifi's?

[libspero]

How do you lock out the millions of car stereos that can get BBC radio for instance? or portable radios, or Hifi's?

Presumably they just wouldn't.

They should probably just make R1, R2, R3 & R4 state funded "core" services and sell off the rest as going concerns.

[OnionTerror]

Presumably they just wouldn't.

They should probably just make R1, R2, R3 & R4 state funded "core" services and sell off the rest as going concerns.

I'd personally shut down R1..the worst load of drivel I've ever heard...there's loads of commercial alternatives for that sort of thing...I'd promote R6M in its place..

[DTMark]

OK I'll 'bite'.

I don't watch the BBC's news output. I occasionally hear the news on Radio 4.

I used to watch Question Time. I saw no Labour bias. Same for This Week. Abbot and Portillio were there to represent both sets of views. Newsnight - again, saw no Labour bias.

The rest of the programming - I see no bias, no "subliminal messages". The script writing in Doctor Who is a little bit "isn't it clever if we can get in some minority jokes" on occasion, but then the script writing has been fairly poor for the most part anyway.

I think I'm usually pretty good at pulling people/TV up on stuff, but I'm just not seeing it.

What is it that people are seeing, that I am not seeing? Is this all about the mainstream news?

I do recall some time ago that there was a desire to "interfere" with the BBC. It seemed to be considered somewhat "elitist", not representing the "common man" (whatever that is) and not putting on stuff that was populist. So now we have Clarkson (well, not any more, thankfully - odious twit) and Jonathan Ross (another odious twit) and paid them a fortune.

But - the BBC wastes money. On the one hand. On the other, outrage. How can they get rid of that lovely Clarkson man whom we all adore - he's the voice of the "common man". The BBC don't know a good thing when they see it. We should have a say. And so on.

It does rather seem that the BBC "can't win".

What I do know is that in the race to the "lowest common denominator", to which much of ITV and probably almost all of Fox try to appeal, there is little to see that is meritworthy. And I do see the point about being forced to pay the licence fee if you have an antenna. And that does strike me as fundamentally wrong.

On the other hand, I'm not seeing anything of the quality of the BBC for anything like the same prices.

So what is it that I am missing that everyone else seems to be able to see?

[SpectrumFX]

The perception of bias is subjective. If you share a bias that is presented to you, then you're unlikey to notice or question it. Very few people ever even contemplate the fact that most of the cultural and social norms that they have been brought up with are fundamentally arbitrary. They're just considered "correct", and any deviation by others is an error on their part.

The first time I went to America and watched proper American TV news coverage I was struck by all the bias I noticed in the considerably more right wing slant. An interesting example is the coverage of the Israel / Palestine conflict. I was used to coverage that focused on the Palestinian's plight under Israeli oppresion. In the American coverage the portrayal was very much of Palestinian terrorists causing Israeli suffering. For American's coming to the UK and watching our news does it look biased and left wing? How could it not given their frame of reference?

The truth is that there's no such thing as unbiased news reporting. To be honest I don't think many (if any) of the people at the BBC consciously plan to present a biased world view. They just tell it as they see it. They just mostly seem to see it in a similar way.

Here's a snip from the Chomsky Marr interview where Chomnsky tells Marr "I'm sure you believe everything that you say, but what I'm saying is that if you believed something different you wouldn't be sitting where you're sitting"

[Guest_northshore_*]

I don't think the BBC is biased either, beyond a bias to whoever's in government. I just don't want to pay a fee to watch non-BBC TV, find their approach to billing ott and think it's regressive. If or when family choice pressures dictate then I'll pay up and tv will be on, whether I watch it or not.

Different topic really but on Israel/Palestine above - can't see how that's a right/left thing beyond one's own choice (perhaps moulded by the choice of others) to wrap certain concepts up in political bias.

[SpectrumFX]

I don't think the BBC is biased either, beyond a bias to whoever's in government. I just don't want to pay a fee to watch non-BBC TV, find their approach to billing ott and think it's regressive. If or when family choice pressures dictate then I'll pay up and tv will be on, whether I watch it or not.

Different topic really but on Israel/Palestine above - can't see how that's a right/left thing beyond one's own choice (perhaps moulded by the choice of others) to wrap certain concepts up in political bias.

You're right that that particular issue isn't right/left, I picked it because it was the most memorable example of a completely different slant to a news story where each point of view appeared to be a common cultural consensus.

My main point is that the BBC will inevitably suffer from a certain degree of institutional bias because the people who make up the BBC will share certain common experiences. A good example is their house price coverage. I'm sure there's no directive from the top to ramp ramp ramp, but the majority of BBC employees (especially at a senior level) have so much skin in the game that they can't help seeing increasing prices as good. It works in a similar fashion to the way that the Met was viewed as institutionally racist, not because there had been some great conspiracy to make it a racist organisation, but just because of it's culture which reflected its history and the limited range of backgrounds of the people who ended up joining.

In some ways the BBC tries too hard to appear unbiased. Their news coverage of science suffers greatly from the journalistic idea of presenting two sides of an argument in a balanced way, which often leaves them presenting the views of a highly regarded scientist on an equal footing with some wingnut who just happens to be the only person they could find to come on TV and disagree with him. I've said on here before that I wish they'd cover science the way they cover the housing market (here's an "expert" let him talk unchallenged, thank him and move on), and the housing market in the way that they currently cover science (Who can we find to disagree with this guy we need to present this as an argument).

[Guest eight]

In some ways the BBC tries too hard to appear unbiased.

This is the cast of the BBC children's series "Hetty Feather", set in a late nineteenth century children's home.

[porca misèria]

and the housing market in the way that they currently cover science (Who can we find to disagree with this guy we need to present this as an argument).

But they do!

That is to say, when they do a real feature on housing, they'll have anti-HPI people, and someone to say there's much more risk than reward in BTL.

I expect you're thinking of the weight of headlines and press releases that appear in news and current affairs, with little or no context or discussion.

[Guest_northshore_*]

You're right that that particular issue isn't right/left, I picked it because it was the most memorable example of a completely different slant to a news story where each point of view appeared to be a common cultural consensus.

My main point is that the BBC will inevitably suffer from a certain degree of institutional bias because the people who make up the BBC will share certain common experiences. A good example is their house price coverage. I'm sure there's no directive from the top to ramp ramp ramp, but the majority of BBC employees (especially at a senior level) have so much skin in the game that they can't help seeing increasing prices as good. It works in a similar fashion to the way that the Met was viewed as institutionally racist, not because there had been some great conspiracy to make it a racist organisation, but just because of it's culture which reflected its history and the limited range of backgrounds of the people who ended up joining.

In some ways the BBC tries too hard to appear unbiased. Their news coverage of science suffers greatly from the journalistic idea of presenting two sides of an argument in a balanced way, which often leaves them presenting the views of a highly regarded scientist on an equal footing with some wingnut who just happens to be the only person they could find to come on TV and disagree with him. I've said on here before that I wish they'd cover science the way they cover the housing market (here's an "expert" let him talk unchallenged, thank him and move on), and the housing market in the way that they currently cover science (Who can we find to disagree with this guy we need to present this as an argument).

It's certainly institutionally biased, like most media. I think unfortunately, for example, the property ramping is because it's what lots of people want to see. I have a problem with that sort of rolling visual and auditary assurance of confirmation bias but it's more a problem I have with my fellow brits than the bbc and rest of government.

There's very little on which I seem to share the 'common cultural consensus', so really it's more my problem than everyone else's, or possibly I'm the problem not everyone else. But I'm fine with that as long as I can choose to opt out. It's when I can't opt out (and don't have the much better benevolent dictator of me option) that I get p!ssed off.

[SpectrumFX]

But they do!

That is to say, when they do a real feature on housing, they'll have anti-HPI people, and someone to say there's much more risk than reward in BTL.

I expect you're thinking of the weight of headlines and press releases that appear in news and current affairs, with little or no context or discussion.

The only BBC news I ever really see these days is their morning show, which I appreciate is at the lightweight end of their coverage, so I may be judging them over harshly on that issue.

[EUBanana]

During the election they were shockingly biased, though I'm not sure it was deliberate on their part. As London is very Labour and they all live and work in London, and the studio audiences tend to come from London, that's how it is.

[SpectrumFX]

In some ways the BBC tries too hard to appear unbiased.

As another example I remember reading that Thatcher objected to to BBC news reports on the Falklands that described "British" armed forces rather than "Our" armed forces. I agree with her on that (though probably for different reasons than she had in mind) simply because it's the pretense of a lack of bias where a clear bias must exist. It's just more intellectually honest to call them our armed forces.