BBC News Mandela Coverage

As the BBC have many more outlets than any other UK media outlet, that isn't too surprising.

Oh shut up.

The quality was very poor, like watching a 240p YouTube video full screen. And after typing that I see harshy has made the same sentiment, but it really honestly looked like that. It was almost to the point where it was unwatchable, for me at least.

What the hell I am entitled to my opinion like you are yours who are you to tell me to shut up!

I agree you're entitled to an opinion and I don't have any problem with an informed debate on such issues as the licence fee.

But in the above post, you're demanding a reduction in the licence fee without showing any real understanding of how much it costs to make international news coverage. You're argument seems to be 'lets reduce the licence fee on the basis they have some money to do something.' If they didn't have the money to do this kind of thing the corporation would be much the poorer for it as would the British broadcasting landscape.


Your comment was just typical of what we've been seeing from those Daily Mail articles and comments from people with no perspective on issues such as what the BBC's role is, how many platforms it has to cover as well as how much it costs and how many people are required to make quality television and indeed radio.

Ok I see what you are saying so answer why was the bbcs feed of this important event done in YouTube sd, why it needs 145 people, why are allegedly people flying out business class, sky and al jazerra didn't have that many to cover this significant event.

I didn't demand anything hence the pot of gold comment!

Sky News is one channel, Al Jazeera is about 4 channels, BBC is 4 TV News Channels (admittedly BBC NC and WN have shared resources) but are we forgetting the technical crews for 3 TV operations and the other 27 Radio Languages.

I can have a go at answering those questions. Why the feed quality was poor, I imagine there is some technical reason I don't understand, it's probably only a very few that are bothered, I've not seen it so can't comment too much though.

145 does seem like a lot, but then you've got to remember the BBC has many different outlets compared to the likes of Sky. For example they're making TV news aimed at children, radio news aimed at young adults, TV news aimed at young adults, a 24 hour UK news channel, several BBC One bulletins per day, and a more analytical nightly news programme on BBC Two, a World News channel if those staff are included in the 145 figure. Then you've got Radio 4 and 5 Live both covering it targeting different audiences.

Compare that to Sky that are producing one news channel that's more or less the same in both it's content and who it's targeted at hour to hour as well as two minutes of radio news every hour.

As for sending people business class over to South Africa, well arguing against it is similar to arguing that people who work for the BBC should be paid minimum wage. It's what talent and contributors of that calibre would expect and might not do it otherwise.

If you want people to jump straight into work after a 12 hour flight, you don't fly them in economy class, where, if they're lucky, they might get 4 hours interrupted sleep. Alternatively, you fly them out a day earlier and pay for their hotel / food for that extra day. Either way, it probably works out about the same amount of money.

It would be a different story if we were talking about flying someone to Paris, or Dublin, but South Africa is half a world away.

ETA: With regards to the poor picture quality - do we know that their programme wasn't produced in HD, but because of external factors (e.g. a cow demolished the uplink dish), they've had to use a back up SD feed for the actual broadcast?

Hopefully Mediaboy will pop in at some point to answer these queries once he's back in the UK, but until then can we have a little less of the outrage - it may not be anybodies fault that the pictures were so bad and simply making the best of what was available.

You can also assume that finding seats on flights for 145 people at short notice was a challenge, so they almost certainly had to take what was available rather than what they might have booked months in advance.

I can tell you from experience, from booking SA flights 2-3 weeks in advance normally, Economy, 500 to 1k, Premium Economy, 1.5 to 2k, Business 2k-3k. All flights are cheaper if you stay the weekend, i.e mid week to mid week, the most expensive option is out Sunday night, back Friday night. Almost all direct flights both ways are overnight, take off early eve, land early morning. However you're quite right, the only fighting chance you have for sleep is Biz Class, while an extra day won't be more expensive for hotel and subsistence alone, if you factor in corporate overheads, it will be more or less even for some staff. Oh and Virgin, BA, and SAA prices are all so similar for a given trip, you'd almost think they operate a cartel

Like many organisations, the BBC's expenses policy allows business class travel under some circumstances:
I'd imagine that they've had a pot of money set aside for the funeral coverage for quite some time.