BO
Grade's speech:
- BBC Three news unpopular; governors asked BBC management to reassess this.
- Despite criticism, BBC Four will not become more mainstream.
- BBC Radio will continue its public service remit. Governors are particularly confident that radio 1 and 2 are sufficiently different from their rivals to justify licence money.
- iMP development continuing.
- Licence fee payers from outside London want less emphasis on London. BBC must and will develop more local services.
Viewers comments about the BBC:
- 'Impartial'.
- 'Not a wide enough range of films'.
- 'Good value.' 'You pay £12.50 every month for its services; you pay more than that in an evening to get drunk'.
- 'I don't see why you should have to pay for it; you get the other channels for nothing'
- 'A lot of money is going into digital channels, and I can only get analogue'.
- 'The BBC website is the best website on the planet'.
A few questions and answers, and various comments:
Q - Why not fund the BBC using commercials?
A - Because a finite pot of money is available to fund commercials, and if the BBC had to use this money as a source of funding, not only would it have to become more mainstream, but the amount of money available for other broadcasters and the BBC would be lower and as a result they would become impoverished and the quality of British television would suffer.
Michael Grade: 'I did not say that I wanted the BBC to be repeat-free! I would like to see peak-time BBC 1 and 2 peaktime repeat free.'
Mark Thompson: 'I would like to open up the BBC's archive in a different way. I would like the BBC's archive to become available on the internet'.
Mark Thompson also indicated that the move to Manchester might not happen, but that he hoped it would.
- BBC Three news unpopular; governors asked BBC management to reassess this.
- Despite criticism, BBC Four will not become more mainstream.
- BBC Radio will continue its public service remit. Governors are particularly confident that radio 1 and 2 are sufficiently different from their rivals to justify licence money.
- iMP development continuing.
- Licence fee payers from outside London want less emphasis on London. BBC must and will develop more local services.
Viewers comments about the BBC:
- 'Impartial'.
- 'Not a wide enough range of films'.
- 'Good value.' 'You pay £12.50 every month for its services; you pay more than that in an evening to get drunk'.
- 'I don't see why you should have to pay for it; you get the other channels for nothing'
- 'A lot of money is going into digital channels, and I can only get analogue'.
- 'The BBC website is the best website on the planet'.
A few questions and answers, and various comments:
Q - Why not fund the BBC using commercials?
A - Because a finite pot of money is available to fund commercials, and if the BBC had to use this money as a source of funding, not only would it have to become more mainstream, but the amount of money available for other broadcasters and the BBC would be lower and as a result they would become impoverished and the quality of British television would suffer.
Michael Grade: 'I did not say that I wanted the BBC to be repeat-free! I would like to see peak-time BBC 1 and 2 peaktime repeat free.'
Mark Thompson: 'I would like to open up the BBC's archive in a different way. I would like the BBC's archive to become available on the internet'.
Mark Thompson also indicated that the move to Manchester might not happen, but that he hoped it would.