Should we axe BBC Three and Four?

Now there are claims that a lot of BBC Three's budget will be ploughed into BBC One drama.

Which on the fact of it is good news. An alternative reading however is that you're taking money away from young people to keep the opinionated and politically more important middle-classes happy.

Can't remember the name, but a comedian has already made the point that it's like a pensioner turning up at a nightclub and turning the music off as he wants to hear more Bach.

In reply to a previous poster, I am within BBC Three's demographic, but just, in the same way as Radio 1 isn't really interested in someone who's 29. I don't watch it that much and I can't think of a show targeted at me. I also think that, while BBC Three has improved hugely over the last few years, it still hasn't quite worked out what it should be. However, I feel it is very dangerous for the BBC to essentially turn its back on providing a big, mainstream outlet targeted at providing public service broadcasting for young people. Many BBC chiefs over the years have talked about Radio 1 being an on-ramp for young people to begin to enjoy the BBC, and introduce them to other shows and services as they get older. By removing BBC Three and making people search for the remnants of its programmes on the iPlayer, you're losing a huge outlet.

With regards to the poster complaining about the licence fee not being increased and the BBC having to take on additional responsibilities ... to be honest, the BBC has lived in a bubble for some time, and I say that as a supporter of the corporation. Building huge expensive new offices in Glasgow and Salford, employing too many staff in several areas (the Newsbeat fiasco coming to mind), being completely in hock to the unions.

I agree with the point about local TV though. A completely nieve decision to set those up.

I also don't buy the whole ""if BBC Three didnt exist we wouldn't have had Little Britain/Gavin & Stacey/Bad Education" argument. The BBC would still have a commissioning process, and one that served the corporation very well before Three/Four came along.

Some of the most successful comedy (including Little Britain) was nurtured on radio first. For me, to have a process whereby a show can progress from BBC Radio 4 Extra, to BBC Radio 4 to BBC Three, then BBC Two, then BBC One is over indulgent.

BBC3 is/was an test bed for experimental new comedy and drama, and yes - whilst there always has been a commissioning process which has served the corporation well, I doubt that half of the successful comedies and dramas we have seen on BBC3 would have ever made it to air had the channel not existed.

It isn't a BBC Policy to launch shows on one channel and then progress them to another. That's down to the success of the programming.

Of course, it's all what-if scenarios on both sides of the argument though.

I stand by my comments that it is the easy option to chop BBC3. There'd be resistance from political types had they announced BBC4 or BBC Parliament were being ditched.

The BBC's remit is to serve audiences of all ages. We've lost BBC Switch, we're losing BBC Three, so what is there for the massive section of society after CBBC? Are they now expected to stick with BBC Radio 1 or go to ITV2/E4 then?

Why the hell don't they cut BBC Red Button? Smartphones/tablets/internet & connected TV more than cover the clunky, dire and slow Red Button service.

My 16 year old cousin's favourite programmes are EastEnders, Waterloo Road and The Apprentice.

I'm personally less interested in the brand and channel being lost as I am the potential reduction in commissioning. Honestly I just can't see BBC One or BBC Two taking a risk today on something like Torchwood or Bad Education - and actually the fact that they pick programmes like Torchwood or Gavin and Stacey up only after they're successful on BBC Three or Four shows how the 'mainstream' BBC channels don't currently take risks. It's far easier to produce something that, frankly, might completely fail and be denounced as 'lowest common denominator crap' by many people it wasn't aimed at if it's on a channel like BBC Three, rather than the supposedly universal BBC Two.

The problem, as far as I can see it, isn't that the BBC is trying to be all things to all people, but rather that all people expect it to be all things to them.

The logical way around the controversy here is to promise the continued investment in BBC Three programming (vowing only to save money through lack of infrastructure costs, which the Guardian put at around £25m I believe) and offer a 'BBC Three on One'* type service in the post-22:35 slot four days a week. I don't see why that would add to infrastructure costs (assuming the BBC One team continued to be responsible for playout etc.), and if you're really saying the mainstream channels would continue to produce these programmes then there wouldn't be any added controversy.

*Ideally that would be a BBC Two service, but Newsnight would provide both too late a start time and too serious a lead-in. And, likely, a debate about Newsnight vs. BBC Three, which should absolutely be avoided.

Good for them. Give them a cookie and a Blue Peter badge from me. My sister's fiancée's daughter's 14 year old second cousin in law likes watching Top Gear on BBC2. Therefore there's no way they need any of the stuff they show on BBC3.

House has hit the nail on the head; the mainstream channels don't take risks. The loss of BBC3 is unlikely to change that too.