BBC Cuts

Interestingly Radio 3 is no longer sacred, its frequencies on some Welsh transmitters are being given to Radio Wales

https://www.bbc.co.uk/reception/news/item209

Have to wonder if this is a precursor to doing the same elsewhere.

£3 year on year hike in the licence fee, until end of the current charter.

Over 75's licence fee means tested, and contribution required from commercial broadcasters. Don't tell me ITV and SkyComcast can't afford £25 million per year to the pot.

Fixed £500 fine for non payment of the licence fee - £100 on the admin fee and £400 straight back to the BBC.

No cuts needed...
Next.

I think 25000 former employees in the ITV deficit funded pension scheme would argue that ITV have other financial priorities.

Nobody's forcing you to read and reply if the direction of discourse in this thread offends you.

The rest of us are quite happy discussing ways in which the BBC can innovate and redefine itself to save money and continue to be a world-class public broadcaster.

Your characterisation isn't even accurate. In my own suggestions, I have actively suggested protecting the services I do not use or have little interest in because there is clear Public Service value in them. Many others have done the same.

The BBC is a public service, afterall. We all pay for it and we all should be able to see a corporation that is up to the job with as little waste as possible.

I wonder if the media release yesterday might in part be preparing the public and government for increased revenue requests, and stating what might happen if they're unsuccessful.

For instance should there still be a reduced black and white (mono) TV licence? According to the TV licence website as of 31st March 2017 there were 8,242 B&W active licences. With a reduced rate of £50.50 verses £150.50 for a full colour that is a significant potential loss of revenue, and doesn't really reflect the modern era content (e.g. BBC iPlayer) being streamed over the internet. The mono licence could either be completely axed, or at least increased significantly to be closer to the full colour licence fee.

Also according to the website as of 31st March 2017 there were 4.39 million over 75 licences in force. The BBC's subsidy from the government is £468 million for this year 2018/19, approximately half the following year, and £0 from 2020/21 onwards. Realistically I can see changes being made to either be a reduced rate instead of completely free (e.g. £50.50), and/or increasing the age at which people qualify (e.g. 80).

Neither option would be particularly popular, but the BBC has now made it clear what might happen if they don't get increased funding from somewhere.

EDIT: There's also the small matter of the licence fee being top-sliced by government to fund local TV, S4C, and contribute to UK broadband roll-out. According to the TV Licence website back in 2015/16 out of the £12.13 monthly spend per household £0.79 went on 'Other services and production costs', which I assume is this 'top-slice'.

I think that before the BBC decides what to cut, it needs to decide what its fundamental role is and prioritise accordingly.

To my mind, the public purposes in the Charter are unhelpfully woolly and could be used to justify pretty much anything, which leads to salami slicing of services instead of thinking with clarity about which of the BBC's roles are the ones which should be proiritised.

The beauty of "inform, educate and entertain - in that order" was a clear hierarchy. There would be an imperative there to, say, cut the budget of Strictly to support BBC Parliament.

These days, you could look at the Charter and make an argument that BBC Parliament is little watched and so meets hardly any of the public purposes no matter how 'worthy' it might be, while Strictly is creative, distinctive, reflects the diversity of the UK and shines its culture and values on the world.

Or you could look at the Charter and make an argument that BBC Parliament is fundamental to providing deep analysis of Parliamentary business, enabling citizens to participate in the democratic process, supports learning, and reflects the whole of the UK through coverage of devolved administrations, while Strictly does nothing to inform or educate, doesn't reflect the nations and regions, and is a derivative shiny-floor show.

And so the BBC ends up saying both are important, and therefore trimming a little from both budgets until the point that one of them becomes unviable, instead of making a properly rationalised, prioritised decision based on transparent principles.

Honestly the BBC "as is" is dying. It's been split up into so many commercial arms for a reason, a license fee scrap would get votes and I suspect on the cards for future governments. A subscription iPlayer with access to the back catalogue (ala Redux) is the way forward in my opinion.

Funny, I can't remember who said it the other day but someone made the point that every single year they'd been reporting they'd heard someone say "the NHS is doomed", yet still it persisted. It feels quite similar to the whole BBC debate.

Yes there are challenges ahead, and yes it needs to be ready to find a role among the Netflixs of the world, rather than just complaining about them. But it still does well.

There's not the need elsewhere so it's unlikely.

Wales is an odd case as it came to FM fairly late on as Radio Cymru got 'national' coverage. Its very noticable, you can get R Cymru in large parts of England but R Wales is tricky to get on FM in many parts of Wales. I assume the idea is to reduce reliance on MW, though as the BBC doesn't run the transmitters and its all under one big contract I'm not sure how much it would save

Doing it elsewhere wouldn't save money either, they're not going to surrender a national FM transmitter network. The only thing that is a vague possibility is swapping R3 with 6 on FM... and I think that is highly unlikely. Again it doesn't save money

You could be right in that Radio 3 isn't the sacred cow it once was. When it's getting lower ratings than digital only stations you have to wonder its value. Some more programming cuts to it might be likely

Top slicing for local TV is being phased out. The last money being paid out in July 2020.

Yes, BBC Radio Wales is, compared to other stations, overly reliant on its AM service from Washford in Somerset. The BBC is clearly preparing further cuts to AM radio broadcasts, and indicated by BBC CTO Matthew Postgate last month:


You'll notice that he also pushes against FM switch-off, in favour of a hybrid FM/DAB/IP approach - it seems that the BBC is looking at pushing AM listeners on to DAB, and where that's not possible (e.g. in Wales) on to FM.

It's not possible in Wales because BBC Radio Wales is carried on local DAB not via the BBC national DAB multiplex, and local DAB multiplexes are controlled by commercial groups. If a commercial group does not want to expand local DAB, it won't - and you'll see many of the BBC R3/R Wales switch frequencies in areas where there's no option to tell listeners to switch to DAB. (Incidentally, BBC R3 closed yesterday at 01:00 and replaced by a retune message which will run until 24/10 on affected main transmitter site frequencies.)

You could impose tougher minimum outdoor coverage requirement on a mux though (through the licencing renewal process). If the incumbent group doesn't want to invest, then re-advertise.

If nobody bids then perhaps there's an argument that the BBC should be allowed to obtain the licence in the way that the took mux B at the start of Freeview. That would save them money (closure of AM txes) and make them money (leasing the additional capacity to third-party broadcasters).