BBC cuts jobs / Charter renewal

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/9861270/BBC-spends-26000-on-taxis-between-London-and-Salford.html

I'm going to find a blue oven glove, stick 2 table tennis balls on it, draw 2 pupils on said balls and call it "Ronnie". We will discuss the significant differences between the BBC and BBC Worldwide and how certain commercial news media organisations may have *shock* vested interests in publishing disparaging misinformation regarding the corporation.

I expect to have a more reasoned debate.

I am not in anyway suggesting the entire domestic BBC is a halcyon of financial sensibility. I just cannot take the arguments of someone who fails to grasp the difference between the licence fee funded BBC and BBC Worldwide seriously. You are either being deliberately ignorant to further your ideology or failing to understand how commercial enterprise works, marketing activities being a fundamental part of it.

I'll say again - do you care how much ITV spend on similar photoshoots?

Calm down please Jonny.

I understand the photoshoot was funded by BBC Worldwide, and not the license fee, what I am saying is who made the decision to spend that much on a photo shoot, and does this person also make decisions regarding spending money from the license fee. Maybe they are completely different people, I don't know.

I will admit I am no fan of the BBC and hope it is dismantled into something better, its too big and has a high opinion of itself.

If a company wants to burn its own money then that is fine, I think they are stupid for doing it, but its up to them, if those people however are also making decisions regarding the license fee then I have a problem with it.

I never said I understood "the difference between the licence fee funded BBC and BBC Worldwide". I know that BBC worldwide is the commercial arm of the BBC and the license fee BBC is non-commercial. I have no idea if there are any links in funding.

If ITV is receiving a piece of the license fee then yes. But not as much as with the BBC, the BBC are the ones making 1000 people jobless. Not ITV.

TVforum members do not fail to become enraged at the slightest thing.

Educate yourself, then you'll be more likely to form a reasoned argument.

I did not want an argument, its typical of internet forums.

A reasoned opinion then, surely you wanted to provoke some discussion.

Of course, a discussion, it just gets silly though.

If you cite such a shockingly assembled article and present it as though it is fact, I would say you should be prepared to receive the counter-argument and that's all I was giving you.

You seem to be extremely confused between the domestic licence fee funded BBC and BBC Worldwide, its separate commercial arm, managed by different people and funded through international subscriptions, advertising and merchandise. If you take nothing else away from this please understand why it is important to acknowledge this significant distinction and why competing organisations, such as the Daily Mail, may be keen to purposely muddy the waters in order to confuse their readership and provoke gut negative reactions such as your own.

Where and when?

I only quoted from the article and said "DAILY MAIL.

Money well spent."

You are seeing what you want to see. (As perhaps I did when first seeing the artical)

I admit I was taken in by the article and thought the BBC had spent the money, but even when the commercial arm is spending it, as you later informed me, its a lot of money for a photoshoot. If I was in charge of getting the photoshoot done, 20k? what planet are these people on. Its too much.

Do you think 20k (if that is what they paid) is too much?

Just because a company has lots of money around (BBC Worldwide had about 11% profit, not much to shout home about but not bad), does not mean money should be burnt.

I have already told you I understand the photoshoot is being payed for from the commercial arm.

Why?

You are getting far too into this, as seems to happen on internet forums. People need to chill out, life it too short.

If you don't agree with someone, or you think they are wrong, just say that, no need to start talking about over gloves and what ever else was being said. This is not a race to see who is the most intelligent.

Its the "was he sacked?" gate all over again. Maybe people don't like the name Ronnie or something.

Life really is too short!!!!!

"shocked emoticon MONEY WELL SPENT" may pass for an argument on Twitter, I guess, but not really on any platform without a character restriction. From that yellow smiley face and those three words I could only reasonably decipher you were in agreement with the article, so I chose to present the other side of the coin.

As I have already noted, nowhere does the article confirm the exact amount BBC Worldwide spent on the photoshoot, so none of us on the outside can reasonably argue the whys and wherefores surrounding that. I can only say such shoots are highly common throughout the industry and will be budgeted accordingly.

It is sad we cannot have a reasoned discussion about this without me being told I apparently need to calm down (perhaps because you don't necessarily agree with the case I am presenting? Which I am not expecting you to, by the way, that's your choice, believe what you want to believe).

I have more than said my piece and have no desire to bore anyone further.

It doesn't matter that the money came from the commercial arm rather than from the public. It is absolutely in the public interest that BBC Worldwide is an organisation that spends wisely, as its profits go to supplement the income generated by the licence fee.

I would obviously agree with that (although it is extremely important to highlight the distinction). However, it will take more than one sketchy Daily Mail article, quite clearly designed to initially make readers believe that £20,000 of their money is being spent every day on employing someone to snap a few photos and naff all else, to make me believe the management of BBC Worldwide aren't appropriating funds wisely, within structured departmental budgets.

Like any good commercial organisation that returns a healthy profit.