Diminishing BBC

l suppose after the cutbacks by BBC , taking BBC 3 off and putting it online, getting rid of the voice and the latest with the great British bake off, it would be fair to assume that the BBC will now take a cut in licence fee's?

No.

Not sure where to begin with this. Firstly, I'm not sure if the BBC will take a cut in the licence fee just because one or two of its shows have been relocated to other channels. The corporation has been attempting to make drastic savings in the past five or so years, so that it can spend the licence fee more effectively. Any cut would prove detrimental to the corporation's well being, I'd imagine.

They didn't "get rid of" their shows. The companies behind them asked the BBC for money it couldn't afford to give them.

Digitalspy is over there --->

That would make the BBC's financial situation much worse, with even bigger cuts - imagine cutting the licence fee and having to deal with cuts to departments, and the BBC culling even more services. Four in particular would have joined Three in the TV channel graveyard if the fee was cut even further. Maaixuew is bang on right about the detriment of a licence fee cut.

Osborne freezing the asking price for the licence fee definitely brought the BBC to its knees - had we seen a slight increase it would have never had to deal with DQF cuts, but some would never take this too well.

I do feel that the Delivering Quality First scheme has diminished the BBC in some ways - between the closure of Three, Two being forced to retain its old idents and the loss of F1, Bake Off and the Voice, the BBC, despite retaining its distinctive nature - will find it tougher to compete with the commercial broadcasters if it continues at this stage.

A bit like selling all your valuables and wanting a paycut...

I can understand the argument that the BBC is delivering less to the licence fee payer so they should charge less, but it's more that the government has:

A) frozen the licence fee, so inflation means the money buys less

B) dictated how significant chunks of the licence fee are spent, eg World Service radio, broadband initiatives, local TV

It's the same argument as councils cutting services because the government had frozen their income.

If you want to do something about it, the only real option is to write to your MP, but don't hold your breath.

Hey, now!

Err - they have. They now fund the BBC World Service, S4C, funded the local TV backbone and subsidised Local TV and funded Licences for older viewers, and also funded rural broadband and digital switchover subsidies etc.

That equates to a major cut in BBC income... Couple that with the last few years of a frozen licence fee when talent and broadcast inflation has been higher than average inflation, and you can see that the BBC have had quite a major cut.

That's why they gave back F1 and Open Golf rights early, and are not paying over-the-odds for formats.

EastEnders in recent months have cut back on location scenes, they didn't show a court scene, nor a funeral in recent weeks and are heavily reliant on filming at Elstree.

They've also losing around 6-7 actors from the show, although this may be down to the change in producer.