The Role of the BBC

Wow noggin, there's a lot to reply to. Let me try and address everything and if I leave something out tell me.


RE: Regulation in the USA versus regulation in the UK

Yes, people in the USA sort of fear government...or at least they get very annoyed when it unnecessarily starts controlling things.

And I think the restriction of national radio licences in favour of the BBC (as you pointed out) is a good example of this. Although that's not "special revenue" it guarantees the BBC a sizeable audience because it grants them monopoly authority. I don't see how democracy can be well served by any institution having a monopoly over an audience.

This debate is going on in the USA right now, because the Federal Communications Commission changed a rule on concentration of ownership that would make it possible for one company to own all of the major radio and television outlets in a city -- which is downright dangerous if you ask me. Thankfully, some people in Congress and the Senate have agreed and this has become a sort of political football. So there's a chance this overconcentration of ownership can be avoided.

Why the British would look back at this era of their broadcasting history with anything but disgust confuses me. Sure, the BBC was vital during WWII and it is a very high quality broadcaster. But I strongly disagree with anyone that wants to give it special privileges over audiences.

RE: Channel 4

I didn't know Channel 4 was a sort-of-not-private company. Sounds like an early version of those awful Public-Private-Partnerships that make communism look efficient.

Why was it set up that way? I mean, really, even in 1982 it wasn't possible to create a second national network of private channels? What's wrong with the British broadcasting community that everything needs to be so tightly regulated?

RE: BBC Canada's Schedule

For a while they had 6 hours of programming that was repeated four times a day. That's quite repetitive .

RE: BBC Needing to Access Younger Audiences

You know, noggin, I think this is the great fallacy of marketing products today: this gigantic need to get young people to like you and be loyal consumers. Young people are fickle and their preferences will change (several times) before they settle into maturity...and from then on their preferences will be a bit more stable.

So it seems to me that younger people would be more volatile consumers by definition. Why, oh why oh why!!! would any rational marketer who could wait until they matured to access their market choose instead to tackle the volatility?

At the very least it means the BBC will become an amorphous blob of constantly mutating images and programming concepts...with no real ability to provide any anchoring support to the national consciousness.

In short, it makes the BBC a follower of trends rather than a unifying, leading force in British society.

(And I don't mean the BBC should be an enforce of propaganda or what-it-means-to-be-British, I mean that it is on the verge of losing the ability to coherently tell the British public what it is. Notice how everyone refers to old-time notions of BBC News' accuracy -- like WWII -- and the mirror globe and stuff like that. Nobody's really sure that anything on BBC today will become "classic" in that way. It's almost like the golden age has passed.)

RE: Where in the World is Phileas?

North America (most of the time). I have seen BBC television recently, and I don't like BBC Canada or BBC America enough to watch them much. And as you can tell from my use of the language, I combine British and American English quite regularly....to the utter annoyance of people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean .

NEW TOPIC: Commercials on BBC Television

Could someone tell me why this is SUCH A BAD IDEA! ?

because

1 - it's the BBC - it doesn't have adverts
2 - it'll destroy ITV nad most commercial channels - there is only so much money out of adverts and if it gets diverted to BBC1 and 2 (major channels) then money will be too thinly spread out to sustain the rest of the TV channels.

There are advertizements on the BBC domestic services all the time.

And there are paid commercial messages on BBC World and BBC America

<http://www.eskimo.com/~rkj/weekly/aa100598.htm>



Does BBC Canada carry commercials or not? I cannot find any indication.

So, please do not continue with this myth that the BBC does not carry advertizements.

BBC Canada (and BBC Kids) are forced (like all other Canadian channels) to air a daily amount of Canadian programming. Seems kind of pointless on a channel called BBC Canada.

EDIT:



BBC Canada has adverts, but they usually only break once during a half hour programme for about 2-3 minutes, and then show about 4-6 minutes between programmes. But I reckon that each break consists of at least one to one and half minutes of Trailers and Idents.



BBC World in Canada does not have any adverts. We get the breakfiller instead. (Which is just a Coming Up menu these days.)

BZZZZZZZT : Reality Check Time : The above statement is factually incorrect.

From <http://www.cpb.org/about/>



Ya know, a private, non-profit corporation created by Congress sounds awfully a lot like C4, or should I have said

Rubbish. The BBC may trail it's own services, but they do not carry commercial advertisements on any of their channels. The BBC Worldwide channels are an irrelevance to this dicussion. They also subsidise the licence fee.

What rubbish - there are no advertisments on the BBC. If you are refering to the trailers and internal promotions / propaganda then you really don't understand what a commerical is.

The following things are on the BBC
Trailers for shows (not an advert)
Licence Fee films
PIFs
BBC Propaganda (Perfect Day, Rush Hour...)
BBC Worldwide adverts (which are simply slides with an anno and a big message "Other --- are available"

I use the word advert as it means a different thing from commercial.
I use the word advertisement at the top to pick you up on spelling.

From the Mirriam Webster online dictionary :



Therefore on air promotions for program are most definitely advertizements.
And what do you call the "promotions" for all of the BBC publications they are trying to sell,
eg BBC Radio Times, BBC books associated with TV series etc etc ad nauseum.



Did I use the word commercial? Did I say paid commercial air time?
I only used that in the context of BBC World and BBC America.



All of which fall under definition 2 of advertizement above.



From your previous statements, you most clearly do not .



So you are criticizing me for using the "Brtitish" variant spelling of the word?

According to Mirriam-Wesbster online dictionary :



Perhaps you need to buy a Mirriam Webster Dictionary, or even better a Concise Oxford English Dictionary?

Tsk, tsk.

Yes - tsk, tsk indeed! Naughty Hymagumba!

Let's have a look at Oxford Reference Online then... (www.oxfordreference.com):

To access, either use your Athens username and password, or (if you don't have one), click the link "Library Card Log in" and fill in your library card number (this definitely works for those with Devon County Council library cards - not sure about other local authorities though).

Once you're in (bad luck if you can't though), click the link labelled "List of subjects and books". On the page that appears, select the link "The Concise Oxford Dictionary". On the "Quick Search" page that appears, type "advertize". What do you find?



Now search for "advertizement":



Oh dear! Surely the words "advertise" and "advertisment" must be there!





Just to confirm, now for the entry for "advertise", from the Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage:



Corin, I'm sure that you appreciate that the Oxford English Dictionary is considered definitive by most - after all, you've said so yourself before:



Admittedly, the Concise Oxford English Dictionary is not the OED, so if there's anyone with the full set, can they check to confirm? Thank you! (or should that be dankeschön...? )

Exactly the reason that the BBC is governed by a Royal Charter that keeps it at arms length from government control. The BBC Board of Governors are tasked with ensuring the BBC's independence - both from commercial and government control.

The UK government doesn't control the BBC - which is one of the reasons we are going through the Hutton process at the moment...



There are also national and regional commercial radio stations in the UK these days (Talk Sport, Virgin, Classic FM etc. nationally)

I guess the difference is that the BBC is deemed independent by a large proportion of its audience. The 5 main BBC national radio stations all serve differing audiences, and don't all chase high audience figures. Were the licences to be awarded to 5 differing commercial organisations then unless they were tightly regulated you'd end up with 5 services chasing the same high audiences to maximise their commercial incomes, again not in the public interest. They certainly wouldn't have any interest in providing services of a high quality to small audiences.

(Radio 3 may have a small audience, but it is very highly valued by that audience, and it plays a key role in the UK cultural sphere, by ensuring new music is commissioned, and its high levels of live broadcasting ensure a sizeable number of orchestras are kept in employment)

In the UK, and Europe on a wider scale, commercial organisations are often just as mis-trusted as goverments... Certainly commercial incentives are not believed by all to be the best at universally providing quality services to differing sectors of the public.

Once you end up, as we have in the UK, with a large section of the print media owned by the same organisation as a large commercial TV operation, you truly discover how worrying a near-monopoly in the commercial sphere can be...

In the UK our broadcast media is regulated to seek to guarantee impartiality, our print media is not ...



Sorry - I don't get you. I see no reason at all why the BBC or Britain should be disgusted by WWII broadcasting. Sure it was a terrible part of our history, as it was for many other countries, but unlike almost all other national broadcasters the BBC retained a degree of editorial integrity, and was not "taken over" completely by the state. It may not have broadcast everything in extreme detail, but it had a strong rule that it would never broadcast news reports it knew either to be untrue, or not verified. This was in marked contrast to Nazi Germany. For this reason many listeners in occupied Europe listened to the BBC for real information, usually on penalty of death if they were discovered listening to the services. The BBC also changed the way it reported news during the war - increasing the use of location correspondents, which further improved the quality of reporting after the war.

I don't argue that war time performance should guarantee "special" treatment - but it has ensured the BBC is one of the most trusted broadcasters globally, as well as at home, not just during WWII, but through the Cold War and the more recent Middle East conflicts. By dint of the popularity and trustworthiness of its output it has a unique place in the global broadcasting arena - especially in radio terms - which it is important to remember, and preserve/protect.



Maybe it would be useful for you to check your history and facts before making such sweeping statements about UK broadcasting (You seemed to have very odd views as to how the four main channels were historically created...)

When the UHF broadcasting network was launched in the UK with BBC Two (in 1964 I think), the broadcasting authorities were reasonably far sighted, and planned a four service national network. By 1969 the BBC One and ITV services were also moving to UHF (as the UHF 625 line service supported colour, but the 405 line VHF service did not) During the 1970s there was the energy crisis, all sorts of trade union unrest, and the time was certainly not right to launch a 4th TV service (these were the times when we were urged not to watch TV at all to save energy...)

By the late 1970s it became clear that a 4th national network may now be viable. However the government was lobbied by a number of groups. Independent Production companies had sprung up, and wished to have an outlet for their programmes (In the UK at the time broadcasters made almost all of the their own shows, in contrast to the US when the FCC mandated that a proportion of shows were made by external studios ?) There were concerns that a second highly commercial service would lead to a reduction in quality of ITV (which at the time was going through a high quality period - showing drama that the BBC would have been proud of) - and that the UK didn't need a third "populist" service when other areas of society were under-served. So Channel Four was created as a publisher broadcaster (i.e. it didn't make its own programmes) commissioning shows from ITV companies and independents.

I don't quite get your PFI inference - there was no real government money involved - instead ITV companies paid an additional tarif on their licences, which funded C4, and in return C4 advertising was sold by ITV companies, who kept this. This is not the same as a private company building a hospital which is then leased back by the govt (which is my simplistic understanding of PFI)



I guess the view was taken that it was not in the public interest to launch another private, commercial network, or group of independent stations. (The concept of local broadcasting in the UK has never really taken off - partially because our broadcasting network is based on small numbers of high powered UHF transmitters covering large areas, rather than large number of lower power transmitters that could cover individual towns. To re-engineer this network would be difficult - and inevitably reduce the service quality for some viewers. The level of broadcast coverage of the analogue UHF network is VERY high in the UK - with only a small percentage of the UK population unable to receive the four main UHF services)

There is nothing majorly wrong with out broadcasting community - it may seem tightly regulated from the outside - but the basic controls are there for a reason (to ensure a mix of popular shows, and public service shows, on a number of mixed networks, avoiding a "ghetto" of worthiness on one particular channel) - and on a day to day basis it provides us with a reasonably high level of output.

Certainly most people in the UK, when returning from a holiday in the US, are shocked by the high levels of commerce on the main OTA channels, as well as the incredibly poor levels of coverage of non-US news on the main network bulletins.


Yep - but is the BBC marketing a product - or serving an audience?

By definition the BBC feels it should be serving the entire UK population - so if a section of this population is not watching or listening then it needs to address this. Otherwise the BBC is not serving its audiences effectively.

By using the language of consumers and the market you are applying commercial thinking to a non-commercial service...

I suspect that it will mean the BBC becomes a provider of a larger number of channels aimed at smaller areas of the audience - with a slight move towards a degree of narrowcasting. Rather than becoming amorphous blobs, they will be more closely targeted services.

One of the constant criticisms of the BBC domestically is that it doesn't react quickly enough in some situations, and is slow to commission new programmes. I suspect that the changes involved in creating more targeted services will allow it to do so. This isn't about following trends, it is about making good, quality programmes that would otherwise be snapped up by other broadcasters...

Ever since the BBC has existed people have lamented the passing of "the golden age"... You have to separate nostalgia from reality. BBC News is a stronger service than it ever has been in the past - certainly it has transformed itself through the 90s and into the 00s - and the audiences for the main BBC bulletins are still high, and increase in times of crisis. (Certainly the BBC News bulletins are still the most watched in the UK) BBC dramas are still popular, as is its factual output (which commercial channels in the UK just don't provide...)


So not a domestic consumer of BBC, ITV, C4 and Five output... Unless you've been brought up, and continue to live in the UK, it is difficult to get an accurate idea of the way the broadcasters are thought of by the British public (which is certainly not represented accurately on TV Forum!) and the history of our services.



In no particular order...

It breaches editorial independence... How many consumer shows - which could criticise products or services advertised on their channels - do you see on commercial channels? ITV has made the odd feeble attempt now and again - but they have never really had a show as successful as Watchdog.

It allows minority interest groups to lobby advertisers to remove their adverts from shows they don't like - effectively granting interest groups control of programme finances. (This has certainly happened in the US before)

If you believe that there is a finite amount of advertising revenue within the UK - for TV spending - then this would suddenly be split amongst 5 terrestrial services rather than 3. Inevitably this would reduce the income to the three existing terrestrials - reducing the amount available to spend on programmes - which is hardly in the public interest (ITV has reduced the spending on Childrens' services enough already...) Given that TV ad revenue is still falling - or has fallen massively recently anyway - now is not the time to further fragment the market.

A lot of us don't actually enjoy watching programmes interrupted by people trying to sell you things - one of the best things about watching a drama on the BBC is the near total lack of interruptions -allowing a drama to flow coherently. I certainly find it a better watch.

(Parents in particular are VERY grateful for the BBC services for Children that are advert-free. They know that their kids can safely watch CBeebies and CBBC without being converted into tiny consumers at an early age)

I think there is another argument for the BBC remaining pretty much in its current form : "If it ain't broke, don't fix it..."

Many other countries are pretty admiring of the BBC and its output - especially those where commercial channels dominate and the schedules are full of imported shows rather than decent home-grown output.

Apologies for my long answers to Phileas's posts.

CPB does more than underwrite PBS though (note NPR, and digital and educational services).

You should also notice that the appropriation is renewed and reviewed by both House and Senate every year. It is not fixed in perpetuity like the BBC's revenue stream is (as long as licences are paid for...the BBC is paid for).

Congress could choose, at any time, to cease its very partial sponsorship of NPR. And, to me at least, that makes the US Congress a private donor to CPB rather than a government giving a "state-broadcaster" its lifeblood (and I probably irked a few with that state-broadcaster jab, but why not? )