Sale of BBC Television Centre confirmed by BBC Trust

An interesting factor that doesn't seem to get a mention is the recent increase in the UK population, estimated to be nearly 2 million since 2001 and expected to continue rising. If new households do pay their licence fees then the BBC will have a lot more money than they would otherwise have expected- unless population rise has been factored in to the calculations, but, somehow, I doubt it.

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a78015/bbc-2w-to-close.html

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/digitaltv/a78017/bbc-scraps-local-tv-channel-plans.html

(Now that I've found the figures, I thought I'd quote rather than edit)

The government is looking to have 3 million new homes built by 2020, but they haven't factored in the expectation that about 1.3 million new homes will be required by migrant workers and their families, so even more homes will have to be built.

OK, 2020 is a long time ahead, but, by 2012, about 1 million new homes should have been built, so that, in that particular year, about £151.5 million extra will go to the BBC due to those extra households.

You know you are being silly, this has happened to every profession.

Cry, strike, moan, winge, it won't make a difference except you people loose money cos u not in work. They run the service, you don't get paid.[/quote]

I see your point but steady on, I don't personally work at the BBC? I have a relative who was a light entertainment director there for many years but I have no personal feelings.

The comments on Teletext p326 have highlighted three main gripes - the planned increase in repeats, the fact that management do not appear to be affected by the proposed cuts and, above all, the inflated salaries of certain BBC Talent, Jonathan Ross in particular. The BBC argues the latter's fee is necessary to avoid him defecting to the commercial sector yet is nowhere near what he might be paid over on ITV or Sky. Well there's a solution - industry-wide standard fees for all presenters and actors, which would give presenters an incentive to stay loyal and remove any reasons to "jump ship".

Aren't cartels illegal in the EU ?

The BBC should have offered Jonathan Ross a lot, lot less or let him go.

He really isn't that popular.

Andrew Collins for the Film show, I say.

We can always get out of the EU you know

Seriously, sometimes cartels are necessary for the good of public service. If Barry Norman knew he wouldn't have been paid any more for defecting to Sky, would he have done it?

Oh, give em' the £2,000,000,000 and be done with it!

Depends how pissed off he was with the BBC, and if your silly cartel happened there's always bonuses to tempt people to change sides.

But if it's illegal, you can't do it.

The BBC could cap salaries and some programme-makers might 'follow', but Sky wouldn't.

As for Barry Norman, I thought he was tired of having the Film programme shunted around the schedules, sometimes finishing after midnight or was that just an excuse to go after one last big payday, like a certain retiring talkshow host- allegedly.

Certainly with BBC1 on weeknights there are obvious changes that could be made as shows like Inside Sport and Film 200x are pushed back to around 11.15pm, when really they warrant being shown straight after the news.

Therefore screening their last programme of the evening at 10.35pm and then using later slots either for films or narrative repeats would be the first place to start saving the pennies - and actually be beneficial to the viewer too.


I imagine with BBC3 and BBC4 we'll see less original commissions and more narrative repeats of content from BBC1 and BBC2 - and again to a certain extent that might be welcome as alot of content on BBC1 and BBC2 is shown just the once and is then forgotten - while actually a repeat might be welcome.


I also think they need to re-evaluate how much sport is shunted to BBCi - for example Snooker (I use the term sport lightly!), which IMO would sit neatly in BBC4's evening schedule - perhaps more in terms of the stereotypical audience than the content, but also at the same time giving BBC4 the chance to estabhlish itself in the minds of that audience too.