Tory Plan: Half licence fee and restrict BBC to PSB

I do agree with some of what people have been saying- I agree that BBC 4, CCBC Channel, 6 Music and BBC 7 should go. They really are too minority to be costing millions.

But shut down BBCi- the most popular website in Europe? Stop schools from getting educational resources, stop people finding inparcial news from the local area and worldwide. Stop people getting sport results, programme information and replays. it's just silly.

And why should we not continue to have Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Live and local stations. Tens of millions listen, why do they not have the right to listen to them. They are genuinly good radio stations, much better than the ad filled crap most commercial stations broadcast (like GWR or Vibe 101 in my area).

I think these polls in which people say they want the license fee abolished don't tell the whole story. If you say basically 'do you want to pay £112 a year for the BBC or not' people will say no. If you said are you happy paying £112 a year for BBC 1, 2, 3, 4 etc, all the radio stations, the website and more, people might change their tune. I pay £25 a month for Sky- and all I get are useless channels.

On the subject of imports, do the BBC show that many imports anyway? 24, a few films, 3rd Rock, murder she wrote and a couple of kids shows is all I can think of. Not exactly wall to wall US shows is it.

By the way, for the tenth time m' Lord- There are NO GAY STATIONS RUN BY THE BBC- and you do exagerate a bit. The only minority channel I can think of is Asian Network and the soecial language stations- any more?

But then, what can we expect from IDS!!

If you've got it flaunt it... they have the resources, and people have become to depend on it. You remove it or scale it down, it will annoy an awful lot of people.

Anyone think it would be a good idea to have televisions that would only broadcast BBC1, BBC2 and all its other satellite/Radio channels which you would have to pay a licence fee to buy, and a seperate television that would need no licence and broadcast ITV programming? Would that solve the problem?

I'd say that BBC Four does need a serious re-think, though it's output is of high quality and it is not widely viewed, though really those who like arts and a pay a licence fee should be entitled to those programmes.

CBBC I do agree has to go and it's doing badly and it's nothing spectacular, they should have something like CBBC on Three from 5.30 until 7.00pm would be a good idea, to provide something extra. But having a kids channel for 12 hours a day which is repeats and funded by a licence fee isn't good, as they don't have as many home grown shows as they used to. They have to rely on Animadness, Chucklevision, The Cramp Twins and repeats of Grange Hill and Byker Grove to survive, though these shows are probably good they shouldn't be on a channel like that all of the time.

I have to disagree with 6 Music and BBC 7, both are popular stations on DAB, maybe they should cut down on 6 Music a bit, by not having it on 24 hours a day, maybe it should be like what BBC 7 was and that was coming on at 7am and going off at 1am.

Get rid of BBCi? No way, this is a damn good service and worth every penny, it seems like the internet on one site and provides a service of high quality and provides good resources to back up BBC programmes too, it's like Ceefax, but even better. The Digital TV version is superb too and should not be scrapped, though it might cost alot of money it's worth it, it's popular and it is well recieved by the audience, frankly BBCi is the only thing I use on NTL Interactive as it is that good.

IMO BBC Three needs a rethink too, though it they have produced tons of home-grown programmes which is good, it's a shame they are only viewed by a minority, maybe they should stick on a couple of more repeats and start transmission earlier than 7pm, like how BBC Choice was when it started.

To summarise the BBC needs to do a couple of things, but overall it provides a good service which really doesn't need to be touched with.

It's all very well, but still nobody has explained why a tax on television is funding a £70m internet website, this is an appalling misappropriation of public money.

BBC Radio may not have commercials, but it's filled with endless self promoting rubbish.

The BBC, whatever you may say about it, still provides ridiculously good value for money. For your 32p a day you get (without having to pay anything more);

8 television channels (on all the digital platforms)
10 national radio networks (ditto)
All the local radio stations
5 orchestras
A couple of choirs
A reseach and development team (who came up with Nicam, virtual studios, DTT, etc)
And one of the most popular websites around

On top of all this, you don't get any commercials or have to pay anything extra to watch any specific events.

Plus, by having the money to make good, high quality, programmes, the BBC can generate extra cash from overseas sales which can then be ploughed back into the domestic market to make even better shows.

The programmes themselves undeniably. I'm not at all saying that those people who value that programming shouldn't have it. But not enough people do to warrant an entire channel full of it. The key output is shown on BBC2 anyway.

Aswell as that, my main quam with the channel is that I don't honestly believe that the beeb were seeing a need for a channel like this. I rather feel it has more to do with 'we have digital now so we must have hundreds of channels' rather than any actual perceived need for it - I would wager that the decision to have BBC3 and BBC4 was decided on long before they decided on what to actually put on those channels.

They should do, but that would be exactly the same as going back to CBBC on Choice, and the beeb will never admit that they made a mistake over the CBBC Channel. The main problem I see with it is that it's mainly (100%?) British. All well and good to say that it was created to help youngsters identify with the BBC, but kids in it's target group also like their American imports. The main CBBC service on BBC1 and 2 has them, why shouldn't the channel too?

It may be good value for money - but you should have the choice of purchasing things.

Lets have a look at your list:
8 TV Channels - well 2 terrestrial ones, 4 half channels (CBBC/BBC3 and CBeebies/BBC4), BBC News 24 and BBC Parliament. Most of what's offered here is available elsewhere, either free or on subscription.

10 National Radio Channels - well 5 to most people.

All the local radio stations - well, most people only get one - their local station, and almost all areas are covered by commercial radio.

5 Orchestras and a couple of choirs - funded by the TV LICENCE? - these should be the first to go if that's the case.

A reseach and development team (who came up with Nicam, virtual studios, DTT, etc) - I imagine most TV stations have a research and development team

And one of the most popular websites around - most of it contains content which could be found elsewhere. There is no reason why BBCi couldn't be a commercial operation.

So you would prefer a commercial organisation filtering your news for you?

Web site manager : "No, you cannot put that story about Company X polluting the river / selling contaminated food / whatever" on the web site. They are one of our biggest sponsors and our budget cannot afford to take a hit if they pull out of sponsoring us, which reminds me, I had better get in touch with the news department and make sure that they do not run the story either."

And with lots of lovely pop-up and pop-under windows and lots of banner advertisements?

Incidentally have you ever visited any of the UK commercial tv web sites (Granada, HTV etc) and compared their news coverage with that of the BBC? For the most part, the news stories and apallingly limited details they provide for news stories is a joke.

You seem to have a problem differentiating between "broadcast" and "receive".

And the answer to your question is a simple NO -- why not encrypted broadcasts with a pay per view system as promoted by certain members of the Conservative party, for which the technology already exists.

Well, the BBC has commercial operations. As things stand, there is no reason why the BBC can't allow advertising on it's website. It can be done in such a way as it's not intrusive - just the ad bar at the top as here on TV Forum would work well.