What's going on?

And also if you have a satellite dish or DTT, you're paying all the seperate companies for your particular package, as well the companies getting revenue from advertising

Unless you have a free non-subscription satellite receiver that is - still available for the £100 installation cost...

In this case Mr Murdoch loses money I believe!! (His Interactive services subsidise the receiver by at least £150)

ah thats nice to know, a poorer rich man every day someone buys the non-subsciption package!

From what I understand, N24 & World are linking up on a regular basis to provide coverage of the war, especially during breaking news segments (usually during daylight hours in the US for press conferences and such) -- I know they linked up during coverage of the NBC anthrax deal on Friday afternoon (US ET).

And speaking as a former CNN employee, I have to agree with the assessment of CNN domestic having the money, and CNN International having the news. Much more glitz going into the domestic operation, although with the hires of Aaron Brown, Paula Zahn, Jeff Greenfield and others, they are trying to balance the glitz with some decent reporting.

CNNI has shied away from the glitz that CNN domestic has, even down to the graphics and titles they use. The CNN International signal is available on CNN domestic during the overnight hours (1A-5A ET), and is also being used extensively on CNNfn (CNN's business channel). CNNfn is normally off the air and replaced by CNNI on the weekends, but CNNI is also being run on CNNfn from about 10P until 5A ET, so those with that channel (satellite and most digital cable subscribers) do have that available and can see the difference in programming.

Most of those same people have BBC America available as well. Unfortunately, BBC World hasn't been available as a separate channel in the US (although we get to watch the stream online). There's a trick for the Beeb -- add BBC World to their US offerings...eh?

M

Well. I think the BBC are doing a good job. The news channels are far better showing better quality news than some other channels. I just turned FOX news that was on sky for some reason and they had a full screen picture of someone on a video phone. It was awful.

The BBC are doing a good job and I hope the continue. Even though I don't pay for our TV License I believe my parents money is being well spent.  As for ITV I rarely watch that channel. The occasional programme, maybe. But I never check to see what's on ITV. It's either the BBC or Channel 4. Or some Sky Digi Channels. ITV & Channel 5 I don't even glance at the schedules.

Oh. Look. I've reached My favourite numbers of posts. 24!

(Edited by BBC News 24 at 2:19 pm on Oct. 14, 2001)

But it is not the cost of the licence fee which irritates some people, i for example quite happily pay £34 a month for sky. But i CHOOSE to pay that. If i don't pay a licence fee, i will get locked up. It just seems uterley ridcluous that something as an intergral a part of democracy as television and radio is, you still in this country have to pay for the privlage. I know most of you have your parents pay for youre licence, but i assure you, when you start paying, your have a completley different view.

Well. Think of it this way.

Take away the BBC. Everything to do with the BBC is taken away and doesn't exist. No Radio1,2,3,4,5, Local Radio, BBC 1,2,World,America,N24,Prime,Choice,Knowledge,Parliment, This list goes on. No Eastenders, Casualty, Holby City, CBBC, Maybe no lottery.

If the BBC didn't exist and you didn't have to pay a license fee then some other channel may have developed this kind of network but you would vastly see the difference without the BBC.

And, if I may add. If the quality of programming is falling then you have to consider that this could be down to the many people who don't pay a license fee at all!

I agree- we would be lost without the BBC!

I've thought about this before, with all the BBC UK news just being 'BBC News'. I don't think it'd work though. For example at the end of a BBC One bulliten for them to say more on 'BBC News' or 'The BBC News Channel' wouldn't work, so it needs its own title - 'BBC News 24' is simple and effectively differentiates away from the BBC One bullitens, I think.

You live in a socialist-democratic country. Deal with it. Do you really want to have a tv system like Americans have. Granted, we have some good programmes. But the industry as a whole is crap - with commercials every ten minutes. If you didn't have such a strong public broadcaster, and a public used to less commercial interference in their lives, you'd probably be just as bad off as us Americans. I'd much rather pay a hundred-or-so dollars a month for commercial free, high-quality (in most cases) television.

This is really going off the original topic.

The BBC has faults, just as every other broadcaster has.  The British public all love to hate the BBC, and as we all have a vested interest in it then we are all entitled to our opinion how it is run.  However, I believe we are better off having the BBC than not having it, but I'm not quite sure how else you would finance it.

The licence fee is quite a strange phenomena, and the fact you can go to jail is bizarre.  But having said that, I don't think you would go to jail unless you ignore judges and court orders.  I suspect very few people have been jailed for licence fee evasion only.  And you need licences for dogs, to fish, to drink alcohol when you want, to drive etc.
But the point is this.  How else would the BBC be funded, and provide the services it currently does?  That has been a debate every time the licence fee renewal debate comes up. And know one ever has an easy answer.
For most people theses days £120 (something like that - about $160) for a year is good value for money (a night out for most), particularly when taking into account what other broadcasters charge.  I pay far more each month on taxes, NI etc, and get very little back for what I pay. However I don't think I shouldn't pay my taxes because I don't go to hospitals/doctors/schools or choose to go private.

We all pay for commercial television through buying products advertised on the television.  Products would be cheaper if they didn't have to market them !  Plus of course subscriptions etc. Commercial TV is not free, or even cheap by any strech of the imagination.

But the licence fee hasn't just directly supplied BBC outlets.  Much of the television and radio technology we all enjoy is down to the efforts of the BBC R&D department.  Digital technology, RDS, Nicam, Teletext, widescreen, HDTV, MPEG coding, Microwave distribution - the list goes on - have made it possible for other companies join the broadcasting arena and use cheaper technology to make and distribute programmes that many years ago would have only been possible by the largest of broadcasters.

And of course, the old chestnut of an argument about the standard of television in the UK generally being better than the rest of the world.  Without a publicly paid for broadcaster, and only commercial interests at large I am sure the quality of programmes made would plummet and more and more cheap imports would fill our screens.  Probably old BBC programmes would be the highlights - hacked to pieces to get as many ad breaks in as possible.
News would be a casualty too - why would anyone throw good money out the window for news.  News doesn't make money.  With no BBC,  ITV would probably scale down it's news coverage, and why would Sky put in a lot of effort with little credible competition?   We will all have to marvel at CNNI.

(Edited by andyrew at 6:40 pm on Oct. 14, 2001)

Catchy name?

So catchy one of the BBC Radio 5 presenters forgot it.

'BBC 24, er.. News channel, BBC News channel 24'

Righto

It doesn't run smoothly either. Whenever they do make a mistake they never appear to laugh about it - of course if they do laugh about it they'll be instant video posted up on this forum and it will be branded as 'hilarious. I remember watching Valerie Sanderson sit there like a lemon for about 1 minute waiting for a thunderclap, neither presenter laughed about it or even mentioned it. I've got a catchy name...

BBC our presenters are void of a sense of humour 24.

How could anyone possibly forget that? You're reminded of it whenever you watch the channel.

As for the BBC being funded by Parents A and B, well they don't mind. I've always been somewhat confused as to why there isn't a Radio Licence. After all, public money does go into funding BBC Radio. The expansion of the BBC is without a doubt very important and (cue me sonuding like Greg Dyke) 'Vital for the BBC's role in the future of digital television'. But it's true, it is vital. No matter what my opinions of the BBC are, we should think ourselves lucky that we have organisations - whether you like them or not - such as the BBC, Sky and ITN. Whilst we do only have three major sources of news coming out of Britain, it's better than having about 7 networks of complete dross which graces the American networks. That's why I get so annoyed with people who seem to think the BBC is the best at everything and anything - and those who don't shop around and look for coverage from other networks than the BBC. I don't want to drag up the reporting of a past event but just as an example, it's pretty well accepted that Sky's coverage of Kosovo liberation day was a hell of a lot better than any of their rivals. Yet I get the impression that a lot of people around here wouldn't have watched Sky simply because they aren't BBC. Shop around for god's sake, it's not going to kill you watching another network. At present we've got so many different news sources available to us, so go out and bloody well use them! If NBC are providing better coverage than anyone else then watch NBC, don't stick to one network simply because it's the one you usually watch and expect to be better than the others.

OK, rant over.