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Conservative Government on Mission to destroy the BBC

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najaB

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American TV shows are often 40-45 minutes in length and are always in hour long slots.
American cartoons likewise are usually 20 minutes long, but take a full half hour slot up on the TV planner.
It appears these rules are totally ignored sadly.
Usually the way that they achieve this without breaching the rules are by including promos for upcoming shows (which aren't classified as adverts) and by having fewer ads in the programs immediately preceding or following the popular US show. That way while there might be more than 12 minutes of adverts between 9pm and 10pm there are only 12 minutes in 8:30pm to 9:30pm and in 9:30pm to 10:30pm.
 
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Who actually owns the buildings from which the BBC operate?
Notes D1 and D2 of the most recent BBC group consolidated annual accounts might point to an answer. For the category of land & buildings, the property, plant & equipment category shows a net book value of £137m whereas the 'right of use' category shows a net book value of £1,527m. This implies the majority are therefore leased

 

najaB

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For the category of land & buildings, the property, plant & equipment category shows a net book value of £137m whereas the 'right of use' category shows a net book value of £1,527m. This implies the majority are therefore leased
I do not know if the BBC has done this, but another large UK organisation sold their buildings to a company (that they majority own) and lease them back from that company, thus keeping the assets off the book.
 

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I do not know if the BBC has done this, but another large UK organisation sold their buildings to a company (that they majority own) and lease them back from that company, thus keeping the assets off the book.
International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 16 changed the rules on leasing and brought a lot of stuff back on balance sheet, to address the circumstance you describe, which undoubtedly made organisations' accounts look more flattering!
 

Peter Sarf

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You'll want to report that to Ofcom if that's the case -

2. Time devoted to television advertising and teleshopping spots on any channel in any clock hour must not exceed 12 minutes.

Further to Rule 2:
3. Non public service channels must show no more than an average of 12 minutes of television advertising and teleshopping spots for every hour of transmission across the broadcasting day, of which no more than 9 minutes may be television advertising.bb
Crikey that is useful to know. I have easily endured more than 12 minutes - 0r 20%.
That same document also rather nullifies concerns around the BBC becoming an ad-ridden mess, unless it's also in the government's sights. Different rules for public service broadcasters (C4) which permits only an average of 7 mins/hour (8 between 18:00 & 23:00)
I assume that if the licence fee went then Ofcom would have to level up the playing field.
 

Geezertronic

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I have literally no idea how you got that idea from what you quoted.
It literally says you need a license to watch live TV on a TV or online or to be able to use iPlayer. It says nothing at all about if you have a device capable of doing so but don't actually watch live TV or use iPlayer.

I guess you have not been on the wrong end of an interpretation of the rules then
 

najaB

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I guess you have not been on the wrong end of an interpretation of the rules then
Yes, the rules are sometimes misinterpreted. And yes, sometimes people get harassed when they've done nothing wrong. But that doesn't change what the rules actually say, which is that you don't need a TV licence if you never watch/record live TV or watch content on BBC iPlayer.
 

najaB

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Is it still the case that certain religious bodies forbid the watching of television in Britain these days?
Given the non-specificity of "certain religious bodies" then the answer is undoubtedly "Yes" no matter what the question was.
 

Ediswan

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Many years ago, I was told that the Exclusive Brethren were one of these bodies and they also forbad the use of computers. Is this a truism?
According to Wikipedia, that is the Plymouth Bretheren Christian Church, which originated in the Exclusve Bretheren. They seem to be happy with computers as such, but not the open Internet. It is all about keeping separate from that which they consider evil.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_Brethren_Christian_Church
 

Peter Sarf

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The BBC should just go and sit in a dusty corner and expire.
It is absolute crap!
Maybe you do not like what they broadcast ?. I do but also I love not having to waste a portion of my life enduring advertisements. Some of the viewing figures for BBC shows are quite impressive. I seem to recall Eastenders comes out quite well - though I do not do soaps on any channel.

A lot of older programs made by the BBC seem to be good enough for other channels to pay to broadcast nowadays. Those channels that carry advertisements have a choice on what they broadcast so how come they choose repeats of old BBC stuff ?. Perhaps it is because people want to watch it ?.

I remember learning that back in the (early) 1980s the BBC realised it was a waste of licence payers money destroying old programme material. They realised there was huge demand for the repeats and it had been sacrilege to throw them away.
 
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GB

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The licence fee is 43p a day, good value I would think.

That‘s your opinion, I wouldn’t pay 20p per day. But the point is adding a charge to a utility service takes away any consumers right not to fund a company they either don’t agree with or do not use, that is a complete backwards step.
 

SteveM70

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Watching the BBC today, I see they featured something called "Bargain Hunt" on their flagship channel BBC1 and relegated PMQ to the lesser BBC2 channel.

Shows how they view priorities... :rolleyes:

The reality is that more of the viewing population in the middle of the working day will be interested in Bargain Hunt than politics. You may not like that, but that's how life is. If the beeb swapped the channels round, you can be sure someone would be piping up with "Why is politics on BBC1? How dare they try and tell me what's important!"
 

Trackman

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Watching the BBC today, I see they featured something called "Bargain Hunt" on their flagship channel BBC1 and relegated PMQ to the lesser BBC2 channel.

Shows how they view priorities... :rolleyes:
I don't watch that much on the BBC, but I thought PMQ's was only on BBC news?
Surely everyone who can view BBC1 can watch BBC news?
 

Busaholic

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The reality is that more of the viewing population in the middle of the working day will be interested in Bargain Hunt than politics. You may not like that, but that's how life is. If the beeb swapped the channels round, you can be sure someone would be piping up with "Why is politics on BBC1? How dare they try and tell me what's important!"
Not only that, the BBC would be accused of 'left wing bias' if they suddenly decided to switch PMQ to BBC1 just when the PM is up the proverbial creek.
 

najaB

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Watching the BBC today, I see they featured something called "Bargain Hunt" on their flagship channel BBC1 and relegated PMQ to the lesser BBC2 channel.
If it was on BBC Alba only you might have a point, but the days of BBC2 being "lesser" are long gone.
 
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Is there a case for re-framing the debate about the licence fee?

What is the BBC? Is it a utility, like an energy company, where a large portion of the invoice is related to consumption? With a smaller portion a fixed charge for infrastructure.

Or is it a statutory service provider? Like a local authority, where the compulsory levy has mitigations/benefits available for those who are unemployed, unable to work due to illness, or those otherwise on a low income.
 

najaB

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Is there a case for re-framing the debate about the licence fee?

What is the BBC? Is it a utility, like an energy company, where a large portion of the invoice is related to consumption? With a smaller portion a fixed charge for infrastructure.

Or is it a statutory service provider? Like a local authority, where the compulsory levy has mitigations/benefits available for those who are unemployed, unable to work due to illness, or those otherwise on a low income.
It's closer to the latter as the fee is unrelated to consumption. And there are discounts available for some categories of people - e.g. zero licence fee for the over 75s or those on pension credits.
 

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In my mind the TV license as a concept should be scraped and the BBC funded out of general taxation. I.e. a levy on council tax bills.

Then ditch any mass lowest common denominator designed TV shows with "celebrities" doing things (as those can be left to ITV), focus on programs which might not get the largest viewing figures but actually inform or educate viewers (i.e. some science shows on BBC 4 hosted by Jim Al-Khalili, or similar to some of Rob Bell's shows he does for channel 5) which won't be made by the main commercial channels as they don't have mass appeal (to those who just want to turn on and watch some Z-lister attempt to answer some general knowledge questions).

Maybe even reduce the number of 'local' radio stations they have, for they are not really that local for the area they cover. (Tonight on Radio Solent, there has been a car accident on such a road in the outskirts of Fareham, police are warning to avoid the area etc).
 

yorkie

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Is it still the case that certain religious bodies forbid the watching of television in Britain these days?
Where did you hear this?

In my mind the TV license as a concept should be scrapped ...
Agreed. If you ask kids these days about this topic they are shocked a license is needed to view live "TV" but do not need a license to view any content that is live but not deemed to be "on TV"; when you ask if they think they will buy a license when they are older they generally say no because they watch video clips on an 'on demand' basis when they want.
 

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Maybe even reduce the number of 'local' radio stations they have, for they are not really that local for the area they cover. (Tonight on Radio Solent, there has been a car accident on such a road in the outskirts of Fareham, police are warning to avoid the area etc).
Maybe they should become regional. For instance, Radio Manchester, Radio Merseyside, Radio Lancashire and Radio Cumbria could be consolidated into Radio North West.
 
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In my mind the TV license as a concept should be scraped and the BBC funded out of general taxation. I.e. a levy on council tax bills.
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Maybe even reduce the number of 'local' radio stations they have, for they are not really that local for the area they cover. (Tonight on Radio Solent, there has been a car accident on such a road in the outskirts of Fareham, police are warning to avoid the area etc).
Funding from general taxation will lead to the BBC becoming even more of a political football than it already is.

Agree though, that the current structure of local radio provision is based upon somebody in an ivory tower somewhere playing crayonista with a small-scale Ordnance Survey map...
 
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