BBC Three/Scotland/R4X to close

[prpr]

How can they cut the news back even further?

Cut the News channel. Cut the duplication between London and Salford. Cut the World Service. Cut Breakfast (partly happened already).
Cut TV bulletins and stick more stuff on "digital" - that means 'web-sites' to normal people. They're already cutting Chief Presenter roles.
I read somewhere about more cuts to Local Radio to make it more "regional". It already is part regionalised in the afternoon, and fully nationalised in the evenings. The local service runs from 06:00 to 14:00 weekdays. Weekends will be less so.
Likewise there are job cuts in regional TV, getting rid of specialist correspondents. They could cut breakfast bulletins, or weekend bulletins, or the lunchtime bulletin, or the politics show on a Sunday (I forget what it's called now).
More cuts to Radio 4. The list could go on and on...

 

[antipodean]

I'm not sure how much will be saved.

I heard a figure of around £10million. Seems a drop in the bucket to me.

 

[trog]

If I understand it correctly, UKTV is owned by BBC Studios - the commercial arm of the BBC. No part of the licence fee is (supposed to be) used to operate that company. Some of the profits may be returned to the BBC. If the "complete and utter waste of time and money" (I agree) goes wrong the licence fee payer shouldn't be affected - although it might reduce any payments from BBC Studios to the BBC.

But does the money they get from the licence fee go towards producing those shows? If yes then any profit gained from them should in at least partly be returned to the licence fee pot.

 

[Owen Smith]

Cut the World Service.

The UK government should be paying all the costs of the World Service. They used to but forced it onto the BBC a few years ago.

 

[prpr]

Yes, in some "dodgy deal" behind closed doors in rapid time ISTR. Whoever was DG at the time tried ar$3-licking the government, and all he got was a brown tongue.
Then there was the subsidy for Local TV, and the subsidy for broadband, and the subsidy for free TV licences for pensioners (which still persists in a lesser form).
And under-inflation licence fee increases, or even freezes, in a time of rising costs in the industry generally.
It is any bloody wonder there are problems?

 

[EEPhil]

But does the money they get from the licence fee go towards producing those shows? If yes then any profit gained from them should in at least partly be returned to the licence fee pot.

I would have thought HIGNFY, QI, New Tricks etc. paid for by the licence fee have to be sold (from BBC) to UKTV (subsidiary of BBC Studios, BBC Studios is a subsidiary of BBC) in the same way anything from All3Media or Banijay are. On the other hand, UKTV original productions shouldn't use licence fee money unless the BBC buys the rights to the programme or it is a joint production.

 

[EEPhil]

The UK government should be paying all the costs of the World Service.

Yes, in some "dodgy deal" behind closed doors in rapid time ISTR. Whoever was DG at the time tried ar$3-licking the government, and all he got was a brown tongue.
Then there was the subsidy for Local TV, and the subsidy for broadband, and the subsidy for free TV licences for pensioners (which still persists in a lesser form).
And under-inflation licence fee increases, or even freezes, in a time of rising costs in the industry generally.
It is any bloody wonder there are problems?

I thought I'd posted about this, but it looks like I had second thoughts and abandoned it.
I'd forgotten about Local TV. Now there is the Local Democracy Reporting Service paid for by the BBC to help out local newspapers. Wasn't the BBC responsible for free tv boxes for certain groups at digital switchover?
Free TV licences was a Labour government policy. Then the Conservatives (or was it the coalition) stopped funding it and effectively forced the BBC to do it. The BBC shouldn't be doing the DWPs job, or the Foreign Office's work (World Service).

 

[prpr]

TBH, the most cost-effective way of collection and paying for the organisation is to take it out of general taxation, but the stupid politicians rule that out for reasons I can't really fathom. The government dictate what the licence fee is going to be anyway, so how is the current system any less of a "political control" than this?
"Oh we don't want to add another tax to hard-working families."; You're not - you're replacing one tax with another collected slightly differently.
This would deliver their so-called "progressive" rather than so-called "regressive" policy too, which they seem to want, and which I whole-heartedly disagree with (you don't pay more for any other goods or services based on how much you earn, so why a TV licence?).