Thursday, October 21, 2010

Randomness: The BBC

I'm a Brit. I love the BBC. If I was living in the UK right now and had a functioning TV, I wouldn't mind paying the licence fee for good quality programming. As it is, I'm in Australia and in the UK either I'm with my parents so they pay the fee or I'm at uni where there is no functioning TV. I use BBC iPlayer online instead, which is fee-free so long as you don't watch programmes live.

This does have a point. The UK government has plans to make huge cuts to the BBC's budget via the licence fee. Currently, those cuts stand at 16% (last I heard, which was yesterday). There were fears they could be up to 26%. That's a quarter of the entire budget or equivalent to the cost of running BBC2 (so I'm told). Yes, there need to be changes in spending to sort out our money troubles, but is the BBC really considered so low on priorities that it warrants such huge cuts? Why not scrap our nuclear weapons programs, we don't need them... I'll not go into that any more. Suffice to say I strongly disagree with nuclear weapons and I'd rather the UK disarmed ours.

Anyways, back on topic, there's so many wonderful things about the BBC that're worth saving. My personal favourite is the Natural History department. Look at their output over the years - all those stunning documentaries, bringing natural history to a wider audience. Hey, I credit David Attenborough's documentaries and the Wildlife On One/Two series with my life choices - I've wanted to work with animals my whole life and conservation since I was about 11.

And then there's the drama programming. Sci-fi in the form of Doctor Who and Torchwood. Let's face it, who hasn't heard of Doctor Who? Classic show. Run by the BBC. Crime drama - Waking The Dead, New Tricks and so many more. And then there's EastEnders. Much as I hate to admit it, it's a semi-decent and obviously popular programme and one of the longest running soap operas. It's been praised for tackling often controversial issues and, OK, other broadcasters do this as well, but I'm just giving examples of what could be lost if the BBC faces too many spending cuts.

And the BBC doesn't just fund those channels with BBC in the name - some funding direct from the government also runs the Welsh channel S4C (all in Welsh, can't understand a word of it) and some funding from advertising goes towards running Channel 4. Oh, and the BBC runs BBC Alba in Scotland which I only found out about when I hit the link to it on iPlayer and the entire page translated into Gaelic. I was so confused.

You know what's also amazing about the BBC - NO ADVERTS. And you get this by paying (currently) £145.50 a year. And that means getting full hour programmes instead of 45 minute ones stretched over an hour with adverts every 15 minutes or so. That means not getting bombarded with adverts for crap you'd never buy. It does mean you have to watch a different channel in the run up to Christmas, simply because it's not Christmas until you've seen the Coca-Cola Christmas ads. And of course, there's some brilliant programmes on other channels, at least on the terrestrial ones, which you don't have to pay for because they're funded by that annoying advertising. But then we look at Sky, which is probably the BBC's biggest threat.

British Sky Broadcasting, BSkyB or just plain old Sky. A pay-TV broadcaster. So, you get adverts. And they've got most of the Premier League football games. For the privilege of this and having a whole bunch of channels you'll probably never watch, you can be paying upwards of  £19 a month. So that's £228 a year. Compare this to the current BBC licence fee: £145.50 a year. So yes, you get more channels with a provider like Sky, but what about the quality of the programming? Have a think, there's BBC1, 2, 3 and 4, CBBC and CBeebies for the kids, BBC News, Parliament, Alba, S4C, all those radio stations - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 Live, 6 Music and numerous other ones that I can't remember right now. All of that programming for about 2/3 the price of a minimum Sky package. And you know what - you still have to pay the licence fee if you have Sky.

OK, so that's turned into a major babble. I love the BBC. I do not want to see it get hurt. Mm, I think that'll do before I go off on an even bigger rant. If you have a reason to love and be proud of the BBC, check out We're Proud Of The BBC and leave them your reasons.

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