Is the BBC Dying?

Honestly, I have never called it ''the beeb'' and hopefully never will

The year is 2030, TLDR buys what is left of the BBC

The problem with advertising is that broadcasters dare not upset their multi-national corporate paymasters by revealing any true but negative news involving those paymasters.

All public broadcasters should be beholden to the public, NOT advertisers!

I can remember the host on a BBC show declaring 'there is no alternative to austerity' as if most countries hadn't reacted differently to the banking crisis, too many examples to list of bias and poor reporting while always reacting badly when criticised. It has been afraid of successive governments since Blair after coverage of the run up to invading Iraq was deemed too critical, if it can't stand up for itself it wont survive.

Advertising funding for the bbc is a terrible idea. Yesterday an interveiw aired on the abc with the ceo of australia's biggest advertiser, in which he made it clear he expected his statements to be censored. The interveiwer refused, because they have no need of the advertising, but if not... Media funded by advertising is too easily compromised.

I find it extremely unlikely that tory MP's are genuinely concerned the BBC is "financially unfair".

The only time people i know here in Germany talked or were interested in contend of the BBC was when Top Gear and Dr Who was still "good" and that's quite some time ago...

I still have good memories of listening to the BBC World Service on my shortwave radio. Taught me a lot about the world.

Cable television itself is dying

People are tired of seeing biased news that only praises one side and fails to see the mistakes of the people they admire, instead of acknowledging that both sides make mistakes from time to time.

I wouldnt mind paying the TV license if it was a reasonable amount. They are not just funded by the TV license remeber they get money from syndication deals and advetise outside the UK. Its the same with most Publicly funded organisations. Too many people at the top on ridiculous wages. You will notice the "cuts" where all targeted at people on the lower end of the payscale.

"Why does Raytheon buy ad space on Good Morning America?" Have you bought a Raytheon product recently? No. It allows them to have subtle yet effective editorial control over the programming. BBC will be subject to more of that.

Bad products don't get used and bad business go out of business.

The problem with moving to a subscription model is, what would they set the price at? The license fee works out to £13.25 per month, already more than Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple or NOW Entertainment. BBC is the only one people are legally mandated to pay for even if they do not watch BBC's content. Going to sub-only would mean far fewer people paying for it, so those that do would have to pay a lot more than £13 to make their numbers stack up.

People WILL always complain about ads, especially in this internet era in which ads declined extremely only to go up again (not even close to pre internet levels in most cases but still) People always says that something needs to be ad funded, but in reality how many people click or go when they see an ad? Ad paid almost nothing and it would cause points of conflict within the bbc, and within 2 years a lot of people would complain about ads anyway.

The BBC being tied to the TV license is a situation not to its benifit. With how aggressive the enforcement is I dont know why it isnt funded from taxation like everything else

I firmly believe that the BBC needs to split into separate divisions. The radio, news and maybe documentaries should be publicly funded through tax. The TV side should be funded by either ads or a subscription. I am 29 and have never paid the licence fee. It simply dosnt make sense to pay £160 a year to watch live TV that mostly has ads and and a limited bbc iplayer library when for a similer price i can get a streaming subscription with no adverts and much more content.

BBC should be split into two organisations; Education & Information services, and Entertainment Services. Education & Information should be a state funded and non-profit; free at the point of service for those in the UK, supported by advertising and subscription internationally. Entertainment services should be a for-profit business, funded by subscriptions and advertising. Any assets, capital, personnel, resources etc that would be shared between the two would be owned and managed by a third legal entity, with payment being apportioned based on usage. Each show and resource would be its own entity and be initially and periodically assessed to see where on the entertainment/information spectrum it fell. Those which utilised both would pay the other for what they used. Eg. Radio 1 (entertainment) would pay BBC Information for every news broadcast it carried.

BBC podcast content is quality, and reaches audiences beyond the scope of the licence fee. Sadly UK 24/7 news content is no longer valued by viewers and therefore quality has dropped. The licence fee should not be a line item in my taxes, just roll it up with pot hole repair, NHS services, border security and helicopter fares for the cabinet. Also a national broadcaster can only be independent if the trustees/board controlling the application of public funds are themselves independent. 🙏🏽 BBC