I think they're worth every penny. Yes, they produce some dross, but they produce some of the best programmes on TV. But, I thought repeating Not Going Out and Mrs Brown's Boys Christmas Specials twice within in a week was taking the piss, but then they go and repeat Comic Relief highlights in the same timescale. Jesus f**king wept.
There was a cracking drama on BBC 2 tonight though with Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Coleman. That's the thing with the BBC, they do something that pisses you off, then you change the channel or turn on the radio and they're doing something great over there. It's difficult to stay mad with them for long.
I've vented some pretty unpopular views on the BBC on here before, mainly due to the aggressive tactics used to collect the TV license fee, but I don't think anyone can argue that they repeat stuff far too much. They used to make some cracking documentaries but these are now very few and far between and repeated far too often. When they do make new ones they are all about visuals and don't actually teach you anything. I've never got the fascination with Mrs Browns boys - a man dressed as a woman saying a profanity every few seconds gets tiring very quickly. All their channels are obviously set up to appeal to a particular demographic/taste but they are missing millions of people out. Apart from listening to Richard Bacon's show on Radio 2 now and again I barely watch/listen to anything they have to offer. I sometimes read the news on their website but even that is terribly biased - I suppose that is to be expected from a state broadcaster. The way people consume media and get information has changed and the relevance of the BBC gets less and less every year, if they need funding for it, it should be a subscription service. A growing number of countries (including Australia and New Zealand) have abolished their TV licence.
I think it's long past it's best, it doesn't produce the dramas and comedies it used to, I think the last good sitcom they produced was The Office and that was in 2001, and the dramas are cheap, soapified and full of PC preaching,the Americans have far outstripped the BBC drama-wise and even the Danes make much better, more grown-up dramas on a much lower budget. The digital switchover has been completed all over the country now so it would be easy and much fairer to make it subscription only.
Wouldn't be so bad if they were spending the money they get wisely. They pay (and then pay off) loads of pointless executives, they wasted £100m on some random IT project that was eventually abandoned, they GAVE AWAY the rights to one of the only widely popular sports they had the rights to (Formula 1), no live football at all, the weekday evening schedule is dominated by cheaply produced consumer rights programmes, the one show, and Eastenders, very little original drama (what little they have lately is very forgettable). I just don't see where the value is any more. It should either be downsized massively (I doubt it would have much effect on the output) and the license fee reduced significantly, or made into a subscription service. The technology to do so is built into pretty much every television made in the last ten years (ever wondered what that card slot is for?) so utilize that. A fiver a month per television should be more than enough - pay by text, pay at a paypoint, whatever, there's absolutely no reason why people should be forced to pay for it.
The reason is, as usual, poilticians, Labour will never get rid off it because it's left-wing and supports them and the Tories need it to help keep Scotland in the Union and Britain in the EU.
Obviously you dont, Richard Bacon is on Radio 5 live. There are plenty of other stations for you to choose from , get cracking lad !
Mrs Brown's Boys is proper garbage. I've tried watching it but just don't get where the laughs are meant to be. TV all round this Xmas has been poor.
Ben Fogle and James Cracknell int Arabian desert was a good programme from the Beeb also liked Grill and Fry (C4) and Speed with Guy Martin (C4) top 3 programmes for me this festive season. That Guy Martin is a top lad.
No, that was a new one - a new years special. Unlike the Christmas special, it was back to normal and good. Though I think it helps that they may keep bits in funny bits which other programmes would edit out!
Personally, I wish a lot of the repeats would be put on BBC3/4. I also wish they'd use these channels wisely to put other repeats on (things that aren't on UKGold/Dave all the time).
