BBC cost cutting

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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With the news that the BBC may have to make a lot of cuts as their income will be at least 16% lower in 2016 than it will be this year, what do you think should be cut, and why?

I say scrap BBC Alba. In 2001 only 1.2% of Scottish people had "some" Scottish Gaelic ability, a decline of over 7,000 from 1991. So realistically, only a minority of that 1.2% would have any fluency in that language, and probably less than 1000 people would speak it as their first language. So why have they got their own tv channel? I know the viewing figures aren't really bad, but they are hugely boosted by the broadcasting of some Scottish football games that aren't on other free channels. Can anyone justify BBC Alba?

I would like to say this is in no way an anti-scottish view, just pointing out a glaringly obvious case of BBC waste IMO
 
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TWARDLAW

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If the BBC are serious about costcutting can somebody (ideally from the BBC)please explain to me why they waste vast amount sending news reporters to venues at the other end of the country,or indeed the earth, to stand in front of a building, ie, Westminster, a police station or a sports stadium at daft times of the night to report on an item that could better be reported from the studio.Is it just that they want the viewers to believe that the report contains the latest information, or is it, as I believe, just an easy way for the journalists to up their salaries with location and overtime payments, after all most, if not all of these sites are already closed and the staff have gone home when these news items are on the TV.Before BBC start to cut channels such as BBC3 and 4 they should look at the waste on items such as I have highlighted. The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.
 
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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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Andrew Everard:
TWARDLAW:The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Then how do you explain Total Wipeout?

As serious as always Andrew, very good point though.

Isn't it quite like Takeshi's Castle? I haven't ever seen it
 
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The_Lhc

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW:Andrew Everard:
TWARDLAW:The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Then how do you explain Total Wipeout?

As serious as always Andrew, very good point though.
Isn't it quite like Takeshi's Castle?

Without the Castle. Or Takeshi. Or the tanks.

No it isn't really...
 
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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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the_lhc:BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW:Andrew Everard:
TWARDLAW:The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Then how do you explain Total Wipeout?

As serious as always Andrew, very good point though.

Isn't it quite like Takeshi's Castle?Without the Castle. Or Takeshi. Or the tanks.No it isn't really...

I wasn't ever suggesting it would be as good as TC, even with Craig Charles not being able to understand or relate to what is actually being said and happening, it's still occasionally entertaining.

I just thought, from the small clips I had seen, that TW had stolen some of the game ideas, as always the-lhc, I stand corrected.
 
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laserman16

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Andrew Everard:

TWARDLAW:The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Then how do you explain Total Wipeout?

Maybe its a case of the BBC are stupid in this case rather than the viewing public........
emotion-1.gif
 
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The_Lhc

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW:the_lhc:BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW:Andrew Everard:
TWARDLAW:The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Then how do you explain Total Wipeout?

As serious as always Andrew, very good point though.

Isn't it quite like Takeshi's Castle?Without the Castle. Or Takeshi. Or the tanks.No it isn't really...

I wasn't ever suggesting it would be as good as TC, even with Craig Charles not being able to understand or relate to what is actually being said and happening, it's still occasionally entertaining.

I just thought, from the small clips I had seen, that TW had stolen some of the game ideas, as always the-lhc, I stand corrected.

All the boring stuff sure, but the bits that make TC great, no.
 
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DavieCee

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TWARDLAW:

If the BBC are serious about costcutting can somebody (ideally from the BBC)please explain to me why they waste vast amount sending news reporters to venues at the other end of the country,or indeed the earth, to stand in front of a building, ie, Westminster, a police station or a sports stadium at daft times of the night to report on an item that could better be reported from the studio.Is it just that they want the viewers to believe that the report contains the latest information, or is it, as I believe, just an easy way for the journalists to up their salaries with location and overtime payments, after all most, if not all of these sites are already closed and the staff have gone home when these news items are on the TV.Before BBC start to cut channels such as BBC3 and 4 they should look at the waste on items such as I have highlighted. The viewing public are not stupid and the BBC should remember that.

Quite. I have lost count of the times where news story up here is considered "worthy" enough to get a London based reporeter sent up to cover the story. Once the main news is finished the local news has the same story covered by the local reporter standing in the same spot. Why?
 
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scene

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They could save a hell of a lot of money by not sending huge swathes of employees on what appear to be free for all junkets to major events:

- 292 employees to the 2010 World Cup

- 400 employees to Glastobury

- 185 employees need to cover Wimbledon
Some of the big 2010 events (are estimated to have) cost a packet: £1.7m on Glastonbury, £12m on the World Cup, £3m for Wimbledon. Now I know they need to cover these events, but not at the saturation level they do now. For example, why was Nicky Campbell sent to S.A. to present his breakfast show from there? So they're going to cut Digital TV channels so that we can still have these excesses.
emotion-12.gif
 
scene

scene

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laserman16:Might be that they have exclusive rights to Wimbledon as well and can sell some of the footage on.
Fair point, and Andrew's comment as well. But £12m for the World Cup, and all those people? How many do they send out for Match of the Day? Surely the World Cup would only need 2-3 times that number IN South Africa, tops. Can't believe they have 100 people at UK matches...
 
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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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Well so far, no-one has tried to justify BBC Alba.

Could it be that only Scottish Gaelic speakers would, and as there's only a few of them, the likelyhood of them posting on WHF is extremely remote.
 
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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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Andrew Everard:Surely BBC Alba is the essence of public service broadcasting, providing a service to a minority, however small, which may require it?

It's a nice try Andrew, but I'm still unconvinced.

I would hate to see BBC tv channels and radio stations judged by audience figures alone, we all know what most people want, and it's usually not very good. But surely it has to be viable, and I can't see why a TV channel, which is paid for by millions of people, but only realistically viewed by a thousand or so, can be justified. If they want to keep a dying language alive, then teach it in Scottish schools (I think this was done in Wales), and if they need to show TV programmes in Scottish Gaelic, then add them to the schedule of BBC Scotland. I understand the need to keep the language alive, that's only right, but probably 99% of Scots have no ability to speak the language, and very likely no interest in watching programmes made in the language.

I would like to hear from some of the Scottish posters to see if they think I'm being unreasonable.
 
Tonestar1

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I'm Scottish, don't speak a word of Gaelic and have never watched Alba.
However I know a lot of Asian folk who have never listened to the Asian
Network radio station. Where do you draw the line? If BBC only appealed
to the majority all we would have is one channel with an X-factor clone
on 24hrs a day. Do we create a magic number where pounds spent on programming is directly proportional to the amount of people watching it? I think they should start by reducing the amount if reporters it needs to send to events such as the world cup etc. Watching some guys drive about SA in a bus didn't really enhance the world cup for me.
 
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DavieCee

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Tonestar1:I'm Scottish, don't speak a word of Gaelic and have never watched Alba. However I know a lot of Asian folk who have never listened to the Asian Network radio station. Where do you draw the line? If BBC only appealed to the majority all we would have is one channel with an X-factor clone on 24hrs a day. Do we create a magic number where pounds spent on programming is directly proportional to the amount of people watching it? I think they should start by reducing the amount if reporters it needs to send to events such as the world cup etc. Watching some guys drive about SA in a bus didn't really enhance the world cup for me.

+1

The whole point of the BBC is to provide the type of programming that commercial advertising would shy away from. The more popular programmes are made to fund the speciality programmes. Do we really need more - I'm an ice dancing celebrity with the X-Factor, get me out of here big brother?

PS:- Alba is partly funded by the Scottish Government. Why stop there? 6 Music was under thread as it didn't get enough listeners. Thankfully the issue was highlighted and quality won over the numbers. As it should do.
 
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The_Lhc

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Tonestar1:I'm Scottish, don't speak a word of Gaelic and have never watched Alba.
However I know a lot of Asian folk who have never listened to the Asian
Network radio station.

That's not a very good example as it's very likely (if not certain) that the Asian network is going to be scrapped. due, in a very large part, because most of the Asian community don't see the point of it, as your experience suggests.

Where do you draw the line?

Don't know but you have to draw it somewhere, I like PWEI but I don't expect the BBC to create a radio channel that only plays their music just for me. statistically speaking there's VERY little difference between that and the numbers of people watching BBC Alba.

Incidentally, if only a few thousand are watching BBC Alba then it's getting similar audience figures to a lot of S4C's output, most of which is rated at zero listeners (which actually means only a thousand or so are watching). That's S4C which is now, thanks to the government's new rules, funded by the BBC. Someone mentioned the BBC World Service recently as well and asked why license-payer's money was being used to fund that. Well up until very recently, it wasn't, it was funded by the Foreign Office, but the government forced the BBC to take that on as well.
 
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DavieCee

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Re Alba, see here - http://www.mgalba.com/en/rhs_links/faqs.html

So it is costing BBC Scotland £4 million per year for a viewing audience of around 250,00. That equates to £16 per viewer per year. Not a massive amount in the bigger scheme of things and even that is under review this year. I would suggest that there are more efficient ways of the BBC saving a whole lot more money.
 
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Ravey Gravey Davy

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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW:

Andrew Everard:Surely BBC Alba is the essence of public service broadcasting, providing a service to a minority, however small, which may require it?

It's a nice try Andrew, but I'm still unconvinced.

I would hate to see BBC tv channels and radio stations judged by audience figures alone, we all know what most people want, and it's usually not very good. But surely it has to be viable, and I can't see why a TV channel, which is paid for by millions of people, but only realistically viewed by a thousand or so, can be justified. If they want to keep a dying language alive, then teach it in Scottish schools (I think this was done in Wales), and if they need to show TV programmes in Scottish Gaelic, then add them to the schedule of BBC Scotland. I understand the need to keep the language alive, that's only right, but probably 99% of Scots have no ability to speak the language, and very likely no interest in watching programmes made in the language.

I would like to hear from some of the Scottish posters to see if they think I'm being unreasonable.

You are Dr Richard Beeching and I claim my....
 
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Anonymous

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Scrap their taxpayer funded non contributable pensions and fire 50% of the back office paper pushers. Remove bonuses and reduce top rates of pay by 50%. None of them to be paid more than the PM.

That'll be enough for now.
 
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BIGBERNARDBRESSLAW

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DavieCee:
Re Alba, see here - http://www.mgalba.com/en/rhs_links/faqs.html

So it is costing BBC Scotland £4 million per year for a viewing audience of around 250,00. That equates to £16 per viewer per year. Not a massive amount in the bigger scheme of things and even that is under review this year. I would suggest that there are more efficient ways of the BBC saving a whole lot more money.

Yes we all know that the BBC is extremely wasteful, and yes, there may well be more efficient ways of saving money, but my point still stands. Who funds the Scottish government? So actually, the cost is £14,000,000, and your viewing figure of 250,000 is somewhat boosted by the showing of football matches not available on other channels. What's the audience figure without the football?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scotland/article5627346.ece

So in reality, without the PR spin, it's actually 14/15 million pounds for an audience figure of 50,000, so just a little more expensive than you have suggested.

There are better ways to save a dying language, try teaching it in schools, because you don't learn a language but watching tv programmes that you can't understand. I watch a lot of foreign language films, and surprisingly, I can not speak Japanese, French, Korean, Spanish or German because of doing so.
 
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DavieCee

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BBC Alba still costs half of what BBC Parliament costs and how many people watch that?

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AqlCrVujNb9xdGYwWF9hVi00VVprZEE5LW5kVlA2c3c&hl=en_GB#gid=0

There are bigger fish to fry or is your main gripe BBC Alba and not BBC cost cutting per the OP?

PS:- Gaelic is taught is the schools in the relevant areas and anywhere requesting it.
 
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