1 in 6 people don't watch BBC TV

Pyriform wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
It was just one that screamed out at me that [DIY SOS] would be
lowest common denominator toss in the schedule on the day I wrote
the post.

So you hadn't actually seen it then...


No, but it just sounded like a slight variant of the usual makeover
********...


This reminds me of all the people who complained vehemently about
"Jerry Springer - The Opera", also without the benefit of having seen
it.
You do seem to be rather undermining your own case.


Okay then, House Invaders! Check mate! And I did see a few minutes of it
once. Indefensible nonsense.


I hope you like Only Fools that Look Like Horses then, because that
seems to be taking up about 86.34% of BBC1's evening schedule at the
moment.

I think I'll pass on that, other than to point out that it's on
tonight for a total of 85 minutes, in two chunks. If we assume the
'evening' runs from 6 PM to midnight, that makes 23.6% of the evening
schedule, showing once again that you are prone to hyperbole.


It's actually sarcasm. Anyway, enjoy watching the horsies for 23.6% of this
evening. :-)


--
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Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
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In article ews.net,
:::Jerry:::: wrote:
By then [..] there could well be in-programme (scrolling) adverts.

So you buy a HD TV to give you more lines and pay extra extra for Sky HD and
then squeeze all the normal picture into approximately 600 lines at the top of
the screen?

And *still* have advert breaks and product placement! ;-(((((

--
John Cartmell [email protected] followed by finnybank.com 0845 006 8822
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"Alex Heney" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 13 Jul 2006 14:05:26 +0100, ":::Jerry::::"
wrote:


"Alex" wrote in message
...
At 13:27:11 on 13/07/2006, Pyriform delighted uk.tech.digital-tv
by
announcing:

Alex wrote:
It depends on your definition of "time-shift", and it is
this
definition that would be tested in court. The licence
is
required if you receive programmes at the same time or
virtually the same time as they are broadcast. I would
argue
that an hour later is not even virtually the same time
and
therefore a licence is not required.

You did receive them "at the same time or virtually the same
time
as
they are broadcast".

The person doing the recording did, yes. And the act of
recording
them
requires a licence.

That you chose not to view them until some time
later is utterly irrelevant!

And the act of viewing them from the recording does not require
a
licence.

Please cite the section of the TVL Act that states that.


The part of it that does not say you *do* need one.

what the act says:
---------------------------------------------
(1) A television receiver must not be installed or used unless the
installation and use of the receiver is authorised by a licence
under
this Part.

---

(3) References in this Part to using a television receiver are
references to using it for receiving television programmes.
--------------------------------------------

It is only for the *receiving* you need the licence, not for the
*watching*.

But by definition you are receiving a television programme, only that
it's time delayed.

":::Jerry::::" wrote in message
reenews.net...

snip there is no mention of a time period - it
just says 'responsible', for the simple reason that in one case it
would be reasonable to keep the recording for six months before it
get watched and in another two days could be excessive.


'responsible' should of course read 'reasonable'

Yes.

The year the Community Charge (aka Poll Tax) came in, my contribution to
local government went up 4x just as my income, already well below the
national average, dropped by more than half so that I could study-part time
to get an IT qualification.

There was also a case in Herefordshire of a very rich woman living in a huge
mansion/estate who paid less Poll Tax than her own gardener.

And there were *many* more examples from the time that I can no longer
remember.

Result: 6,000,000 in court for refusing to pay it. Margaret Thatcher
toppled from leadership.

In summary:
Local Rates - rather unfair, replaced by ...
Community Charge (Poll Tax) - grossly unfair, replaced by ...
Council Tax - unfair
IE: Both replacements were less fair than the admittedly imperfect original.

To scurrilously misquote one of their slogans at the time: "Conservatives -
The Natural Party Of Misgovernment"

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

Wasn't the Poll Tax charged the same for everybody, independently of what
they earnt? If so, that's about as unfair as you can possibly get, because
Mr One Million Pound Salary Fat Cat is being charged the same as Mr
Minimum
Wage.

wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
As you've not contradicted my assumption that the Poll Tax was a
flat-rate charge on breathing British air and didn't take into
account the person's earnings whatsoever (I didn't take a great deal
of interest in politics at the time), anybody sticking up for such a
disgraceful law needs to be strung up by their ********.

We can take it from your statements on this that you'd be in favour of
a local income tax. I presume you're campaigning on that front as
well. The Council Tax, much like the Poll Tax it replaced, also takes
no account of income


Richer people tend to buy bigger and more expensive houses, and poorer
people tend to buy small and less expensive houses. Therefore, the Council
Tax is a far fairer way to tax people (on average) than a flat-fee tax,
which is extremely unfair, because Mr Fat Cat Earns Over 1 Million Pounds
Per Year is charged the same as Mr Minimum Wage. That should be obviously
unfair to anybody with half a braincell.


- the poll tax was at least fairer on the basis
that it took account of the number of people living in the property
and thus had some link to use. The difference is that it's
collectable.


Nothing can compare with the unfairness I've just mentioned. The Poll Tax
would only be fair for Mr Median Income, and for EVERYBODY else it either
favours them (the richer) or is unfair (the poorer).

I notice I've not seen any Council Tax riots yet. Where will they start,
Tunbridge Well?


If you're looking for inequity you'll find it everywhere.


Yeah, you can always find some inequity somewhere when you're talking about
public policies, but the best way to deal with that is to try and minimise
the inequities rather than your support of the Poll Tax, which is unfair on
50% of the population, and is therefore a blatantly **** tax.


I think there could be an even greater need for the licence fee in 10
years time. By then most TV will have moved to an on-demand model
whether via IP or big cheap PVRs. That will probably mean the end
of a lot of secondary/repeat channels and linear advertising will
likely have become ineffective. That's all likely to lead to less
risk taking.


No, it leads to the subscription model.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info

Find the cheapest Freeview & DAB prices:
http://www.digitalradiotech.co.uk/fr..._receivers.php
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"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...

Well, I still think I'm right about who said what to whom, but as it's not
really important, I'll pass on that.

What *really* natters is ...

DSWTF:
BTW, where's the US equivalent of the BBC? Where do we buy a lot
of the best programmes on TV from?

JJ:
[Any idea that] because there is no equivalent of the BBC in the US and
because the US is the source of many of the programmes on our main channels,
that there is no need for the BBC Licence Fee to maintain the standard of
Public Service Broadcasting, [is] a complete non-sequitur.

[satellite digital radio]

Already countered in the thread

[obsessed with ratings]

Already countered in the thread

[commercial sector]

Already countered in the thread

Populist, AFAIAC, means that it's pretty
lowest common denominator

Online dictionaries and my old Oxford Illustrated don't help either of us,
but I would say that populist means 'designed to be popular', not the same
thing as LCD, and also not the same thing as popular which is the desired
end result of the design, but which may, or may not, actually happen.

Any series designed to sell therefore has to be, to a minimum extent,
populist, and any popular enough for a 5th series is certainly populist.

People value this kind of content
highly, but the BBC makes precious little of this kind of thing.

Because:
a) It's not PSB.
b) Any amount of such dross is freely available to buy on the open market.
c) If they did, people like myself would be refusing to pay the LF.

As for other kinds of programming, HBO provides drama series and films,
apparently, so I obviously cannot provide different kinds of programming
to
drama.

So we're still waiting for even a single example of a programme even only as
good as 'Horizon', with all its acknowledged faults, originating from
subscription TV!

Subscription-funding also adds a needed dose of commercial reality to the
BBC, so it has to up its game to retain subscribers.

So in one paragraph you say that the BBC is too ratings obsessed, in another
that they should have to fight for subscribers. Even if you can't see the
glaring mutual self-contradiction in these two points of view, anyone else
reading this thread will have no such trouble.

1) There have been many more 'Planet Earth's than 'Rome's

Many more? Things as good as Planet Earth are few and far between, IMO.

Look at the final credits of almost any major BBC wildlife series from the
last decade or so, nearly all are joint-funded/co-prods.

2) Rome being crap doesn't have any relevance to my original point
about joint-funded/co-produced series being the nearest I get to
watching any US output.

But you're just one person in 60 million, and just because you don't like
US
drama doesn't mean other people don't value it highly.

Again this is partly about who said what to whom - there's now so much
intervening material that you appear to have forgotten that this originally
related to ...

DSWTF:
BTW, where's the US equivalent of the BBC? Where do we buy a lot
of the best programmes on TV from?

What you call 'the best' are actually just run of the mill US drama soaps -
from before Dallas through Dynasty to the present day we've seen many like
them before, *far* too many.

I used to live with a girl who had a psychology degree yet avidly watched
Dallas (some contradiction there surely?), and I would have to go out of the
room to avoid ruining her enjoyment by mimicking all the ham acting and/or
successfully predicting what would happen next.

But to return to my original point, which was the non-sequitur, the presence
of such dross in overly large numbers on our screens and everything you've
said since to defend that original statement, merely emphasizes the
non-sequitur rather than bridges it.

[satellite digital radio again]

Already countered in the thread

Sky is a subscription service, and like it or not, it's very
successful in terms of the number of subscriptions and it does
provide a very wide range of channels.

Aaarrrggghhh!

Sky is probably the *main* reason why so many people in the UK rush to
defend the Licence Fee!

But Sky has over 7 million subscriptions

Actually now 8m, but although the subscriber base is still rising, the rate
of increase is falling, which suggests that growth has peaked and net
subscribers could start to fall in the not too distant future.
http://tinyurl.co.uk/ylye
.... standing in for ...
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_...SY_Q3_2006.pdf

Whereas, from the figures you yourself have quoted and those on pp 9 & 27,
BBC TV at 85.3% represents about 48m people in about 21m homes, around 3x as
much as BSkyB. Further, unlike BSkyB's, the BBC's range of viewing:

1) Caters for both majority and minority programming.
2) Is largely original rather than repeated or recycled material.
3) Is free of adverts.
4) For access to all of it is £30 cheaper than the cheapest BSkyB package
only giving only partial access.
5) Doesn't need bespoke equipment - AFAIAA BSkyB is the only digital sat
broadcaster whose output can't be viewed using an industry standard CAM in
an industry-standard receiver. I believe they also have
non-industry-standard EPG and Teletext, and employ DRM to restrict archiving
from Sky+ boxes.

and if these 7 million households
decide they're not happy then they will unsubscribe.

Like the other 17 million who have already made that choice by not
subscribing in the first place.

The BBC doesn't have
this commercial pressure, and we're forced to pay for it whether we like
it
or not. I think this pressure is healthy.

Self-contradiction already countered, see above.

At any rate it manifestly *fails* to provide
the sort of channels that people defending the License Fee in this
thread have been demanding.

But I dispute that the BBC will start providing more lowest common
denominator crap if they were subscription-funded.

But you must at least acknowledge that here in the UK the existing
subscription examples point universally in the LCD direction.

Despite being subscription-based:
1) It produces little or no original primary output except news and
sport.

That doesn't mean that the BBC won't.

But it being historically the BBC rather than under your scheme a future BBC
Ltd or BBC Inc doesn't guarantee that it would, either.

2) It is riddled with advertising.

That doesn't mean that the BBC would start, or even be allowed, to have
advertising.

But it being historically the BBC rather than under your scheme a future BBC
Ltd or BBC Inc doesn't guarantee that it would not, either.

3) Virtually all its worthwhile output originated from terrestrial TV.

I very much doubt that, although we may be talking at cross purposes,
because clearly what I like and what you like are different things.

Well, you said yourself even you are not a subscriber.

4) It is therefore sh*te value for money.

If it was ****e value for money then it simply wouldn't have over 7
million
subscriptions.

Why not? Many things that sell well could by no stretch of the imagination
be described as value for money.

These people are free to unsubscribe at any time. Many people
consider it excellent value for money, because there's so much content
available.

Already countered in the thread.

The Sopranos is not populist. I doubt that many women watch it, put it
that
way.

Already countered in the thread.

The BBC rarely buys the more expensive US drama series, because seemingly
it
can't afford it, or it's outbid by the commercial sector. It lost The
Simpsons, 24

Fine

football, various other sports

I grant that the loss of national sports from the BBC in particular and
terrestrial TV in general is a concern with the present system, but I can't
see how the BBC going subscription would alter that. What would most likely
happen is what is already happening now, only faster, fuelled by the removal
of the Licence Fee's limitations on the BBC's spending power - ie: that,
in order to pay for even more over-priced sports rights, the BBC, commercial
terrestrial channels, and BSkyB would be locked in even stiffer competition,
which would mean standards in other areas spiraling downwards even more
quickly, as they try and recoup the money through savings elsewhere.

Let's not forget what over-priced football rights did to ITV/OnDigital.

I don't envisage it to be anything like Sky. Sky is Sky, and there's
absolutely no point in trying to compete with what it does. The BBC is the
BBC [snip]

As already countered elsewhere, this sounds totally naive to me, and will
continue to do so until you can point to a subscription service, at least
one anywhere in the world but preferably more than one in a Western
democracy like our own, that produces a similar range of output to the BBC
under subscription conditions.

Your ideas ignore the almost universal real world examples that counter
them, and the major self-contradictions within them. Further, when one of
your arguments is reasonably countered, all you've done is repeat it, as if
you believe that repeating something often enough will make what is false,
true.

If I was wavering about the LF originally, nothing in this thread has
convinced me of a better solution. I don't think anyone supporting it
thinks it is totally fair, it obviously isn't, but it does seem to work in
providing PSB, even if not entirely to the standards of former years and/or
that all of us would like, while the alternatives are hopelessly far away
from proving that they could even do it all, let alone as well.

Perhaps in 10 years' time things might look different one way or another,
who knows ...

"DAB sounds worse than FM" wrote in message
...
snip

Okay then, House Invaders! Check mate! And I did see a few minutes
of it
once. Indefensible nonsense.


IYO, and IMO for that matter, but to a many it's prime
entertainment... :~(

Also, it's only been since the BBC management were told that they had
to run the BBC like a commercial company that there has been the
explosion of such programmes and the like, before then the genre
didn't exist, certainly not in the current (dumbed down) style
anyway.

:::Jerry:::: wrote:

snip

The Council Tax, much like the Poll Tax it replaced, also takes
no account of income - the poll tax was at least fairer on the
basis that it took account of the number of people living in the
property and thus had some link to use. The difference is that
it's collectable.

The Council Tax does take into account income, although AIUI it's a
claimed benefit, it also takes into account single and elderly
occupancy (automatically).

Under council tax (as under rates), the system simply assumes that every
householder can afford to pay the full amount (no matter how rapacious)
unless their income can be proven to be at social security-type levels (at
which stage they may qualify for some relief in the form of council tax
benefit - if they apply).

"Mike Henry" wrote in
message ...
In , John Cartmell
wrote:

In article , Alex
wrote:
In the UK, everything is permitted unless there is legislation
preventing
it. So the question to you is, can you cite the legislation
that prohibits
me from watching recordings of TV broadcasts?

Nothing - as long as that recording was made legally and you have
obtained
that recording legally. In the example cited the recording wasn't
made legally
(the right to record broadcast material is time and person
restricted)

It wasn't "illegal" either, because the time and person
restrictions are
part of copyright law; which is civil not criminal. If person A
with a
licence gave person B a recording of a programme and B watches it
without having their own a TV licence, it's just a breach of
copyright.
A civil matter, so it can't be described as "illegal".


So if someone records to and streams from a computer to his neighbour
(who doesn't have a TVL) the neighbour is not committing any offence
by watching 'time-shifted' live TV - I think not!

The fact that it was a live television broadcast is the factor,
time-shifting is just that, shifting time, not the source.