It was the comedies that were particularly good and very British. Some were very unusual and bizarre, the late night shows. But they were also where writers and comedians got a break and then became mainstream. I would guess that kind of thing is now made for the internet, and its a shame to see everything go so niche.
An article I came across a couple of years ago (wish I could find it!) talked about how there was this period of time when British TV started to diversify the source of talent, around the 80s and 90s. You got shows like Red Dwarf where the cast were not all from the same small set of drama schools. But it has now reverted and that kind of low budget, take a chance show doesn't get shown on the main channels.
Sturgeon's Law applied then as it does now; 90% of everything is crud. Go back 20-30 years, and the shows you remember as great are only a tiny fraction of the total output. Some (like Monty Python or Brass Eye) were extreme outliers.
Some shows seen as notable at the time are now mostly, though not always fairly, forgotten because they haven't aged well. Nobody's really watching, I don't know, The Onedin Line or Against the Wind today.
I want to back up and support this point: just pull up a list of shows on Wikipedia from any TV channel you can remember, ideally one with a long history and just go through the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s etc. You're going to find a lot more cream the further forward you go into the future, and maybe, depending on the channel and your own personal tastes, a drop off in the last 10 to 15 years. Most TV was just bad, but old TV especially. For every "All in the Family" or "Cosby Show" or "The Wire" or "Frasier"; or to make this more British: "Sherlock", "Doctor Who", "Monty Python's Flying Circus", there's just dozens upon dozens of terrible shows. They each had their audiences, the ones that weren't cancelled (and even some of the ones that were), but it's like, nobody remembers the dirt underneath the flower, but they remember the flowers that they liked.
This was a corporation (the BBC) who made their own cameras and microphones.
Go and watch “Ways of seeing” on YouTube. It’s 50 years old and still as exciting and relevant as it was then.
It was most when conservatives decided that the truth felt a little too left wing and they became vocal about not wanting to fund things they didn’t find entertaining.
Hence quality was traded for populism.
The actual exception is e.g. the life of Brian where you have 90 minutes where almost every scene is funny or at least engaging. Compare with e.g. the holy grail where the best 90% is quite good but the rest is... Not...
Same for all the big name movies these days, everyone is too scared to take a chance on something truly new. If you want a novel movie experience you basically have to look towards foreign films, often the more arty types (which I love
On the topic of TV though just consider this for a moment, we lived in a world where someone was daring enough to air "Paedogeddon!" (a Brass Eye special that imo is an excellent work of satire) on TV. Something so controversial couldn't be made and aired today and it was barely able to be even back then.
'Speaking in October 2017, Lucas stated that if he were to remake Little Britain he would avoid making jokes about transvestites and would not play the role of a black character, saying, "Basically, I wouldn't make that show now. It would upset people. We made a more cruel kind of comedy than I'd do now... Society has moved on a lot since then and my own views have evolved".'
Basically the risk taking has gone in modern comedy.
You couldn’t make Little Britain today mostly because it wasn’t very good, and the standards of the time were lower.
You could absolutely remake The Day Today, Brass Eye, Goodness Gracious Me or Peep Show today and they’d be just as good.
I really distasted it when it was running.
At the moment post 1997 when Britain was starting to change and become more diverse and sure of it itself it reinforced an identify of Britain as it used to think of itself: silly voices, binary identities and oddballs.
It has more in common with Love Thy Neighbour than anything that came after.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jF-CkMpQtlY&pp=ygUUdmlsbGFnZSB...
This business where we're all supposed to be surprised by what Russell Brand was up to despite him being incredibly open about it at the time is the same thing: society wants to blame the highly visible individuals of that era but in truth it was the audience that wanted this stuff that were the problem.
I still hold that special up as one of the best pieces of satire to ever air on TV, but at the same time I'm shocked it was ever able to be produced and shown since it satirizes the one topic above all others you aren't "allowed" to joke about.
For those interested I highly recommend watching it: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6shgvw
Decades later this all looks rather naive. The BBC, especially, could hardly make a program satirizing exaggerated concerns about child sexual abuse, given that the Savile scandal proved that many such concerns had in fact been taken nowhere near seriously enough.
The absurdities of yesterday have been changed - and there can be no actual normality today when there are no absurdities. Laughing at absurdities was not considered cruel.
With no common shared understanding of what's funny or not. Today we can laugh at cruel people only. The cruel and those who think others are weird are the strange ones.
Comedy used to be "look at us, hahaha" now it's "look at them, heh". Real comedy has truth and the truth is always about ourselves not some external other. But such vulnerability is very risky.
There's as always a "taboo" on some things. Lots of jokes about sex and religion today that would see you completely crucified in the past. Do you think The Thick of It could have been made in the 80s?
I never cared for Little Britain and haven't seen it, so I can't comment on their "jokes about transvestites", but this whining about "PC gone mad!" has been going on for 40+ years. A few decades ago it was about "you can't make fun of the pakis and nig-nogs any more!"
This idea of "oh everyone is offended these days" is a bit weird to me; the 'these days' part I mean. There was a lot of comedy from the past that was... awkward to me as a kid, or just... felt unnecessarily cruel. But I was in a minority, or at least felt like it, with some of those. And... I don't think I changed, but I now can hear/read about others who share the same sensibilities on comedic topics.
The notion that it's somehow "more" people getting "offended" today just strikes me as odd. It may be that as more folks have a platform to share their views, that influences some folks, but I'm not sure that works on all topics. Certainly... on comedy, I've heard many of complaints about some comics/topics. Rarely has anyone's view of a comedy bit made me change my position. If I found it cringe/bad, I found it cringe/bad.
i'm bi. sometimes I watch old Polish comedies or standups. The amount of "jokes" that are just good old bigotry is stupendous.
so when people say they're tired of "political correctness", I do wonder if they mean - I am no longer allowed to be bigot openly, why can't I kick those who I consider to be below me.
The repeated going back to the well makes everything unfunny. The first time a Polish joke was said was in Poland many Polish watching laughed because their was kernel of truth that made it funny but years later hearing it repeated like it's gospel makes it awful because people have changed but the joke doesn't so it doesn't land as true anymore. Once we start looking why the joke is untrue instead of why it's true the joke is dead.
Saturday night live always tries to go back to a joke that was never really that funny.
Now that I think about it, it's no more cruel than what most kids watch on YouTube today.
In other words, not Airplane!.
Having the autopilot smoking after being inflated doesn't make sense in a world where barely anyone smokes.
1) jive isn’t something many people have encountered nowadays and
2) “internet slang is incomprehensible” is an overdone joke.
2 is is not really the point, sure it could flop, my point was just that I couldn't imagine it going further than that, not that that would be funny.
When I watched it recently the joke that kinda flops is the heavily stereotyped gay man. Whether it is offensive I have no idea. Its not flattering.
Sure, the old white woman using heavy black slang is where the joke comes in.
I don't get it does that make her a racist or something? She tries to help.
The joke is: their slang is so heavy its another language.
Personally make fun of zoomers all the time for this.
- no, I was wrong that the person passing thru security was in any possible way "arab"
- yes it's from Airplane 2
- No it's not from the metal detector scene
- Yes it's from Iranians
- No Iranians are not "arabs"
- Yes They are engaged in a stereotypical crime
- No it doesn't involve an RPG
- yes it involves a battle rifle / something that doesn't belong at an airport
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis
I don’t think you are correct that a movie that was made today couldn’t make comedic references to recent world events.
As if the only kind of risk you could take is punching down at trans and black people.
Cruelty against the already marginalized is an easy target.
Kicking downwards is easy.
But yes, the low budget is part of the formula for success. Without a ton of money, they had to rely on wit and creativity. Most shows now have comparatively gargantuan budgets, and it goes on big sets, big effects and big names, but the things that actually make a show good (compelling story, enjoyable writing) are unbottleable magic that you can’t just buy.
I agree that the models looked better IMHO.
While the BBC still produce documentaries, the quality has declined over the last decade or so, and when Attenborough dies they will be fresh out of ideas, as right now it’s just… Attenborough, and licensed human interest pieces.
I just can’t see it being a thing in 10, 20 years, as they surmise - I would wager they will whittle away until all that remains is BBC News, which will run on a shoestring, even more than it does now.
No it was not. BBC Four is still going strong. It's great.
As you've pointed out, if someone loves being able to watch BBC Four on broadcast TV, they're not going to be complaining about it's non existent axing.
There are a few other comments listing them all. The uk has lots of high quality novel shows coming out every year. Our tv export market is strong, both for programming and for formats.
I watched some interviews with the cast and they would joke around in the canteen between filming and find their jokes had been overheard and incorporated into the script. It had this realistic dialogue.
And then after season 12, The Promised Land movie was just ok, but it still had a few genuinely funny moments.
"Almost a third of women’s convictions are for not paying the TV licence fee, figures have revealed.
Women are ten times more likely to be convicted for not paying the £157.50 annual fee than men – with growing numbers of women then being slapped with criminal records, Ministry of Justice data shows."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/tv-licence-f...
even if you genuinely believe this is why it should be decriminalised, if women are being disproportionally affected, then clearly either there's some kind of bias in the process, which should simply be fixed instead of disbanding the whole process, or women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help. either way it's not an issue with the concept of the license fee
I actually don't disagree that the license fee in its current format is a problem, ideally it should just be impossible to access it without having paid, but I don't think it's feasible with the way freeview works
They’ve visited my mother, sister and one auntie that don’t pay - they all live alone and are the sole name on the bill.
I’ve heard from friends similar experiences too, single men and households with men on the electoral register don’t get visits, or very rarely if they do.
I had the pleasure of answering the door at my mothers to one of these people and believe there’s an issue with the way they choose who to investigate. It’s predatory.
(FWIW I'm had a visit shortly after I'd moved in with five other guys before, and avoided prosecution by simply asking how to pay...)
In the same way ticket inspectors on trains ask people in suits for tickets but avoid asking the 6ft tall roadmen.
I don’t because I don’t use anything that requires me to, not from a moral standpoint. The BBC has given me a lot of fantastic content over the years but I’ve just stopped consuming most television over the past 5 years or so.
However I do find the overreach of claiming I need to pay the license if I watch any form of live broadcast is ridiculous. If I wanted to watch the occasional live stream of a football game online via Amazon Prime then I would need to pay the license fee.
How can you prove someone was watching TV in court? As far as I’m aware you can’t, but the court sides with Capita generally. Please don’t bring up the TV detecting vans as evidence.
I've always been in favour of (something like) the license fee to fund a non-commercial national public service broadcaster. Public service broadcasting is incredibly important otherwise it's all just commercial interests and you end up with the kind of nonsense you get in the TV landscape in the USA: low quality content, far too many ads, dominance of hyper-partisan "news", etc.
And if you look at what the BBC does - the TV channels, iPlayer, the national radio stations, local radio, news, the world service, the ground-breaking content they've created over the decades, and of course licensing/reselling content - it's incredibly impressive and, to me at any rate, represents incredibly good value for money as compared to other providers.
The TV license costs about the same as an annual Netflix subscription but the BBC is able to do so much more with that money than Netflix are. Doesn't even compare in my mind.
Or they're more comfortable breaking that particular law (under the same conditions). I'm not saying that _is_ the case, but it is one of the possibilities.
>The ministry’s report admits the chief reason why so many women wind up being prosecuted is because they are more likely to open the door to inspectors.
Men literally or figuratively tell the inspectors to fuck off, women don’t. It’s not bias, systemic issues, or whatever. It’s entirely on how women handle the situation that explains the difference.
For example, if you have 2 groups of people and one of the groups is doing something wrong twice as much, and you enforce the law on everyone... it's fair, not discriminatory. (Ignoring the fact that what is labelled "wrong" can be done in such a way as to be discriminatory. I'm assuming a neutral view of what is wrong )
So you think that it should just be privatised like netflix. If you don't think public service broadcasting has a place, just don't try to hide it.
I think the license fee, with a couple of tweaks, could be absolutely ingenious. the best of both worlds. the freedom of choice of the free market, and the lack of commercialism of the public sector, and no one has to pay taxes for it. however, it does restrict user choice somewhat by forcing them to pay for it to watch any live tv, even football on streaming platforms. I think there could be a discussion to be had about changing it to where users pay just to watch the BBC and not live tv in general
I think the only way that change could work while protecting the BBCs editorial independence and maintain its public service remit would be to have it as part of council tax. A £160 a year charge on a band D house (with appropriate discounts for Band A-C and excess for E-H). The default amount would be set as the license fee is now.
The BBC has an obligation to serve everyone, not just subscribers. Netflix has an obligation to serve subscribers, at least well enough that they don't leave.
that's half of the reason, and also feeds into the other reason. if it's not a direct tax and it's semi-voluntary it's harder for people to criticise as unfair. not that they don't find a way
>The BBC has an obligation to serve everyone, not just subscribers. Netflix has an obligation to serve subscribers, at least well enough that they don't leave.
this is an intrinsic property of Netflix being a private business, not Netflix being a subscription service. the BBC could comfortably move to a subscription model and still have the exact same ethos. the BBC's payment model is not so different from a subscription model that right now a private company would be serving license fee payers rather than everyone in general
All the other areas that republic misdesign hits have much larger budgets and much more corruption, but those topics are a bit harder for the public to engage with so a special program does very nicely at preventing any system corrections.
I think the news part of the BBC should be removed, maybe spun off into a separate entity
healthcare is possibly one of the few that could (i.e. does in other Western countries) work similarly, but people including me would undoubtedly despise it. most things need some kind of mandated funding otherwise they would fail and people would die, go homeless, not have a military or live tangibly worse lives, and mandated taxed funding is generally better because it relies more on those with broader shoulders
overall I personally reject your notion that there's some kind of subversive justification for it
I just think that instead of making it so that people can fuck up and not pay by accident or by laziness, it would be better if there was no way for that to happen. it has nothing to do with public vs private ownership
>> women are simply less skilled at dealing with situations like this and need more help
Wow. That's a bold take.
It’s a modern style of criticism because….anyone…anyone…
We should ignore historical reality. It’s makes you uncomfortable.
are you going through a tunnel?
in all seriousness I don't know what you're trying to say
So yeah, people, mainly women, go to prison but I guess it's not a big deal on paper.
I cancelled my license in the wake of the Saville scandal when it was finally admitted what was common knowledge inside the BBC: that they had been covering up a sex offender on their payroll for years. Obviously 'lessons were learned' so when Huw Edwards came along they repeated all the same mistakes.
It is relevant, though. If someone who wouldn't otherwise have been dragged into the receiving end of the justice system gets dragged into it, and then has to comply with all its bureaucracy, it matters whether or not that person should have been dragged into it. ("Should" in both a legal sense and a sense of morality or equity.)
on the other hand if they're deliberately not engaging with those stages, then it's hard to really feel much sympathy
You have to actively try to defraud the court by lying about your earnings to face prison.
The BBC made really great shows. If they go under, it’s a shame. I would pay tax to help the BBC keep going. I’d pay the Aussies, too, if they’re not getting comp’d.
not sure about the others though
It's misleading to call it "change your dns to a uk server", but he's also not totally making it up either.
There just isn't any aspect of BBC's geo blocking that cares what DNS servers you use, and if you go spend 5 minutes on Google looking into how geo-blocking works you won't find anyone talking about DNS servers being relevant.
I can't speak to your personal experience as I wasn't there, but I do have experience on the side of actually doing geo-blocking so I can say with confidence how that works. Apart from anything, the website / streaming service literally doesn't have any way of knowing what country your DNS server is in... the DNS server is just the thing that your computer asks "where does bbc.co.uk point to?" and it replies with the IP address for that domain. From the BBC's point of view your visit looks identical regardless of which DNS server gave that answer. There are ways of doing geo-blocking that are more complicated than just IP address (though BBC doesn't use them, it just goes on IP address), but none of them involve DNS.
The thing is, I'm not guessing, I'm someone who has actually spent time learning about how networking works, doing my first Cisco course when I was 17, and then in my adult career I've on multiple occasions been involved in implementing geo-blocking.
So I'm sorry if I haven't been clear, or have given the impression of being an idiot to the point that you think not worth listening to anything I say, but if you actually go and read up about how geo-blocking works you will find out that I'm not making things up when I say that BBC cannot tell the location of your DNS server, and if you've found that using a particular DNS service does bypass the restrictions then it still has nothing to do with DNS other than that the DNS provider is also offering you a proxy service.
Here's a starting point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geo-blocking
-- a site not being able to tell the location of your dns server, which is true
-- your dns server not affecting how sites can adjudge your location, which is not
>-- your dns server not affecting how sites adjudge your location, which is not
Neither of these statements are definitively true/false.
1. Sites can most certainly tell the IP (and thus the location) of your DNS server. There are many sites that demonstrate this, just search for "dns leak test". Whether sites actually use this is another question.
2. Sites can serve different IPs (servers) depending on the DNS server, or even the client (through the edns client subnet extension). Some CDNs use this strategy to route requests to the closest server. However, this fact is a red herring when it comes to assessing whether "just change your dns to a UK server" is a viable strategy for getting bbc iplayer to work, because its geoblock checks based on IP of the http request, not through DNS.
There's also the question of "smart dns proxies"[1], which make it seem like all you're doing is "change your dns server to a UK server", but there's far more that goes under the hood than just changing your DNS server, because it's actually proxying your traffic as well. Changing your dns server to a uk server that isn't a smart dns proxy wouldn't get you pass bbc's geoblocks.
I understand why the chances of that being a profitable enterprise now given the development of computing hardware are practically zero, but even the idea that the BBC would produce interesting educational content now seems wild (not counting documentaries as that's not often something that provides information you can act on and use). If I want that kind of content now it's pretty much a guarantee that I'll end up on YouTube.
Nowadays they're a non-neutral-seeming news outlet and producer of low-risk dreck that also demands I pay the UK TV Licence fee even just to watch _other_ channels. Do I need a reading licence to read books written by other people? Didn't think so.
At this point it's simply a subscription fee for a service I don't want, and so I don't subscribe. Bring back quality content (subjective of course, but some variety would go a long way), perhaps some risk-taking (something on par with Channel 4's Utopia seems like a good goal). Oh, and perhaps cut the salaries of some of the unnecessarily highly-paid reporters. Just a thought.
The "non-neutral-seeming news" you refer to suggests you've bought into the narrative proposed by those who don't feel served by it - both the far right and the far left, which suggests it must be doing something right - and famously the BBC has some of the most stringent and well-thought through editorial guidelines on earth. If somebody is telling you the BBC is biased, they're also probably suggesting some other news source (their own? GB News? Fox? An anti-vaxx group on FB?), is not.
The BBC could be doing a lot more to monetise through BBC Worldwide (their commercial arm), a massive, and massively popular, back catalogue to a point where the license fee could be reduced or even eliminated. The idea it becomes a generic streaming platform or relies on commercials regularly gets floated, but it's worth pointing out that the biggest supporters of that plan are owners of commercial media companies that feel they would win out and their narratives and perspectives would get to dominate.
It is a ~£13 subscription, sure, but compare it to what you get compared to say Sky TV, which also has adverts, and think about whether clipping it back to an offering similar to C4 (also public sector owned, but ad funded), would be something that actually makes you happier, and whether that editorial integrity could be maintained and all that local radio and journalism could still get paid for - they're arguably the only organisation still doing local journalism in the UK given the dog's dinner Reach is making of local papers.
I sense the future is going to a Reith-ian reset, and you'll see less investment in lower-rating, higher-cost programming (bye bye Eastenders or other soaps), sustained investment in audience favourites like Strictly, and perhaps a dial-up in drama to take on the commercial sector that they can then monetise through BBC Worldwide (including getting streamers to pay for access to it).
As to the other broadcasters, the picture is a little less confusing: the studios and production companies are doing fine, even if they're now selling to Amazon, Netflix, Apple and Disney. The channels themselves will just use their brand to shift people into those channels. Unfortunately, they're miles behind on the tech (just go and try ITV X - it's awful from a UX perspective), but they'll figure it out.
There’s nothing wrong with biased news but it’s important to recognize what their perspective really is. Thinking it’s neutral is dangerous and you’ll never know the truth if you believe that!
2. Find the same ones for your favourite news source.
3. Ask if the balance is reasonable for a British broadcaster, paid for by British people, to address stories of interest of British interest from a British perspective by applying those editorial guidelines.
4. Go and explore the times that the BBC has actively investigated and reported on exclusives critical of British foreign and domestic policy - there's more examples than you'd find at any other broadcaster in the World, I think.
If you'd like to point out examples of where the editorial guidelines are poor, or weren't applied in a particular scenario, or even an example of perceived bias that is entirely unbalanced, I'm happy to hear it. More often than not people complaining of bias are complaining that it reported something they disagreed with, but like I say, both the far left and the far right hate the BBC, anarchists hate it, authoritarians hate it - if they're annoying everyone apart from the more sensible majority that want to see all sides of a story, they're probably doing something very right.
> a British broadcaster, paid for by British people, to address stories of interest of British interest from a British perspective
This is exactly my point. You’re going to get news from maybe 1% of the full ideological spectrum and nowhere near “all sides” of any story. The BBC has a strong bias towards status quo opinions (“ of British interest from a British perspective”). The news they don’t report on is equally as important as what they do publish.
For things where a format sale works (shows that need to be made locally to resonate, like Strictly), I think your concern is less of a risk. Attenborough/Top Gear style high-quality expensive content packages are more of a concern, but I think the worst we've seen there is that they end up doing weird things with the timings. You know in the UK that Attenborough docs run for 50 minutes, and there is then a 10 minutes "how we made it" bit? Foreign markets don't get that last bit - they buy the 50 minutes package, put ads around it to get it to an hour. In the UK we get a 10 minute filler DVD bonus track.
The idea that you could cheaply and affordably replay lectures with video, demonstrate concepts visually, show foreign lands and peoples, all with low cost of production was captivating to many.
Computers were initially seen by educators as a path to interactive TV. Making it easy to find video info, and to index it, even rotate images (repair videos and part assemble for example).
Point is, TV was seen a more than entertainment, it was a tool that could be employed to teach. Computers more so.
Then the Internet came, and it was at first mostly educational, intellectual. Sort of the inverse of what it is now.
Once everything exploded, it became entertainment primarily. Sort of like TV. The educational aspect is there, but muted.
Therefore, the BBC needs to transition to a website that happens to send signals out via TV for legacy users, but primarily, it’s competing with TikTok/Youtube/Khan Academy/Instagram/Whatsapp/Reddit/Disney/Comcast/Netflix/Sony/WarnerBros Discovery/etc. They all compete with each other, globally.
BBC sells minutes of entertainment/education/etc, and there are a fixed number of minutes in a day.
So any open platform will almost surely be a no-win for them. (I don't see a lot of content yet from youtube, and none from tiktok which isn't submitted by endusers... even if they're streamers)
The BBC can compete with some of the rest. But if you look at the studios you list, those all make longer, non-user submitted content. The BBC surely can compete here. And it has in the past.
There's no reason it can't stream, as you say.
Note that my prior post was all about "the way it was" and why we're here now. Why traditional broadcasters from the 70s through to the early 2000s behaved as they did. What they were thinking during those times.
But outside of that, websites aren't better at some things. If they were, then we wouldn't be watching full screen video. There's something to be said for curated, created, static content in episodic format.
Maybe you meant 'streaming' instead of 'websites' too?
The UK is one of the few countries (among the countries with universal health care) that doesn't have a separate tax for health care. That means they can handle earmarking huge amounts of money for a public service out of the general taxation.
Why do they need to use this tv license thing for BBC then?
As for why it hasn't been abolished like the radio licence... well any government that does that loses the ability to indirectly threaten it when they don't like the tone of the nation's most watched news channel by muttering darkly about how it's iniquitous funding model needs abolishing, and gets blamed for the changes people don't like.
Even with horrendously massive cuts to public services and the Civil Service, the government has a tiny headroom in its budget, in the single-digit billions. The BBC cannot be funded from general taxation without the licence fee.
The question also is whether Ou want to directly pay it from taxes. Taxes fully depend on the current mood of the government. The fee does a bit of indirection limiting the direct influence.
Yes. In fact, that was the whole point of various "arms length" bodies - publicly owned, but largely shielded from political influence. Of course, this government took a gleeful sledgehammer to that principle by abolishing NHS England and assuming direct control via the Ministry of Health. We'll see how many institutions will be similarly butchered in the remaining 4 years.
While I’ll be among the first to moan that we’ll never see another red dwarf, python, tinker tailor/smiley’s people, yes minister, father ted [0] .. British tv is still producing great stuff.
It’s the “bureaucrats” in the bbc who are under threat from streaming. I’m not losing sleep!
[0] made in Britain; simply could not have been made in Ireland as was.
You're just not the target market anymore, and that's more than fine, because there's a few hundred million that are, and that number is growing, not shrinking, in fact they're growing faster than ever.
Yes, it's totally fine to be dissatisfied with a service and cancel subscription when you're no longer getting the value. I think that it's the rational thing to do.
I don't want to pay and end up supporting such dreg.
It is funny though. For some reason I almost watched 5 episodes of is it cake and a lot of the car restoration shows.
It is like you default to time wasting when you have nothing you want to see. And I don't want that exposure ...
All the cable/Netflix slop ends up being basically the same story.
Lately, several months go by without me even touching Netflix. I'm at the stage, where I keep the subscription because of maybe one show in a year which I then watch in a week, when it's finally released.
2021: $29.698 billion
2022: $31.616 billion
2023: $33.723 billion
2024: $39.001 billion
YouTube has both super high quality stuff (lectures etc) and incredible trip.
But it'll be there even if AppleTV or HBO go bust YouTube will still be there.
Offer something people want to watch, and they'll come.
If you have a great script where are you going to take it? Netflix with a massive budget or the BBC / Channel 4 with a tiny one. Black mirror did not start on Netflix for example.
Basically, combine what Britbox does today in some countries and what TheBox used to do for BitTorrent.
First and foremost, be the only place current British tv can be seen. On top of that, have a deep, exhaustive archive of past British content.
NYTimes.com is a good model. If you want what they got, you subscribe, no matter who or where you are. The model works.
I cannot think of another show that I've watched... There was a David Tennant murder mystery show that was quite dark, but I didn't finish that one, either.
It feels a bit disingenous to compare a limited number of already very well known classic programs that have survived the test of time against the entire breadth of newer programs (of which there are vastly more in number, so the likelihood of even being seen is much lower).
Line of Duty - decent procedural but increasingly bonkers stories and hammy script/delivery.
Adolescence - well produced but liberal scare story. Netflix!
Haven't seen the others.
Hardly in the class of historical Beeb let alone contemporary US brilliance.
you're nitpicking. it's a high class, well-produced, well-acted, British-made TV show, by the BBC, of a very high quality that would be well-regarded in any era (if you ignore the weird racial thing they did in S2)
>Line of Duty
your opinion is absolutely in the minority, which isn't to say it's wrong, but it's a very well regarded, high class show that's widely seen as well above "decent procedural"
>Adolescence
whether it's liberal or paid for by Netflix is irrelevant to whether it's a high quality British-made tv show
>you haven't watched the others
then you're going to struggle to give a useful opinion on this matter, aren't you?
>Hardly in the class of historical Beeb
every historical BBC show you can name will have myriad minor subjective criticisms of the like you've just produced
>let alone contemporary US brilliance.
if you think US TV is even remotely comparable with UK TV, you're not paying attention. the US is long since out of its golden era, which pretty much died with Game of Thrones. US media has an order of magnitude more financial means than that of the UK, and yet what have they created of any real quality in the last few years besides White Lotus? they repeatedly fail to even remotely approach the class and quality of our TV. on the rare occasions they do get close, it's on the back of British actors or British production
Now you’re just acting like the OP. There’s plenty of highly regarded us shows from the last few years. Just go look the highest rated current TV shows on rotten tomatoes.
I didn't dislike any of them, all are fine at least; the first series of Wolf Hall is particularly good.
Survivorship bias is also likely involved.
I think you'd find lots pf people who find some relatively recent streaming shows to be amazing. You may not like them but there are many fans of shows like Stranger Things, The Crown, The Handmaid's Tale, The Queen's Gambit, Silo, Severance, Succession, ....
Mobland on Paramount+
Grand Tour on Amazon
Clarkson's Farm on Amazon
Recent seasons of Dr Who were made with Disney+. They have killed a 60 year old franchise.
I actively dislike Disney (except maybe TRON and the Black Hole), but I don't think they've killed Doctor Who.
There are no plans to make more Doctor Who, if it was good they would continue making more. So it's being shelved is probably a more an appropriate phrase.
Someone might take a chance again in several years.
https://www.tvzoneuk.com/post/doctorwho-futurereport-may25
> The Mirror reports that the series will return to BBC One for future series, with Russell T Davies already working on scripts for an additional two series, irrespective of whether Disney decide to continue in their partnership with the BBC beyond this series.
https://www.channel4.com/press/news/russell-t-davies-returns...
Top Gear with that trio ending wasn't a content problem, Clarkson punched a producer and was fired. You can say well that was a bad decision they should have valued keeping him at all costs etc., but there was no good solution there really, he was divisive well before that issue, if they kept him they'd have pleased fans and upset others. The show wasn't (immediately) axed; that probably quite reasonably seemed like the best compromise.
Bring in monthly subs and cap presenter salaries and I'll dip in from time to time.
"Oh, but if we don't pay them they'll leave"
Let them go! I'd happily read some words for a few hours each day for a mere £200k.
Arguably, news readers aren't critical to the success of the news broadcast (the content probably makes far more difference), though I can see that presenters can make a big difference to the popularity of shows. I've got nothing against Gary Lineker (quite like him, but rarely watch him on telly), but I do object to being "forced" to pay for his excessive salary when they should be helping younger, unknown talent to get exposure etc.
To be fair, plenty of fans (and the occasional pundit) complain (and have been complaining for years) but unless the authorities get involved (FA, UEFA, FIFA, etc.) and implement proper financial controls (there's some coming in 2025/26 around player salaries but we also need controls on money coming from TV rights, self-sponsorships, etc.) with actual transparent penalties (they're still soft-pedalling City whilst kicking Everton and Forest), nothing will happen.
You understand that what something is called is not always the same as what it is, right?
e.g. how you just called it a tax? you're arguing against yourself
my man, your entire contribution to this discussion has been proxy arguments and rhetorical tricks without ever actually getting to the point of what you really think. who cares if it fits your personal definition of a tax vs someone else's definition of a fee? do you even pay it? and can you just pack in all the sophistry and proxy arguments and have out with your real motivations
are you embarrassed of the real reason you don't like the BBC?
and you didn't answer, do you pay the license fee?
Yes, I pay the license fee. Do you?
Even if I thought the BBC was the most perfect organisation with sublime programming and insightful news coverage, I still wouldn't want it to be the cause of scores of women getting criminal records. You seem to think it a price worth paying though.
my friend let's leave this here, because you know full well how disingenuous you're being, you're just talking nonsense to see what reaction you get
-- your response entirely ignored that engagement entirely besides taking a quote out of context in a weak and obvious attempt to draw moral outrage, more or less proving my point that you were simply using women's rights as a way to produce outrage and scare people into agreeing
to be honest perhaps I was a little quick to judge your motivations, and if you hadn't replied like this, perhaps you might have a leg to stand on, but instead you proved the point for me
whether or not calling it a tax was a rhetorical gambit or not, when pressed, it was instead a "non-voluntary charitable donation", and yet, is watching live TV not a choice? are you so unable to tear your eyes away from the 800th repeat of the Botswana special on Dave? is it "charitable" if the person who "donates" is provided with a consumable product?
can you avoid taxes by simply not letting the taxman in your house? can you avoid taxes by simply living in a house with someone who does pay taxes? can you avoid taxes by simply denying that you earn money?
and then you just started to make childish personal attacks about literacy. boring
And if one group of talent moves on it'll make space for the next generation.
space promptly filled by B or C tier talent as the best go and work elsewhere to get paid appropriately
however, I think you're very wrong to include the presenting of entertainment and educational shows with that. presenting these shows well is something that requires a genuine art. if news presenters wages were capped, nothing significant would change. if entertainment presenters wages were capped, there'd be a huge talent drain and shows would become worse in quality, giving a massive advantage to the generally awfully produced commercial channels that make lower quality content interspersed with brainrot fucking adverts and phone in quiz competitions
https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/c...
OK great, I can get a refund if I move into a care home. I think you're missing the point.
You can cancel your TV licence at a monthly interval and give the reason “I no longer watch [UK broadcast] TV on any channel or service, or use BBC iPlayer.”
If you pay for the whole year in advance you can apply for a refund for unused months.
It is a propaganda outfit (and was from inception). It has special legislation to force TV owners to pay - this tax is called the 'license fee'. In the past only people who had been 'cleared' could work there.
While people think that the UK's recent legislation is dystopian, the reality is it was ever thus as we see with the bbc. I would be very glad to see it go, but that won't happen because - it's utility as a megaphone to the governance system remains very high.
Here is the bbc admitting it lied for -50-, sorry, 70 (!) years, to members of parliament even, about the vetting: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43754737
I certainly suspect this is only a partial disclosure - not only political outlooks would be considered.
Simply a lying, propagandising institution.
I do not think it is as dystopian as recent legislation. It did not intrude into our private lives!
first of all, even if MI5 vetting for this kind of thing wasn't a completely reasonable precaution--read Spycatcher if you don't know why--do you think the BBC had a choice in matters?
second, this was 30 years ago.
third, if we're going to just disband any institution that's silently beholden to MI5, you may as well abandon the whole country.
fourth, the BBC makes a metric tonne of fantastic content enjoyed by people all over the world, and yet somehow it should be disbanded for trying to keep soviet spies out over 30 years ago?
people just love to hate the BBC, egged on by the cowardly, self-interested right-wing media, and it's just sad, because it's genuinely one of the truly great things about the country. it's our greatest artistic cultural achievement by a long distance
There is always a choice. People could have refused, resigned, spoken out.
> second, this was 30 years ago.
Short enough for people who were complicit in it to be decisionmakers now.
> if we're going to just disband any institution that's silently beholden to MI5, you may as well abandon the whole country.
They need to be rooted out. They and their ilk are the entities that actually subverted the country. We used to have principles and care about them, or at least pretend to.
> the BBC makes a metric tonne of fantastic content enjoyed by people all over the world, and yet somehow it should be disbanded for trying to keep soviet spies out over 30 years ago?
The BBC commissions some great content from great creators - as do all British TV channels. If you look at what the BBC itself does, there's a lot of bad there.
this isn't mccarthyite nonsense, this isn't right-wing hatred for communism. I am a socialist. this is the absolute fact that a foreign power was actively, successfully pushing agents into positions in the establishment all over the country. do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed?
>The BBC commissions some great content from great creators - as do all British TV channels. If you look at what the BBC itself does, there's a lot of bad there.
do you genuinely believe that ITV, Dave, Channel 5, Sky, etc are producing or have ever produced content on par with the BBC?
Channel 4 is the only other channel that can even remotely compete, and I would imagine they too would have been equally under MI5's thumb if they'd been important enough to warrant it. going further, do you really think that any British TV channel would have spoken out if MI5 came to them and told them they needed to vet their employees as a matter of national security? even further, has any organisation ever done that in the history of MI5? in the global history of spy agencies?
I'm not going to read a whole book to respond to an internet comment, especially when it sounds like it's from someone with vested interests very much on one side.
> in the post-war/cold war era, Britain, particularly the upper classes, was fucking riddled with soviet agents, mostly British-born communist sympathisers who were activated by the USSR, and many of them could have been stopped from doing huge damage if simple vetting had been in place
What "huge damage" was done? Britain was if anything doing better for itself in that era, and the USSR's success record speaks for itself.
> do you think it's a coincidence the vetting stopped when the soviet union collapsed?
No, of course not, that removed the funding and the excuse, as well as laying bare the complete failure of the intelligence establishment to accomplish anything useful (given that they'd been unable to see it coming).
and you clearly knew this when you wrote your original comment? which leads me to the conclusion that your original comment was written as some kind of bizarre attempt at soviet apologism through an angle of attacking the BBC
how insanely odd and anachronistic. honestly, well done for maintaining such ideological rigidity for this long, I'm genuinely not-sarcastically impressed. it's like you woke up from a 30+ year coma
Sadly, lying for decades to everyone is indeed Britain's greatest artistic cultural achievement.
name an institution as large and wide and old as the BBC that hasn't told far more lies for far less honourable reasons than defending against soviet espionage
Must I love it?
At least it's not the made up right wing shit that runs America.
1 downvote explained.
And most pharma ads are not aimed at you and I, it's aimed at medical providers. That's how lucrative pharma marketing is for pharma.
And I completely disagree with your claim that all media is propaganda. Propaganda is a word that is defined. So I'll chalk that up to hyperbole. As in: if my objective is to make a nice song that people tap their feet to, is that propaganda because it has an objective? If so, then the word "propaganda" is diluted to the point of meaninglessness. You may as well say "all media is media."