Off Topic Politics Thread
- Thread starter ChilcoSaint
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This is a chilling video, they were going down there to "hang Mike Pence" and had already put up a noose...
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That’s an utter disgrace and when I tried to raise this with a Brexit supporting “friend” of mine, he said “that’ll never happen” ..... well ..... we’re truly ****ed now. This is the tip of the iceberg .... bye bye any form of protection for the environment, workers, etc. If I were working now, I’d be queuing up to join a Union ......
It’s £11 a month if you pay by direct debit. If it goes, that means no public service broadcasting anymore, just private mouthpieces for the likes of Richard Branson and Rupert Murdoch. Not sure I want to see that tbh., though I do understand I have a choice.
Actually, it’s not much of a choice, where I live anyway; either pay Virgin a lot more than £11 a month, or only have analogue TV from the ariel.
A word that could be used a lot, in current times.
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I don’t have much love for the government, but I don’t think they’re actually trying to kill us.
And then there is this.
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I just think it shouldn't be mandatory. Why should people pay for something they don't use? Wouldn't mind so much if it was related to just their programming but it's not.
Let the people who want to pay for it do so, and plug the gap left by others with advertising. I'm not suggesting it's disbanded or anything.
It doesn't really effect me as I don't pay it anyway, I do think it's an incredibly outdated concept though.
The BBC is highly regarded worldwide being advert free is part of that. I think the majority in the country listen to or watch BBC daily.
I’m paying for nuclear submarines and I never use those. I’m paying for schools, and my kids are grown up. I’m paying for the fire brigade and I’ve never called them out once.
That majority is dropping every year though. It's no where near as widespread as it was even a decade ago. Think in under 25's it's dropped by something like 10% in the past few years. Give it another 20 and I don't think the majority will be very big at all.
I get that but don't feel it's a fair comparison. They're all essential services, a broadcaster isn't in way.
Everyone has to pay tax for society to function, that's simply not true of a TV license.
Fair enough. Hard to argue that the BBC is an essential service, but I do think it’s a valuable one, and I’d be very sorry to see it either sold off or allowed to die.
At the moment, the BBC is answerable to the government, who are answerable to the British people. Private media firms are answerable to their shareholders, who are answerable to nobody.
Depends if you want a "neutral" media.
When you start introducing fees and ad revenues, thats when you will start seeing programming change and the beginning of more one sided media.
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I am totally against the use of neonicotinoids as a pesticide because of the damage it does to our pollinators, in particular the collapse of honey bee colonies. While the EU seems to have banned neonics, they have in fact repeatedly granted emergency authorisation to EU member states for their use on sugar beets, exactly as George Eustice is doing now.
https://ec.europa.eu/food/plant/pes...substances/approval_renewal/neonicotinoids_en
CBBC is currently running lessons for primary school children every day, and BBC2 is running at least 2 hours of programmes for secondary school students every day. I don’t see any subscription channels offering that service, completely uninterrupted by advertising. BBC News is respected worldwide, and the range of different types of programme available on demand easily exceeds any subscription channel. BBC Radio is easily superior to anything else, and caters for all kinds of listener groups. Some of the licence fee, don’t forget, goes towards supporting grassroots music and arts projects at local level, and musicians like our very own Fable have had their first exposure at national level through the Introducing series on Radio 6.
The whole argument about the neutrality of the BBC is self-defeating, because of the fact that it is attacked from both left and right. People like Laura Kuenssberg and Fiona Bruce piss me off, but there are plenty of other reporters and presenters who redress the balance, and shows like HIGNFY on TV or the News Quiz on Radio 4 maintain the high standards of satirical holding-to-account for which the BBC is the envy of the world.
The one area where the BBC falls short is in televised sport, and there should probably be a conversation about having a subscription BBC Sports channel to offer some kind of competition to Sky and BT.
Greenpeace and other concerned bodies are campaigning against this in the EU and UK. Donate now please.
Well said Chilcs. Having spent a fair bit of my working life overseas and now retired and living in the Netherlands I can vouch for the high regard the BEEB is held, in particular the natural world programs. Agree with the sports channel(s) being subscription possibly with ads.
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