Moving BBC Scotland online ‘wholly unacceptable’, says Scottish Government
The channel will move to BBC iPlayer from the spring, with the loss of 10 jobs in Scotland
Maybe the answer is open some bidding for an independent Scottish PSB? Although I'm not sure who would be interested in that, and as far as Gaelic is concerned BBC Alba is staying put.
https://news.stv.tv/scotland/moving-bbc-scotland-online-wholly-unacceptable-says-scottish-governmentOpen linkView original on feddit.uk
9 replies
I still don’t understand where all of the BBC money has gone. Any loss of local TV license fees should have been offset from selling programming to foreign streaming services.
The BBC currently makes around £2bn from its commercial activities, but that wouldn’t replace the licence fee. The goal has been to increase BBC Studios performance to contribute half the BBC budget but the market is not strong enough at present. The major international streamers are in consolidation mode, the great boom of spending is over. British productions no longer qualify for EU content origin quotas.
Inflation and effective government cuts to the license fee.
BBC license fee in 2010 was £145.50, which is £233.72 in today's money.
The current license fee is £180. The license fee has risen well below inflation for years, and is £53.72 less than it should be. Thats an effective 23% cut in 16 years.
The BBC also had to take on the World Service budget from the foreign office, and provide free licenses to the elderly, plus other cost pressures.
This is what 14 years of Tory government got us, and Labour have no intention of increasing the license fee because any tax rises need to go elsewhere.
I’ll be honest — I’d pay the $16/mo (£145.50/yr) for all that ad-free BBC content. But I don’t think I would pay $26/mo. I’m not paying that now for any other tv/music service.
I know there are people that pay $100 or more every month for cable TV in the US, but I’m not one of them.
Although I suspect that's probably true, the Tories also froze the licence fee for about ten years, which is a massive decrease in real terms.
Before that Labour froze the licence fee to punish them for Hutton
10 jobs? If it cost so little to run, why prune it at all?
They need to fill a £500m hole, and cutting linear channels removes a small number of playout staff, but also allows savings in transmitter costs and potentially the BBC being able to rent out multiplex space to commercial channels as they do with 5SELECT.
Opening bidding for another PSB is unrealistic. The problem is its expensive and there is no money.
The Scottish government could raise income tax and take over BBC Scotland if it wanted I guess?
The real problem is the license fee hasn't risen with inflation for many years for political reasons. I personally think the license fee should be abolished, alongside council tax, and a new property tax brought in that covers both local government and public service broadcasting. That would be a fairer system and gaurentee long term funding for the BBC and other PSB services.