Part 1 - The Rant
 
I'm currently watching Pointless - Comic Relief Celebrity Special and I notice that the BBC is offering £5000 prize money to be donated to the cause.
 
I wonder if this sum of money is being provided by outside private sponsorship, or whether it's being sourced from the Licence Fee. If it's the latter, I'd be really interested to know where the Corporation receives its mandate to donate my money to charity. No doubt the cause is good, but is it acceptable that our enforced annual 'subscription' is being used in this way?
 
 
Part 2 - Question for McQ
 
The BBC, as part of the biennial drive building up to Comic Relief's 'Red Nose Day' telethon, produces an ever-increasing number of television programmes aimed at raising awareness of the charity. As in the case of Pointless (a quiz show) above, 'celebrity' editions of regular shows are aired, as well as dedicated programmes featuring either direct appeals for donations, or shows featuring 'celebrities' taking parts in various challenges  to raise awareness.
 
A lot is made of the fact that these so-called celebrities offer up their time for nothing (although no doubt the exposure does their image and career prospects no harm), but I wonder if the same is true of the small army of 'behind the camera' crew members? As someone who works in exactly this position, would you be expected to work for free too? Or is it just another day at the office?
 
The reason I ask is because I'm trying to get some sort of sense in my head of what proportion £5000 is in relation to the actual cost of putting out an early evening (6.10pm) 50 minute television show. To give you an idea of the scale of a production like this, here's a celeb edition on Youtube.
 
Also, a few years ago, one of the 'challenge' programmes they made involved filming the progress of a bunch of celebrities walking up Mount Kilimanjaro. I'm guessing the whole logistical cost of transporting these people, plus a film crew and entourage, would be quite substantial. No doubt they must believe that the money raised as a direct consequence of the programme outweighs the cost of production, but I'm just a little concerned that our national broadcaster is sanctioned to spend Licence Fee money on this type of charitable programming (as you probably know, the BBC is funded by compulsory subscription, although one needs to pay this annual fee to watch any television station).
 
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the continuance of the Licence Fee - the general standard of the programming and the unique ad-free status the Corporation enjoys mean the Fee represents excellent value, I just don't think my monetary contributions should in any way be spent on, or directly donated to, charitable organisations.
 
 
 

I don't know how to answer that Steve.

I can personally attest to the fact that the telethons staged by our national network of local Public Broadcast Stations are largely staffed by volunteers from the commercial sector.

There is also a core group of paid full timers that manage those productions... and they seem to just pull unpaid over time during the pledge drives.

The packages sold as content to fill in between pledge pitches are often produced for profit and sold as products for fund raising.

I don't have any real awareness of the BBC or even how you all deal with the fact that you have to pay for tuning in to an air wave.

It's just so much different here with free broadcast reception etc.


As far as a L5000 line item on the budget. That might get you a day with an uplink truck, an operator, and a couple hours on a Satellite so all the stations and cable providers can grab it and rebroadcast it.

Some of those documentary style 4 minute sports news stories I post links too have budgets in the low 6 figures after all the travel, accommodations, expenses, crew hire, editing, legal, distribution expenses add up.

51 minutes? That's a big number no matter how much excess you trim out.


best regards,
mike

Thanks Mike, that's great stuff, very interesting indeed.

My late Uncle worked in BBC production many years ago, all I remember of him was he had an enormous house!

The BBC should either offer itself as a subscription channel, or accept advertising. That way, if you have any issues with the way they operate or spend their money, you can simply not subscribe. It's the only way. Back when I lived in Britain, I had a TV on which I watched one or two cable channels very occasionally, but I mainly used it for DVDs and videos. I never got the urge to watch the BBC, I just didn't like it. Don't like their cultural/political slant, not a fan of BBC News and from what I gathered from friends who watched it, the thing is 90% trash reality/cooking/chat/makeover shows and repeats. 

The very idea of making me pay for something I had no intention of watching appalled me (in principle - I never once paid for a license ;)). I'm not saying they haven't made some great programs over the years, they have. But so have other channels, and they were either free or I decided to subscribe to them. 

sharke


The BBC should either offer itself as a subscription channel, or accept advertising. That way, if you have any issues with the way they operate or spend their money, you can simply not subscribe. It's the only way. Back when I lived in Britain, I had a TV on which I watched one or two cable channels very occasionally, but I mainly used it for DVDs and videos. I never got the urge to watch the BBC, I just didn't like it. Don't like their cultural/political slant, not a fan of BBC News and from what I gathered from friends who watched it, the thing is 90% trash reality/cooking/chat/makeover shows and repeats. 

The very idea of making me pay for something I had no intention of watching appalled me (in principle - I never once paid for a license ;)). I'm not saying they haven't made some great programs over the years, they have. But so have other channels, and they were either free or I decided to subscribe to them. 

What???  The BBC doesn't televise darts all the time anymore?  Actually, it wouldn't surprise me that Olly told them not to just because of his tiff with the PDC...

SteveStrummerUK


Thanks Mike, that's great stuff, very interesting indeed.

My late Uncle worked in BBC production many years ago, all I remember of him was he had an enormous house!

Not Uncle Jimmy by any chance? Did he make you sit on his knee?

FastBikerBoy

SteveStrummerUK


Thanks Mike, that's great stuff, very interesting indeed.

My late Uncle worked in BBC production many years ago, all I remember of him was he had an enormous house!

Not Uncle Jimmy by any chance? Did he make you sit on his knee?

 
Good job I didn't have a gob full of diet coke when I read that!
 
 

SteveStrummerUK


 
Part 1 - The Rant
 
I'm currently watching Pointless   
 

No wonder you started ranting.
 
TV productions cost money whether they ultimately serve to line the pockets of a broadcasting mogul like Simon Cowell or whether they are produced to generate funds for worthy causes the costs would be a factor for the BBC either way.

The poiint is these telethons to raise large amounts for the causes they champion, of that there is no doubt.  I get the common cynicism that some of the celebrities that appear on them could easily just give vast amounts of money to those causes but I don't consider it to be a valid argument against these types of things.  Many well-off people have philanthropic aspects to distrubuting their wealth that none of us get to hear about, giving (or not) should be an individual thing.
 
The proportion of license fee that goes into making these kinds of things will be easily obtainable from the corporation by the simple means of asking them.  They have a public duty to make them things known.  If you were really interested you could always ask.
 
So are you saying you don't mind your licence fee being spent say on Andrew Lloyd Weber finding a lead star, building up a public profile for them whilst not having to pay the going rate for an established star, for one of his massive earning West End productions yet you object to a proportionally reduced fee being spent to generate/raise 10s of millions of £'s for more worthy causes?
 
Many people enjoy taking part any many recieve direct benefit of those efforts so where is the problem (other than having to watch another side-splitting, annual Lenny Henry performance)?
 
As far as this goes the UK population is the 2nd most giving behind Thailand for donating cash to causes, it's part of a tradition that dates back before the WI started holding Whist Drives and the Telethons certainly do their bit in reminding us all to do our bit.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2011/dec/20/world-giving-index-2011
 
 
What we'd lose by not having a publically funded broadcasting corporation is still far to horrific to contemplate as far as I'm concerned, and I might have criticisms of the corporation but its social conscience and fund raisers are not high on my list of complaints.
 
The fact that they ever paid someone of the likes of Jonathan Ross actual real money, let alone the amounts involved, in the past shows something far more worrying IMO.
 
 
If you want a good example of the differences between the Beeb and a commercial broadcaster then listen to something like the saccharine Classic FM where good classical music is defined by whether you can whistle it in the bath and the best exponents have to resemble porn stars to be any good, and then compare it with Radio 3.  Same target audience one has commercial pressure from sponsors to take into account the other doesn't.  One plays the 2nd movement of Rachmininov's Piano Concerto No2 a dozen times a week (nice as it is) and one plays a dozen different pieces you've never even heard of before in the same time span. Can you tell the difference?

Jonbouy
 
TV productions cost money whether they ultimately serve to line the pockets of a broadcasting mogul like Simon Cowell or whether they are produced to generate funds for worthy causes the costs would be a factor for the BBC either way.

Agreed.

The poiint is these telethons to raise large amounts for the causes they champion, of that there is no doubt.  I get the common cynicism that some of the celebrities that appear on them could easily just give vast amounts of money to those causes but I don't consider it to be a valid argument against these types of things.  Many well-off people have philanthropic aspects to distrubuting their wealth that none of us get to hear about....

Agreed.
 

....giving (or not) should be an individual thing.

 
I completely agree. My point was that if I want to watch television in this country, I am being forced to donate towards Comic Relief. I appreciate that that's rather simplistic and naive, but unless the BBC is using non-Licence Fee revenue to pay for its Comic Relief related programming, it is true.
 

 
 
The proportion of license fee that goes into making these kinds of things will be easily obtainable from the corporation by the simple means of asking them.  They have a public duty to make them things known.  If you were really interested you could always ask. 

I fully intend to mate

So are you saying you don't mind your licence fee being spent say on Andrew Lloyd Weber finding a lead star, building up a public profile for them whilst not having to pay the going rate for an established star, for one of his massive earning West End productions yet you object to a proportionally reduced fee being spent to generate/raise 10s of millions of £'s for more worthy causes? 

Where did I say that?
 
As it happens, I am of the opinion that my money shouldn't be being used to subsidise Andrew Lloyd Weber's auditions, or Alan Sugar's increasingly tedious job interviews for that matter.

Many people enjoy taking part any many recieve direct benefit of those efforts so where is the problem (other than having to watch another side-splitting, annual Lenny Henry performance)?

I couldn't agree more (especially about the Lenny Henry).

 
As far as this goes the UK population is the 2nd most giving behind Thailand for donating cash to causes, it's part of a tradition that dates back before the WI started holding Whist Drives and the Telethons certainly do their bit in reminding us all to do our bit.
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/voluntary-sector-network/2011/dec/20/world-giving-index-2011
 

Interesting stuff.

 
What we'd lose by not having a publically funded broadcasting corporation is still far to horrific to contemplate as far as I'm concerned, and I might have criticisms of the corporation but its social conscience and fund raisers are not high on my list of complaints.

As I said, I'm more than happy to pay my Licence Fee to fund the BBC.
 
My point was merely that I don't think they should have a mandate to donate my money to charity. And I wonder why it's always the same charity? My cynical self tends to think that such an 'industry' has grown up in the Corporation regarding Comic Relief that it's now almost impossible for them not to run it.
 
But anyway, the BBC, for whatever reasons, has decided that it should spend Licence Fee money on producing programmes directly related to Comic Relief, and, of course, Children In Need. If we are going to continually have a proportion of our Licence Fee syphoned off for 'good' causes, why not have a different charity each year, I'm sure there are a multitude of causes out there every bit in need as Comic Relief and Children In Need of a bit of prime-time television to help boost their funds. 

 
The fact that they ever paid someone of the likes of Jonathan Ross actual real money, let alone the amounts involved, in the past shows something far more worrying IMO.
 
 

I'm with you there Jon. The BBC doesn't need to compete with commercial television, and if paying obscene amounts of our money to talentless numptys such as Wossy to retain his services is part of that competition for ratings, then I'm completely against it.

If you want a good example of the differences between the Beeb and a commercial broadcaster then listen to something like the saccharine Classic FM where good classical music is defined by whether you can whistle it in the bath and the best exponents have to resemble porn stars to be any good, and then compare it with Radio 3.  Same target audience one has commercial pressure from sponsors to take into account the other doesn't.  One plays the 2nd movement of Rachmininov's Piano Concerto No2 a dozen times a week (nice as it is) and one plays a dozen different pieces you've never even heard of before in the same time span. Can you tell the difference?

Of course I can.
 
The BBC is at its finest when it doesn't succumb to commercial or popularist pressures.
 

 

I'm interested now to find out how much of the fee payers money goes toward fund-raisers thereby becoming an involuntary direct contribution perhaps to a cause I haven't elected to donate to.
 
I'd never really given it much thought before being as scheduled programming costs money to produce anyway.  I'm not sure I'll be that bothered when I do find out either given the alternative Friday and Saturday evening peak time tripe that's on offer elsewhere when the Beeb tends to screen its charitable stuff.
 
I mean if you have to produce drivel for that time slot anyway then why not produce drivel that has a far reaching benefit as a by-product?
 
Also, aren't 'Comic Relief' and 'Children in Need' merely agencies that direct donated money to other charities according to relevant and topical need by people that specialise in assessing that need on a case by case basis?  That money does go to different causes each year as a result or am I being naive thinking that?