General Chat

I don't know what all the fuss is about....
As far as I heard it's not due to happen....if it does?...until 2020.
Personally,I like the Beeb .....I have a package ...not Sky...with free view,but mostly watch BBC1. 2.3 and 4 more than any other.
What organisation doesn't pay high salaries to staff...sure it's not only the BBC?
You only have to see what a lot of charities pay to their paid staff.
At the moment it's only suggested that it is optional to pay,,,so it's an individual's choice.
We used to pay a licence for radio and didn't make a fuss.
I have lived partly in Spain and their TV is so full of adverts you lose the plot of what the programme is all about.
Depends what you like to watch,but the class of BBC is still better viewing IMHO .

It's all very well to make financial comparisons to pensions in other countries, but often the difference is more in the overall picture, to include some of the things mentioned eg access to public transport

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11850330/Nine-countries-where-it-is-better-to-grow-old-than-the-UK.html

What a can of worms I opened when I mentioned free television licences for over-75s and was it correct that the BBC was going to ask pensioners to give the Corporation some money back (the government having decided not to take that on board). I am still no wiser whether the BBC will run with that idea a but my feeling is it would be on a loser if it did so.

I think the pension that Magpie may be referring to is the small pension received by those women who, when they were married, opted for paying the 'small stamp.' I can state that it was encouraged by employers at the time and many women chose that option. In addition, nursery places were few and far between when I was married and had my first child and, while a few women could go back to full-time employment and a few lucky ones with nearby relatives decided upon part-time work, the majority of women at that time could not return to work at all.

I had my second child overseas and when I eventually returned to the UK , payment of what is termed 'the full stamp' was compulsory for all. In my time away from the UK, maternity leave was introduced as was statutory maternity leave and a host of other benefits - I know not when they were introduced.

So, you can still find older pensioners than I am, often movement-impaired and in need of every benefit possible because they have not been in a position to increase their pension entitlement nor have they been unable to save because they were employed part-time. Men do not have the limitations of what is roughly a half-pension. However, not all are able to do without financial help. Consider those who have weekly hospital trips, daily medication, regular eye check-ups and dental work and bone problems due to a lack of a decent diet 60 or 70 years ago. Every little helps them to live the kind of life that we younger pensioners take for granted.

My original post was intended for older pensioners' free TV licences.

In addition, there are, among us, people born with health problem who have never been able to fend for themselves.

It's all very well mentioning means testing but who would carry out that and who would decide on the criteria? In addition, would taxpayers be happy to fund regular means testing to gain refund of part of the television licence and bus passes?

There has been no assessment regarding costs of means testing for television licences as far as I am aware but I would go so far as to say that if the government has put the television licence hot potato into the hands of the BBC it has decided the costs would outweigh the benefits.

The country's pension system is equalling itself out but there are still inequities and there will be for some years to come - possibly for 30 years until the older pensioners among us have died.

A society ought to care for its elderly, it's very young and its infirm.

The amount of pensioners they would target is that 5% whose income is such that they could afford to pay.

Britain actually ranks 21st out of 27 countries in Europe, along with Estonia and Poland, way down from Portugal, Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Austria, Finland and many others. The UK is the fifth richest country in the world, so this is not exactly something to feel proud of!

The minimum state pension in France is £ 250 / month no free bus pass etc. Min pensions are even lower in eastern Europe and Spain. If you do not have an occupational pension then your retirement will be cold and hard. The UK pensioner is actually better off than most in the EU.

Rural buses in France barely exist so they have a special class of low powered car which does not require a driving licence. Indeed it can be used even if you are banned!

My great aunt who lived at Esher, Surrey had a pre-war mechanical Baird TV - her son was an early tv salesman. She went on to buy the new improved set before ww2 and went on using this for some time before replacing it for the coronation. Eventually all the old tv sets were sold to a collector in the 1960s when she had to downsize.

These old sets were massive with tiny low res pictures as well as being bogglingly expensive.
http://www.thepeoplehistory.com/50selectrical.html
OTOH the high prices enabled my uncle to live in style.

Baird's original invention used the same principle as a kaleidoscope and was never going to produce anything like a consumer quality image. However it did give electronic TV a push. BBC used the two systems side by side at Alexandra Palace until 1937. The lake there has black swans ...

My own feeling is that classic TV broadcasting with a grid of programs "on" at predefined times has had its day with/without advertising. It is increasingly something for the oldies. Younger people prefer to fit their viewing into their own time rather than the opposite. Their preference is for catch up and streaming services. This has massive implications for the advertising industry.

It has been possible for some time to use BBC iPlayer from North America eg
http://iplayerusa.org/
but as BBC are to roll out iPlayer in the USA/Canada (not for free) they say they are cracking down on VPN usage.

The only programs I ever watch when in the USA are US football (during the season) and CNN News. The rest of my family like US TV tho' - there is no accounting for taste. At least the US technology has moved on from never-the-same-color-twice with a purple cast. Baird is said to have had a color version too.

I've no idea what the state pension is in Canada, all.I do know is that the one relied on by a lot of people in the UK is one of the lowest in Europe, and this is why we get all these so called freebies. Reduce or completely do away with these will make some of our OAPs among the poorest in Europe, probably in any so called industrialised nation. The government have conveniently passed this particular chestnut to the beeb and washed their hands of any responsibility! (nothing to do with us gov!) As a supporter of this government I think their behaviour over this particular matter quite disgraceful.

Its 90 years today the TV was invented :-D :-D

Rollo ..........

you have your ideas, but remember I live here, and US TV is as pervasive in this country as Canadian TV.

I have cable TV, and have access to about 60 stations on the level that I pay for. There are probably 200 more that I cannot access. Most of those 300 +/- stations are US and Canadian, not that many from overseas. I can get BBC World News.


Yes, PBS is federally funded but NOT sufficiently for the programming they want to do.

I presume you have never been in the US at a time when one of the PBS stations is having a fund-raising campaign?

Believe me, it is extremely annoying!


As far as Canadian TV is concerned .......

....... CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) is federally funded, but that funding is always under fire. No license fees. Advertising on CBC TV almost as common as on the independent stations. The CBC radio stations are free of advertising :-)

All other TV and radio stations are privately owned and funded .............. advertising, advertising, advertising.


and many of the top people are paid massive salaries.

to Sylvia

I have no idea how Canadian TV is organised except from personal experience there are way too many ads and sitcoms.

Getting to Public Broadcasting in the US it is federally funded from a Congress appropriation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcasting

I could weep when I read how much you guys get free from the State, and how you complain about it .................

it might do some of you good to try living in another country where you don't get free bus, free train, free prescriptions etc

Then you complain about not getting free TV ........................

just wait ........

......... you do away with the license for BBC, and you'll be reduced to the pitiable state of tv programming combined with massive advertising found in other countries.

10 minutes is a long time to see a show, drama or even the news before a break for an ad

PBS stations in the US might sound good to Rollo ......... but he is inaccurate in his funding remark

They don't get MOST of their funding from government. They get MOST of their funding from their listeners. They conduct fund raising campaigns every 6 months, some do it every 3 months.

That means every programme is prefaced and followed by station executives and campaign leaders telling you how valuable their programming is, how important the viewers are, and if you donate this amount you will get this or that benefit.

Programmes that are usually 50 or 55 minutes long become 45 or 50 minutes long

and that goes on for the month of campaigning.

I've stopped watching PBS station because of that


As for re-runs .................. every TV station here is the same., and it was no different over Christmas than what you are complaining about

During the period 1975 - 2005 professional video used Sony betamax tape. It never really caught on with home users mainly due to cost. However prof. betamax stored programs at broadcast quality. Unfortunately bean counters at the BBC insisted on reusing the tapes such that many popular programs now only exist thanks to viewer's VCR recordings. Nevertheless a large archive remains inc news events.

The beeb ran a project called DMI which was supposed to digitise both these archive tapes and current production. The contract was given to Siemens at the direct orders of UKGov without any tender. This is the same Siemens who screwed up on the NHS database and are now screwing up IDS/DWP new benefits system.

After a lot of money had been spent and not much delivered John Linwood, head of BBC Technology, was prevailed on to finish the project in house despite his reluctance. This time it was called Fabric.

A key factor in the failure of the project was a software technology called Agile originally brought in by Siemens. Siemens also used Agile on the NHS ;roject and are using it on the DWP scheme ( which is failing ).

In the end failure to deliver in a timely way caused the project to be canned. Most of the blame was heaped on John Linwood, most unfairly. He won his claim for unfair dismissal in 2014 and was awarded exemplary damages.

So what of the tape archive? Well half of it still only exists on tape. The BBC plan to complete digitisation by 2020. The last betamax machine was made 14 years ago, Sony rated their lives at 15 years. Neverhteless the beeb have been selling off betamax machines.

What of DMI/Fabric and £ 100 M ? Half of the tapes were digitised. A usable if clunky tape/program database was produced and is in use. The part of DMI dealing with current work was abandonned. The auditors said that the delivered software was capable of use but by then BBC politics had moved on.

fwiw CNN Sky et al have had projects costing way more than £ 100 million which were nixed. The shareholders got only the scantiest of details.

AND...I don't get a penny from the army, even though I served for nine years.

By Rollo's standard I am a millionaire. I have a house worth half a million, but as it is in London it is only a 21/2 bed semi, which would be worth half that elsewhere. And my public service pension I paid 11% of my salary for, and in the early days worked 56 hours a week, with no extra for weekends or nights. Give up my right to a free TV license (in five years time) Free prescriptions and Freedom Pass (free trains and underground, DLR) ? I don't think so. Having said that, I would happily pay £25 to get an appointment with my doctor when I need it.

Of course it is frustrating to pay out for a licence when you feel 'there is nothing on but repeats' , I say that all the time lol, especially as I find myself watching US programmes far more than the Beeb.

But if you look at it another way, over a year you 'could' watch one really decent programme a week on the BBC ( or lots of soaps etc) and if you had to buy the video of same, think how much more you would have to spend ;-)

I flinch at what I think is an obscene amount of money paid to some 'stars' but then again I know how damn hard the crews work on programmes, long long hours, nothing 9 to 5 about it, and though the pay is 'good' it's very much 'earned'.

The question is whether one is prepared, if one has the money, to return the 'freebie' whether it's the licence fee, or heating allowance, bus pass... some may feel they are able to do so because they know it will go to helping others who are less well off, or in the case of the licence fee pay for some of those really good programmes that inspire and educate ( David Attenborough, Brian Cox that kind of thing) or entertain you till you cry with laughter ( a few) that still pop up amongst the dross.

The £350 million figure was for all staff severances not selected senior staff. Even the Daily Mail admits that.

OH! and the vast amount of money spent on an IT system that never worked :-|

Giving excessive. pay outs to senior staff who left the organisation to the tune of
£350M for a start. :-|

And I agree with you both Rollo and Foggy :-D

Someone got to you, Rollo? :-0 I've never read a shorter post of yours. :-S