BBC Charter review: Broadcast channels versus Online

Banjoxed

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2015-09-07/the-bbc-can-make-the-uk-the-best-place-in-the-world-for-science-says-brian-cox

The post-Charter review BBC appears to be taking shape, with active proposals from Director General Tony Hall for online resources probably taking the place of the news channel, BBC Four, Cbeebies and CBBC. While everyone is careful not to explicity come out and say that they are toast, the concept of News going online has been floated for some time and the concepts of iPlay (for children) and BBC Ideas Service (for the arts) have now been given names and a bit of puff behind them.

Of course, this leaves us in the Republic who watch the BBC, and specifically BBC Four, in the dung.

To appease Murdoch, the Mail and the Right in general the BBC iPlayer has been hobbled for outside the UK. We do get the Radio iPlayer but that's it as far as any TV functionality is concerned. The spectacularly rubbish iPlayer abroad app has been less useful than a chocolate saucepan.

Is there an argument to be made now that paying a subscription for full iPlayer functionality in the Republic is the way forward?

galtee boy

MOD: post deleted

lertsnim

Banjoxed wrote: »

Is there an argument to be made now that paying a subscription for full iPlayer functionality in the Republic is the way forward?

I wouldn't pay it but then I do get it already without a subscription to the BBC

icdg

Galtee boy warned. You know our policy on discussing circumventing regional restrictions at this stage.

galtee boy

icdg wrote: »

Galtee boy warned. You know our policy on discussing circumventing regional restrictions at this stage.

Ok, apologies, but can I ask once and for all, is using a VPN illegal ? I know Boards.ie has to adhere to the laws of the land etc, but VPNs seem to be a grey area. I know you don't want a discussion to start up here about it, just looking for clarity. That said, I won't bring up the use of VPNs again. Thanks.

icdg

Thats off-topic for this thread.

WheatenBriar

Interestingly, word on bbc Street seems to be the future of BBC news 24 is now in question in the gasping for cuts
Rather questionable logic given Russia today and Aljazerra are on UK terrestrial

Sam Russell

I would think they would save much more by cutting down on all their regions.

I think they have 23 regions but I may be wrong there.

Harry Palmr

BBC Four seems to be mentioned simply to scare the horses (and people like me), Hall idly suggests its under threat in the morning and then his subordinate says its perfectly safe in the afternoon.

Banjoxed

Harry Palmr wrote: »

BBC Four seems to be mentioned simply to scare the horses (and people like me), Hall idly suggests its under threat in the morning and then his subordinate says its perfectly safe in the afternoon.

But that's the point. Hype up the Ideas Service as being somehow "better" and shaft broadcast users. That isn't "safe".

Johnboy1951

Sam Russell wrote: »

I would think they would save much more by cutting down on all their regions.

I think they have 23 regions but I may be wrong there.

Even better ........ take all the regional broadcasts off Satellite and put them on line

If these cut-backs gather momentum it could mean a lack of some good content on FTA Satellite.

icdg

The TV regions don't look like they're under threat at present, though BBC Local Radio (in England) looks like a different kettle of fish. The News Channel looks like the big thing under threat though ultimately I don't think it will go in the end as its the move that would hit politicians directly the most and would hand that audience straight back to Sky News.

twinklerunner

icdg wrote: »

The TV regions don't look like they're under threat at present, though BBC Local Radio (in England) looks like a different kettle of fish. The News Channel looks like the big thing under threat though ultimately I don't think it will go in the end as its the move that would hit politicians directly the most and would hand that audience straight back to Sky News.

In fairness, news is also well covered by both BBC1 & BBC2.

Very Bored

The thing to remember with a lot of BBC regions is the areas a lot of these cover. A number of them cover very sizeable population areas. Take BBC Northwest, for example, the population is bigger than the whole of Ireland. And whilst people in Liverpool, Manchester and Chester, for example, are interested in matters of national importance, they aren't typically interested in more regionalised issues such as congestion in London. Also, the UK's population is quite internally mobile in terms of people moving from area to area and you could easily find a scenario on a street whereby one house watches the Welsh news, the next the Midlands one, the next the Northeast and so on because they want to know about what's going on back home. Furthermore, its hard to attack the BBC or people with their fingers in the British media pie for not worrying about viewers in Ireland when RTE treats the Irish diaspora so shabbily itself.

khumbu

Sam Russell wrote: »

I would think they would save much more by cutting down on all their regions.

I think they have 23 regions but I may be wrong there.

In the greater scheme of thing it would be a drop in the ocean to the BBC but if they needed to save money on satellite transponders for their 18 versions of BBC one, they could fit them all on one transponder if they configured a mux as a dvb-s2 and encode all 18 channels in standard definition using mpeg4.
As 90%+ of the channel content is common to all 18 channels, when common the encoder would link each of the individual 18 streams to one common stream. As the 18 streams now are virtual & point at one single stream there is bandwidth on mux to encode the common stream in full HD.
Therefore every region is HD on satellite except for local (news & idents etc.) content assuming you have a dvb-s2 HD/mpeg4 receiver.

In fact a mux configured in such a way might be a stepping stone to transmit BBC one in UHD in future as similar configuration may be possible for UHD for common content & HD for local using DVB-S2x & HEVC.

A down side of such an arrangement is anyone with DVB-S SD/mpeg2 receiver would not be able to receive off the mux. A legacy version of BBC one (London) could be kept on a DVB-S mux for those without a s2/mpeg4 receiver. Over time as viewers upgrade sky/freesat/fta equipment the number depending on the legacy stream would drop & lack of local version many actually encourage equipment upgrade to keep receiving local content but without the inconvenience of a viewer without dvb-s2/mpeg4 equipment loosing BBC one completely.

Sam Russell

I did not realise such a scheme was possible because it sounds like a perfect scheme for both BBC 1 and BBC 2.

mackersdublin

Sam Russell wrote: »

I would think they would save much more by cutting down on all their regions.

I think they have 23 regions but I may be wrong there.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/programmes/schedules

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/schedules

dublinman1990

The look of BBC Four is designed to what the programmes from BBC is supposed to be like from it's other main TV channels. Even though it has a lot of repeats in it's scheduling content wise it is the best channel available by the longest mile.

BBC News turning into an online stream with updates could look like RTE News Now with looped repeats. It could only be viewable if people of all ages have a device with a suitable internet speed for streaming online news content.

And another few things to ask is to how will this BBC News stream be seen online? Will it be available everywhere or will it, although highly unlikely, be geo-blocked? Also what will happen to the status of BBC World News that is on foreign Satellite and Cable and not funded through a Licence Fee? It sounds confusing and completely stupid to assume that the BBC having a proper news channel that is shown all around the world and a possible below par online news stream for it's UK audience.

Why don't the BBC merge their two News channels together and provide in-house adverts and seperate news stories for their UK audience and commercial adverts for their foreign audience members.

In terms of the Kids channels CBBC and CBeebies are the only FTA channels of that calibre in HD. The BBC is the only broadcaster that provides that programming that is just about up to date or new for the kids as the rest of them show endless repeats of older shows that were shown in the past. Now there is nothing wrong with that btw. But the kids these days are always looking to find some new programming these days along with something old a lot of the time to get their days entertainment.

Iplay for the Kids is a good idea but it caters for kids whose parents have a suitable high speed broadband connection in their home to view the service properly. If kids are viewing CBBC and Iplay simultaneously along with their parents viewing the BBC News stream and then 20 something old brother or sister tries to view BBC Three online all at the same time with a UK broadband package at current standards well their allowance will go very quickly like a puff of smoke and that is all done probably with 4G speeds.

Most parts of the world won't be seeing 5G speeds being around yet for at least another 2 or 3 years at most. When they will become for consumer sale they will become vastly more expensive to get for your home but then again it's all down to the infrastructure being available in your locality to provide the service as standard. Again a family of that size in the UK shouldn't have to cope with that inadequacy when trying to watch a BBC programme online.

Sam Russell

mackersdublin wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcone/programmes/schedules

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/schedules

So OK there are 18 regions of BBC ONE plus 4 in HD, plus four BBC 2 and one in HD. That is a lot of coverage for very little variation- maybe an hour or so a day for 'programmes where you are'.

I think cuts in the regions would be more than just reducing the transponders - it would involve shutting down some of the regional offices with a consequential cut in staff. It probably would not be huge in terms of the overall BBC budget, but then neither would cutting BBC 3 or BBC 4. They are only part time channels with much of their daily output repeated on the same day and again within a week.

AllGunsBlazing

There seems to be nothing on bbc4 nowadays that I haven't already seen umpteen times before. Shame really, it was a great channel there for a while.