6 ms·

Brit here wondering how this shift within the industry will affect the BBC. We own a screen, Netflix subscription and Chromecast, and do not pay for a TV Licens

• SyneRyder 11y ago
  The BBC has other sources of income too. Here in Australia, there is a ton of BBC content on Netflix Australia, which presumably Netflix paid the BBC for (eg River, for which Netflix acquired exclusive international streaming rights: http://deadline.com/2015/10/netflix-bbc-river-stellan-skarsgard-abi-morgan-1201577912/ http://deadline.com/2015/10/netflix-bbc-river-stellan-skarsg... ) In Australia, our ABC is funded directly out of general taxes, rather than an explicit TV License. I can imagine Britain eventually moving to a similar model to fund the BBC.
  • genmon 11y ago
    BBC income last year... From the license fee, £3.7B GBP; from commercial activities, £1.0B GBP. Details here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/ara http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/repo... The BBC is in a difficult bind. It can't charge for license-fee funded content in the UK where it's best known. And if it had to make all its income from its commercial arm, it would only make Doctor Who and Top Gear, none of the classical music, news, or drama that it's best at. How the BBC is funded is intensely political, being argued a ton right now as the charter is up for renewal in 2016. The BBC in 2017 could be much smaller.
    • gregpilling 11y ago
      Top Gear will not be earning them much anymore - Clarkson, Hammond and May have left. They went to Amazon, to produce an original auto tv show there. from here: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/panic-at-the-bbc-as-revamped-top-gear-descends-into-crisis/news-story/33cba811632fbc24c6bc0bc1ff03f5f0 http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/panic-at-the-bbc-as-... "Maintaining an international foothold is vital for Top Gear, which is the BBC’s biggest global brand with sales of the TV show, DVDs, books, live shows and other merchandise worth more than £50 million ($101 million) a year. BBC sources fear Evans is a complete unknown outside the UK. Top Gear’s former three stooges are settling in well at Amazon." "Clarkson, Hammond and May may no longer be on Top Gear, but they are still vying for the same viewers. While Top Gear’s schemes play out in public, they are busy preparing their new rival big-budget show for Amazon — and crowing about how little interference they get from their latest masters. Along with the lack of outside pressure, the team also has cash, and lots of it, with a budget reported to be at £4 million ($8.1 million) an episode — ten times that of Top Gear’s." So the BBC will be losing all that Top Gear money too.
      • PhasmaFelis 11y ago
        > Top Gear will not be earning them much anymore - Clarkson, Hammond and May have left. And by "left", you mean that Clarkson got canned for punching out a guy because he didn't like his catered dinner, after being warned repeatedly for starting fights and making racist remarks on camera.
  • phillc73 11y ago
    > River is represented by Endemol Shine International, the sales and distribution arm of Endemol Shine Group. While the BBC may have broadcast River, Endemol Shine Group has the distribution rights, which is who Netflix would have paid. I don't know all the details, but unless River was a wholly internal BBC production, I'd suggest Endemol probably contributed to the production budget in return for the distribution rights. This happens with a lot of BBC programmes. The majority of the rights reside with BBC Worldwide, a wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the BBC. BBC Worldwide bids on distribution rights like any other TV sales and distribution company. Any profits from BBC Worldwide's activities are invested back in the public BBC, thus reducing licence fee rises to some extent. However, other companies like Endemol and All3Media also produce programmes broadcast on various BBC channels or work with independent production companies to fund productions, in return for distribution rights, regardless of where it is broadcast domestically. BBC Worldwide has also been investing in independent production companies in order to increase their distribution catalogue. Disclosure: I worked for BBC Worldwide for 9 years and then ran my own post-production company for a few more years.
• deleted 11y ago
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• sandstrom 11y ago
  I think BBC (and it's siblings in other countries) will do well. They aren't burdened by paywalls or quarter-capitalism. As long as they do a good job (ensuring that the public want them funded) I think they'll be around. In Sweden, SVT (public service channels) have done a good job providing all content online, on Apple TV, etc. It feels like they have a modern mindset.
  • distances 11y ago
    I'd expect it's easier for BBC, since English content is probably easier to sell around due to the larger number of English speaking countries. Quite a many audiences aren't comfortable with subtitles, so dubbing is suddenly required for content originating from smaller language areas.
• tylermauthe 11y ago
  I thought you had to pay the tax for any screen, regardless of where the content comes from?
  • lukegb 11y ago
    Only if the content is "live TV" or you record live TV, which Netflix doesn't fall under. Source: http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one which I assume would have the broadest possible definition
  • petepete 11y ago
    Only if the screen has a tuner and aerial I think; a monitor wouldn't require one.
    • DanBC 11y ago
      No, you're wrong. A person using a laptop to view live tv on eg BBC iPlayer would need to be covered by a licence. The licence is needed for any "live broadcast tv". The equipment used is not relevant; and the source of the signal is not relevant. So someone in England watching French satellite TV still needs a licence.
    • nyreed 11y ago
      This used to be the case. It changed very recently to requiring a license for all live TV, regardless of how it's received.
  • quarterto 11y ago
    Only if you're going to watch live TV on it. Doesn't matter where it comes from (iPlayer live or a bit of wire on top of your house).
    • facetube 11y ago
      From http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=content-type&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1370006210037&ssbinary=true http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&bl...: "1.3 Note also that “received” means receiving a TV programme as it is being broadcast on TV. It does not include receiving programmes by means of a DVD or the on-demand elements of services such as i-Player."
• TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
  The BBC's big threat just now is probably not the Internet, but the current Government. It's already lost £.75bn of its budget, and some conservatives would like to ban the BBC from producing popular content.
  • mitchty 11y ago
    I really don't know how to parse that last sentence. What is the logic (or lack thereof) there? I don't keep up with what the BBC gets done to it by the UK government.
    • comice 11y ago
      No real logic. All politics. The BBC is publicly funded and an enormous success, which is an embarrassment to those singing from the free market hymn sheet. But also, it's obviously a direct competitor to other media companies in the UK, who are very politically powerful (Murdoch, for example). Same goes for our national health service, which is currently being gutted for the same reasons.
    • barrkel 11y ago
      Popular in this context means programmes created for pure entertainment, i.e. not news / current affairs / documentary / educational / etc. It doesn't mean that the BBC wouldn't be able to produce programmes that draw in an audience.
    • TazeTSchnitzel 11y ago
      The Government have made the BBC cover the cost of free TV licenses, which means their budget for actual content is now £750m smaller. And there has been the suggestion that the BBC be banned from making entertainment programmes like The Voice, which would ensure the company is less popular with the public and less likely to garner sympathy in future.
      • hellbanner 11y ago
        "There has been the suggestion".. by whom?
• rmc 11y ago
  I suspect the UK will do what Germany does, and charge all households a tax, regardless if you have have TV.
• tkmh 11y ago
  I like this suggestion. I'm of course very much in favour of streaming as the primary mode of watching TV, but I'm very invested in seeing the BBC survive in a recognisable form into the future. Despite its considerable watering down of its original mission statement, the BBC still remains my best answer to the hypothetical "What's the best thing about being British?"
• justincormack 11y ago
  The BBC will get to charge a license or subscription fee for non live, it is an accident of history and will change within a couple of years (along with charging for access to iplayer from abroad).
• mike-cardwell 11y ago
  Feb 2015 - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31623659 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-31623659 "The TV licence does not have a long-term future and is likely to be replaced by a new levy within the next 15 years, a group of MPs has said." "The MPs suggested every household could pay a new compulsory levy instead." Yeah. So if enough people decide they don't need or want the BBC so they're not paying for it, it will hit a threshold where they just start charging everyone.
  • wyager 11y ago
    Maybe this is just a cultural thing, but is that not messed up? It seems wrong, or at least very wasteful, to force people to pay for state-produced entertainment. Even the current TV licensing scheme is bad, because it assumes you watch BBC content if you have a TV.
    • potatolicious 11y ago
      It might be a cultural thing - I grew up in Canada where there's a similar setup for the CBC and I largely think it's fine. One of the important things to note is that the US absolutely dominates world media, from TV to movies to music to everything else. For countries that are linguistically compatible (UK, Canada, Australia, etc) this is extra-true. You get into a weird situation where the bulk of the entertainment being consumed by the populace is foreign-made, and there's increasingly less room for expressions of local culture. The funding of the CBC in Canada for example is less about making you watch the CBC but more about state funding to create local arts and culture in an environment where foreign culture dominates. It's about making sure "Canadian TV" and "Canadian music" even exists (sorry about the Bieber). I can't speak for the BBC, but it's also important to note that unlike public broadcasters of the US like PBS, the CBC is not a giant money pit. It creates programs that are highly successful, generate revenue, and have viewership competitive with major American programs. The CBC is a mainstream cultural institution in a way that the PBS can only hope to be, so it's not as if taxpayer money is being spent to create shows nobody watches.
    • mike-cardwell 11y ago
      The majority of the public like the content the BBC produces. They don't think any further than that. Yes, it is messed up.