4 ms·

I'm not entirely fond of BBC programming and the licence fee model as a whole. I'd rather see it turn into a subscription service here at home too. That said, i

by davb 10y ago

I'm not entirely fond of BBC programming and the licence fee model as a whole. I'd rather see it turn into a subscription service here at home too. That said, it's already funded and paid for so why not let others access it freely? Contribute some art and culture to the world. Unless they're actively marketing to a global audience, allowing free global access won't cost any more than allowing only domestic access†. The output is already paid for, I don't want to spite everyone else by saying "you can't have this". I'd love to see more art be published as a public good [1], paid for by those who can and freely enjoyed by all alike. And I say this as a licence fee payer and voter. However, I'm not sure that legislation is the way to go. There's a fine line between the freedom to profit from your art and the freedom of all to enjoy it - I'd rather see a cultural shift where companies and artist who are well compensated are happy to let their art be freely enjoyed. † I understand that for an internet-based distribution platform this isn't strictly true (bandwidth and server capacity). But if the will was there, I'm sure a balance could be struck involving liberal traditional syndication and rebroadcast rights, and syndicated CDN infrastructure. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

ucaetano 10y ago
"I'd love to see more art be published as a public good [1], paid for by those who can and freely enjoyed by all alike." Do you mean "can" as willing to, or forced to?
- davb 10y ago
  Ideally, "willing to". I'd like to see a cultural shift where everyone sees the value of broadcast media and news, and those who have the means feel it's their responsibility to contribute in order to further the development and sharing of knowledge and culture. I hate to compare it to open source software (because I don't think we've really settled on an ideal and universally appealing method of funding); but currently depending on the license, open source software is generally freely enjoyable by all and funded by those individuals and corporations who can and wish to do so. Humble Bundle is another great example. Everyone pays - those with little (money or will to pay) can pay £0.01, those with more can and do pay much more, effectively becoming patrons. Edit: Humble Bundle is another great example (just to highlight that while not open source, their funding model is innovative and objectively quite successful).
takno 10y ago
The BBC makes a substantial proportion of their revenue, and therefore covers a large percentage of the cost of production, from international sales. This means that rather than it all being paid for and ready to give away you'd see at least 50% budget cuts for stuff like Doctor Who and quite a lot things which are multi-country collaborations between the BBC and other broadcasters would never see the light of day at all.
- davb 10y ago
  And according to [1][2] from 2012 to 2017, the BBC will pay £1.10bn - £1.55bn to their contractor Capita to manage license enforcement. A change in licensing model could result in cost saving in this and other areas, and not necessarily mean underfunded programming. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un... [2] http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=content-type&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1370006220586&ssbinary=true http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&bl...
  - takno 10y ago
    The Wikipedia article you quote states that as the possible earn-out over a 15 year period rather than the 5 year period you suggest. Overall collection costs as quoted in those documents are roughly 2.7%, which isn't wildly off what you might pay for credit card processing fees. I'm no great fan of the license fee myself (although I haven't heard of a compelling alternative), but cost of collection isn't a strong argument against it.
    - davb 10y ago
      You're completely right - I misread that period. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll leave my original comment so your correction still makes sense. I do, however, think that a minimum of £73.3m per year (£1.1bn / 15yrs) is a disproportionately large figure to pay for license fee enforcement. I absolutely think that the high cost of managing the license fee infrastructure is a good argument against the model, and the removal of those overheads (and others) may offset a some of the lost revenue. A change in licensing model and overall culture (which I do understand has been attempted several times in the recent past) might result in a more universally appealing BBC. I struggle to find BBC programming very compelling, particularly when compared with other domestic and international broadcasters. They always feel... out of touch.

by davb 10y ago

ucaetano 10y ago

"I'd love to see more art be published as a public good [1], paid for by those who can and freely enjoyed by all alike." Do you mean "can" as willing to, or forced to?

davb 10y ago
Ideally, "willing to". I'd like to see a cultural shift where everyone sees the value of broadcast media and news, and those who have the means feel it's their responsibility to contribute in order to further the development and sharing of knowledge and culture. I hate to compare it to open source software (because I don't think we've really settled on an ideal and universally appealing method of funding); but currently depending on the license, open source software is generally freely enjoyable by all and funded by those individuals and corporations who can and wish to do so. Humble Bundle is another great example. Everyone pays - those with little (money or will to pay) can pay £0.01, those with more can and do pay much more, effectively becoming patrons. Edit: Humble Bundle is another great example (just to highlight that while not open source, their funding model is innovative and objectively quite successful).

takno 10y ago

The BBC makes a substantial proportion of their revenue, and therefore covers a large percentage of the cost of production, from international sales. This means that rather than it all being paid for and ready to give away you'd see at least 50% budget cuts for stuff like Doctor Who and quite a lot things which are multi-country collaborations between the BBC and other broadcasters would never see the light of day at all.

davb 10y ago
And according to [1][2] from 2012 to 2017, the BBC will pay £1.10bn - £1.55bn to their contractor Capita to manage license enforcement. A change in licensing model could result in cost saving in this and other areas, and not necessarily mean underfunded programming. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_United_Kingdom#Capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licensing_in_the_Un... [2] http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=content-type&blobheadervalue1=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1370006220586&ssbinary=true http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/ss/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&bl...
- takno 10y ago
  The Wikipedia article you quote states that as the possible earn-out over a 15 year period rather than the 5 year period you suggest. Overall collection costs as quoted in those documents are roughly 2.7%, which isn't wildly off what you might pay for credit card processing fees. I'm no great fan of the license fee myself (although I haven't heard of a compelling alternative), but cost of collection isn't a strong argument against it.
  - davb 10y ago
    You're completely right - I misread that period. Thanks for pointing that out. I'll leave my original comment so your correction still makes sense. I do, however, think that a minimum of £73.3m per year (£1.1bn / 15yrs) is a disproportionately large figure to pay for license fee enforcement. I absolutely think that the high cost of managing the license fee infrastructure is a good argument against the model, and the removal of those overheads (and others) may offset a some of the lost revenue. A change in licensing model and overall culture (which I do understand has been attempted several times in the recent past) might result in a more universally appealing BBC. I struggle to find BBC programming very compelling, particularly when compared with other domestic and international broadcasters. They always feel... out of touch.