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My kids have no concept of linear TV. My 9 year old came back and told me that a friend had a broken TV as when they turned it on, the program was already half

My kids have no concept of linear TV. My 9 year old came back and told me that a friend had a broken TV as when they turned it on, the program was already half way through. Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to want to watch them over things on disney. There's so much competition of things to do. I do watch BBC (iplayer obviously) occasionally, but the material I'm interested in isn't as accessible as it is on disney/apple/prime/netflix/youtube. We watched Eurovision and Euro2020 (England games) this year. Aside from that the only BBC output we watched was Roadkill about a year ago, and the one Doctor Who episode which had John Barrowman in. I would watch have I got news for you, but whenever I remember to watch it, it's not on. This itself might not say a lot, and I still have a TV license despite the limited direct value I get (listen to a lot of BBC radio, and the news website), but what's interesting is I actually work for the BBC. If my household barely watches it, where does the future lie. Linear TVs days are numbered, but the underlying cultural links that prime time TV provided in the 60s through 90s has already gone. 1 in 4 people in the UK used to watch the same shitty sitcoms in the 80s because there was very little choice. It's not just BBC or the UK that has this cultural difference. "It's a wonderful life" is an American classic. It is because it was shown on every channel every christmas year after year, generation after generation, and kids watched it, because it was that or reading a book. I think Star Trek was right with its outlandish prediction from 1988. TV as a form of entertainment won't survive much past 2040 (I think linear TV will still be going in 10 years time, but probably not 30).

nate 5y ago
I got such a kick out of my 7 year old at my grandparents. We turned on some random movie that was half way through and she said: "Oh, let's watch this, start it from the beginning." When I told her that's not how cable TV works, she looked at me like I was telling her some kind of stupid dad joke.
- aclelland 5y ago
  My 6 year old thinks that the screen goes black in some shows because that's when the exciting part is about to happen. Of course, it's actually where the program would normally break for ads . On Netflix/Disney+ this doesn't happen (yet!) so he's come to the conclusion that it's just a signal of impending excitement :)
  - ChrisKnott 5y ago
    This is normal in the UK because BBC never had ads. I remember foreign cartoons would often actually cut back in time slightly. It could be quite confusing but I just accepted it as some weird characteristic of TV. For example Scooby Doo would be falling to his death... Fade to black... Fade back in... and he's higher up (?!)... Shaggy swings in and saves him.
- pedrocr 5y ago
  That is how modern cable TV works though. With the now fairly standard IPTV boxes the linear programming can be rewatched straight from the on screen guide and there is a "start from beginning" button on live shows.
rhdunn 5y ago
I've completely switched to subscription and live-based content (mainly YouTube, with some Twitch). About 2 years ago I was only watching a handful of TV shows from traditional channels (BBC) and mainly there via iPlayer.
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
  You could consider the BBC to be a subscription + streaming model. Don't bother to watch on your TV, just fire up iPlayer, watch whatever you want, whenever you want. The subscription fee? Your TV license.
noir_lord 5y ago
The irony for me is I watch zero bbc content but I love Radio 4 comedy. So my BBC content consumption has gone up over time not down.
spinningslate 5y ago
Won't argue with the your observation on consumption: I see the same with my children. However: there's nothing intrinsic to the BBC that requires linear delivery or consumption. iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. I dearly want to see the BBC not only survive, but to prosper. That may be rose-tinted/delusional/whatever. Why? Because it represents a collective service for society, by society. I don't watch all the content: not even some of the big stuff (Strictly). But I really value the breadth of content: that it caters to interests - people - that are diverse. It can do that because it doesn't have to slavishly chase advertising in a race-to-the-bottom death march to mediocrity. Similarly, its aspiration to impartial news coverage - to inform and educate, not impose a political doctrine - should be invaluable. It certainly hasn't always achieved that (and sometimes by a long way) but at least the aspiration is there. It would be greatly helped here by some structural protection from government meddling, but that's another story. Like the original article, I see the writing on the wall. But I don't think it needs to be a death spiral. In a world of hyper-targeted-advertising-driven-sensationalist-fact-free-fake-news in 140 characters or less, I want to believe there's a market for diverse, challenging society-enhancing content. I can't think of an organisation whose charter would better fit with that aim.
- teamonkey 5y ago
  > iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. This is absolutely worth remembering, iPlayer was revelatory 12 or 13 years ago. Infuriatingly the innovation seems to have stopped there. Case in point, it's a corporation nearly 100 years old, yet its back catalogue is extremely poor. You should be able to watch every episode of Doctor Who on demand since the original black & white pilot, instead you're mainly limited to items shown in the last month, plus some randomly curated stuff. Channel 4 has a better online archive. When I lived outside of the UK I would have paid a subscription fee equal to the licence fee to gain access to iPlayer. It's worth paying for! But there's no way to give them money for services other than be a licence payer within the UK.
  - deadbunny 5y ago
throwaway287391 5y ago
> I think linear TV will still be going in 10 years time, but probably not 30 I think you're probably right, but I'm one of the few millennials who will miss it when it's gone. I still like being able to turn on the news or some dumb show as background noise, it's an old habit from my boomer parent upbringing. I'm a bit surprised I haven't really met anyone else around my age with a nostalgic attachment to linear TV. I stream things that I actually want to watch deliberately, but as a replacement for linear TV it's just not the same. It's a lot more effort (paradox of choice, beyond just the UI itself necessitating a lot more "clicks") and there's something nice about knowing that people around the country/world are watching the same thing at the same time as me. I'd like to say it could be a startup opportunity, but I think I might be the only one who cares. Not to mention, currently an antenna will get you much better picture quality than many/most streaming services (definitely true for the BBC News stream available on iPlayer -- that looks like crap to me).
- MattPalmer1086 5y ago
  I agree with all of that. Streaming is about choice, but linear TV is about an event and/or serendipity. I have a lot of movies on Plex, but when we browse them it's rare for us to select one. On the other hand, we often watch those movies when they're on TV. "We have that on Plex" has become a household joke.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    Netflix have a "watch something" button. I've never used it, but I assume it's there to match the serendipity aspect. Amazon I think have a "watch party" feature, but that's not the same as 10 million people all watching Mr Blobby get gunged. There seemed to be a small amount of cultural "togetherness" with the guy doing the PE (Joe Someone?) during lockdown, not sure as I didn't watch it (too busy working). But yes, events (sport, moon landings, etc) are great on linear tv. I suspect that even after most of the spectrum gets removed, there will remain a BBC linear TV channel for events for some time, and most households will have a working antenna for a long time to come.
    - 5y ago
wazoox 5y ago
The main problem with the BBC is that too much of its nice content isn't available out of the UK. I see no reason why it couldn't be watched all around the world.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Rights issues, and of course the fact that BBC content is -- a fair whack of BBC funding comes from Worldwide (or whatever it's called this week), which sells BBC material internationally. Watch a BBC production on CBS or PBS or BBS or whatever and some money goes back to the BBC. I believe Britbox is an option too. Same with television formats. Dancing with the Stars I believe is a popular US program based on a BBC show, the format has been licensed to half the planet.
  - n8cpdx 5y ago
    I still don't understand why I (an American) can't pay the BBC money for access to iPlayer. BBC has been saying hell no to my money for over a decade now. It doesn't make sense. Free money! You could lower your TV tax! I think it must be BBC official policy that they want the whole world buying VPN and pirating the content. It doesn't make sense. Throwing money away and then asking why they aren't competitive with the commercial offerings.
    - iso1210 5y ago
      1) the rights to show those programs outside the UK don't exist 2) If they do exist, this would cannibalise the income via global sales, and someone has (rightly or wrongly) crunched the numbers and determined that selling Top Gear to foreign broadcasters makes more money than having iplayer as a subscription. There may also be political issues with having iplayer as a subscription too (including a call from the right wing to make iplayer subscription based for everyone. After OnDigital/ITVDigital collapsed, the BBC got in very quickly with freeview, ensuring that large numbers of decoders lacked a CAM and thus making it harder to argue for subscription) See also Channel 5 sell Peppa Pig to Nickleodon rather than doing it direct. Or paramount selling rights to Star Trek series' via netflix or amazon rather than paramount plus outside the US.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to want to watch them over things on disney. There's so much competition of things to do. > This itself might not say a lot, and I still have a TV license despite the limited direct value I get (listen to a lot of BBC radio, and the news website), but what's interesting is I actually work for the BBC. If my household barely watches it, where does the future lie. The entertainment sector is one of the most profitable on Earth. Marvel, Disney made billions making content that people want to watch and are willing to pay for. I'm not getting the reason why there should be government sponsored entertainment, especially seeing that people aren't even interested in watching it. Why not simply compete and let the consumer decide?
- jodrellblank 5y ago
  This feels like saying "why not get rid of government funded schools and have children watch Marvel and Disney instead?". The BBC's mission was to "inform, educate and entertain", Disney's and Marvels is more like "entertain, addict and profit". From Wikipedia about the origins of the BBC: > "The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General.[...] British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#1927_to_1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#1927_to_1939 Americans will hate the state telling them what to watch for their own good, many Britons don't like the way it's the Oxbridge upper classes telling the rest of us what to watch, but regardless of that there was some attempt to be more than just entertainment, some values other than ad revenue. Has Marvel, Disney or Netflix made a Tomorrow's World, a Blue Peter, or anything like the Reith Lectures ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reith_Lecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reith_Lecture ) ?
revolvingocelot 5y ago
>I think Star Trek was right with its outlandish prediction from 1988 Ah, classic TNG. S1E25 "The Neutral Zone". [0] Other near-term predictions from 90s Star Trek include terrorism-powered Irish reunification in 2024 [1] (how's Brexit coming along, again?), as well as a DS9 time-travel episode set in the same year that's not exactly about UBI and censorship and othering the poor, but those words might be the best way to describe the fake-issues of that episode's San Francisco [2]. And, uh, the periodic nuclear exchanges of World War III, starting in 2026 and continuing for a few decades, with a death toll of at least six hundred million. [0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Neutral_Zone_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Neutral_Zone_(episo... [1] a throwaway reference in https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode) [2] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(epi...
- iso1210 5y ago
  Irish reunification in 2024 certainly plausible. Slightly plausible that in years to come brexit will be deemed to be an act of terrorism too. It was "The High Ground", not "The Hunted" though -- and due to that line the episode wasn't shown for years in the UK (this was during the time UK cities were being regularly blown up by terrorists)
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    Aah good call. Wrong terrorism episode, alas. I can't believe I've done this, Memory Alpha was right there.
nerdawson 5y ago
Euro 2020 only reinforced how important the BBC actually is. iPlayer were streaming matches in 4K HDR while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Hard to believe that ITV were the ones with commercial funding behind them. Seeing that a match was going to be aired on ITV filled me with dread.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  > while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Don't forget the adverts and the several occasions when their streaming servers just plain couldn't be arsed to deliver any data to people during important games.
  - jbarrs 5y ago
    This is depressingly true. Whenever ITV were hosting the match, I generally just resigned myself to not being able to watch it. Besides that, when it did work, the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. The BBC's coverage on iPlayer was superb, and I'll admit before I paid for any streaming service I used to comb through iPlayer the same way I comb through Netflix now.
    - denton-scratch 5y ago
      > the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. I've always assumed that how sports fans like their commentaries - vacuous, uninformative and shouty. If fans wanted intelligent commentary, surely broadcasters would hire intelligent commentators, rather than ineloquent retired sports stars?
      - vmilner 5y ago
        Thankfully for track and field athletics on the BBC we have former world mile record holder Steve Cram, who's the epitome of an intelligent commentator.
kazinator 5y ago
What works well is Linear TV with a history, so you can go through a calendar, say, going back 30 days. All the Japanese IPTV streamers work that way and it's a very natural integration. You can watch the current streaming, or just go back in the calendar to whatever you want in your selected channel. And the past items flow from one to the next as if they were live. You watch through last Monday's 8:00 p.m. one hour show and it falls through to the 9:00 p.m. show of that day as if it were last Monday. There is no annoying "recording" workflow; the full content is just there going back about a month. The organization concept that certain shows occur regularly at certain times is very useful; it won't go away that easily; it remains useful when you're able to navigate through the calendar. Japanese TV, as such, is pretty great though. It is not replaceable in any way by other forms of content. E.g. families with small kids depend on the NHK E channel; there is no equivalent content. Everyone knows what that is; it's not ignored, like BBC or PBS.
- deadfish 5y ago
  I worked on a project a while back called Freeview play in the UK which I think works in a similar way to how you described. You can watch live TV over the air or scroll backwards in time along the EPG to stream recorded content over IP. I think the BBCs childrens content is one of its strongest assets. I don't have any data for it, but I would say most families in the UK with small kids consume a lot of CBBC and CBeebies content. It's much better quality content than children's content on YouTube or Netflix. Peoples viewing habits are more fragmented and from a wider variety of sources than 10 or 20 years ago and the BBC definitely doesn't have the same mindshare that it used to have when there was only X channels. But, I think when people are looking for some high quality curated content in the sea of 'please like and subscribe' then they will come back to iPlayer - I know I do. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part?
- hakfoo 5y ago
  I think it's less about specific times and more a form of curation. The streaming options out there either tend to be "you wanted to watch one episode of this show, so here's every single other episode of it, followed by the German translation" or a seemingly random walk through the catalog that ends in Elsagate. The guy running the schedule at the local broadcaster is a little more intelligent than that, and can make a better selection. I'd love to see a streaming service that let you build "channel-like playlists"-- pick a few favourite series and it would populate a sequence to watch, not just those shows but also closely-correlated other programs. You'd only see one or two episodes of a given series in a row unless you intentionally skipped around on the list. Ideally, the suggestion logic would be smart enough to identify "randomizable" shows versus "serial" ones, and pick appropriate episodes based on those rules. There could be various UI refinements-- "I enjoyed Blah, but I've already seen up to Season 5, so skip all of those, but still weight it for the recommendation component." In the end, it would be like network TV all over again: sit down at 7PM, press one button, and you'll watch four sitcoms and an hour-long drama, before switching over to a news product.
goatlover 5y ago
Sports and other live events are still linear, to the extent you wish to keep up with real time and not have it spoiled for you elsewhere. Pandemic aside, people still go to bars and friends houses to watch live events (usually sports). Not sure that will change by 2040.
pfranz 5y ago
From what I hear from other parents, the PBS Kids app is a great space where parents can trust kids and has decent content. YouTube Kids is a garbage wasteland and regular YouTube needs diligent monitoring for young kids. I find the app silos and bespoke UX (and behavior of things like offline viewing) of Netflix, Disney+, et al inscrutable for kids and some adults. I also think cable and TV manufactures helped push away young kids with their poor UX. "Back in my day" you turn on the TV you get a picture, you change the channel and instantly get another picture (admittedly, I did grow up with tuning into stations with an antennae)--but cable has been terrible for decades. Turn on the TV, turn on the cable box (and maybe stereo, too), make sure the correct input is selected, click to the next channel and wait 3-5 seconds. Good luck explaining that to the babysitter or parents staying over. They usually just use their phone. I feel like PBS Kids has been doing a decent job. I also think NPR has done similarly well with podcasts--but I'm not sure how mainstream that is. Maybe BBC transitions to only documenting cultural milestones? I was just watching a BBC recording of Oscar Peterson from the 70s yesterday. I don't know if people like him were as popular as "shitty sitcoms in the 80s," but I'm glad someone was sponsoring and preserving these performances.

nate 5y ago

I got such a kick out of my 7 year old at my grandparents. We turned on some random movie that was half way through and she said: "Oh, let's watch this, start it from the beginning." When I told her that's not how cable TV works, she looked at me like I was telling her some kind of stupid dad joke.

aclelland 5y ago
My 6 year old thinks that the screen goes black in some shows because that's when the exciting part is about to happen. Of course, it's actually where the program would normally break for ads . On Netflix/Disney+ this doesn't happen (yet!) so he's come to the conclusion that it's just a signal of impending excitement :)
- ChrisKnott 5y ago
  This is normal in the UK because BBC never had ads. I remember foreign cartoons would often actually cut back in time slightly. It could be quite confusing but I just accepted it as some weird characteristic of TV. For example Scooby Doo would be falling to his death... Fade to black... Fade back in... and he's higher up (?!)... Shaggy swings in and saves him.
pedrocr 5y ago
That is how modern cable TV works though. With the now fairly standard IPTV boxes the linear programming can be rewatched straight from the on screen guide and there is a "start from beginning" button on live shows.

rhdunn 5y ago

I've completely switched to subscription and live-based content (mainly YouTube, with some Twitch). About 2 years ago I was only watching a handful of TV shows from traditional channels (BBC) and mainly there via iPlayer.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
You could consider the BBC to be a subscription + streaming model. Don't bother to watch on your TV, just fire up iPlayer, watch whatever you want, whenever you want. The subscription fee? Your TV license.

noir_lord 5y ago

The irony for me is I watch zero bbc content but I love Radio 4 comedy. So my BBC content consumption has gone up over time not down.

spinningslate 5y ago

Won't argue with the your observation on consumption: I see the same with my children. However: there's nothing intrinsic to the BBC that requires linear delivery or consumption. iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. I dearly want to see the BBC not only survive, but to prosper. That may be rose-tinted/delusional/whatever. Why? Because it represents a collective service for society, by society. I don't watch all the content: not even some of the big stuff (Strictly). But I really value the breadth of content: that it caters to interests - people - that are diverse. It can do that because it doesn't have to slavishly chase advertising in a race-to-the-bottom death march to mediocrity. Similarly, its aspiration to impartial news coverage - to inform and educate, not impose a political doctrine - should be invaluable. It certainly hasn't always achieved that (and sometimes by a long way) but at least the aspiration is there. It would be greatly helped here by some structural protection from government meddling, but that's another story. Like the original article, I see the writing on the wall. But I don't think it needs to be a death spiral. In a world of hyper-targeted-advertising-driven-sensationalist-fact-free-fake-news in 140 characters or less, I want to believe there's a market for diverse, challenging society-enhancing content. I can't think of an organisation whose charter would better fit with that aim.

teamonkey 5y ago
> iPlayer was, after all, one of the first streaming services: a genuine bit of innovation from the Beeb. This is absolutely worth remembering, iPlayer was revelatory 12 or 13 years ago. Infuriatingly the innovation seems to have stopped there. Case in point, it's a corporation nearly 100 years old, yet its back catalogue is extremely poor. You should be able to watch every episode of Doctor Who on demand since the original black & white pilot, instead you're mainly limited to items shown in the last month, plus some randomly curated stuff. Channel 4 has a better online archive. When I lived outside of the UK I would have paid a subscription fee equal to the licence fee to gain access to iPlayer. It's worth paying for! But there's no way to give them money for services other than be a licence payer within the UK.
- deadbunny 5y ago

throwaway287391 5y ago

> I think linear TV will still be going in 10 years time, but probably not 30 I think you're probably right, but I'm one of the few millennials who will miss it when it's gone. I still like being able to turn on the news or some dumb show as background noise, it's an old habit from my boomer parent upbringing. I'm a bit surprised I haven't really met anyone else around my age with a nostalgic attachment to linear TV. I stream things that I actually want to watch deliberately, but as a replacement for linear TV it's just not the same. It's a lot more effort (paradox of choice, beyond just the UI itself necessitating a lot more "clicks") and there's something nice about knowing that people around the country/world are watching the same thing at the same time as me. I'd like to say it could be a startup opportunity, but I think I might be the only one who cares. Not to mention, currently an antenna will get you much better picture quality than many/most streaming services (definitely true for the BBC News stream available on iPlayer -- that looks like crap to me).

MattPalmer1086 5y ago
I agree with all of that. Streaming is about choice, but linear TV is about an event and/or serendipity. I have a lot of movies on Plex, but when we browse them it's rare for us to select one. On the other hand, we often watch those movies when they're on TV. "We have that on Plex" has become a household joke.
- iso1210 5y ago
  Netflix have a "watch something" button. I've never used it, but I assume it's there to match the serendipity aspect. Amazon I think have a "watch party" feature, but that's not the same as 10 million people all watching Mr Blobby get gunged. There seemed to be a small amount of cultural "togetherness" with the guy doing the PE (Joe Someone?) during lockdown, not sure as I didn't watch it (too busy working). But yes, events (sport, moon landings, etc) are great on linear tv. I suspect that even after most of the spectrum gets removed, there will remain a BBC linear TV channel for events for some time, and most households will have a working antenna for a long time to come.
  - 5y ago

wazoox 5y ago

The main problem with the BBC is that too much of its nice content isn't available out of the UK. I see no reason why it couldn't be watched all around the world.

iso1210 5y ago
Rights issues, and of course the fact that BBC content is -- a fair whack of BBC funding comes from Worldwide (or whatever it's called this week), which sells BBC material internationally. Watch a BBC production on CBS or PBS or BBS or whatever and some money goes back to the BBC. I believe Britbox is an option too. Same with television formats. Dancing with the Stars I believe is a popular US program based on a BBC show, the format has been licensed to half the planet.
- n8cpdx 5y ago
  I still don't understand why I (an American) can't pay the BBC money for access to iPlayer. BBC has been saying hell no to my money for over a decade now. It doesn't make sense. Free money! You could lower your TV tax! I think it must be BBC official policy that they want the whole world buying VPN and pirating the content. It doesn't make sense. Throwing money away and then asking why they aren't competitive with the commercial offerings.
  - iso1210 5y ago
    1) the rights to show those programs outside the UK don't exist 2) If they do exist, this would cannibalise the income via global sales, and someone has (rightly or wrongly) crunched the numbers and determined that selling Top Gear to foreign broadcasters makes more money than having iplayer as a subscription. There may also be political issues with having iplayer as a subscription too (including a call from the right wing to make iplayer subscription based for everyone. After OnDigital/ITVDigital collapsed, the BBC got in very quickly with freeview, ensuring that large numbers of decoders lacked a CAM and thus making it harder to argue for subscription) See also Channel 5 sell Peppa Pig to Nickleodon rather than doing it direct. Or paramount selling rights to Star Trek series' via netflix or amazon rather than paramount plus outside the US.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Their 'channels' are netflix, amazon and disney. When I had the choice and they were pre-school then sure, we watched things like Alphablocks on iplayer. I can force them to watch Attenborough or Blue Peter, and they enjoy it, just not enough to want to watch them over things on disney. There's so much competition of things to do. > This itself might not say a lot, and I still have a TV license despite the limited direct value I get (listen to a lot of BBC radio, and the news website), but what's interesting is I actually work for the BBC. If my household barely watches it, where does the future lie. The entertainment sector is one of the most profitable on Earth. Marvel, Disney made billions making content that people want to watch and are willing to pay for. I'm not getting the reason why there should be government sponsored entertainment, especially seeing that people aren't even interested in watching it. Why not simply compete and let the consumer decide?

jodrellblank 5y ago
This feels like saying "why not get rid of government funded schools and have children watch Marvel and Disney instead?". The BBC's mission was to "inform, educate and entertain", Disney's and Marvels is more like "entertain, addict and profit". From Wikipedia about the origins of the BBC: > "The British Broadcasting Corporation came into existence on 1 January 1927, and Reith – newly knighted – was appointed its first Director General.[...] British radio audiences had little choice apart from the upscale programming of the BBC. Reith, an intensely moralistic executive, was in full charge. His goal was to broadcast "All that is best in every department of human knowledge, endeavour and achievement.... The preservation of a high moral tone is obviously of paramount importance." Reith succeeded in building a high wall against an American-style free-for-all in radio in which the goal was to attract the largest audiences and thereby secure the greatest advertising revenue. There was no paid advertising on the BBC; all the revenue came from a tax on receiving sets. Highbrow audiences, however, greatly enjoyed it. At a time when American, Australian and Canadian stations were drawing huge audiences cheering for their local teams with the broadcast of baseball, rugby and hockey, the BBC emphasised service for a national rather than a regional audience. Boat races were well covered along with tennis and horse racing, but the BBC was reluctant to spend its severely limited air time on long football or cricket games, regardless of their popularity." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#1927_to_1939 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBC#1927_to_1939 Americans will hate the state telling them what to watch for their own good, many Britons don't like the way it's the Oxbridge upper classes telling the rest of us what to watch, but regardless of that there was some attempt to be more than just entertainment, some values other than ad revenue. Has Marvel, Disney or Netflix made a Tomorrow's World, a Blue Peter, or anything like the Reith Lectures ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reith_Lecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reith_Lecture ) ?

revolvingocelot 5y ago

>I think Star Trek was right with its outlandish prediction from 1988 Ah, classic TNG. S1E25 "The Neutral Zone". [0] Other near-term predictions from 90s Star Trek include terrorism-powered Irish reunification in 2024 [1] (how's Brexit coming along, again?), as well as a DS9 time-travel episode set in the same year that's not exactly about UBI and censorship and othering the poor, but those words might be the best way to describe the fake-issues of that episode's San Francisco [2]. And, uh, the periodic nuclear exchanges of World War III, starting in 2026 and continuing for a few decades, with a death toll of at least six hundred million. [0] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Neutral_Zone_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Neutral_Zone_(episo... [1] a throwaway reference in https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Hunted_(episode) [2] https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(episode) https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Tense,_Part_I_(epi...

iso1210 5y ago
Irish reunification in 2024 certainly plausible. Slightly plausible that in years to come brexit will be deemed to be an act of terrorism too. It was "The High Ground", not "The Hunted" though -- and due to that line the episode wasn't shown for years in the UK (this was during the time UK cities were being regularly blown up by terrorists)
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  Aah good call. Wrong terrorism episode, alas. I can't believe I've done this, Memory Alpha was right there.

nerdawson 5y ago

Euro 2020 only reinforced how important the BBC actually is. iPlayer were streaming matches in 4K HDR while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Hard to believe that ITV were the ones with commercial funding behind them. Seeing that a match was going to be aired on ITV filled me with dread.

zimpenfish 5y ago
> while ITV were pumping out shockingly poor resolution low frame rate content that was barely watchable. Don't forget the adverts and the several occasions when their streaming servers just plain couldn't be arsed to deliver any data to people during important games.
- jbarrs 5y ago
  This is depressingly true. Whenever ITV were hosting the match, I generally just resigned myself to not being able to watch it. Besides that, when it did work, the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. The BBC's coverage on iPlayer was superb, and I'll admit before I paid for any streaming service I used to comb through iPlayer the same way I comb through Netflix now.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    > the commentary was absolutely atrocious and did nothing but state the obvious. I've always assumed that how sports fans like their commentaries - vacuous, uninformative and shouty. If fans wanted intelligent commentary, surely broadcasters would hire intelligent commentators, rather than ineloquent retired sports stars?
    - vmilner 5y ago
      Thankfully for track and field athletics on the BBC we have former world mile record holder Steve Cram, who's the epitome of an intelligent commentator.

kazinator 5y ago

What works well is Linear TV with a history, so you can go through a calendar, say, going back 30 days. All the Japanese IPTV streamers work that way and it's a very natural integration. You can watch the current streaming, or just go back in the calendar to whatever you want in your selected channel. And the past items flow from one to the next as if they were live. You watch through last Monday's 8:00 p.m. one hour show and it falls through to the 9:00 p.m. show of that day as if it were last Monday. There is no annoying "recording" workflow; the full content is just there going back about a month. The organization concept that certain shows occur regularly at certain times is very useful; it won't go away that easily; it remains useful when you're able to navigate through the calendar. Japanese TV, as such, is pretty great though. It is not replaceable in any way by other forms of content. E.g. families with small kids depend on the NHK E channel; there is no equivalent content. Everyone knows what that is; it's not ignored, like BBC or PBS.

deadfish 5y ago
I worked on a project a while back called Freeview play in the UK which I think works in a similar way to how you described. You can watch live TV over the air or scroll backwards in time along the EPG to stream recorded content over IP. I think the BBCs childrens content is one of its strongest assets. I don't have any data for it, but I would say most families in the UK with small kids consume a lot of CBBC and CBeebies content. It's much better quality content than children's content on YouTube or Netflix. Peoples viewing habits are more fragmented and from a wider variety of sources than 10 or 20 years ago and the BBC definitely doesn't have the same mindshare that it used to have when there was only X channels. But, I think when people are looking for some high quality curated content in the sea of 'please like and subscribe' then they will come back to iPlayer - I know I do. Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part?
hakfoo 5y ago
I think it's less about specific times and more a form of curation. The streaming options out there either tend to be "you wanted to watch one episode of this show, so here's every single other episode of it, followed by the German translation" or a seemingly random walk through the catalog that ends in Elsagate. The guy running the schedule at the local broadcaster is a little more intelligent than that, and can make a better selection. I'd love to see a streaming service that let you build "channel-like playlists"-- pick a few favourite series and it would populate a sequence to watch, not just those shows but also closely-correlated other programs. You'd only see one or two episodes of a given series in a row unless you intentionally skipped around on the list. Ideally, the suggestion logic would be smart enough to identify "randomizable" shows versus "serial" ones, and pick appropriate episodes based on those rules. There could be various UI refinements-- "I enjoyed Blah, but I've already seen up to Season 5, so skip all of those, but still weight it for the recommendation component." In the end, it would be like network TV all over again: sit down at 7PM, press one button, and you'll watch four sitcoms and an hour-long drama, before switching over to a news product.

goatlover 5y ago

Sports and other live events are still linear, to the extent you wish to keep up with real time and not have it spoiled for you elsewhere. Pandemic aside, people still go to bars and friends houses to watch live events (usually sports). Not sure that will change by 2040.

pfranz 5y ago

From what I hear from other parents, the PBS Kids app is a great space where parents can trust kids and has decent content. YouTube Kids is a garbage wasteland and regular YouTube needs diligent monitoring for young kids. I find the app silos and bespoke UX (and behavior of things like offline viewing) of Netflix, Disney+, et al inscrutable for kids and some adults. I also think cable and TV manufactures helped push away young kids with their poor UX. "Back in my day" you turn on the TV you get a picture, you change the channel and instantly get another picture (admittedly, I did grow up with tuning into stations with an antennae)--but cable has been terrible for decades. Turn on the TV, turn on the cable box (and maybe stereo, too), make sure the correct input is selected, click to the next channel and wait 3-5 seconds. Good luck explaining that to the babysitter or parents staying over. They usually just use their phone. I feel like PBS Kids has been doing a decent job. I also think NPR has done similarly well with podcasts--but I'm not sure how mainstream that is. Maybe BBC transitions to only documenting cultural milestones? I was just watching a BBC recording of Oscar Peterson from the 70s yesterday. I don't know if people like him were as popular as "shitty sitcoms in the 80s," but I'm glad someone was sponsoring and preserving these performances.