No, I haven’t gone mad but I am interested in your take on this. The BBC is claiming it generates £7bn worth of “value” each year and uses this Deloitte report to allegedly validate the claim. Give it a read and get back to me.
THE BBC PROVIDES GREAT VALUE?
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Got this far…
‘The BBC’s prime purpose is to provide quality programmes and content to inform, educate and entertain audiences and we will never lose sight of that.’
As it was evidently cut and pasted, punctuation free, from every posting onTthe Editors, with all the credibility of a Boaden ‘I think I am about right’ claim, going much further seemed hardly worth the effort.
And given the Clintonian code they now adopt, heddging against a vetting interview with St. Peter that might be at odds with what got ’em employed chez Aunty, I note:
‘Prime purpose’: more of an ambition open to interpretation as the needs of the narrative supercede all else.
‘Will never lose sight’: as Horatio once said: ‘I see no bias’. And as he didn’t wish to, he didn’t.
Sounds to me like they’re trying to justify their existance…how much did this report cost?
Also, surely if they can create 7.7 billion they can survive in the market place…
What a lot of cr*p. Just because they say it, doesn’t make it so; anyone can make up numbers and present them as facts.
I only read the foreword so far and my hackles rose pretty quickly at that:
The privilege of licence fee funding makes the BBC a major player in the UK’s creative industries and we have a responsibility to ensure that our investment in the economy works as a force for good – supporting jobs and businesses across the UK.
You mean my investment, the public’s investment, i.e. our investment, not yours, Beeboids.
If you are such a big cheese (major player, so you say 😉 ) in the economy, what are you doing living off me? By the way, where is my dividend? And is there an annual meeting to which I am invited? To whom are you answerable for your fee or salary payment policy and to whom among the public who fund you, do you report details of such payments made to individual contractors / performers?
It’s more of the same left/Labour mindset that insists that the public sector is the economy. Thus cutting the public sector = damaging the economy. It’s how statists defend their entitlement – ‘if you cut our funding you are being wreckless with the economy’. Crap!
Having just read the introduction, it does look a little like the BBC are squaring up to counter the media review currently going on in Parliament.
however, I think Caroline Thomson may have shot herself in the foot here, with the profits and influence talked about here, a case could be made to get rid of the licence fee and let the BBC stand on its own two feet altogether.
I also think it’s a load of tosh…
Hope that Caroline Thomson can be wheeled out to speak in defence of whatever she likes.The woman is a disaster zone and the demise of the Beeb comes closer every time she gets a few minutes on the wireless or idiot lantern.
Funny that the BBC top brass are so inept in front of camera…after a life of absorbing the greatness of assorted Jeremys who they move round the schedules like toy batlleships, you`d have thought some luvvies in diversity vision training and empowerment would have done something with those plummy voices and clipped entitlement!
She`ll be married to a fellow grandee won`t she?
These trough-surfers need to beware of sidewinds!
It’s quite true that the BBC does bring in plenty of revenue from the sales of its programmes (like Dr Who & Top gear) but the issue I have is who benefits from this?
If the BBC were a private company and it made a profit, it would pay a dividend to its shareholders (us), but it doesn’t. We get no say as shareholders as to who gets paid what or what sort of programming the BBC does.
If the BBC were a private company who is to say it wouldn’t bring in more money?
It’s a good point, well made. We all know that everytime the BBC togs up for another lavish ‘period drama’ their eye is primarily on those North American and Overseas markets. It’s their thing; it’s what they do. Allegedly, they do it very profitably. So how come my license fee isn’t coming down as a result of all that lovely foreign cash they are making at my expense..?
Dogstar, the BBC’s mission is no longer simply to provide value to the license fee payer. Their goal now is to expand their commercial operations ever further into international territories, and develop a worldwide audience for their products. Whether the British public like it is irrelevant to them.
So is the BBC saying that “trickle down” economics works? Wow! Someone tell the much maligned Ronald Reagan on his cloud.
Bullseye, Louis.
This is amazing stuff. It’ll take time, David, but its a goldmine full of shit. For example: “It (the TV series “Life”) is expected to reach huge audiences in the US this spring where it will be narrated by Oprah Winfrey” BBC please note: Oprah is a woman made hugely rich by a very different business model. My oh my…I’m reading on…
Giving themselves and each other a real hand job are they not?
Self justification, self interest deressed up as a value report. Oooh look are we not wonderful and are you lower orders not soooo very fortunate to be forced to pay the licence fee, thug enforced and jail if you dare not to pay. Not content with their liberal use of faked and rigged polls the BBC just has to fake up some report that just happens to paraise them, these numpties would feel right at home in North Korea, they take institutional corruption to and right past Jim Jong Ill standards.
The discaimers prior to the Executive Summary are worth a read. Also interesting that they estimate their value for advertising the switch to Digital at 95 Million.
As I suspected, these ‘Economic impacts’ are figures pulled out of the ether…
£145.50 per annum for a squillion TV and radio stations, not to mention the biggest website in the Universe? That is exceptional value for money. It’s a superb deal.
I went into my local supermarket this morning and they were doing a special ‘three for £5’ offer on boxes of chicken drumsticks. Great value, thought I, but we already have a couple of boxes of chicken thighs and don’t need drumsticks. So I decided against buying.
Imagine my surprise when the supermarket manager and a security guard followed me out to my car and threatened to have me arrested for not buying the aforementioned drumsticks. I protested, insisting that I don’t like drumsticks because they are full of bone and gristle. But they were insistent: the 1955 Chicken Drumstick Act compels you to buy drumsticks if you enter our supermarket.
Eventually I relented, paid my fiver and went home with a lot of unwanted chicken which is now sitting in the freezer.
I think I have proved my point. 🙂
The licence fee is unfair, silly and outdated.
“The licence fee is unfair, silly and outdated.”
If that was all that was wrong with the BBC it would have been reformed years ago. It is (alas) much more sinister (literally) than you suggest. It is not simply that some people earn a great deal of money out of it, the primary function of the BBC is political. It seeks to re-educate voters. It is more appropriate to a dictatorship than a free society. You cannot vote them out of power – ever. They are a 1000 times more powerful than Rupert Murdoch.
“If that was all that was wrong with the BBC it would have been reformed years ago.”
I don’t doubt that, wild. Furthermore, I’d also argue there is too much “bone and gristle” in the BBC chicken drumstick. This thread is primarily about the licence fee, however.
That said, there is nothing wrong with going off-topic. For instance, Marcus Brigstocke an unfunny, self-important cun
First, what’s not in it: “this report does not include consideration of the value licence fee payers receive from BBC services.”
It may or may not offer great value to those who fund it (all of us) – no opinion mate, not us guv.
So its of great value to the economy according to Deloittes. The main example is natural history films, which they sell to the world… Wow. So we all pay £145 a year each so they can make and sell nature films.
The rest of the argument follows the broken window fallacy. The bBC has a lot of our money to spend, so spending it generates employment and such like. But if we all had our £145 a year back, we would spend it too – only we would spend it on things WE want, and that would create jobs and economic activity just the same, but jobs making and doing things we want, not things THEY want. Frankly I don’t give a monkeys about Bristol’s wildlife production unit or whatever.
Tendentious reasoning, and a big circle-jerk between the BBC heirarchy and these so called Accountants.
The bBC doesn’t create value because because we have no choice but to pay for it, even when we don’t want its output (biased news). It is a value-subtracting organisation to the economy.
Bang on.
Defenders of the BBC keep telling us that they make great nature shows/history docs/cakes, as though a multi-billion pound near-monopoly producing the odd good show was some kind of achievement.
Really, with all the BBC’s advantages, they could have Gordon Broon running them and they should still be able to put together a cute show about Golden Eagles or some such. The real issue is whether this centrally planned expenditure of billions of pounds produce better results than a free market solution.
The maths are simple they can pay me £145 a year for me to watch them. no license fee at all. There you go Thomson, thanks for the report, therefore you should done for fraud as you demand money with menaces and you clearly don’t need it!
BBC? Value? not in this world…
The Foreword tells me that the BBC is a commercial operation – only at your captive expense – and that DVD sales are proof of quality broadcasting. It’s just like the way they defend everything else: ratings = quality.
This looks old. Why are we only finding out about it now ? Hmmm …
Neat the beginning of the report, the BBC’s Enron-like auditors make a confession –
“Deloitte has neither sought to corroborate this information nor to review its overall reasonableness.”
‘Don’t be misled by the news that the BBC spent £366,000 on alcohol over five years. We’re talking quality, not quantity. A £200 bottle of 1975 Krug champagne? That’s the Auntie I know. She’s not some boozy old dear who surreptitiously slurps Emva Cream from a teacup during Emmerdale. She’s more like the pushy wife of a property magnate who wakes up in a panic after dreaming that she said “pardon” at Highgrove. Recently I was at a BBC bigwigs’ dinner party in a London hotel. The women were wearing unintentional fancy dress (theme: Blair Babes 1997). The men weren’t wearing ties but kept their top buttons done up – natty! The staff were waved around like servants at Versailles. The bill would have made a Russian oligarch blanch. Isn’t it wonderful how far the licence fee can stretch?’
From http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100125981/when-islam-met-the-diversity-industry/
I don’t have time tonight to study this document in depth but I suspect the thesis is highly debatable. However, even if the BBC were of economic benefit that’s simply not the point. The issue here is that we are all forced to pay for their existence or else face fine and jail. We are given no choice in this national matter and that, in my book, is tantamount to socialist tyranny and state coercion and is quite frankly a relic from the 1930s era of socialism and communism. Why not have a referendum on the BBC? The answer is simple-they would vanish overnight!
Isn’t the BBC more like a money laundering operator, with British licencepayers’ money being forcibly converted into the funds of
self-styled socialists, greenies and statists?
I’ve had a brief look through the whole report and it appears to me that the BBC is trying to justify a whole media ecosystem that is run under its own terms and conditions (arguably these are not transparent). There is very little discussion about global media, only comparisons with ITV and Channel 4, which is a very old fashioned view. Arguably, the BBC does try to compete globally with channels like BBC World news.
Public service broadcasting can be a great thing if it is done properly with a narrow remit e.g. education – it really used to be good at this. What seems to have happened with the BBC is it has gone into empire building mode.
Personally I do not have a TV licence because I object to the news and current affairs arm which I believe is deeply biased and worst still, ignorant. But I am more than happy to purchase a DVD of a program made by the Natural History Unit in Bristol.
Why can’t this model be integrated into the funding system? For example, if the majority of the country believes that public service broadcasting should be protected, a small licence tax could be used to produce educational programs. People who want to watch Eastenders or Top Gear pay per view or pay additional subscription(s). People who want left wing editorial opinions with historical or factual matters conveniently glossed over can subscribe to the news and current affairs unit.
Either way, the whole thing needs to become more transparent and accountable. Reducing the granularity of the funding model opens this up and is a step in the right direction.
Some great points and I agree with you that historically the BBC (especially the regional teams) have contributed massively to the arts, history and science and so on. But as you say they have become ideologically charged, politically biased and simply too powerful in their current affairs coverage. Also, is there really a need for all of these substandard TV shows, radio stations and websites etc? The BBC are everywhere. Personally, I believe that their very existence is designed to counter all competition and they take it for granted now that we, the taxpayer, will put up and shut up. I think the whole notion of a state-funded media channel is antequated and anathema to a modern democratic state-the fact that we are forced to pay for their lavish saleries and left wing agenda is criminal!
Far be it from me to alledge any connection between this encomium to the BBC’s economic value and the BBC’s indulgent treatment of the role of auditors in the recent financial debacle. However, even those dildos on speed – the FSA – last month decided http://uk.reuters.com/article/2011/12/12/uk-rbs-deloitte-idUKTRE7BB17420111212 to report Deloittes to the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board in respect of its “audit” of RBS. This goes along with, for instance, this late 2011 item in the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/business/deloittes-failings-revealed-but-only-after-3-years.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all concerning failings in Deloittes bank audit work in the US.
And the BBC? A search on the BBC website in respect of “bank audit” reveals this list of non-events http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/news/?q=bank%20audit . Now along comes this report telling us how wonderful – and economically valuable – is the BBC. Yes, I’ll admit that this comment could be accused of being substantially ad hominem but here is a report about the BBC, commissioned by the BBC, paid for by the BBC (well, actually by the taxpayer) and written by one of the Big 4 outfits of a profession which the BBC has all but ignored in the parts of the Narrative concerning the assigning of blame for the financial crisis: what do you think it’s going to say? It’s analogous to – and as predictable as – Black writing a report evaluating the scientific credibility of East Anglia Tech concerning CAGW and concluding that the UEA is doing a fine job.
David, I tried, but there’s so much gobbledygook in this document. I was reminded of an old BBC chum who advised me when I had to do one of these reports: “Relax. People only look at the introduction and the conclusions. Forget the rest.” Nevertheless, some random thoughts:
1. What is a “chief operating officer”? What does Ms Thomson actually do? How much is she paid to do it?
2: “The BBC, as a result of its licence-fee rather than advertising based funding, provides the indie sector with more stable and predictable funding…as a result the sector is better financed and more cost-competitive than would otherwise be the case.” Is this a rigged market? Are indies really “friends of the BBC”? Would “David Vance Productions” stand a snowball’s chance in hell of getting a show commissioned? Follow the money!!! That’s where the power is.
3: ”In the absence of the licence fee, the television sector would be more exposed to the volatility of revenues from advertising which vary as a function of the overall economic cycle” – WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD!
4. The BBC’s presence is generally recognised as having been critical to the formation of creative
sector clusters in Bristol, Cardiff and Glasgow, and the commitment to move nearly 2,500 staff to
Salford will create another significant media cluster in the UK after London.” – The BBC plays God. Anyone asked how BBC employees in the once bustling Birmingham centre feel?
5. “The output of the licence fee funded BBC is not affected by the need for immediate profit that is a chief concern for commercial broadcasters. This enables the BBC to deliver programming of an arguably higher quality than that which would otherwise be produced by a purely commercial entity.”
Arguably! Too damn right!
And this general comment: this document is justification for what? What is the BBC’s central mssion? Someone tell me!
What does Caroline Thompson actually do, apart from commission this sort of macro-BS? – who knows. This is the whole ugly bunch paid over £1/4m a year each (2009/10 Accounts) – Caroline Thompson’s “cheap”!
Mark Thompson, Director-General £668,000
Mark Byford, Deputy Director-General £475,000
Jana Bennett, Director, Vision £415,000
Peter Salmon, Director, BBC North £375,000
Tim Davie, Director, Audio & Music £365,000
Zarin Patel, Chief Financial Officer £352,000
Caroline Thomson, Chief Operating Officer £335,000
Erik Huggers, Director,FutureMedia&Techno £330,000
Helen Boaden, Director, BBC News £320,000
Lucy Adams, Director, BBC People £320,000
Pat Younge, Chief Creative Officer £310,000
Richard Sambrook, Director,BBC GlobalNews £299,880
Bal Samra, Director, Vision Ops/RightsBA £280,500
Dominic Coles,Chief Ops OfficerJournalism £257,500
Roly Keating, Director of Archive Content £250,000
What does she do? Everything, it appears – so that the DG doesn’t have to do owt!
Caroline is Chief Operating Officer for the BBC and led the BBC’s bid for a successful review of its Charter.She has responsibility for the BBC’s policy, legal, strategy and distribution functions and responsibility for all the BBC’s major infrastructure projects – digital switchover, the move to north west England and all the BBC’s property plans.She is a member of the BBC’s Executive Board and reports to the Director-General.Caroline manages the BBC’s main policies in regulatory and compliance areas and freedom of information, as well as the BBC’s Legal Affairs unit.Caroline has responsibility for strategic analysis and planning and for the distribution of BBC services and is particularly involved in the development of the BBC’s digital strategy.
The above is taken from the Beeboid web site which helpfully provides bios on its fatcats. You have to look under About the BBC.
London Calling, thank you. I hadn’t seen this latest list. I remember now laughing my head off when I saw that Lucy Adams is the director of something called “BBC People”. This is what used to be called “Human Recources” and before that “Personel”. “BBC PEOPLE” tells you all youneed to know about the fixaion about branding.
Millie Tant, thank you. There was a producer friend who had to fill in a job self-assessment form. She answered “What are your duties?” with “producing programs”; “what would you like to do? with “”produce programs” and what is your next move within the BBC?” with “”produce better programs”. They thought she was joking. They didn’t understand why “all” she wanted to do was produce programs.
Next week Delatoilet will issue a report that proves that for every $1 extracted from everyone to give to the mafia increases the well being of everyone to the tune of $2 .
In fact its so good that the Labour party make it their manifesto policy .
Well at least the BBC are saving money this morning!
Nearly all I`ve heard on the Toady show is about St Stephen of Lawrence and his Liberal route to beatification via our “infromed and progressive tendency”.
I thought we`d seen the last of the socialist dangleberries like Straw and Ouseley…not at all. That it took the Daily Mail to get the mulitkulti vultures off the woolsacks and down to the BBC Green Room finally-after 20 years or so-is seen as something for the oiks to “celebrate”…Well done you!
But no-all rolled out again-and prime among equality wallies is/was and forever will be…Ian Blair.
He said that the old days of “justice being colourblind and treating everyone the same” were the source of this palaver…but, thankfully; we are now more aware of what experiences are brought to the doors of the courts and custody suites these days…so a Lawrence is less likely nowadays was where he was going-before I spat out my tea and turned off!
Near on a thousand yeras of case law down the Swannee then?…no wonder he`s primus inter pares…this ought to be the BBC soundbite for the day, but of course he`s only said what they all take as read…chilling!
Again, it would have been interesting, let alone balanced, to have got someone on Today who believes that the Macpherson Report and the abolition of an 800-year old principle of Common Law were not signposts to “justice for Stephen” or even “justice” but signalled a surrender to the real racism now endemic in the body politic. No-one mentioned that the reason for formal processes and rock-like principles – like the double jeopardy rule – concerning the enforcement of law is above all the protection of the innocent. While we all agree (I think) that those found guilty yesterday were probably the actual perps, tomorrow (or the day after) someone who has already been acquitted of a crime against bien pensant thought and whose guilt is not so unanimously believed in will be hauled through the courts (maybe someone who, amongst other crimes, has refused to pay the BBC tax).
Yes the guilty should be punished but, again, no-one mentioned that the reason the double jeopardy rule had to be abolished was that a member of Matrix Chambers encouraged the Lawrences in an ill-considered private prosecution which acquitted the famous five of the Lawrence murder. Consequently all the liberal strings were pulled and luckily the husband of one of the founders of Matrix Chambers happened to be the prime minister at the time so that the necessary legislation was flung through an acquiescent Parliament.
Coming to this morning’s celebrations, the procession of lefties of all parties – and none – on Today this morning was quite vile in its bias. Even so, it’s bound to get worse since this has been a famous victory for the political class and its mouthpiece the BBC: as at least one of the interviewees (from Matrix Chambers) implied, all the liberal nonsense stemming from disquiet over the Lawrence murder has been good news but, even so, “it doesn’t go far enough”. You’ve been warned!
7 billion? What’s the point of the BBC Tax then? Cut it free, allow it to blossom…
We need a push when the country is Analog-Off that we get this tax removed and set the BBC’s course to subscription…
I now have a 75 year old living in my house so I do not have to fork out any more dosh to the state-funded propagandists.
Question: Does this mean I have forfeited the right to complain?
No, but according to the logic of the BBC , you will be down £ 290 this year because you haven`t sent them £145 .
It makes no difference. I submitted a complaint on 12th December and have heard nothing since. By the time I get a reply telling me that I am wrong and they are right, because they say so, the broadcast in question will have been long forgotten.
Ah, but the memory of a PC or Mac calendar can be long, and remind you every month if you set it.
That’s why I pop off a ‘still wating to hear’ reminder.
They love those, which may explain why I am getting asnswers (albeit pants ones) back by near retur now.
I almsot miss the ‘sorry it has takne so long but we don’t really care’ tempalte versions.
Roland – the Newt Gingrich one? I got a standard brush off about how the aim is to achieve balance over time and not within a single item/broadcast blah blah blah blah bla-bla-blah blah blah…
Funny how when you ask a specific question they are general in their reply and when you ask a general question they say they need specifics. It’s almost as if they are coached in not answering the question.
That’s the one. I haven’t even had a brush off. My complaint was in particular about Mr Mardell’s words “in his own smugly arrogant estimation” about Mr Gingrich. Perhaps more difficult to brush off on the same basis as your complaint. Or maybe they just answered the question they wish you had asked.
By now, of course, I’ve forgotten the specifics of the broadcast, which will make it difficult to enter into detailed argument.
Given this fact (The BBC provides great value – roughly 100% return on our “investment” each year) then they should be pushing very hard for privatisation.
All in favour vote Aye.
Yes !
And roughly 100% means what exactly ?
Dear Bank Manager,
We forecast 100% (roughly) that our fantastic idea (roughly) will yield a return of hitherto unknown proportions of 100% (roughly).
Would you be so kind as to forward us the £147.50 (roughly) as a wise investment for the sake of mankind and to bolster left-wing broadcasting ?
Thank-you,
Deloitte,Deluded and Delirious. (Partners in crime with the BBC).
I only read up to page 47 (before my ipad ran out of juice!), but the BBC’s main argument is that their expenditure is multiplied through the economy by factors of up to 2.2, whereas every other media organisation’s expenditure is multiplied by a lower factor. They may well be right, since other broadcasters, through necessity, show more repeats/imports, where the cost is either exported or restricted to the broadcaster.
The other thing that I noticed was that Deloitte compared the efforts of the BBC with a ‘counterfactual’ broadcaster, ie BBC funded by adverts. In this scenario the licencepayers kept their licence fees, which would be spent on goods/services generating a lower multiple through the economy. In addition, the “BBC” would be competing with ITV etc for revenue & total revenues would fall. However the report didn’t consider a subscription model, which would be a halfway house.
The report’s main flaw IMO is that the BBC pumps money around the economy because of its quasi monopolistic status, but that no other organisation does it as well, because only it receives the licence fee. Maybe sharing the fee, and demanding that a higher percentage is spent outside the M25 (10% of the commercial broadcasters’ revenues atm apparently) would promote regional media centres without the monopolistic BBC.
OK, so what is the COST to the UK taxpayer of the BBC wholeheartedly supporting the Global Warming Scam at every opportunity? Offending our friends, the Republicans, by cosying up to the Obama? Offending Israel by cosing up to Libya, Syria, oops – etc.
Would the BBC want another BBC type organisation to be set up and run concurrently so that we can have twice the benefits.? Funded the same way ?
It has been long-understood that any expenditure by anyone has a “multiplier effect” – the people getting the money go on to spend a lot of it, the next lot spend some too. As someone said – the trickle-down effect is the term used by Reagan, whom the BBC despise.
There is nothing clever about BBC spending having a multiplier effect. So this whole load of guff is pure garbage. “BBC spending has a trickle-down effect” would be a good title.
I wonder how much we ended up paying Deloittes for their involvement in this garbage ?