BBC website suits slapped for cash splurge

The BBC Trust has today sharply criticised BBC executives for poor management of online services after an investigation of the finances of bbc.co.uk revealed it was £36m over-budget. The review by the Corporation's independent governing body, which represents licence fee payers, revealed the splurge on bbc.co.uk hit £110m in …

[Anonymous Coward]

Then increase the budget!

I'll happily help pay for the deficit. The BBC's websites make up most of the very small subset of semi-decent websites.

[Gordon Pryra]

@Then increase the budget!

Bolloxs!!

Burn them all at the stake!!

You can get all the stuff from BBC.co.uk by asking the guy sitting behind me in the open plan office anyway!!!

Witches and Warlocks the lot of them, and they seem to cost the tax payer about the same as 4 cruise missiles!!1

[Louis Cowan]

Re:AC

You might be happy to pay for it, but I'm certainly not! The TV licence is the REAL modern day piracy, and it needs to end.

[John Widger]

Any guesses...

As to who pays for this incompetence?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone remember Not The Nine o'Clock News" Points of View"?

"Thirty-two pounds for a TV license?

It's far too low. For the excellent service the BBC provides, it should be at least £500."

And another flock of letters concerning the Test Card. "Well done the BBC - another winner".

[Anonymous Coward]

As usual

Seems like folks go daft when taking the Gravy Train passed the Bottomless Pit next to the Money Tree on the way to dipping the Public Purse.

[Anonymous Coward]

economic cost

I wonder how much bbc.co.uk costs the world's economy in lost productivity?

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's where all the money went...

I'd been wondering for some time what happened to all the money that used to be paid to quality journalists who would write balanced and well informed articles. it's been getting plowed into making interactive c-beebies sites. Fantastic.

I've been thinking maybe it's time to split the license fee up. Or at least have tiered licensing so those that don't want to pay for crap like HD channels and BAD - sorry, DAB - don't pay for it and thus can't access it. Ok, so the model allows promotion of new technologies that can cross to the mainstream, but we seem to be placing a lot of trust in these idiots to decide what those technologies are. Just looking at the DAB debacle is enough to convince me that the wrong decisions are being made - and being made with MY money..

[Anonymous Coward]

W3C pedant

Anyone every tried running news.bbc.co.uk through W3Cs validator?

Clearly they didn't get their money's worth there.

[Anonymous Coward]

bloody piracy....

I don't object to paying power bills, water bills, hell, even the council tax. I do at least get something from them

The BBC, however, charge me a yearly licence fee whether I watch their miserable station or not (and I don't - I don't listen to their equally miserable radio stations either).

I pay Sky a monthly stipend to provide my household with something that passes for 'entertainment' - I have no objection to that as it's both optional and productive. If the BBC would have the decency to go subscription only, however, I'd drop 'em so fast their heads would spin.

Time to quit with the 'crap TV tax' and let 'em stand or fall in competition with commercial channels.

Rant over.

[Gordon Matson]

Already covered by commercial sites?

I can understand why they think online film reviews aren't priority, but i fully expect the BBC to cover local news. Maybe there are several thousand sites covering what's going on in the capital, but up here in the back of beyond (NE Scotland) we haven't got a huge selection.

OK so the fee is a rip off and it has been badly managed, but taking away services which are actually necessary isn't going to fix the problem. Just bung in a bean counter with a spine.

[Jason]

Bolox 2 u

do u wnt evry1 2 spk lik dis den??? cos da comerchall statons r shit an r tunin us into nation of chavs ooked on realitee tv n wnk 'comdy' n 'dwama' showz.

da bbc shood be eld accountaball of corse but dey r betta dan mos shit out dere.

[Anonymous Coward]

@SKY TV

"I pay Sky a monthly stipend to provide my household with something that passes for 'entertainment' - I have no objection to that as it's both optional and productive."

Personally I object to subsiding your 'entertainment' every time I have to buy insurance, or anything else in fact. At least with the Beeb you know how much you are taxed and actually get some decent output for it too.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth every penny

For the Radio 4 alone.

I especially hate commercial radio, peppered every 3 minutes with adverts.

iPlayer, Radio 4, Mark Kermodes Film Reviews on FiveLive, BBC Websites (including CBeebies for the little-uns) and Life on Mars are also amongst the other fantastic things that it produces.

[The Other Steve]

@Louis Cowan

"You might be happy to pay for it, but I'm certainly not! The TV licence is the REAL modern day piracy, and it needs to end."

No, REAL modern day piracy is when you go to sea and a load of heavily armed bastards murder you (after raping any women you may have aboard), take your money and valuables, and then either steal, sink, or set fire to, your boat.

£139 a year for a TV licence buys you 8 TV channels, at least 11 radio stations, all of which can be streamed over the net to anywhere in the world, pays for a global news network which is still the envy of the world (it's hard to believe this until you try watching some of the other available news networks), and iPlayer. And in the UK all of his is delivered to you, the viewer (and/or listener) without commercials.

Can you see the difference ?

[James Pickett]

@sky2

"I pay Sky a monthly stipend"

That'll be the Murdoch tax, then. Makes the Beeb one look like one of the bargains of all time...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wacky Idea

How about charging for access to BBC programming for those that don't currently pay through the license fee - e.g. radio broadcasts available via the web, foreign broadcast of UK programmes....

We pay, they get it for nowt.

[John]

licence fee vs sky

I dislike the tax-like nature of the licence fee and the scare-ads used to get people to pay (only £9/month by direct debit or ONE THOUSAND POUND FINE, EVILDOER!)

However, at least there are no ads on the BBC, apart from them repeating the sponsor's title of any sports trophies and competitions at every opportunity. I refuse to pay for Sky while they show advertisements to subscribers.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ bloody piracy....

Oh dear, someone's mistaken El Reg for The Sun's Spaek Yur Branez pages. Now, if you neither watch or listen to the BBC's output, how do you know it's "miserable"?

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Sky TV (Sky isn't all-caps)

And how much tax does Sky pay?

[Neil Greatorex]

@ bloody piracy....

"I pay Sky a monthly stipend to provide my household with something that passes for 'entertainment' - I have no objection to that as it's both optional and productive."

You've got to laugh. Who, in their right mind, pays - yes, pays - for 45 minutes of advertising an hour? Aren't the adverts meant to pay for the service?

Licence fee, in my opinion, is very good value for money, have you seen the crap that's comically called "televison" in the US or Oz?

[Mark]

Where the money went

It went to Microsoft (isn't the leaving exec from Microsoft?) to pay for the iPlayer which was Windows only. And, hey, how much back do the BBC get from Kangaroo (wtf? is this monkey being ironic or does he KNOW nobody can do a thing about it???) for using iPlayer Intellectual Property in his new company..?

[Andrew]

@ Simon

I don't know about £500, but they should certainly raise it - if only so they can afford to issue their cameramen with tripods. I'm getting tired of the fashion for wobbliness.

As for the TestCard - yes please - even if only for a few minutes late in the evening - I want to check my alignment.

[Will Godfrey]

Bloatware?

Anyone else noticed that since their <cough> upgrade it is now just about the slowest site on the 'net to load and display its homepage?

[Jimbos]

American TV

Aside from the fact that I think the BBC does produce a wide variety of excellent programmes (although I agree not as many as they used to), anyone who wants to ditch the BBC should take a trip to the USA to understand how horrendus TV would be without it..

30 min ad-breaks anyone?

The only reason ITV, Sky etc don't force us to watch hundreds of ad-breaks is because we have the BBC. Also, we complain about shows being over-hyped, over-edited fake nonsense but anyone who has compared a british programme with its american equivalent will know bad it could get..

Ask the BBC to have better control over its finances by all means but ditching the BBC would be madness..

Paris because she's a symbol of TV without (most of) the BBC.

[J-Wick]

View from the colonies...

I'm sure that making the BBC complete with Sky et. al. would force them to use their funds more effiiciently, but I suspect that it would only acclerate a 'race to the bottom' with reality TV shows & celebrity gossip masquerading as news. Basically what America has right now. Which makes me want to thump people.

I am surprised that AC couldn't find anything to listen to on their radio stations - the range is pretty broad. Pop, Rock, Jazz, classical, world, urban, sports, even Radio 4... :) What do you listen to, and what doesn't the BBC provide?

Heart cos I do love the Beeb, though I know it's not perfect...

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF !

"£139 a year for a TV licence "

You must be joking!

[Anonymous Coward]

@Bloody Piracy

I happen to like BBC Radio stations - I rarely listen to any one elses. However, I rarely watch BBC TV these days. Still, I'll pay the license fee in order to keep the radio stations running.

Its just the way the license fee is managed which I hate. If only we could get shot of the jack booted thugs - who sometimes send two items in the mail - one with your license confirmation, and another summoning you to court for lack of same.

One day, someone with the time will haul the idiots through the court so we can all have a laugh - and watch it on BBC TV News too. ;-)

Regards

Neil

[Chris Matchett]

news.bbc.co.uk redesign...

... was a bloody shambles. The site now doesn't render properly outside of IE, has too much whitespace, less information and just plain fails woefully.

And that's where a lot of that money went.

[Liam]

the bbc is just annoying sometimes...

..by how much money it wastes. 97million on a new channel for the scottish language! wtf? its the 4th most widely spoken language in scotland! this is just a waste of money. i also find it a bit annoying that everyone from the beeb seems to be from the south, scotland or ireland - what about the north? you know, that bit that subsidises the south :)

they do provide a few good things, but HD channel is badly supported (hardly ever anything good on it) plus dr who not in HD! bbc3 and 4 never have anything on! then we supply the rest of the world with the service we pay for...

reduce all these bullshit niche stations and channels and concentrate on quality - where is the decent humour at the moment? this is one thing the beeb excel at.

oh, and did you know the beeb is helping channel 4s financing of HD! wtf? it has hundreds of millions in the bank yet license fee money going to help it!

also the beeb DOES have adverts - about 3 mins of WE ARE GREAT between each show now. so all we lack is 1 advert break per 30 mins and its channel 4!

[Matt]

Some comments:

@The Other Steve: Have you ever watched TV in another country and understood it? Envy of the world, laughing stock more like! The BBC did have a good reputation but it's mostly lost now.

I don't object to the BBC, but I do object to the mission creep and in this case the money they've wasted on their web site. Spend it on programming you muppets!

[Daniel Voyce]

How?>

How does a website cost £110m? BBC website is great but im still not sure how you can justify £110m on a website

[Chewy]

Content

The main problem with the BBC is that it is following Sky and ITV by having reality TV rubbish. There should be more intellectual content rather than rubbish that appeals to the average Sun reader. Bring up the quality and I will gladly pay. At least that Fern Cotton has gone elsewhere with her vile tones.

[Neil Greatorex]

@ W3C pedant

"Anyone every tried running news.bbc.co.uk through W3Cs validator?

Clearly they didn't get their money's worth there."

I just put www.w3.org through the w3c's validator, no it didn't blow up the internet, unlike googling "google" or looking up wikipedia on wikipedia :-)

Seen how many errors are thrown up? 53!

I think w3.org need to eat their own dog food.

I'm already on my way out of the door, no coat today.

[Anonymous Coward]

People who complain about the cost of the license fee..

.. and then moan that they already pay Murdoch monthly. These people should be first against the wall, come the revolution.

[john smith]

Does anyone mind if we stick to the facts here?

The problem as I understand it was caused by Mark Thompsons devolution of the budget. I believe Ashley Highfield and the bbc.co.uk tech team escaped criticism from the Trust in fact the opposite was true. So its not overspend its just misallocation of funds from an accountancy perspective mainly caused by Simon Nelson's Vision.

[Mark]

@The Other Steve

Fair enough 140 quid is good for 8 channels. However, they're now 8 channels of shite.

Four. No need for more. Heck two and a bit would be OK.

BBC1 : News, Sport, drama, soap, etc. Fairly broad requirements, go for the larger market. Buy in stuff if welcome solid stuff. Don't bid too high, so many people get Sky et al too, so don't blow your pay there.

BBC2 : Educational, sidelined sports (lacrosse, crown green et al), new comedy, deeper drama and "news" sites that cover "what's new in science/business/technology/medicine" sort of things. Niche stuff that still cover a broad spectrum, filling in the gaps and going somewhat more highbrow.

BBC3 : Mini series, one-offs, theatre, opera, music, concerts, experimental, comedy. Some place to see what could be the next big thing. sell the ideas to other BBC channels or outside to bulk up the money available

BBC4 : Talking heads, politics, discussion shows. Really quite dull stuff but stuff needed nevertheless to be known (or at least available) to the public. Should still be pretty damn cheap.

2&3 could probably be merged and 4 may only be a half-day or half-week thing.

We DO NOT need a 24-hour News channel. There's not any more news happening, so you're left trying to big up stories and dig out from other areas stories that will at least fill the gaps. And you're still repeating the same freaking news every 15 minutes... STOP IT!

[Claire Rand]

competition...

i just hope that when they are accused of damaging commercial sites, they only have to consider UK based sites for UK organisations that pay tax in the UK.

frankly if the BBC is 'competing' with some US based site I don't care, or other European sites for that matter.

we pay for it, as a service to the uk population, the fact the rest of the world can see it is a bonus to them.

given most of the commercial companies are probably based outside the UK this shouldn't be a problem.

frankly I don't _care_ if the BBC competes with commercial sites, if they win they are presumably doing something better, or at least less annoying. if the commercial companies don't like it.. well they are meant to be more 'efficient' and should be able to wipe the floor with the BBC anyway.

[Chris Collins]

bbc needs to get to grips and be back in the real world

Daniel said it all, the fact they managed to spend over 100 million pounds on a website and still do a bad job of it is appalling, they clearly have no sense of getting value for money because they know the money will keep coming through compulsary payments. The bbc is funded wrong for the following reasons.

1 - It is unfair on the low paid.

2 - It is unfair on those who would not choose to use the bbc if they had the choice of not paying for it.

3 - it is unfair on competing channels.

As for comparing uk to usa tv, most of my favourite all time shows are american, buffy, angel, lost, 24, rome (part bbc), prison break. Whilst here its all soaps and reality tv.