NOTHING, repeat NOTHING in the proposed legislation actually restricts the press in any way - if they are prepared to go to arbitration and not use their financial clout to bully - yes BULLY - those whom they decide to pick on because they know that those so bullied will not be able to answer back or afford to take legal action. El Reg has drunk far too much of the Murdoch and Dacre "Coolade" in this article. Whilst the British press seem to want everybody else "regulated" they baulk at the idea of that happening to themselves, but the fact is they are out of control and - actually at the moment a huge danger to our democracy themselves. Clause 40 AND Leveson 2 MUST happen and the sooner the better so that we have a RESPONSIBLE press, not one that is set on trying to dictate it's own (or rather the interests of it's owners) agenda.
Posts by chrspy
35 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Mar 2012
You have the right to be informed: Write to UK.gov, save El Reg
Lester Haines: RIP
Who's to blame for the NHS drug prices ripoff?
BBC's Britflix likely dead before the ink has even dried on the news
Re: I think a paid service would only work
Uncle Rupe is quoted as saying "When I go to Downing Street they do what I say, when I go to Brussels they ignore me". Aside from the obvious implications for the referendum it also says that this government will not be "receptive" to anything that threatens Sky or what I have seen termed as Casa Rupra ......
Re: re: Government representation on the board
YOu obviously missed the result of that FoI request which showed that The BBC purchased more copies of the Daily Mail than any other newspaper. And also the more recent independently conducted poll where, given a choice of seven different news organisations including Sky News, ITV News and Channel 4 News, 58% of respondents ranked the BBC first for balanced and unbiased reporting. Sky News was second, with 15%. That gap is far too large to be a polling error!!
The BBC also ranked top when given a selection of non-broadcast sources of news. Half of respondents ranked it first as a trusted source of balanced and unbiased reporting, ahead of family members (18%), national broadsheet newspapers (11%), social media (5%) and national tabloids (2%).
BBC telly tax drops onto telly-free households. Cough up, iPlayer fans
We all pay towards commercial TV through the "advertising premium" which we pay on all our goods and services but if we then do not pay the exorbitant subscriptions (BSkyB profits last year over £1bn!!!) then we are paying towards TV services that (unlike the BBC which is "free to air") we cannot even receive. I get very fed up about those who scream about the "injustice" of the "tele-tax" but fail to recognise the even greater injustice of having (short of shoplifting how do you avoid it?) to pay (last time I worked it out is was £200+ per mean average household - well above the licence fee!!) towards something that you cannot even partake in ............
Re: The "all work must be rewarded" mentality
Have you never thought that you are paying towards all the commercial channels every time you shop? The supermarket next door IS forcing you to pay for them (even though, apparently, you can't even get them). You don't have to pay a TV licence if you do not have a TV, but every household in Britain is paying towards commercial TV, whether they have aTV or not, and whether they can receive the service or not. now THAT IS injustice .............
Re: The "all work must be rewarded" mentality
Meanwhile of course, "lack of work" is rewarded in the commercial media world. We all pay towards commercial TV through the "advertising premium" which we pay on all our goods and services but if we then do not pay the exorbitant subscriptions (BSkyB profits last year over £1bn!!!) then we are paying towards TV services that (unlike the BBC which is "free to air") we cannot even receive. I get very fed up about those who scream about the "injustice" of the "tele-tax" but fail to recognise the even greater injustice of having (short of shoplifting how do you avoid it?) to pay toards something that you cannot even partake in ............
BBC Trust candidate defends licence fee, says evaders are CRIMINALS
Did you know ... Stephen Fry has founded a tech startup?
Capita hiring temps to cover for call centre redundancies – staff sources
Chill, luvvies. The ‘unsustainable’ BBC Telly Tax stays – for now
Re: Am I the only person...
But who pays for the advertising? We all do through the advertising premium on all our goods and services which you cannot avoid unless you become a self sufficient hermit! And actually that Pay as You Shop "tax" is more (average household £200+) than the licence fee. If people who don't watch the BBC should not have to pay towards the BBC why should people who CAN'T watch Sky (because they can't afford the exorbitant subscriptions!) have to pay towards the commercial channels .........?????
The Walton kids are ABSURDLY wealthy – and you're benefitting
Climate: 'An excuse for tax hikes', scientists 'don't know what they're talking about'
Surely the point that all governments seem to agree can actually be argued the other way. For instance I could see that at the moment Mr Putin would want to make it uncomfortable for western governments. What better way to do that than to join the "denier" side to try and embarrass them. The fact that this has not happened yet - even the Chinese seem to agree that AGW IS happening (though they're not doing much about it!) - suggests to me that the scientific evidence IS there.
BT Sport scores own goal with £897m Champions League footie rights deal
Why does the Reg seem always to be in favour of Sky? Anyone who starts breaking the Sky broadcasting monopoly is good for me. Murdoch used his ill-gotten gains from moving The Sun to Wapping to fund Sky for years. Now someone is coming along who can give them a run for their money, unlike the previous attempts which have lacked the background structure .......
Re: BBC
God help us if that day ever comes. The quality of TV has nosedived since the advent of Sky with the BBC having to go downmarket as well to keep up it's ratings (imagine the hoo-ha over the licence fee if the BBC was not still regularly topping the ratings). If the BBC were to go then 24/7/365 X-factor/Big Brother/Get me out of here, etc ..............
Paying a TV tax makes you happy - BBC
Best value?
Is Mr Orlowski a friend of Mr Dacre at the Daily Mail, perhaps? Anti-BBC posters really ought to remember that the "average" British household pays £200+ per year in "advertising premium" on its goods and services towards the commercial media. It pays that money whether or not those in the dwelling can actually receive so many of those channels because they have to pay exorbitant (considering how repetitive the channels are) subscriptions to do so. On that basis the free to air BBC actually becomes very good value....
Era of the Pharaohs: Climate was hotter than now, without CO2
Re: Personally,
"Follow the money"? If you "follow the money" that is funding the "warmist deniers" it leads straight back to the fossil fuel industry, the Koch brothers, EXXon etc... If you want a conspiracy theory, that surely is the one to go for?
Apart from Gore, who Repubs naturally hate, can you show me any scientist - you know, the ones who do the the real work trying to determine whether or not it is actually happening - who is making money from the "warmist" theories? The last time saw figures about 93% of scientists who had any claim to be experts in this field thought that there was a cause for concern. Would you drive over a high bridge if that percentage of structural engineers said it was likely to collapse?
How can the BBC be saved from itself without destroying it?
Apart from being a self sufficient hermit there is no way to avoid paying for the commercial channels through the advertising premium we all pay on all our goods and services. The figure is approximately £200 p.a.. If you don't watch commercial channels or can't pay the subscriptions you are still paying for the channels - exactly the same situation as you are complaining about with the BBC - except, of course, the BBC is "free to air" which so many commercial channels are not!!
Absurd mumbo-jumbo. Companies selling products have to advertise, regardless of where they do it. It's budgeted into their accounts. When I walk past an advertisement on a billboard I don't curse, "ooh, that's raised the price of bread by 2p."............
Years ago I worked as a student in a bakery making those exceedingly good cakes. They were also making for several supermarket chains - exactly the same recipes and products. The only difference was the boxes and the price on the boxes - up to about (back in the early 70's) 3p per box!! That's what the advertising costs you!! The last time I looked at the figures for the total advertising spend on broadcast media (Ofcom website) and the number of households in the UK (I think it was the Dept of the Environment I got the figure from) the simple division worked out that the average household pays something over £200 per year (cf the licence fee figure!!) to fund the commercial channels. And many of those channels, of course, are behind subscription walls so - even though you're paying - you don't get anything in return, so you're paying for the viewing habits of others (just as so many resent having to do for the BBC!).
Re: The BBC is ... the vampire. Literally. It sucks peoples' money away
MOst of the commercial channels would dread the 'privatisation' of the BBC. Even Elizabeth Murdoch spoke against it at Edinburgh not so long ago. There is hardly enough advertising revenue to fund all the current commercial channels - imagine what would happen if you threw the BBC into that market too. THEN it would truly become the vampire sucking the lifeblood out of the rest of commercial TV. As it is it forces the main channels to keep a modicum of programme quality rather than the total dross that inhabits much American TV. (And before anyone says HBO remember the relative populations of America and Britain and work out how that would relate to the subscription base for a "British HBO")
US broadcasters put the squeeze on small-town cable TV
Big Media drags 142,000 through UK's courts in a year
There is no such thing as "free" TV
What Mr Orlowski conveniently forgets is that we ALL have to pay for ALL TV, either through the licence fee or through the advertising 'premium' that we pay on the goods and services we purchase.
Ofcom reckons that the total advertising spend on radio and TV per year is £4.5 billion. The number of households in this country being about 23 million, if my maths is correct that gives a mean average per household of something like £200 - well in excess of the licence fee!
So most people are paying large amounts of money for channels that they cannot even receive, because you must factor in the exorbitant subscriptions that we have to pay to receive most of those commercial channels!
When one starts looking at it like that, the free to air BBC actually becomes extraordinarily good value, whatever class you are in!
Biting the hand that feeds IT
