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How would you cut £613m from the BBC budget?

UK Free TV is making it possible for you to decide what to cut and what to keep. Use the tick boxes to select what you would cut from the BBC budget, and see your progress in the bar below. Please share!!!

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Name	Cost	Reach*
Broadband rollout "topsliced" to BT	£150.0m	-
BBC One	£1,433.6m	45.3m
BBC Two	£533.4m	32.0m
BBC Three (online only)	£20.0m	-
BBC Four	£63.1m	10.6m

BBC Four	£63.1m	10.6m
CBBC	£100.3m	3.6m
CBeebies	£41.1m	5.8m
BBC ALBA	£9.0m	-
BBC News channel	£63.0m	8.8m

BBC Parliament	£10.1m	0.7m
BBC Radio 1	£54.3m	-
BBC Radio 2	£60.4m	-
BBC Radio 3	£55.1m	-
BBC Radio 4	£115.7m	-

BBC Radio 5 Live	£66.1m	-
BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra	£5.7m	-
BBC 1Xtra	£11.1m	-
BBC 6Music	£12.5m	-
BBC 4 Extra	£7.5m	-

BBC Asian Network	£10.7m	-
BBC Local Radio (England)	£153.8m	-
BBC Radio Scotland	£31.4m	-
BBC Radio nan Gaidheal	£6.0m	-
BBC Radio Wales	£19.9m	-

BBC Radio Cymru	£18.3m	-
BBC Radio Ulster/BBC Radio Foyle	£24.0m	-
BBC Online, iPlayer (and Red Button)	£201.0m	-
Orchestras and performing groups	£32.5m	-
S4C (inc direct funding)	£107.0m	0.6m

Development spend	£82.8m	-
BBC World Service operating licence	£253.6m	-
Licence fee collection costs	£110.3m	-
PSB Group pension deficit reduction payment	£376.8m	-
Costs incurred to generate intra-group income	£170.2m	-

Costs incurred to generate third-party income	£133.4m	-
Restructuring costs	£8.4m	-
Digital switchover (DSHS Limited)	£0.4m	-
Local TV	£2.9m	-

Notes: this page is based on the figures in the BBC Full Financial Statements 2014/15, less the change of BBC Three from £114.2m TV to £20m online service. Full Financial Statements also shows the current number of governement-funded 'Over 75s' licences - 4,215,808 - giving the eventual shortfall of £613.4m. BBC Worldwide/BBC America profit of £109m to BBC 'PSB Group' and one-off £78.6m for 'lease reclassification' also not shown. The 'Reach' is the number of people tuning into the service each week, from BARB Viewing Summary and RAJAR Quarterly Listening.

Comments

Saturday, 29 August 2015

NJ
1:30 PM

Government policy toward the BBC is a disgrace. Allowing the BBC to obtain its weather information from other than the MET Office, just show how out of touch this government is. It clearly knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.It is vital for the UK to have a distinct and independent national broadcaster and the country will pay a very high price in reputation, influence and democracy if the BBC is allowed to fall into the hands of the commercial sector.There must be a strong suspicion that the government is targeting the BBC, because of political pressure being applied by certain international broadcasters who want to take control of the UK TV market. If the BBC is reduced to a shadow of is former glory, the of TV in the UK will fall to unimaginable low standards, with US style commercials that last longer than the programs and unfettered political bias in favour of multinational corporate vested interests. The BBC is not without fault, unfortunately those who are deciding where the axe should fall are the ones who should be sacked first and are likely to be the last to go.I personally find the BBC obsession with sports coverage irritating, as the costs far out weight the value of the over extended coverage. I resent the license fee being spent on highly over paid professional sportsmen (persons).The BBC internet services are the bench mark for production values by which other are judged, particularly the BBC news channel. But again there is strong indications that this is under attack, with recent evidence of political manipulation, both in the stories that are covered and those that are missing.I have long believed that the move to digital was the prelude to pay per view TV services, a view now confirmed by published government documents, and that the drive for super fast broadband will ultimately lead to the switch off of Free-view TV broadcast transmitters in favour of internet television services. This opinion was mocked when I first published it on this forum. As time has past the evidence that it is correct has mounted, with BBC3 moved to the internet and the emergence of providers such as Netflix and Amazon TV to name but a few.The BBC is not perfect, but it is a lot better than the grim future that awaits if vested interests get their way and take control. I urge everyone to fight to keep our national broadcaster independent and able to inform, educate and entertain to world class standards as it once did and to some extent still does.

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NJ's 16 posts US flag

MikeB

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Platinum

8:17 PM
Macclesfield

David: I'm sure Brianist has some figures somewhere, but probably not a huge amount. The content is relatively cheap, because the audience isn't huge. However, it would be amazingly unpopular, judging by my Dad's viewing habits, and I suspect there would be rioting in the streets, although it would be relatively slow moving, judging by the audience demographic.

It also would have a 'Life on Mars' vibe, since if you look at the BBC's excellent Genome project, BBC Genome , thats pretty much what happened in about 1973. Its of course why you watched 'Farmhouse Kitchen' and 'Crown Court' on ITV if you were a kid off ill from school in the 1970's - there was nothing else to watch.

NJ, I totally agree that both the BBC and the Met Office important national assets (and should be defended), but both are between a rock and a hard place. The Met Office is a Government Agency expected to make more money, which means they must maximise revenue. At the same time the BBC has had a large cut in real terms funding over the past 5 years, and has had to shoulder costs that it previously not have to (the World Service and S4C, for instance). And now its expected to pay for the over 75's (who of course will rise up as one should they stop broadcasting 'Cash in the Attic'). So something has to give, and they would be breaking EU rules if they didn't put the contract out to tender. And they have to look for best value.

BTW - you've got the wrong end of the stick about . Brianist quotes from Greg Dykes book some times ago Popular misconceptions 3: looking back at DG Greg Dyke - which explains that the whole point of rolling out was the exact opposite.

'Freeview was also important to the BBC defensively. Opponents of the licence fee always argue that once everyone can get pay television the licence fee as a means of funding the BBC will be unnecessary... Freeview makes it very hard for any Government to try to make the BBC a pay-television service. The more Freeview boxes out there, the harder it will be to switch the BBC to a service since most of the boxes can't be adapted for pay TV.'

Please read it - its an interesting article. I wish someone as clever and ruthless as Dyke was running the BBC now.

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MikeB's 2,579 posts GB flag

MikeB's: M's Freeview map M's terrain plot M's frequency data M's Freeview Detailed Coverage

Sunday, 30 August 2015

Dave
8:28 AM

Take all the "foreign language" bits away ( eg S4C costs are outrageous for its tiny audience) plus all the minority TV and radio plus local radio/TV -concentrate on the main 2 TV channels plus one for children, 4 radio channels with "regional" cover provided by English language radio eg Radio , Radio Scotland.
Continue with the full online presence. According to the above figures that gives ~ £33.7 M more than required.

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Dave's 19 posts GB flag

David
9:58 AM

You say "Foreign Language" but Welsh is not "Foreign". I agree the cost of S4C is outrageous and could be better delivered vis the iPlayer/internet plus more integration within the BBC. BBC pay for it they should control it. Although world service is a good for people away form the UK all the international language versions paid for by the BBC is ridiculous considering at home are been cut back.

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David's 1 post GB flag

Dave
10:52 AM

Actually chopped the World Service on 1st run thru' -but saved far too much LOL

My point about Welsh is that there are supposed to be 500,000+ Welsh speakers -but in my personal experience,this figure includes people who know the odd phrase or too - I worked for a large Company in Cardiff with in excess of 200 employees mostly local to SE and when we had a problem with the Welsh Language Society we couldn't find anyone on site who spoke the lingo !!!

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Dave's 19 posts GB flag

Alan G
1:59 PM

Is there a problem with this site? I can't access page one or two's comments.

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Alan G's 19 posts GB flag

Monday, 31 August 2015

Briantist

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

11:25 AM

Alan G: Please try again, the code was stripping of the PGSTART due to the way it was set up.

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Briantist's 38,915 posts ZZ flag

John Simmons
1:56 PM

There are a lot of overlapping genres on Radios 1, 1Extra, 2, and 6Music, some genres featuring on all four. Two of those could go, my choices would be 1Extra and 6Music with their content spread over 1 and 2. The BBC could also money by not employing high profile celebs and musicians as radio presenters. And don't get me started on football pundits' salaries.

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John Simmons's 1 post GB flag

Briantist

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

5:49 PM

John Simmons: Hi. £23.6m? You're not getting very far towards £610m? And, as I said above " The BBC's total budget for all its presenters, actors and performers - from Gary Lineker to the extras on EastEnders - is £188m a year." from the FT http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2…html . Where's the other £589.8m to come from?

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Briantist's 38,915 posts US flag

Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Briantist

_{sentiment_very_satisfied}Owner

9:12 AM

--- just testing the link to Viewing summary - BARB ---

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Briantist's 38,915 posts US flag

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