A future for the BBC?

As a Capper the BBC is the prime source for my work but for how much longer?

As most if not all of you have heard the BBC is faced with making substantial cuts to it’s workforce in the coming years due to its financial situation here I will discuss some of the issues involved in this.

We all know the BBC is primarily funded by the revenue from the TV licence which is all well and good but where else does the money come from? Other income is generated from licensing the rights of its shows to overseas markets and the sale of merchandise from said shows but beyond that most of us are scratching our heads trying to think of anything else.

Herein lies the problem the business model used by the BBC is decades out of date just how can the corporation generate the income to compete in the modern media world? Lets look at how the competition get their money.

ITV traditionally the BBC’s biggest rival are primarily funded by advertising more viewers equals greater advertising revenues very simple as long as they can consistently attract viewers everything is fine but ITV are more likely to disappear down the toilet long before the BBC as they haven’t produced hit shows on a regular basis for years and only survive by fooling viewers into watching karaoke at weekends pretending they are discovering musical talent. Sky and Virgin Media have a newer more advanced business model where they generate income from people paying a monthly subscription fee for the service on top of the money they earn from advertising.

The cable and satellite providers also offer other services to their customers VM has a very expensive fibre optic cable network through which they can also provide broadband and phone services offered to their customers in packages to generate yet more income. Sky work with other providers to offer similar services and don’t have the huge infrastructure costs of a cable/phone line network to worry about.

There is also BT Vision but that’s so crap it’s not even worth discussing. Out of these new providers only Sky has been a real success as the business has steadily grown over the last 20 years while Virgin Media have struggled burdened by the debt incurred in setting up and maintaining their infrastructure which limits them in competing with Sky for TV customers.

What have the BBC done in response to the competition from the new media providers? Not a lot by the looks of it. To enter the Digital TV market the BBC opted to back the Freeview system which sounds fair enough to start with as it keeps its TV and radio services freely available to its customers through the existing aerial system with minimal amounts needing to be spent by the customers to upgrade to the service. But then we hit a problem with technology you generally get what you pay for which in the case of spending next to nothing is a third rate system lagging well behind the competition. The BBC’s services are also available through the cable and satellite providers with better picture quality and more interactive services etc instantly sending it’s viewers to buy the better systems giving more money and viewers to the competition not good business sense.

To invest in new technology the BBC has had to reduce it’s workforce to help balance the books. So far this has given us inferior new developments like substandard HD and the quality of the other services is starting to suffer with the reduced staff or the replacement of experienced staff with cheaper alternatives.

This brings us back to the corporation’s business model. In Successful companies staff make the company money one way of another. How can the BBC’s staff do this? They can work harder producing better programming etc but what does this do? More viewers don’t equal more money except for its rivals (see above) this may generate more income from the licensing side but it doesn’t help greatly unless the show is a huge hit Like Life on Mars or SCD but how many hits get produced these days?

At the moment the BBC looks like all traditional British business living in the past and unable to compete with newer more advanced companies. Unless this changes there is only one outcome THE END OF THE BBC. Companies that cut staff and corners to reduce costs are only going one place and that’s out of business. This has been proven time and time again in with companies clinging to the past offering obsolete products who quickly fall by the wayside when newer better products arrive on the market.

What is needed is a complete shake up of the BBC from top to bottom as due to the cost cutting of recent years it is riddled with incompetence from the management all the way to its onscreen employees possibly a break away from government control as lets face it when has anything controlled by the government ever worked well? A new business model MUST be created to allow it to move forward and compete on at least a level playing field.

If the BBC wants to remain in existence and at the forefront of broadcasting it has to invest heavily and take the lead in technology and services not just limp along offering inferior versions of its rivals services and hoping it’s customers will stay loyal to it otherwise it will just become an iconic symbol of the past.