BBC DQF

please read the intro on the main page linked to here before proceeding if you haven’t already done so

Delivering Quality First that’s what DQF stands for on the face of it that sounds like a good slogan but it’s just that a slogan and nothing more. Sadly it’s been many years since the BBC put quality first and I can’t see that changing. The sad fact is most if not all of the management and a large proportion of the rest of the staff who work for the BBC couldn’t care less about the quality of the output. The truth is this should really be called DCF as all this is about is delivering cuts first and sod the quality hardly surprising from an organisation run by a 2 faced 4 letter word like Mark Thompson. Even the DQF document itself is total crap the first people to be axed should be the morons who wrote that corporate jargon filled badly set out pile of junk which doesn’t even contain all of the proposed changes.

Having said that lets see what can be done with some of these proposals. I’m going comment on some of the BBC’s ideas and add some of my own relating to some of the plans followed by another section of further ideas I have for things not and/or poorly covered in the proposals.

Television

BBC1 takes up over £1billion of the annual budget so is a good place to start making savings lets see what needs to go/change there.

Looking at the daytime schedule it’s already cheap filler shows nearly all day but one show that needs to go is Doctors producing this show every day must cost a fair bit and can’t be drawing any significant viewing numbers in the 1:45-2:15pm slot plus the show ceased being even remotely believable years ago. Given that this is supposed to be “Quality First” time to can this rubbish.

I’ve looked through a weeks worth of listings for BBC1 and quite frankly I haven’t got a clue where that £1b goes. During a normal week there aren’t really any shows that should be eating up that sort of money. I suspect a few hundred million would be for Sports rights but useful information like this isn’t listed within the consultation. Considering BBC1 makes up around a third of the annual budget there should be a comprehensive list of where this money goes so we can decide if it’s being spent the right way.

One major expense could be reduced here though and that is the presenter salaries. It’s time to give Graham Norton his P45 as he’s being paid around £1.5m per year last time I heard even if the 1 was taken off that he would still be getting too much. According to a newspaper article 274 “stars” at the BBC are earning more than £100k a year this is ridiculous. I can understand there will be a fair number earning this sort of money like actors in shows like Eastenders and Doctor Who that draw decent ratings but there are people like newsreaders earning in this bracket as well. Rumour has it that Kate Silverton earns £350k a year what value for money does she provide? Very little I would suggest the same would go for Emily Maitlis who upon returning from maternity leave had her pay doubled to £200k a year such an increase is scandalous. There are first class presenters out there that would probably kill to do these jobs for £50-75k per year why not let them have a go New talent needs to be brought in as most of the higher paid “talents” are generally past their prime now and will be moving on to other things in the next few years.

Next with TV lets save some money by scraping BBC3 this channel is just a waste of space no one has any idea who it’s aimed at or any reason for it’s existence full stop if BBC2 is going to show lots of repeats put the new stuff from 3 on there instead as there are enough other channels showing BBC reruns without the BBC itself using them as cheap filler.

Radio

Savings can be made very easily here starting with shutting down Radio1 and 2. Why is the thick end of £100m being spent on running stations that play music that can already be found very easily in a market that’s at saturation point with commercial stations? The BBC should be about providing something different. The days of needing radio stations to play popular music are a thing of the past and the need for such stations is only going to reduce. The fact that these stations lose money is quite shocking as well in  other areas of business companies pay a broadcaster to promote their products not the other way round. Why is this not the case with the music industry?  And should money really be spent on promoting the products of private companies? If it was anything other than music it would be called product placement and if putting a song on regular rotation isn’t placing a product then I don’t know what is.

While I’m on the subject of Music this brings me back to TV and the amount of music heard during shows each day given the situation with the Radio I presume royalties have to be paid each time a song is used so why do we have so much music on? It often appears in news reports at local level for example music has no place in a news report unless it’s the subject of the report itself especially if we have to pay for its use. It’s always the same stuff as well anyone who watches a fair bit of BBC programming is very familiar with most of the Elbow and Doves back catalogue now. Would it be possible to do away with word association music on TV viewers do not need to hear Queen every time the word bicycle is used or The Clash’s London Calling every time London is mentioned for example.

Nations and Regions

The proposals made by the BBC here are mixed first off doing away with the 3pm news update makes a lot of sense as does reducing the number of regions with Inside out shows as there are only so many “surprising stories” each area can come up with. Onto the bad now and the potential reduction of regions carried on digital providers this is an awful idea each region is viewed by a significant number of people from outside each region through this service as evidenced frequently by the letters/e-mails etc. sent in to the shows by viewers these shows can also provide more complete coverage of national news stories taking place in that region that draw viewers in from elsewhere the full range of regions must be maintained and ideally broadcast in HD along with the nations. Distribution costs can be reduced elsewhere something I will come on to later.

The other bad idea here is the ending the regional news bulletins on Saturday lunchtimes these may not be very long but they provide a useful service. The later show on Saturday plus the first Sunday one should be extended as well to better cover all the news and sport from each region.

Now a big one that’s not made clear anywhere in the documents but is well known about and that is the changes to weather forecasts on the regional news shows. The DQF plan is to only have a forecaster in the studio for the 18:30 bulletin plus the late show with the breakfast and lunch shows having a cover presenter from a “regional hub” as happens now to cover presenter time off/illness etc. This is a horrible Idea which will mean a reduction in quality of the service as each region will just get some poor quickly cobbled together forecast from some presenter who has to do 3 or 4 other areas as well. What happens when the remaining presenter needs a holiday? Didn’t think about that now did you clueless BBC management cretins. There’s a reason regions have 3 presenters 2 of them work each day and they rotate their shifts to allow for days off and holidays ensuring a quality service is provided at all times. With most regions currently having 3 presenters in their weather teams 2 in each are facing transfers to a hub or most likely the sack losing valuable staff the BBC have spent time and money on over the years what a waste just to save what amounts to pocket change in the grand scheme of things. Anyone who thinks having 1 presenter plus cover from hubs is putting quality first should be taken out and shot.

Also under Nations and Regions I will include BBC local radio. A lot of these local stations could be merged in some areas counties have stations while others have them for individual cities. Why not just simplify this and have a station for the same area as the local TV? Something like Look East radio for example with one for Anglia East and one for the West rather than about half a dozen or so stations for that area this would also make it easier for the TV and radio to work together sharing costs and promote each other. This already happens in London and works very well where more localised content is needed “opt-out” shows can be provided as happens with the TV regions this could be done for breakfast/drivetime shows and for sports coverage

Digital and Distribution

I actually don’t have any complaints about the proposed changes here surprisingly but there other changes I would like to make which I will come to below.

Now that I’ve covered the areas I want to in the proposals I’m going to propose some more changes in some of the aforementioned areas and elsewhere in the BBC to help “Deliver Quality First”

General

One problem here and that’s time keeping how can anyone take quality first seriously coming from an organisation who can’t even run the shows on its flagship channel to time? The schedules are a complete joke here are some examples. Monday nights Eastenders listed for 8pm start local news teams tell us there is a news update at 8pm so 2 programs are supposed to be on at the same time on the same channel! And both are wrong Eastenders actually starts at 7:58pm and the “8pm update” is actually on for 90 seconds at 7:56pm. Another good example is earlier on weekday evenings Local news shows are listed for 6:30pm start but actually start at 6:27 or 28pm followed by the One Show which we are assured by the listings, presenters etc. starts at 7pm actually starts at 6:57pm. Somewhere along the line there is utter incompetence probably from whoever is controlling the channel. 3 minutes is an eternity in television and such a discrepancy is simply unacceptable. Viewers watching other channels should be able to watch a show and not have to miss the start of whatever the BBC have on just because the Beeb are incapable of working to time the same goes for anyone recording to PVR why should we have to make allowances for your incompetence?

News

First off time to put an end to 2 people doing the same news report what is the point of having a news report and sending another reporter out a few hours later to do repeat the previous one word for word? Money can also be saved here by having regional reporters doing more stories for the national news rather than each part of the BBC sending someone because there is no structure in place for the national crew and the regional news teams to work together on anything.

Nations and Regions

Webpages for Nations And regions. Why do the nations have substandard ones? English regions have videos, presenter info, links etc. while all the Nations (take Wales for example) just get an iPlayer link in the evening and a bit that lists when the shows have been on for the last year or so which is useless information we don’t need. Bring these all up to the same standards and sort out the substandard videos in the BBC weather webpage while your at it you can do better than some piss poor quality stream in a postage stamp size box stuck over on the right hand side of the screen any sensible person would put a proper one smack bang in the middle but you don’t actually employ sensible people do you.

Digital and Distribution

Lets start with reducing distribution costs instead of getting regional TV output from digital platforms get rid of the radio stations from them. Digital TV is for just that TV not radio we have TV’s to watch moving images not to listen to there are so many ways to access BBC radio stations now having them on Freeview, Sky, Virgin Media etc. is unnecessary and a complete waste of channel space. If radio is to be brought to us through our TV’s it’s time to embrace the present and provide a BBC radio app for internet enabled TV’s like the existing iPlayer one and stream it to those who want it. With that lot removed bring BBC World News to UK viewers it says BBC on it so should be available to us

Next to go should be the “Red Button” content much like the radio there are so many easier and better ways to access this information it simply isn’t needed. All the existing service amounts to is poor man’s Ceefax the red button should be for broadcasting TV such as sport only.

Improvements now. First off HD TV needs to be transmitted in actual HD not the fake cheapskate version used now which is claimed to be 1080i but clearly isn’t. As the national broadcaster the BBC should be at least matching if not exceeding the HD standards set by commercial broadcasters. Also with regards to quality proper HD should be brought to the iPlayer not the 720p used now and the standard definition shows should be available in the broadcast standard of 576i not the 360 currently used even the 466 version has now been removed from the streaming service if anything was to have been removed surely it should have been the low quality 360 one that suffers from pixelisation on a regular basis during motion scenes. There is a major waste of money with the iPlayer as well that being DRM (Digital Rights Management or copy protection in layman’s terms ) why is money spent on this crap it doesn’t even work! There is no DRM system available that works and nor will there ever be one that’s legal anyone who tells you otherwise is a complete liar. Time to scrap this junk as record companies did with it on CD’s when they found it was illegal as well as useless.

Now that cuts have been looked at let’s sort out the real problem lack of any increase in income. Sooner or later more income has to be generated things can’t just be cut forever just look at what’s happening with the rest of the country we’ve been cutting for at least 25 years and where has that gotten us. Inflation isn’t going away anytime soon there is no option but to bring in more money. The freeze in the license fee is very harsh even a tiny raise of a pound or 2 a year would help bring in tens of millions and would be easily affordable for everyone buying a license. The real controversial one though is advertising most don’t want it on the BBC but it’s got to the stage now where adverts, program sponsorship or both are needed to bring in some real money. It may not be popular but there are enough ads on now for programs clogging up the channels swap some of them for ads that bring in some money it’s a small price to pay for saving 2000+ jobs.