Is BBCtv still a commercial free channel?

I don't think so. Over the last few months, it's aired some programmes under the loose definition of public information that give blatant air time to major supermarkets and other companies.

I think this should be reflected in the television licence fees.

If you agree perhaps you'd consider signing my petition

​

 

I don't pay a licence fee and i've removed their assumed right of access to my property.

I've noticed they're making a lot of shows that have breaks for commercials. I assume they are selling them to foreign parts.

 

Dont watch it that often, but always annoyed when they cut a programme short in order to get in the trailers for coming programmes, Why?

 

I think they might have already been told. I've noticed on Radio 2 in the morning, they no longer say that their articles are on Twitter or Bookface. Instead they say its on social media.

 

Your TV stand could do with a duster Daisy

 

She's too busy on the Nintendo Wii

 

No, truly, it's the way the table is finished. Horrible, isn't it?

Besides which, it and the TV on it went to the dump years ago! This is my TV stand now

 

Hey - is anybody voting on my poll?

 

I agree with FC that the BBC provides good value for money in general. However there is a lot that's fundamentally wrong with it.

Good points:
* Of all the main media sources, the BBC is the one I trust the most for presenting information objectively. For example, in the many wars we seem to have, I'm more inclined to believe the BBC version of events than any other (unless I actually meet someone who was there).
* The BBC provides a very good range of different program types, covering all genres, whereas the others seem to sell us mostly American sitcom, drama that's far fetch beyond belief but expects to be taken seriously (ok, BBC has Dr Who which couldn't get more far fetched, but it's clearly meant to be tongue in cheek and doesn't pretend otherwise)
* Off the box, if you have young kids, the BBC also provides endless entertainment online. In fact when i found out that my son's nursery was introducing them to IT at just 2 years old, I built up my old laptop for my lad, and arranged it to boot straight into the CBeebies website as soon as it comes on. He's on it now playing various games.

Bad points:
* It frustrates me that the BBC once had the job of upholding proper English language, yet nowadays often their grammar is so poor it takes me a while to work out what they're on about. Their news website is worst for this.
* It clearly is trying to sneak in some commercial stuff. There is a lot of 'product placement' going on.
* Their no adverts policy seems to have been bent slightly by the many adverts for their own stuff, which is fine in a way but they seem to show them at the least convenient times. Sometimes the ads actually talk over the last few words of a program your watching, or sometimes they make the picture your watching small so they can show ads for the other channels, right when the picture your watching is trying to show you something visual. Most annoying.
* The license payers have no real say. Sure there is the BBC Trust, but it seems to me that that's just a select few people. I think they should consider the bank vs building society strategy. A bank is a commercial entity so does what it pleases. A building society is, to some extent, controlled by its members. Whenever a building society wants to make a significant change, they write to all their members to tell them, and often ask them to vote. The BBC does no such thing. I believe the director general was recently changed again. There should really have been a building society style election where they write to recommend a new one, but allow you to vote for other candidates from the shortlist if you want to.
* Kind of following on from the point above, it is only good value for those that use a lot of their services. In our house it is good value for money. We all use the TV, my son likes CBeebies, he uses the CBeebies website regularly, I use the BBC New website regularly. My mother on the other hand uses none of that, except the regular, long standing BBC channels BBC1 and BBC2, yet both households pay the same license fee. Comparing that to, say, Virgin Media, our house might use, and pay for, quite a lot. Whereas my mam might only use a small subset of the services on offer, but then only pay for that small subset of services.

I do have one other bugbear, but its not really the BBC's fault. The company that gets the job of looking after the licensing is unscrupulous and plain nasty. Capita used to have the contract, I don't know who has it now. I don't like the way they try to intimidate people into getting a license even if they don't want to use any BBC services. I've had to threaten them with legal action for harassment in the past for this very reason, and one lad I know had to deal with legal threats and even a court summons for his dead father in law. The companies that enforce it also take a more than substantial cut of the money raised from license fees.

 

I rarely watch tv but I know the BBC has does and has for a long time promoted Facebook and Twitter daily and in some cases you can only contact them though FB so to me it is constantly advertising.