<<- you can get 8m people around the TV for a shared experience watching Strictly Come Dancing and Doctor Who, but there are few (if any) videos on YouTube with an aggregation of 8 million eyeballs on them>>
The shared experience thing is a red herring. 20 years ago, some shows would have got 15 or 20 million. The trend is for diversity. And just because 8m watch a programme, doesn't mean it is good programming.... It means that 52m are choosing to watch or do something else. <<Initial funding for those programmes that independent production companies make on TV and radio (and within New media on web sites and software) comes from the Licence Fee. I don't know that you'd see the same level of commissioning if smaller independent producers had to find start-up cash for each programme they wanted to make>> Why should the licence fee be used to make programmes that independent production companies "want" to make? Why should people pay for things that they are never going to want to see? People should be able to subscribe to specific channels and the subscriptions will pay for the programming. If there aren't enough subscriptions, then the programmes won't get made. I might like to see every house in London painted in purple - but I can't expect everyone in the country to pay for my whim. It is a bizarre model that takes money from people but gives them nothing in return ... although they then have to pay to subscribe to the things that they do want to watch with other providers. It should be possible, for example, for someone to watch Sky content only, and not to have to pay for BBC driven content. If I drive a Ford, I don't expect to have to give 300 quid to Honda drivers ... ... ... we buy what we want to buy. It is called choice, not imposition. <<Interestingly in my line of work at the moment, all my user testing says people love the idea of streaming music to their mobile phones, but don't try it because they are worried about the price. Now, if they had a free service to get them used to the concept, does that make them more or less likely to sign up to a subscription in the long term for a different service?>> People worry because they already have to pay a whack of money each year for their TV licence. Free them from that expense and let them use that cash to buy what they want and not what the BBC wants to give them. Festive wishes Josh - Sent via the backstage.bbc.co.uk discussion group. To unsubscribe, please visit http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/archives/2005/01/mailing_list.html. Unofficial list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
