I don’t think this has anything to do with the license fee at all. The show costs would have been at the lower end of what they produce and they will have to replace it with another. Frankly it’s more the product of the insane BBC drive to capture a young audience and in doing so alienate the existing one. They fail time and time again and loose the majority of an existing audience.
Like many I find the BBC no longer wishes to cater for me so have stopped watching. If there’s anything vindictive to do with the BBC it was they’re making the over75’s pay for a service that doesn’t cater at all for them.
You may know/it may interest you to know, that Vigil is made by World Productions, which is a subsidiary of ITV plc.
To pick up on @paulbysea 's points about Auntie, it is great that we still have a national broadcaster, but the arguments run that it’s not been performing to its charter, and it’s become very self-serving when it comes to monetary matters e.g. benchmarking talent across many spectrums in terms of pay against supposed commercial comparables, when the job security and stability offered by the BBC is way above what exists elsewhere, especially with some of the new entrants. Yes, there’s been massive inflation as regards talent &operating costs but, equally, lines have to be drawn, and VFM interrogated.
And then there’s the quality arguments, where the commissioning exec have set off down paths which often jar with viewership and the primary demographic, with the contradicting need thrust upon the BBC to capture more viewers in the younger segments. The BBC can do quality e.g. legacy Dr. Who, Sherlock and others – it doesn’t appear to be a question of programme budgets on production quality, more a case of letting the ‘quality’ being compromised by the roster of considerations and elements which the BBC exec want its programming to reflect, and this all starts at programme concept and with the writing/screenplays for drama.
A proper discussion of why the over 75s now have to pay for a broadcast license would be political and therefore beyond scope here. Al I would say is that I think the BBC were put into an impossible position by the government in relation to waiving the license fee for over 75s.
If there’s anything vindictive to do with the BBC it was they’re making the over75’s pay for a service that doesn’t cater at all for them.
This is nothing to do with the BBC. The money for free licences for the over 75s came out of the general taxpayer pot, and was therefore in the gift of the Government. Free licences for those aged 75 and over were introduced in November 2000 by the Blair government.
This continued until the end of July 2020, with the Johnson administration withdrawing the concession. Now you only get a free licence if you’re aged 75 and in receipt of certain kinds of benefits.
The fact that Auntie seems to be chasing after a “yoof” audience to the exclusion of all else is of course another matter entirely.
Would love to rebut a lot re the BBC and funding issues but it would mean going into political territory.
The BBC agreed to a deal that meant they took on something in return for agreement’s on several other things which included making watching iPlayer something you needed a licence for.
Whatever the fee structure the BBC are not catering for the over 75’s with their product offerings
Used to be required viewing. Has been dumbed down over the years (which was a low bar to start with as sports quiz). But another failure for Paddy Mac, why he gets so much airtime is beyond me.
Had really gone downhill since Sue Barker went. Pity, always enjoyed it since the days of Henry and Cliff with David Vine. It had modernised fairly tastefully I think, until the latest incarnation. David Coleman with Bill Beaumont and Emlyn Hughes, more recently Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnell with Sue. Happy memories.
Call me a low-level conspiracy theorist, but announcements like this now just make me wonder whether they’re just saying it to get people agitated for a few days before reversing the decision, claiming they were responding to public opinion. Any resulting boost in ratings would be a complete coincidence, of course.
The touted removal of the BBC Food recipe website a few years ago and the canning of the BBC Singers last year were both swiftly reversed following negative publicity with such speed that I find it easy to believe the whole thing was planned from the start as a way of generating publicity.
Well said, and I would add a local voice to your list… it’s appalling what they have done to local radio and TV… they are too urban centric these days… concentrating too much on the major conurbations in the north and south… those of use in the east and west get treated as some quaint after thought…
As far as QoS… never enjoyed it…so not bothered with it going
