[Smile] What's something small that really makes you smile?

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#3060774 9-Apr-2023 21:20

eracode:
Handle9:

Around 70% is from license fees.

Are you saying that if they didn’t have to rely solely on ad revenue, the US networks would produce (what we might regard as) higher-quality programming?

I’m saying the US networks produce what makes them the most money. The BBC has quite different motivations.

A fair bit of PBS, which has a similar objective to the BBC, programming is very good.

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#3060777 9-Apr-2023 21:23

geoffwnz:
I'm gonna say no. If they could, they would already.

The quality of HBO is arguably as good or better than anything made by the BBC.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#3060790 10-Apr-2023 00:00

Upstairs before the knight's too old.

Sound quality at Spark was rubbish, but Rod Stewart in Auckland was a very enjoyable experience.

Tinkerisk

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#3060793 10-Apr-2023 04:12

I have found a small flat as an office and "man cave" almost in the centre of the city. One large room is for the servers and makerspace, one large room is a meeting room and visitors' lounge with a balcony, one small room for relaxing, a small kitchen and a small bathroom. It will soon take me 10 minutes to walk from home to "work". Now I have to get everything ready and later transfer all the technology there without any accidents. But I'm already writing this from there. 😀

Qui nihil scit, omnia credere debet.
Firewalls do NOT stop dragons.
In effect we have everything to hide from someone, and no idea who someone is.

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#3060823 10-Apr-2023 10:29

Handle9:

I’m saying the US networks produce what makes them the most money. The BBC has quite different motivations.

A fair bit of PBS, which has a similar objective to the BBC, programming is very good.

I was also going to mention PBS but you beat me to it. This used to be almost comparable to the BBC until the Republicans stripped them of funding many years ago. Now they limp along with constant begging letters and endless groveling acknowledgements of donations from rich people who want to see their names on TV.

Plesse igmore amd axxept applogies in adbance fir anu typos

Geektastic

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#3061223 10-Apr-2023 22:38

eracode:

Just turned on the TV here (in our exchange home in England) to watch the BBC morning news. The TV has the iPlayer app installed. If I turn on the FTA live version of any BBC programme (outside of the app) at any time while that programme is running, a pop-up on the screen gives me an option to press the green button on the remote, to re-start that programme from the beginning using iPlayer. The TV automatically switches to the app and plays - and then I can pause, RW, FF etc at will.

This is a very cool feature in a well-implemented, grown-up app. Of course the app also has all the usual ‘on demand’ functionality. Makes some of our offerings at home - even newly-released ones - seem pretty meh.

Not to mention the pleasure of watching excellent news and other FTA or streamed programming all without ads.

The BBC is not what it was.

There is a definite undercurrent of opinion in the UK that it has become rather more biased than it used to be and a lot of BTL comment about getting rid of the licence fee. Even government discussion about bias and the licence fee now.

For a long time even having a TV in your home required you to pay the licence fee even if you never watched BBC content. That was eventually updated but it is easy to get caught out as bits of their stuff crop up on other channels etc.

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#3061233 10-Apr-2023 23:01

Geektastic:

eracode:

Just turned on the TV here (in our exchange home in England) to watch the BBC morning news. The TV has the iPlayer app installed. If I turn on the FTA live version of any BBC programme (outside of the app) at any time while that programme is running, a pop-up on the screen gives me an option to press the green button on the remote, to re-start that programme from the beginning using iPlayer. The TV automatically switches to the app and plays - and then I can pause, RW, FF etc at will.

This is a very cool feature in a well-implemented, grown-up app. Of course the app also has all the usual ‘on demand’ functionality. Makes some of our offerings at home - even newly-released ones - seem pretty meh.

Not to mention the pleasure of watching excellent news and other FTA or streamed programming all without ads.

The BBC is not what it was.

There is a definite undercurrent of opinion in the UK that it has become rather more biased than it used to be and a lot of BTL comment about getting rid of the licence fee. Even government discussion about bias and the licence fee now.

For a long time even having a TV in your home required you to pay the licence fee even if you never watched BBC content. That was eventually updated but it is easy to get caught out as bits of their stuff crop up on other channels etc.

The media in the UK is well on the way to being as partisan as the US.

The Telegraph used to be jokingly called the Torygraph but a fair chunk of the site is closer to Fox News than something I'd consider balanced.

neb

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#3061235 10-Apr-2023 23:13

Handle9:
The media in the UK is well on the way to being as partisan as the US.

The Telegraph used to be jokingly called the Torygraph but a fair chunk of the site is closer to Fox News than something I'd consider balanced.

Nothing in the UK, or at least nothing significant, gets anywhere close to Fox News, by which I mean the cable TV network, not various other things under the Fox brand. My favourite data point is that news sources like the Workers World, the official publication of a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party, and the World Socialist Web site, the official publication of the Fourth International, a revolutionary socialist organization dedicated to the overthrow of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution, so literally communist propaganda, are far more reliable news sources than Fox.

To see them on the linked chart, add "Workers World", "WSWS", "Hannity" (to disambiguate from all the other Fox-branded stuff), and just for yucks, "Infowars". Fox sits just above Infowars in terms of accuracy.

eracode

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#3061239 10-Apr-2023 23:54

Geektastic:

The BBC is not what it was.

There is a definite undercurrent of opinion in the UK that it has become rather more biased than it used to be and a lot of BTL comment about getting rid of the licence fee. Even government discussion about bias and the licence fee now.

Yes that’s right - but even so, it’s still very good IMO.

[Disclaimer: I am not a Brit - just a Kiwi who enjoys being in the UK from time to time].

Sometimes I just sit and think. Other times I just sit.

Handle9

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#3061243 11-Apr-2023 00:19

neb:
Handle9:

The media in the UK is well on the way to being as partisan as the US.

The Telegraph used to be jokingly called the Torygraph but a fair chunk of the site is closer to Fox News than something I'd consider balanced.

Nothing in the UK, or at least nothing significant, gets anywhere close to Fox News, by which I mean the cable TV network, not various other things under the Fox brand. My favourite data point is that news sources like the Workers World, the official publication of a revolutionary Marxist–Leninist communist party, and the World Socialist Web site, the official publication of the Fourth International, a revolutionary socialist organization dedicated to the overthrow of global capitalism and the establishment of world socialism via international revolution, so literally communist propaganda, are far more reliable news sources than Fox. To see them on the linked chart, add "Workers World", "WSWS", "Hannity" (to disambiguate from all the other Fox-branded stuff), and just for yucks, "Infowars". Fox sits just above Infowars in terms of accuracy.

The Fox News website is somewhat different to Hannity et al. On your chart it's roughly comparable to MSNBC on the left.

That seems about right for the Telegraph these days, it's opinion pieces in particular skew very heavily into the culture wars.

neb

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#3061244 11-Apr-2023 00:23

Handle9:
The Fox News website is somewhat different to Hannity et al. On your chart it's roughly comparable to MSNBC on the left.

When people refer to Fox News they're not talking about the web site. The Wall Street Journal is also a Fox News (or at least News Corp) site.

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#3061247 11-Apr-2023 01:34

neb:
Handle9:
The Fox News website is somewhat different to Hannity et al. On your chart it's roughly comparable to MSNBC on the left.

When people refer to Fox News they're not talking about the web site. The Wall Street Journal is also a Fox News (or at least News Corp) site.

Lol.

I’m a person. I was comparing two websites. You do you.

outdoorsnz

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#3061439 11-Apr-2023 14:02

Sky TV txt me to say my account # remains unpaid. $0.00. Please call sky credit solutions... Assuming they've received decoder back!

frankv

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#3061447 11-Apr-2023 14:42

geoffwnz:

If they could, they would already.

It's the other way round... they certainly could produce better programs. However, in a Capitalist Paradise it is profit that is the criterion for success. Optimising for profit means reducing costs to a minimum and increasing revenue to a maximum. If you are creating content that is one iota better than it needs to be to maintain revenue, you will reduce the quality (e.g. stretching out a series with new seasons, each with fewer and worse ideas to choose from). If you have inadvertently created something good, you must maximise the income stream from it... increase prices, either to the consumer or the advertiser, to whatever the market will bear, or increase the number of ads until you have driven the viewing experience back down to the level of the competition.

If, God forbid, Fawlty Towers was run by Americans, it would be into its 5th season, with John Cleese replaced by Tom Allen, and a spinoff where Manuel (played by Lee Mack) runs his own hotel.

neb

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#3061450 11-Apr-2023 14:45

frankv:
If, God forbid, Fawlty Towers was run by Americans, it would be into its 5th season, with John Cleese replaced by Tom Allen, and a spinoff where Manuel (played by Lee Mack) runs his own hotel.

And the only laughs it would get would be the laugh track.

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