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Newsnight - Printable Version

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RE: Newsnight - Stockland Hillman - 14-10-2023

(14-10-2023, 07:34 PM)Kim Wexler’s Ponytail Wrote:  it’s incredibly easy to make hundreds of millions of pounds worth of cuts if you’re not the person who actually has do it. If you insist it’s all mismanagement and your superior expert handling of the situation could save Newsnight, local radio and the news channel you’re going to have to be way more specific than just throwing out general whataboutisms. Because at the minute you sound like boomers, with their good old fashioned British common, sense telling lazy snowflake millennials they could in fact afford a house if they gave up Netflix and Starbucks.

Lol.  Nonsense. Let me help you out:

ChatGPT  'Rewrite The following,  removing trite clichés about boomers, snowflakes  and British values to make an intelligent post of 2 paragraphs max'

Here ya go:
Making substantial financial cuts is no small feat, especially if you're not the one executing them. Claiming issues stem solely from mismanagement and asserting that your expertise could salvage essential media outlets requires a detailed plan rather than vague critiques. Without specifics, it's akin to suggesting that by merely cutting minor luxuries, one could overcome significant economic challenges

Best learn basic writing and reasoning skills before bitching in public about other peoples comments.  See, the AI version makes such a better value contribution. 

Now to the substance of ChatGPTs argument,  I would say look at the NAO dataset and  explain why you CAN'T find savings and relocations in £5.7 billion of spend, given the fact their are widely known comparators and metrics that highlight deviations from the norm.

RE: Newsnight - Kim Wexler’s Ponytail - 14-10-2023

(14-10-2023, 07:50 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  Now to the substance of ChatGPTs argument,  I would say look at the NAO dataset and  explain why you CAN'T find savings and relocations in £5.7 billion of spend, given the fact their are widely known comparators and metrics that highlight deviations from the norm.

I’m sure you could and probably still will because it’s not enough. You’re the one insinuating these hypothetical cuts alone could have saved everything we’ve lost. It’s up to you to backup your 'i know better' claim. Maybe ask ChatGPT?.

RE: Newsnight - Joe - 14-10-2023

Blimey, do we need all this weird aggression?

RE: Newsnight - DTV - 14-10-2023

(14-10-2023, 07:50 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  I would say look at the NAO dataset and  explain why you CAN'T find savings and relocations in £5.7 billion of spend, given the fact their are widely known comparators and metrics that highlight deviations from the norm.
What's this NAO dataset you keep referring to? Because the thing you keep pointing people towards as backing up your argument is a rather slim PDF overview document that merely contains a few pieces of headline data, far below the level needed to make any kind of detailed analysis of the BBC's expenditure and which does not actually contain the info that you imply it does. I'd also note that this document explicitly states that the room for productivity improvements and cuts to overheads are increasingly limited, requiring a shift in the focus of cuts towards content (which is ultimately what the discussion was about, before you took it on a weird tangent about secret agendas, false narratives and how the licence freeze somehow isn't the biggest strain on BBC finances).

(14-10-2023, 07:50 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  Best learn basic writing and reasoning skills before bitching in public about other peoples comments.  See, the AI version makes such a better value contribution. 
Is this hectoring aggression particularly warranted? Also, best to read through your posts before criticising the writing skills demonstrated in other people's comments.

RE: Newsnight - DTV - 14-10-2023

(14-10-2023, 01:53 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  The licence freeze isn't the biggest factor.
(14-10-2023, 04:18 PM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  Taking the time to look at facts, and ask questions is always a very good thing
From 2011/12 to 2021/22 alone, licence income fell in real terms by 16% or £700m. I’d argue that is a pretty substantive factor in the BBC’s financial issues. There might additionally be some mismanagement, there might additionally be some waste, there might even additionally be some odd commissioning costs, but those aren’t the main factors as they just don’t run into being the best part of a billion.

All your comparisons are pure apples and oranges stuff. A one-off location VT commission is not comparable to the unit cost of one hour of a daily studio-bound talk series. Channel 5 primetime content is not comparable to that of BBC One (plus, things like dramas – the most expensive content – are that which most pays for itself commercially). And, of course there’d be savings if the BBC was more like an average European broadcaster, its service provision is substantially broader than that of other European PSBs (you might argue it should be narrower in scope, but your argument is that its narrowing of scope is necessitated by not pursuing these ‘savings’).

You accuse others of not using evidence, but don’t provide a figure for the ‘huge sums’ spent on ‘poor’ content, which you suggest is another real reason that dramatic cuts have to be made to BBC News and Local Radio. Your suggestions of poor content are some BBC Sounds podcasts and BBC Verify, the latter of which is not going to be more than a few £m, a not insubstantive portion of which will simply be a reallocation from departments it absorbed. Where you do provide evidence, as with how many efficiency savings can be wrought, you link to a document that states the opposite.

And you do all this with a rather arrogant and bullying tone, abrading anybody who dares to suggest that the loss of at least one-sixth of your main revenue stream might be the reason that you have to cut programming budgets. Because, of course, only you can see the truth – it’s not political decisions, it’s management investment in a few dozen podcasts.

RE: Newsnight - Cappuccino - 14-10-2023

A remind to all to keep the tone civil, please.

Many thanks.

RE: Newsnight - Stockland Hillman - 15-10-2023

(14-10-2023, 10:47 PM)DTV Wrote:  From 2011/12 to 2021/22 alone, licence income fell in real terms by 16% or £700m. I’d argue that is a pretty substantive factor in the BBC’s financial issues. There might additionally be some mismanagement, there might additionally be some waste, there might even additionally be some odd commissioning costs, but those aren’t the main factors as they just don’t run into being the best part of a billion.

All your comparisons are pure apples and oranges stuff. A one-off location VT commission is not comparable to the unit cost of one hour of a daily studio-bound talk series. Channel 5 primetime content is not comparable to that of BBC One (plus, things like dramas – the most expensive content – are that which most pays for itself commercially). And, of course there’d be savings if the BBC was more like an average European broadcaster, its service provision is substantially broader than that of other European PSBs (you might argue it should be narrower in scope, but your argument is that its narrowing of scope is necessitated by not pursuing these ‘savings’).

You accuse others of not using evidence, but don’t provide a figure for the ‘huge sums’ spent on ‘poor’ content, which you suggest is another real reason that dramatic cuts have to be made to BBC News and Local Radio. Your suggestions of poor content are some BBC Sounds podcasts and BBC Verify, the latter of which is not going to be more than a few £m, a not insubstantive portion of which will simply be a reallocation from departments it absorbed. Where you do provide evidence, as with how many efficiency savings can be wrought, you link to a document that states the opposite.

And you do all this with a rather arrogant and bullying tone, abrading anybody who dares to suggest that the loss of at least one-sixth of your main revenue stream might be the reason that you have to cut programming budgets. Because, of course, only you can see the truth – it’s not political decisions, it’s management investment in a few dozen podcasts.

So we're mixing up per annum and periodical revenue reductions; ignoring the simple facts the specific commission document is reflective of the long terms budgets of VT inserts - every edition uses similar content and will be a similar rate and commenting I'm the one comparing apples and oranges. Ok, misleading people by pretending its one off VT when you know - or should know - that it's a daily element within a show that has its own production costs on top.  

It's quite reasonable to point out that 5 pay ITN less/same per hour than a 7 min daily spot on the BBC show in a similar daypart as a small example of wider issues that I clearly state are very simplified.

Whilst I may be a little harsh in tone, which I apologise for, there's no getting around the fact a £5.7 billion revenue organisation can make significant savings, and simply proposing that the BBC focuses on its core proposition. 

The NAO aren't subject specialists, and don't deal with policy objectives,  particularly at the BBC as the review is designed not to cover editorial choices (government independence) They benchmark overhead, pension,  finance costs but don't use the same analytics that the others use for comparison, and don't unpack distribution costs and programming costs in the way they would do with Government spending elements they audit.

It's this endless repeating of  BBC management spin that's such a sad thing to read, worse that a pop star Stan. This is why people don't contribute much to forums.

RE: Newsnight - DTV - 15-10-2023

(15-10-2023, 02:35 AM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  So we're mixing up per annum and periodical revenue reductions; ignoring the simple facts the specific commission document is reflective of the long terms budgets of VT inserts - every edition uses similar content and will be a similar rate and commenting I'm the one comparing apples and oranges. Ok, misleading people by pretending its one off VT when you know - or should know - that it's a daily element within a show that has its own production costs on top.  

It's quite reasonable to point out that 5 pay ITN less/same per hour than a 7 min daily spot on the BBC show in a similar daypart as a small example of wider issues that I clearly state are very simplified.
I'm not sure what has been mixed up. Compared to ten years earlier, annual licence income in 2021/22 is 16% or £700m lower in real terms - I don't know what is objectionable about that fact. You can convert it to per annum, i.e., the BBC's income has on average fallen by more than the entire News channel budget each year over the past decade, but that still seems quite significant and doesn't include the even larger real term falls over the most recent and current financial years. (Indeed, the averages actually hide that, even before the current inflation rises, the BBC saw annual real falls of around £250m-£300m in 18/19, 19/20 and 21/22).

By one-off I was meaning that each VT is an independent commission, produced by a handful of different teams, rather than referring to its status as a regular feature (though the commissioning brief doesn't suggest daily). The duration isn't particularly relevant as production costs don't scale linearly with duration, the costs of a location shoot are different to those of a studio shoot and the cost of an entire individual production is different to that of one hour of a continuing series (particularly in terms of the distribution of staffing costs). It's like you can flip this by highlighting that an hour of BBC News channel is about £7,000, cheaper per hour than your C5 talk show, despite being significantly more resource heavy - but, of course, the reality is that they're not comparable due to the fact that costs are spread significantly differently.

And I'm not really sure what you mean by this 'management spin' that you keep mentioning. The real terms fall in licence income is objectively the main driver of BBC cuts and, generally, management love to claim efficiency savings can be made (even when they can't), because it means they don't have to make difficult decisions to actually cut entire services.

RE: Newsnight - Brekkie - 15-10-2023

Whilst it's not on the table yet when funding is squeezed outsourcing is usually something that eventually has to be considered - and perhaps Newsnight as an entity is something that could be viewed as a product that could in effect be sold off to the highest (well, lowest) bidder. Sadly though we know that although ITN and Sky News have respect for public service broadcasting and impartiality, newer players don't - and the priorities of any independent production company would be to profit from the contract.

The idea that the private sector can do something equivalent to what the public sector can but at a lower cost without compromising the quality of the service has been proven time and time again to ultimately not be the case in the long term with the only people ultimately benefitting from it usually being shareholders - with the public often ending up paying more for a lesser service.

RE: Newsnight - Kim Wexler’s Ponytail - 15-10-2023

(15-10-2023, 02:35 AM)Stockland Hillman Wrote:  Whilst I may be a little harsh in tone, which I apologise for, there's no getting around the fact a £5.7 billion revenue organisation can make significant savings, and simply proposing that the BBC focuses on its core proposition. 

Nobody is denying savings could be made in the areas you are pointing to. What people are challenging is your instance that these savings alone could have saved core services that have been cut.