Following the sad news of the demise (on air) of BBC Three (a sad day for comedy me thinks) in order to save money, which cuts would YOU make ?

BBC One: £1,051m
BBC Two: £415m
BBC Three: £85m
BBC Four: £49m
CBBC: £79m
CBeebies: £29m
BBC News Channel: £53m
BBC Parliament: £2m

I cut all of them and their staff. BBC Three comedy was mainly dire How Not To Live Your Life was axed too soon, Family Guy was edited too much.

I'd slash the BBC sport budget (the reason they are short of cash now is the ridiculous amount spent on that disaster in 2012, and the recent Sochi games, which hardly anyone even watched).

I'm not into sport anyway but friends tell me others do it better (so let them get on with it).

The BBC should concentrate on drama (esp costume drama) - expensive to produce but at least the cost can be recouped by selling the programmes overseas (and there is always a demand).

In The Know wrote:
I'd slash the BBC sport budget


The one that you didn't quote?!

I wouldn't cut any of them.
I'd chase the hideous corporations that avoid their fair tax and scrounge on ordinary wage earners.
and note- this is just Australia..imagine how much they rip off in the UK.


How Ireland got Apple’s $9bn profit

US tech giant Apple has shifted an estimated $8.9 billion in untaxed profits from its Australian operations to a tax haven structure in Ireland in the last decade, an investigation by The Australian Financial Review has found.
www.afr.com/p/technology/how_ireland_got...lmHONvoHJGixwLUpFckN

Wrong way to ask the question - like most things, people will cut what they don't use themselves.......

So with a 4 year old, I wouldn't cut Cbeebies, but never saw its benefit before then.......so would have got rid

Likewise, I love BBC 4, but the missus has no interest in it....she'd bin it, I'd expand it......

Neither of us watch BBC 3 or Parliament , but by preference, it's Radio 2 and 5 in the car

Maybe better to ask - as they seem to have done, 'what is the target market?' 'Are we reaching them?' , 'Can they be catered for more cost effectively?'

Radio ditched all of us middle aged 'legacy' listeners and migrated us to Radio 2, and we don't hear much baout that anymore, so I guess the same will apply to BBC 3.....and underground word of mouth online comedy might be the making of it.......can't say anyone will miss 'Snog marry avoid' and 'parents watching their kids on hot holidays'

It depresses me, listening to Tony Hall, that not even BBC execs these days seem to understand what public service broadcasting is. Like politicians - who NEVER understand the concept - Hall appears to think it means education and information. It doesn't. It means education, information and entertainment. Tom Sloan understood it. Bill Cotton understood it. Paul Fox understands it. Michael Grade understands it. It IS important to provide high quality entertainment that does not rely on the market and is not shaped only to suit, and appeal to, an existing cultural elite.

But more specifically on BBCs 3 and 4. They were invented as the wrong answer to the right question. The question was: how should the BBC respond to a new age of niche multichannels? The answer for a normal, market-driven, channel would have been: you respond by aiming more ruthlessly and competitively for demographically and socially niche audiences. But that wasn't the right answer for a public service broadcaster. The proper answer for the BBC should have been: you work harder than ever, with what you already have, to appeal to a broad audience without compromising your standards.

That involved spending more on high quality programme making, not launching two more channels, one of which, BBC Three, would do EXACTLY what a commercial channel aimed at a young audience would do, and the other, BBC Four, would do EXACTLY what BBC 2 was invented in 1964 to do!

So I was always against BBC Three (or 'Prime' or whatever ghastly name it used to have). It blatantly didn't qualify as a public service channel and it's shameful that no one in any kind of authority failed to realise that. If people want that kind of output, set up a commercial channel to pay for it.

The BBC has a sacred duty to be inclusive, not exclusive, and fight against elitism, not encourage it.

BBC Four does some excellent programmes, but they are programmes that BBC2 already has the remit to show. Only an idiot would look at BBC2 and think, 'Yes, I think I'll flood this channel with stuff that should be on BBC1, then I'd better create a new channel for what ought to still be on BBC2. Then I'll market this new channel as only suited to clever middle class types, as the BBC was set up to bring this stuff to all classes, so that sounds suitably illogical'.

So both Three and Four should go. Pump everything into BBC 1 and 2 and for god's sake GROW UP!

SP17 wrote:
In The Know wrote:
I'd slash the BBC sport budget


The one that you didn't quote?!




What sport on BBC are you on about, it's only athletics mainly ?

Excellant, Pru

We should also remember that the Beeb use 3 and 4 as a "testing ground" and if (to their surprise?) it find an audience then move the prog to a more mainstream channel !

Do we really need BBC1+1 when you got demand, iplayer and Youview/Sky boxes ? BBC can't afford repeat fees on many programmes or sport but can afford pay offs, flights and expenses.