Sign the petition! Save BBC 3 http://www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/to-the-bbc-trust-save-bbc3 So although it isn't official, BBC are likely to announce tomorrow that BBC 3 will have to be pulled off air in order to save £100 million due to budget cuts. I am extremely unhappy with this decision. Some of my favourite British shows (I have so few because I don't particularly like British TV) such as Bad Education and Russell Howard's Good news could be pulled off air and put onto BBC iPlayer instead. I think this is a terrible decision. I know this is coming from a youth standpoint, but they're deciding to save BBC 4? Really?! There are also so many other less popular/demanded BBC radio and TV channels but instead BBC 3 will be taking the full front of it. As you can see from audience figures alone, BBC 3 clearly isn't the least watched channel (Source: http://www.barb.co.uk/viewing/weekly-total-viewing-summary?_s=4 ) I'd like to hear your thoughts and opinions below
BBC3 will still be on the air, instead now it'll only be available to stream via things such as Red Button or iPlayer. BBC3 in my opinion is the channel you go to for repeats, that's all they ever show. Plus the dodgy times it runs from (7:00PM to 5:00AM) means most the time there not airing anything Having said that BBC3 shouldn't go as like your stats have shown it's very popular.
I agree, there are a lot of repeats for shows like family guy and american dad (personally I hate them) but their original shows are good in my opinion. The ones I've said above like Russell Howards Good News and Bad Education. I also agree on the dodgy broadcasting hours, it should definitely start earlier than 7, but I just don't think they have enough content. IMO they should buy more international shows and broadcast them on BBC 3, but of course that would come at great expense and the BBC can't afford it right now. I have never understood why BBC just won't incorporate adverts onto their smaller channels to help pay for all the fees, it would make sense, but I suppose because its 'publicly funded' then they don't do adverts.
Well, strictly from a numbers standpoint for the financial goal they wish to accomplish, BBC 3 is the best choice... BBC 3 89.7m cost; 23.2% audience; 1:58 Time; 84.0 Appreciation; 6.2p Cost CBBC 81.6m cost; 6.6% audience; 2:53 Time; n/a Appreciation; 11.1p Cost Although CBBC is comparable in cost, it has a much higher return on investment. The 6.6% audience has a higher h:m Time rating than BBC 3 with a lower overall cost. Therefore, they would have to combine the three lesser valued programs below: BBC 4 50.0m Cost; 14.2% audience; 1:44 Time; 85.6 Appreciation; 6.8p Cost CBeebies 28.9m Cost; 8.7% audience; 4:00 Time; n/a Appreciation; 2.7p Cost BBC ALBA 4.9m Cost; 15.6% audience; 1:53 Time; n/a Appreciation; 7.4p Cost Combined: 83.8m Cost; 38.5% audience; 7:37 Time; 85.6 Appreciation; 16.9p Cost Although combined has a comparable cost, it shows a much higher return on investment. The 38.5% audience has only a 0:14 lesser Time rating than BBC One with a significantly lower overall cost. Based on the goal of ~100m in budget cuts, it makes more sense to eliminate a smaller % Audience; lesser h:m Time; smaller Appreciation; and smaller p Cost than it does to eliminate 3 channels whose overall costs are lesser than one individual channel. Sorry to say, but your petition will not work. BBC has to make a hard decision here. BBC 3 is not yielding enough return on the investment. Expect more airtime for BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, CBBC, and CBeebies as these yield the highest numbers in viewership, cost return and appreciation where measurable. I am not a market analyst. I based my opinions on the graphic shared by Jake_bagby; personal experience with: budgeting my personal finances; studying Business Management for 2 months so far; processing expenses in the Army (Million Dollar figures) and eliminating waste, fraud and abuse for 7 years; Personal Finance for Dummies (personal interpretation of the information given); Corporate Finance for Dummies (personal interpretation of the information given); and several business ventures that I will not go into further detail about for one reason or another.
With all of that being said, I hope this doesn't come at the expense of thousands of peoples means of living... It happens all too often and those forced to suffer the greatest pain are the ones who are dutifully sacrificing their mind, body and soul to those who have only their own best interests in mind. I am not well versed on the policies of BBC or the United Kingdom, but now I have something else to research and discuss in my classes in the coming weeks.
Very nice analysis, but as you said that is from a numbers point of view. There is no BBC channel like BBC 3. BBC 3 is aimed completely at youth, whereas, BBC 2 and BBC 4 and CBBC and CBeebies have a similar audience. It would make more sense the merge one of them together to just one channel, although there would be problems with this. CBeebies is aimed at the very young (toodlers etc.) and CBBC is aimed at 6-12 year olds. Both audiences have very different programming and tastes. I think that judging channels based on their average viewing times is very inaccurate, but whatever.
Actually it would just make more sense for BBC to go private. The chances are if they went private then they wouldn't have to deal with all this budget cutting. BBC is the only publicly funded network in the UK. A prime example of a network doing well right now is ITV, they have well known shows like Downtown Abbey and are opening a new channel soon. Sure I'm not a fan of the constant adverts, but I'd rather see BBC going private and doing well then having to take budget cuts because they are publicly funded. Although, I don't think the general public would be too happy with a private BBC, for some reason everyone prefers to pay a TV license than watch adverts.
Publicly funded projects are at the mercy of the majority. Private projects are at the mercy of the minority. Businesses operate on profit and loss, which is why I presented it based on the numbers. My wife is on the same side of the fence as you, the one opposite of me... I look at our budget as profit/loss (need/desire). My wife looks at it as need, want. She and I balance each other out and that works because the end result is that our family is playing the role of both business and consumer. However, a business is profit = expansion and loss = reduction. If a business doesn't profit long enough, it fails. A failed business hurts everyone not just the % of the user base effected by the action taken. Hence, find the option that yields the desired result with the least impact. In this case, BBC 4 yields the desired result with the least impact.
So its official, BBC 3 will be off air by autumn 2015 However, the petition to save BBC 3 now has over 93,000 supporters.
