Huw Edwards

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

2 minutes ago, Imelda said:

 

Would this be the same Phoebe Waller Bridge?

 

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge was born in Hammersmith, London, on 14 July 1985,^[3][4] the daughter of Michael Cyprian Waller-Bridge, founder of the electronic trading platform Tradepoint,^[5] and Theresa Mary, daughter of Sir John Edward Longueville Clerke, 12th Baronet, employed by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.

 

She's been establishment from the moment she popped out into the world. Not sure she's the best example to run with here, tbh

 

A fair point, so maybe it's worth saying the Beeb is probably the only place in the UK where that posh talent could be raised and nutured alongside Hackney/Tower Hamlets raised and Ghanian heritage Michaela Coel

 

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

2 hours ago, Imelda said:

Would this be the same Phoebe Waller Bridge?

 

Phoebe Mary Waller-Bridge was born in Hammersmith, London, on 14 July 1985,^[3][4] the daughter of Michael Cyprian Waller-Bridge, founder of the electronic trading platform Tradepoint,^[5] and Theresa Mary, daughter of Sir John Edward Longueville Clerke, 12th Baronet, employed by the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers.

 

She's been establishment from the moment she popped out into the world. Not sure she's the best example to run with here, tbh

 

Jodie Comer then.

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

45 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Jodie Comer then.

 

 

Aye, but - more to the point - it's the diversity (incl. poshies). You don't get posher than Oxbridge but when the BBC chanced Monty Python it was further out than anything else around - like At Last the 1948 Show - and without that BBC punt The Life of Brian (according to a nationwide poll not than long back, the funniest movie ever) would have been made. 

 

Oh aye, Peter Kay - he's working class and the BBC were instrumental in getting him out there when he was scratching for a break. 

[Kenny 283]

8 hours ago, maryportfuncity said:

 

 

Hell yeah, where do you start in terms of benefits in terms of British soft power? A serious point; our news gathering is more trusted and respected around the world as a result of the - non-commercial BBC - and that has given us significant benefits. Also, our music industry punches way above its weight internationally largely because our main music broadcaster isn't commercial and our harder to get but more innovative musical acts over the years (y'know Beatles/Pink Floyd/Radiohead) were all reliant on BBC support in their early days and likely wouldn't have risen to profitability any other way, their value to the country is so vast its hard to calculate, largely because the respect and influence they enjoy is so massive, all signed to EMI for their glory days (give or take the odd subsidiary label like Harvest) so BBC aided and British to their core. Seriously, would a commercial broadcaster have given early Pink Floyd radio sessions or played Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun?  Rant over. 

 

[Ulitzer95 12,654]

10 hours ago, Ulitzer95 said:

Your friend must have been an idiot to get caught. It's nearly impossible to get caught, despite their threatening letters.

I'm aware that they send people round ground floor properties to peer into your living room, but the solution is don't have the TV facing any of the windows in any of the ways, draw the curtains etc.

Vast, vast majority of people cheating the TV licence never get caught as their officers can't get into blocks with flats etc.

You facepalming my comment doesn't make it any less true @Kenny.

Barely anyone gets prosecuted each year over TV licensing. Your friend must be a total numpty. Send my kindest regards and sympathies though.

[Brad252 807]

On 13/07/2023 at 19:16, ladyfiona said:

Jonathan Pie's opinion.

 

On 13/07/2023 at 19:22, Toast said:

Jonathan Pie echoes my opinion.  This was a private matter and should have remained so.  It's got fuck all to do with the Sun or the BBC.

I'm not the first to say it, but Pie would be a far better reporter/journalist than most self-proclaimed journalists today.

[Kenny 283]

1 hour ago, Ulitzer95 said:

You facepalming my comment doesn't make it any less true @Kenny.

Barely anyone gets prosecuted each year over TV licensing. Your friend must be a total numpty. Send my kindest regards and sympathies though.

 

It's hard to find recent stats but this is a good indication. https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/tv-licence-fee-evasion-many-women-convicted/

 

"According to data published by the MoJ this week, there were 114,000 convictions of TV licence fee evaders in 2019 (up 3% from 2015). Of those, 74% were women."

 

Barely anyone?

[lilham 757]

5 minutes ago, Kenny said:

 

It's hard to find recent stats but this is a good indication. https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/tv-licence-fee-evasion-many-women-convicted/

 

"According to data published by the MoJ this week, there were 114,000 convictions of TV licence fee evaders in 2019 (up 3% from 2015). Of those, 74% were women."

 

Barely anyone?

I wonder how many of them lived off of government assistance and if that was how they were found out.

I am not making a negative comment about people living on government assistance, just saying I would think they'd be more likely to get caught.

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

2 hours ago, Kenny said:

 

 

 

Not sure if you're laughing at the notion those acts were ever innovative or they wouldn't have become profitable any other way, but - either way - I'd stand by those claims. I'm not saying the Beeb is totally responsible for the country spending decades as a world power in music but take a look at the list of the biggest selling artists ever. Only nine acts have any valid claim to have sold at least a quarter of a billion records and five of that nine (Beatles/Floyd/Elton John/Queen/Led Zeppelin) are British. Two (Floyd/Zep) are primarily album acts who wouldn't have made it without late night Radio One playing them as cult acts and driving people to their gigs. Elton John and Queen made it here first and relied on daytime and late night radio play (the late night stuff playing the songs the rest of radio was ignoring) which meant they found an album loving crowd alongside the pop fans who put their singles into the charts and The Beatles British breakthrough relied on the light programme (as it then was) to get them known, without that the first hits, and the life-changing US trip wouldn't have happened. 

 

Oh aye, and on topic - as of today GB News are claiming more Huw Edwards revelations are "imminent" whilst The Mirror - apparently - have evidence the viewing public wants him back. Gonna get complicated and somewhere in the middle of that is a guy on suicide watch who about ten days back was widely believed to be living up to the image of a church going father of five and pillar of the broadcasting establishment. I'd say the amount of support amongst some of the public will help him stay alive. As for his career, I wouldn't want to be a senior BBC boss fielding the conflicting calls.

[Ulitzer95 12,654]

47 minutes ago, Kenny said:

 

It's hard to find recent stats but this is a good indication. https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/tv-licence-fee-evasion-many-women-convicted/

 

"According to data published by the MoJ this week, there were 114,000 convictions of TV licence fee evaders in 2019 (up 3% from 2015). Of those, 74% were women."

 

Barely anyone?

Are you having a laugh?! That's a tiny amount of people. Millions evade the TV licence every year.

[Youth in Asia 1,087]

And the BBC is full of private school, nepo baby or Oxbridge types like her, earning massive salaries. IMHO it's living off its former glories and needs to get back to producing stuff people want to see, otherwise it has no purpose.

[time 8,621]

10 hours ago, Youth in Asia said:

And the BBC is full of private school, nepo baby or Oxbridge types like her, earning massive salaries. IMHO it's living off its former glories and needs to get back to producing stuff people want to see, otherwise it has no purpose.

One of the problems is that the current government would quite happily see the BBC disappear - there are those who argue that it is, in fact, doing everything it can to hasten it's demise. 

As for producing stuff people want to see, I'd say, within the terms of it's remit, it manages that pretty well, but in a commercial arena, with programme makers, especially 'new' players Netflix, Prime, etc, throwing millions at producing content, the BBC can't compete on those terms.

[time 8,621]

12 hours ago, Kenny said:

 

It's hard to find recent stats but this is a good indication. https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/tv-licence-fee-evasion-many-women-convicted/

 

"According to data published by the MoJ this week, there were 114,000 convictions of TV licence fee evaders in 2019 (up 3% from 2015). Of those, 74% were women."

 

Barely anyone?

Figures for 2020 - 55,061 prosecuted, 52,477 convicted. For 2021 - 49,126 prosecuted, 45,380 convicted. TV ownership estimated at 26.9 million private homes (out of 28.3 million total). Source: House of Commons library

 

Comparatively speaking, barely anyone (0.17% of TV owners), and reducing.

[Bentrovato 1,089]

14 minutes ago, time said:

Figures for 2020 - 55,061 prosecuted, 52,477 convicted. For 2021 - 49,126 prosecuted, 45,380 convicted. TV ownership estimated at 26.9 million private homes (out of 28.3 million total). Source: House of Commons library

 

Comparatively speaking, barely anyone (0.17% of TV owners), and reducing.

Wonderful. Only in England can a story about a TV presenter having fun on the internet can get so boring that people are left  arguing over how many people pay the licence fee. Fine effort.

[maryportfuncity 10,657]

Guardian today reporting Huw is in contact with his long-standing mate from BBC days Jon Sopel, and has told Sopel he's not too enamoured with the way BBC has reported his recent adventures.  Suggests Huw is more in the real world  than the speculation brought on by his hospitalisation suggested and that he's already thinking about how to get his own interpretation of events out there. Suicide wise, then - likely nowt to see here.

[Toast 16,155]

1 hour ago, time said:

One of the problems is that the current government would quite happily see the BBC disappear - there are those who argue that it is, in fact, doing everything it can to hasten it's demise. 

As for producing stuff people want to see, I'd say, within the terms of it's remit, it manages that pretty well, but in a commercial arena, with programme makers, especially 'new' players Netflix, Prime, etc, throwing millions at producing content, the BBC can't compete on those terms.

 

I do think the salaries paid to presenters are ridiculously high.  I suppose it's to stop them defecting to other broadcasters.  But if I was in charge I'd just hire someone else.  There must be plenty of personable people out there who are capable of doing the job.

[time 8,621]

1 hour ago, Bentrovato said:

Wonderful. Only in England can a story about a TV presenter having fun on the internet can get so boring that people are left  arguing over how many people pay the licence fee. Fine effort.

I know, I can't believe this site is free!

[msc 18,480]

21 minutes ago, Toast said:

 

I do think the salaries paid to presenters are ridiculously high.  I suppose it's to stop them defecting to other broadcasters.  But if I was in charge I'd just hire someone else.  There must be plenty of personable people out there who are capable of doing the job.

 

Note that it's market value too. Dermot Murnaghan left the BBC for Sky because Sky were able to double his salary. But Sky and other non-BBC organisations are not required to publish salaries. Kay Burley is on circa 450-500k a year, which is higher than all BBC presenters bar Gary Lineker and Zoe Ball. (And Lineker yes is a massive outlier even in sports punditry, that I can see, but I suspect it's like Jonathan Ross before him. They're paying for his presenting jobs AND for his connections in the sports world and ability to convince folk to do interviews, documentaries etc for the BBC. Ross used to get shitloads because they were paying him to present and also his production company which made shows for the BBC.)

 

Is 400k+ a year too much to present the news? Possibly. But according to the star salaries list from last week, all of the BBC's news anchors could leave for a rival and get a significant pay rise!

 

PS What I got from this is that, by the standards of their peers, Kirsty Wark and Clive Myrie are significantly underpaid for the amount of work they do. I suppose it doesn't matter when you get 250k a year, mind you...

[Clorox Bleachman 2,452]

My most (small-c) conservative take is that there's nothing wrong with high-ranking presenters and politicians earning ££££££ annually, if they're being fairly taxed. It's a drop in the ocean compared to the money being hoarded offshore.

[Toast 16,155]

5 hours ago, msc said:

Note that it's market value too. Dermot Murnaghan left the BBC for Sky because Sky were able to double his salary.

 

Yes, that's what I meant.  I just think it's ridiculous amounts of money for something that requires no real skill and carries little responsibility, compared with being a surgeon or running the country, respectively.

[msc 18,480]

19 minutes ago, Toast said:

 

Yes, that's what I meant.  I just think it's ridiculous amounts of money for something that requires no real skill and carries little responsibility, compared with being a surgeon or running the country, respectively.

Real skill, running the country. Yeah I'd like that to turn up yesterday, too!

[ladyfiona 2,595]

Can there be a thread just dedicated to BBC license fee because it feels like 70% of posts here now are people banging on about it and nothing related to Huw Edwards?

 

If want good reasons to have BBC then these things i've watched recently have been excellent:

 

- Casualty Covid episode

- Eastenders getting back to being good

- Last Tango In Halifax / Happy Valley / Gentleman Jack / anything Sally Wainwright writes

- Call the Midwife

- Wimbledon coverage

- Queen's funeral coverage and Coronation of king

- The Serpent

- Doctor Who (I know how you feel about Jodie/the writing recently ok)

- Accused / anything Jimmy McGovern writes

- Strictly Come Dancing

- Line of Duty

- Killing Eve

- It's a Sin

- Staged

 

There's so many more but those are things off top of my head.

[TQR 14,404]

2 minutes ago, ladyfiona said:

- Eastenders getting back to being good

 

[The Old Crem 3,608]

6 hours ago, Toast said:

 

I do think the salaries paid to presenters are ridiculously high.  I suppose it's to stop them defecting to other broadcasters.  But if I was in charge I'd just hire someone else.  There must be plenty of personable people out there who are capable of doing the job.

Problem is you could be doing that constantly and viewing figures are helped by stability and  regularity. 

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,689]

16 minutes ago, ladyfiona said:

Can there be a thread just dedicated to BBC license fee because it feels like 70% of posts here now are people banging on about it and nothing related to Huw Edwards?

 

 

There’s not only a BBC thread, there’s also a BBC4 thread I remember starting hundreds of years ago (possibly unfindable)