oaf@mit-vax.UUCP (Oded Feingold) (02/17/85)
>zed**************************************************alpha<
[I'll respond to the stuff in caps.]
You must buy a license to use the TV, however.
This is because the BBC is supported by these
fees, as well as gov't subsidy... The BBC as
a result does not require commercials.
GIVEN A CHOICE OF PAYING $75/YEAR
...OR WATCHING 16-20 MINUTES OF
COMERCIALS/HOUR, I'D PAY THE MONEY.
If you lives in the United States you watches the commercials AND you
pays the money. This is not voluntary --- the cost of commercials is
built in to the price you pay for cars, beers, toothpaste, Wonder Bread
and the other necessities of life. The folks at Advertising Age can
tell you the amount spent last year for TV commercials --- divide that
by the number of people in the US and you have the per capita
commercials tax. The last time I looked (in 1977 or so) it was about
$120 for TV, $25 for radio. Presumably those numbers have escalated...
These are fairly stupendous figures - we could feed Ethiopia and maybe
buy out the Russians with money like that. [That's direct cost of
commercials --- what the TV people get paid, I think. Presumably the
advertisers expect a return on investment, so the real tax is higher.]
All you Libertarians out there must immediately stop buying toothpaste
or suffer credential cavities. :<) [smiley face - big nose...]
At the risk of sounding like a 6th-grade schoolteacher, what do you think
is sold by TV anyway? Look where the money goes - the advertisers pay the
networks and producers, and the latter deliver the goods - YOU. You are
the product, and it doesn't matter a whit whether you watch the damn show
or not - you're still paying for it in the rest of your life. (Relative
popularity of shows merely sets the rates...) Talk about coercion!
Note that BBC is free to produce a high-quality, not particularly
popular show. It won't lose revenue by it. Unlike us...
Give me the British system any day. (Too bad they have such abominable
accents.)
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Oded Feingold
MIT AI Lab 545 Tech Sq. Cambridge, Ma. 02139
mitvax!oaf.UUCP 617-253-8598 oaf%oz@MIT-MC.ARPA
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Apropos: Gun control, TV control, and the battle among truth, beauty
and the American way.laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (02/22/85)
So Oded Feingold would rather pay a fee and not watch commercials, would he? Now, I don't have a television, and almost never watch the stuff at all, so correct me if I am wrong -- isn't this the way that PBS is supposed to work? And isn't PBS chronically short of funds? I guess that means that most people don't share his opinion. I doubt that we can pick up the slack through the people who would prefer to pay a flat fee but can't afford ig right now due to the increased costs of the goods they buy due to advertising. [How large are *those* anyway? If your advertising campaign is not paying for itself in increases in orders then it is doing a pretty poor job -- but then when your advertising campaign is doing a poor job one tends to get a new campaign, not scrap the whole idea.] Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
pal@crystal.UUCP (02/25/85)
> So Oded Feingold would rather pay a fee and not watch commercials, would he? > Now, I don't have a television, and almost never watch the stuff at all, > so correct me if I am wrong -- isn't this the way that PBS is supposed to > work? And isn't PBS chronically short of funds? I guess that means that > most people don't share his opinion. I doubt that we can pick up the The problem with PBS is that it is possible to watch the broadcasts *without* having paid your fee. Incredibly, there are actually people who do so :-). The BBC has the opposite problem: You pay a licence fee (annual, I think) for owning a TV (or radio), whether you watch the BBC programs or not. The nearest thing to a direct market is probably a pay-cable operation like HBO, but there is still some "bundling", in that you pay for the heavyweight boxing even if you just want to watch "Star Wars", or whatever. I don't know if there are systems where you can effectively "pay as you watch." > > Laura Creighton > utzoo!laura Anil Pal U. of Wisconsin - Madison
rdz@ccice5.UUCP (Robert D. Zarcone) (02/26/85)
> So Oded Feingold would rather pay a fee and not watch commercials, would he? > Now, I don't have a television, and almost never watch the stuff at all, > > Laura Creighton > utzoo!laura Then how dare you get involved in a discussion about it! [:-) Joke! Joke!] Actually, there has been such a loss of government monies to PBS that many of the stations are becoming more and more subscriber and business suported. Some affiliates also use there facilities to generate income by producing shows for commercial stations and COMMERCIALS. Much of the subscriber money comes in during "Beg-A-Thon" weeks ("We only come to you three times a year, for a month at a time"). Also of note is the fact that PBS is now allowing "corporate sponser" acknowledgements of up to a minute in length. What used to be "Masterpiece Theatre is made possible by a grant from the Mobil Corp." will probably now become "Mobil Corp. presents Masterpiece Theatre and a full line of car care products such as the following..." BTW, I don't subscribe. I mean, do these people think they can beam their signal into MY home, without my permission, and then expect ME to pay for it? The nerve of (insert the individual/group you don't like here). *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***
kay@flame.UUCP (Kay Dekker) (03/06/85)
>Note that BBC is free to produce a high-quality, not particularly >popular show. It won't lose revenue by it. Unlike us... >Give me the British system any day. (Too bad they have such abominable >accents.) The wonder of it is, though, that even though they are free to do so, they almost invariably don't. If idiot-fodder looks like pulling up the ratings, idiot-fodder we get. In fact, (in my opinion) Channel 4 (the relatively new commercial channel) produces more higher-quality stuff than BBC2, the BBC "intellectual" channel. Mind you, I don't watch very much TV (rots the mind, you know). Oh, by the way: British people don't have abominable accents; on the whole we find them pleasant (apart from Lancashire :-)). I'm afraid, though, that I find most American accents either appalling or hysterically funny. (No flames, please; we're British) Kay. -- Ceci n'est pas un article. ... mcvax!ukc!ubu!flame!kay
gjk@talcott.UUCP (Greg Kuperberg) (03/10/85)
> Oh, by the way: British people don't have abominable accents; on the > whole we find them pleasant (apart from Lancashire :-)). I'm afraid, > though, that I find most American accents either appalling or hysterically > funny. ... > Kay. Naw, dem Aingleshmen sho' tawk funny! Eeb'm maw funny den dem dayum Yankees! --- Greg Kuperberg harvard!talcott!gjk "2*x^5-10*x+5=0 is not solvable by radicals." -Evariste Galois.