Wednesday 2 November 2016

Baked Off

I'm not a fan of Bake Off so maybe that's why I'm not bothered by it moving to Channel 4. But I am surprised by some of the comments that have resulted.

It seems that many are aghast at the greedy independent producers, Love Productions, taking their idea to where it will get the most dough. But that's the point, it was their idea.

The BBC is a monolithic giant which dominates our media. In return for not being broken up (for example selling off Radio 2, which I like but find impossible to defend as a service funded by what is tantamount to a hypothecated tax), the BBC has to commission a minmum amount of programing from independent producers. You might have thought such producers, in return for the DG's shilling, would have had to sign away the rights to their intellectual property to the corporation if they wanted their idea to see the light of day. But fortunately that sort of corporate behaviour is now beyond the pale. Nevertheless, I'm left feeling that, because everyone loves Auntie, they would be happy to see the people who created the programme effectively being ripped off.

Still, a bonus for me is no Bake Off till 2018, though I accept that is churlish for folk like my wife who love it. Actually, she's finding it a bit stale so if, like Top Gear, people don't like it with different personnel and start to feel it had run its course, then Channel 4 will find the return on their investment will be soggy.

So maybe the system isn't working properly if the only likely winners are the owners of Love Productions. The real problem is that the BBC can't justify spending the money on programmes that command big buns in terms of money, like Bake Off clearly can, when the public still expects everything to be "free" and they feel especially cheated if it isn't on terrestial tv. We could tinker with this, or reform it. Yes, I know, no politician will risk being blamed for killing Bambi, sorry Auntie, so tinkering until demographics does the job (does anyone under 35 watch or listen to the BBC?) is what they'll do.

Oh, and I see the Beeb has put Question of Sport out to tender. S'ok, I don't watch that either!

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