Unit 8 Task 01a

Rebecca Thomas

• I am writing about the BBC and ITV, I find writing about these two organisations interesting because I am hoping to one day work for one of them.

The BBC• The BBC is funded by the licence fee that is paid

by the British public. The annual cost of a colour TV licence is £145.50 (as from 1st April 2010) which is equivalent to £12.13 per month or just under 40p per day. A black and white TV licence is £49. The licence fee has been frozen at £145.50 till March 31st 2017 for coloured TV.

How the licence fee is spent

• I looked on the BBC website which has a whole section dedicated to the licence fee and found that they had broken down how much a households licence fee spends on different aspects of the BBC. The BBC website says that around £8 per month per household is spent on the BBC channels and the programmes they have. The total spend according to the BBC on TV from the licence fee is £2.2676 million (66%). £2.30 per month per household is spent on the BBC’s radio channels including their well known radio channel Radio 1. The total spend for all of the radio things is £650 million (19%). For all the online things the BBC covers £0.61 is spent per month per household and a total spend of £174 million (5%). And finally any other costs are covered by £1.82 per month per household and a total spend of £357 million (10%).

How the price of the licence fee has

changed• I found a table on the BBC website which shows

the change in price of the licence fee over seven years.

• As you can see, the licence fee has increased over the past seven years. Between 1st April 2007 and 1st April 2013 the colour licence fee has increased by £10. The black and white licence fee has also increased £3.50 over seven years.

• The licence fee• Author: The BBC• http://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/w

howeare/licencefee/ - 17/10/14

Who works for the BBC?

• Predominantly the BBC have freelance journalists working for them. This is due to the fact that the BBC don’t have to worry about paying a freelancer sick pay or holiday pay. They may just give them a three month contract for a particular tv show and then once the tv show has finished their contract will end. However the BBC does employ some permanent employees, for example Nick Hope who works as a journalist for the BBC. When he came in to speak to us he told us that he is expected to do three jobs in one. For example he is in front of the camera, whilst also checking the camera angles he’s filming and then editing it later on. Nick told us that he would be rich if he was paid by the hour like a freelance, so the BBC are saving money on both types of journalist. For certain jobs the BBC will use a range of contracted and freelance workers. This is similar to ITV who will also have a mixture of freelance and contacted workers as well.

Reflecting Uk audiences

• The BBC tell their audience on their website that they can rely on them to ‘reflect the many communities that exist in the Uk’. The BBC believe they will make debate within and between communities, whilst also encouraging people to actively get involved in their communities. Below you can see the BBC’s purpose priorities that have been suggested by the public. These are the six main priorities that the BBC strive to achieve for their audience.

Public purposes: Reflecting Uk audiences

Author: BBChttp://www.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/whoweare/publicpurposes/communities.html -24/10/14

What are the BBC’s aims for the future?

• After pledging £245 million to the World Service , which is the world’s largest international broadcaster, broadcasting news, speech and discussions in 28 languages. This is to many parts of the world on different platforms including analogue and digital shortwave platforms. And also internet streaming, podcasting, satellite, FM and MW relays. The BBC are aiming to have £374 million ongoing savings in three years time, so they can meet the obligations from funding the World Service (£245 million) and manage any inflationary pressures on the budget. This needs to be done by the BBC while continuing to deliver excellent programmes and content.

• Value for money• Author: The BBC• http://www.bbc.co.uk/annualreport/2014/bbc-trust/setting-strategy/

value-for-money.html - 17/10/14

• BBC World Service• https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1

&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=what%20is%20the%20bbc%20world%20service -17/10/14

ITV• Itv is mainly funded through advertising in between

their programmes. Big businesses pay the ITV big money to show their advert at a certain time, for example prime time viewing on a Saturday night when the Xfactor is on. Compared to the BBC, ITV’s funding is more stable at the moment because more and more people are refusing to pay for the licence fee as they don’t see why they should be forced to pay for it. Whilst audiences don’t have to pay anything for ITV’s adverts. It is very likely the BBC will go down the route of either having a subscription based channel or similar to ITV and have advertising between programmes.

Internet• Both ITV and the BBC have a catch up service online which

are called BBC iplayer and ITV Player. Internet catch up tv is becoming more and more popular and both broadcasters have to keep up with the high number of people wanting more from the service. For example a lot of students choose not to have a television and just use the iplayer instead. For this reason ITV especially have most of their programmes posted on their player the day after it has been aired. In 2015 the channel BBC Three is due to be closed down from being aired on television and made solely into an internet channel. By 2015 it is planned that BBC Three will be streamed live on iplayer to appeal to the ever growing internet audience.

Who we are

Author: ITVhttp://www.itvplc.com/about/what-we-do -24/10/14

ChannelsITV have recently launched a channel called ITVBe, which is a channel for lifestyle and reality channel. This is to get a younger audience watching ITV, its almost like a BBC Three in the respect of the programs are targeted to a specific age bracket. ITV are airing programmes like The Only Way Is Essex that young people enjoy watching so they attract them to the channel. ITVBe is in some aspects a replacement for BBC Three that is due to be axed in 2015 to online only. ITV have smartly introduced ITVBe to try and get the people that would of watched BBC Three to watch that instead.

BBC Three to be axed as on air channel

Author: BBC Newshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-26447089