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BBC to Cull the Cult TV Repository 145

Posted by Zonk from the who-all-over-again dept.
malkavian writes "The BBC has announced that it's going to be ceasing to host it's Cult TV Repository. At a meager 700,000 users per month, it was decided that this was no longer a significantly useful public resource, as the information was also available elsewhere on the net. Many people believe this to be a grievous mistake on the part of the BBC, to allow the history of their own broadcasting highlights to fragment, and possibly be lost like so much of its other content."
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BBC to Cull the Cult TV Repository More

BBC to Cull the Cult TV Repository

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  • This is strange... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arthur B. ( 806360 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @08:54AM (#12959685)
    It's not like they lack bandwith ? Maybe they lack the human workforce to keep it up... If they'd open it up a little like a wiki this wouldn't be much of a problem, and bandwith cost is largely covered by the affluence to other BCC pages.

    • Re:This is strange... (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Largely covered? The BBC don't have adverts on their site - so every page viewed costs them money, regardless of the pull of other sections of the site. I mourn the loss of Cult, but I can understand where they're coming from - it's not a unique site on the net - although the quality of writing and articles is a good deal higher than your common-or-garden sci-fi site. It's a shame it's going :(
      • erm.. licence fee?

        espically as the program quality has gone down.. and while on that 'advert' note, I have noticed that they do advertise espically on the radio, but only their own programs on BBC1 etc.. are they allowed to do that?
        • They only ever trailer for their own shows and channels (cross channel, including for TV programs on Radio shows), which the extent they are allowed to.

          They do also have 'commercial arms' though, some of which are joint ventures which get access to show old BBC shows on subscription based digtial and satillite.

          UK Gold used to fall into this category (and may still do) with old Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and Blackadder shows, though it also shows non BBC shows from the UK.
      • >> The BBC don't have adverts on their site - so every page viewed costs them

        That's their own fault. How can you possibly have a web page with 700,000 monthly users and not be able to pay for it? I'm not saying spam the hell out of your users with ads, but geez. Try to sell them a coffee mug or t-shirt about the programs they have already shown interest in.

        Give any webmaster 700,000 monthly visits targeted to a particular niche and they'll be able to make money on it, or at least not go broke.

        N

    • Jobcuts (new management) (Score:5, Informative)

      by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:14AM (#12959816)
      Alas, there is a new organ grinder in charge and he's introduced proposals for a huge number of job cuts, thousands of people are to go. Mark Thompson became Director General following the resignation of Greg Dyke (over a highly public row between the BBC and the UK Government on the War in Iraq).

      No matter what people thought of Greg Dyke - he wasn't actually Evil(TM) but he wasn't without a fair share of legitimate critics either - pretty much everybody, both the general public and BBC employees, hate Mark Thompson (something which on his announcement as new Dir. Gen. was fuelled by the media, who have plenty of material owning to his own past behaviour).

      I rather suspect this is all to help make the BBC better suited to transition to a subscription based service (rather than a license fee funded one), though this won't be till after 2008-12, and would probably co-incide with a move to switch of analogue TV all together and go digital (so the government can go through with it's plan to sell of the valuable airspace to next generation mobile/wireless operators).

    • Either that, or... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jd ( 1658 )
      ...auction off the web pages on e-bay. Make some cash AND save the content, which is quite sizable. That way, the BBC is happy (they profit AND don't have to maintain the pages) and the fans are happy (the BBC cult tv info is still together and still maintained).
    • BBC produces some bizarre programs. I remember while channel surfing once, I saw a show about border collies herding sheep. Not during a competition a la Babe, they just followed folks out with their dogs. Where do they get funding to pay for such shows? If you have a TV in England, you must pay a yearly licensing fee. The fee, at least in part, goes to the BBC. When I was there many years ago, it reminded me of some DOT projects -- "Well, we got this money and we have to spend it, so that's why we d
      • Whats wrong with that? As a long-term fan of "one man and his dog" I find sheep herding fascinating. Its just a part of daily rural life for a lot of folk. I don't see your problem.
        • No slight intended -- sheep herding is not common fare in the states. I was merely pointing out that the BBC has massive funding and can produce less mainstream programming without fear of profit/loss margins, so why not keep the site up.
          • Gotcha. Sorry, so used to the Slashdotian neo-Libertarianism I thought you were saying something different along the lines that they piss money up the wall on silly things. They are of course not silly things as much as uncommerical things. Its actually in their mandate to produce minority programming (indeed, there is an ongoing argument from the commerical broadcasters that the BBC should do only this type of programming so as not to unfairly compete with them). I think what we are seeing here is to do wi
      • BBC produces some bizarre programs.

        The most bizarre I ever ran across was on BBC2 one early morn. I saw a programme in the Radio Times called "Naked Yoga." I thought it would be an essential guide to yoga or an introduction to yoga basics. But no, it was just 30 minutes of people doing yoga while actually naked. No commentary or anything, just mostly wrinklies in various yoga positions with no clothes on.

  • The BBC has to save money (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2005 @08:57AM (#12959705)

    and whats the betting that most of those 700k users are not licence payers ?

    perhaps the BBC should just cut of access off to those outside the UK and bring a subscription models in for non-licence fee payers
    • just cut of access off to those outside the UK

      No, no, no, no, NO!

      As someone who is not in the UK, I can tell you that (for me anyway) I would be happy to pay for a subscription to the BBC (both for television and web, but not BBC America since it's watered/dumbed down). I think that modifying your statement to say "Perhaps the BBC should implement a subscription model for those outside the UK and the non-lincense fee payers" would be a bit more appealing to me. I would gladly pay for quality programming from them, since most of the programming in the US is crap.

      • I would gladly pay the equivalent price of a U.S. cable TV subscription ($35-$45 per month) for the ability to download and view BBC TV programs. If they threw in streaming of BBC Radio as well, that would seal the deal.

        Too bad that I see so little chance of that happening.
    • A friend used to work in the BBC IT / Network / Web department. He once had to run statistics to show where most of the web impressions were going to. When quizzed about this he said that if most of the people browsing were from outside of the UK, there was a case for closing it down as it isn't being fair to the licence fee payers. So, having people say: "I can't get the BBC here, you are my only link to good TV!" probably isn't helping. If it was a load of people saying "I remember this from when I wa

    • As a licence fee payer, I have no objection to supporting a national broadcasting organisation that provides good quality TV, radio and Internet services. The price I pay is a bargain compared to the subscriptions demanded by inferior networks in many other countries, and the BBC remains one of our strongest national assets.

      What I do object to is the fact that the only people who pay for it are those in the UK with TVs. Why should someone who only listens to BBC radio not contribute, for example? Simply o

      • Radio users have to pay their license fee, but its less, like black and white tv's.
        • Radio users have to pay their license fee, but its less, like black and white tv's.

          That's untrue. "Radio only" licences were abolished in February 1971.

          If you own a radio and not a TV, you are not obliged to pay a B&W license fee.
      • I actually always thought that the "TV license" model made a lot of sense. Better than how PBS/NPR is funded in the U.S. Public TV and radio stations get a certain percentage of their funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (which is in turn funded from tax dollars), with the rest of their funding coming from viewers/listeners who care enough to pay the stations to keep their programming on the air. Ever heard of a "fund drive"? Most proponents of public broadcasting put up with these drives
    • And while we're at it Linus should cut off distribution of the kernel to people who don't pay him donations.

      I pay the license fee for a public service, not just a British public service.

      Perhaps instead of building idiotic and unenforceable iron walls around our intellectual assets, we simply ask for donations from overseas?

  • Everything produced should be available (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    It is my opinion that since the BBC is publically funded they should strive to keep everything produced available to whoever wants it for as long as possible. Whilst 700,000 users may be a small number compared to other areas of the BBC site, it can hardly be called an insignificant number.
    • The BBC had been told to reduce the amount of content on their website because they're publically funded. Their competitors (other news sites in particular, and other sites in general) have complained that they can't compete with the BBC's vast range of content.

      I expect this is the first part of the site to go, I doubt it will be the last. It's a great shame though.
      • Yes, one of the reasons given for removing this site is that the same content is available commercialy or otherwise elsewhere and it is therefore a waste of money to duplicate the commercial, or otherwise, content.

        I had hoped that the BBC would be able to hold out against the corporate whingers who complain about it's content since although it's true that other companies can provide the same content as the BBC website the BBC by and large does a much better job of it than their rivals and it does it more o
        • " Yes, one of the reasons given for removing this site is that the same content is available commercialy..."

          Perhaps what's really going on is that those who want to make money off of providing said content are pressuring the government to kill off their competition.

  • Maybe this will change now (Score:5, Funny)

    by beef3k ( 551086 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @08:59AM (#12959722)
    After getting an additional 700,000 hits from the /. in just a couple of hours crowd maybe that will make them reverse their decision.

    Damn, it's just so hard to be funny at work on fridays. Sorry.

  • HHGTTG!!! (Score:2, Funny)

    by Astrobirdr ( 560760 )
    ACK! Now how will I find the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?

  • this is like the black & white film. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Saven Marek ( 739395 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:00AM (#12959727)
    this is like the black & white film I think where everyone bemoaned that it was no longer available but few people who complained ever use it any more. so like it's the same with many tv shows when many people say "well that one should stay on air!!!" but they dont watch it even when it is on.

    • What? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Thedalek ( 473015 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:30AM (#12959921)
      No it isn't. This is about the BBC ceasing to host and maintain information regarding several of their "cult" programs, such as Doctor Who, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (radio and TV versions), and Blake's 7. They're purging the information from their website, in much the same way they have, in the past, destroyed all known recordings of programs such as Dad's Army and Top of the Pops.

      This isn't about, "Oh that's a grand show. It should stay on the air." This is more akin to your local library deciding they're going to get rid of hundreds of popular books which are being checked out, on the basis that "They're available at other public libraries and bookstores."

      Honestly, it's deplorable that the BBC has gone back to their long-standing tradition of willful destruction of archive material.
      • No, as noted in the article, they're keeping the Doctor Who content, which moved to its own sub-site a while back anyway.
      • Honestly, it's deplorable that the BBC has gone back to their long-standing tradition of willful destruction of archive material.

        Do you really believe that they will destroy all traces of the Cult website from their backup archives? The reason they destroyed their media in the past was because the archive of video was expensive, and at the time they didn't believe they had a real reason to justify the costs. However, there's no real reason for the BBC to 'destroy' this data, the only large cost is keeping

        • They could at the very least keep the pages online with some sort of disclaimer that the site isn't being updated. bbc.co.uk/archive/web/ or some such.


          The BBC has plenty of (free; they peer with everyone) bandwidth to keep stuff like this online indefinately. Archiving it offline and only offline is silly.

    • people say "well that one should stay on air!!!"

      You obviously don't live in the US. Nobody I know here would ever say that about most programs. :-)

  • Many, eh? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gowen ( 141411 ) <gwowen@gmail.com> on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:01AM (#12959734) Homepage Journal
    Many people believe this to be a grievous mistake
    If many people really cared, they wouldn't be closing it due to lack of interest.

    700,000 hits is really not very many.

    And the idea that the closure of this small part of the webpage is going to result in BBC archivists deleting the programs is just idiotic scaremongering. The BBC are more than aware of the stupid mistakes made in the past w.r.t. Not Only But Also, The Goons and so.
    • If you think that 700,000 hits a month isn't very much, you must work for slashdot! God knows how many websites would kill to get that many hits.

      You're right about the BBC learning from the past though as I believe that they are now pretty strict about archiving.

      • Re:Many, eh? (Score:2, Informative)

        by gowen ( 141411 )
        If you think that 700,000 hits a month isn't very much, you must work for slashdot!
        Compared to the BBC's web output, slashdot is a drop in the ocean. See? [alexa.com] the difference in hits [alexa.com]?
    • They're not closing it "due to lack of interest", they're cutting costs.
      • they're cutting costs.
        Well of course they are. But you've got to consider the sanest criterion to select things to get cut. There's no contradiction here.

        Charter renewal is round the corner, and the external pressure from other broadcasters is starting to get felt... So, they've got to cut costs. So, how due you pick which things to shut? Well, it's those in which there is a marked lack of interest.
        • AFAI can see, the choice is between cutting into their programming, or cutting into the 'extras'. I'd rather have another season of Dr Who than keep the Cult website...
    • 700,000 hits is really not very many

      700,000 unique users, not 700,000 hits. And they're not closing it due to lack of interest; they're closing it because of financial reasons. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/news/2005/06/29/2 0 281.shtml [bbc.co.uk] for full details, but in a nutshell they're closing websites which they feel "do not provide sufficient distinctive public value for the investment required".

      I suspect it also really means "sites which we can close without people noticing or getting upset about"

      • Well it _could_ be a planned outrage from the BBC. It is not uncommon for publicly funded institutions to pick highly popular services to sacrifice when called upon to cut costs. If done properly, this will generate a massive public outrage against whoever it was that tried to slash the budgets (typically a politician) and so the institution may end up getting its budget back.
    • I think I read somewhere ( on the BBC ) that this site actually got the 2nd highest number of hits for a BBC section. Obviously News got the most hits by quite a large margin.

  • Commercial Pressure on the Beeb (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dontod ( 571749 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:03AM (#12959745) Homepage
    This is about pressure on the what web content the BBC should have from other commericial operators such as News International (The Sun newspaper, Sky TV) and other Newspapers groups who feel that the BBC is giving away content, they could be earning revenue from.

    Don.
    • Mark the parent insightful. As he says this is not only about cutting costs. The BBC is culling areas where it is not 'distinctive' because of complaints from the commercial sector than an (effectively) tax-supported service is competing with them.

      • In late 2003 the UK Conservative party threatned to close the whole of the BBC's website.

        Their culture spokesman, John Whittingdale said
        ""...I am not persuaded that there is necessarily a case for a public service website. I'm not persuaded that anything on the BBC site could not be provided elsewhere, [for instance] the newspapers are mostly providing sites, which provide news and comment.

        "They [the newspaper sites] are essentially trying to provide for the same market and therefore you can argue why
  • Does this mean no more Red Dwarf? No more Fawlty Towers? No more (gasp!) Monty Python??? I mean...if it hadn't have been for those staples of British culture, my 2 year stay in London with the Navy would have been horrible. I think that the BBC dumping their archives is wrong, not only from a cultural viewpoint, but also a historical one. Think of all the great speeches and war-time documentaries. They should at least be put in a museum somewhere. I'm sure they can find room in the British Museum or

  • Standard Reply? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dapulli ( 725620 ) <[dapulli] [at] [gmail.com]> on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:06AM (#12959763) Homepage
    I sent an offical complaint through the BBC's internal complaints and got this reply within a couple of days. I asked about the closure and the BBC's continuing lack of sci-fi and fantasy based tv as well as expressing my disbelief that they aren't following up Doctor Who with more similar content, instead removing the section of the site that deals with most of the BBC's "cult" output that isn't Doctor Who. My Reply Thank you for your e-mail.

    We recognise that the Cult website has attracted a large following. However, efficiency savings are needed to pay for new projects which will ensure that the BBC continues to offer distinctive and innovative services, so it is necessary to close this site.

    As Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media, explained in December "...to meet the 10% target set out by the BBC Governors, we are announcing today a further 7.5% reduction to be achieved through lowering investment in areas where we feel this will not cause a reduction in public value...These changes build on the first steps we took in July to close those websites which we felt did not offer sufficient distinctive public value for the investment required. The savings we made in July represented 2.5% of our web output."

    Furthermore, the BBC outlined in November its commitment to offer more distinctive content. We felt that many areas covered by the Cult site were already being replicated on other areas of the web. This meant there was very little distinction between the BBC and the commercial sector.

    The exception to this is Dr Who, the largest of our Cult sites, which has now evolved into its own website, as an extension of the hugely successful BBC ONE TV series. We hope users will continue to visit and enjoy this site.

    Regards

    Sophie Walpole - Head of iD&E
    And
    Chris Chalton - Communications Manager, MC&A

  • It's not a shame it's a crime (Score:3, Interesting)

    by stuffduff ( 681819 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:07AM (#12959772) Journal
    As a child of the 60's-70's and expatriot for a few yers there I can honestly say that while the re-runs of Star Trek and Hogan's Heros were nice, that the world of BBC & ITV really opened my eyes to the possibility of what television could be. Those few of us who have enjoyed the site and shared it with our friends and our children have known for some time that this is a precious site, an important part of our cultural heritage and one of the few shining fortresses in the vast wasteland of planetary television. How unfortunate that BBC has chosen to turn it's back on the those of us who can really appreciate it. Let's hope that they are going to offer the content on a series of data CD's or DVD's. One day I'd like to enrich the veiwing experience of my grandchildren (if I should be so lucky!) with information like this. It was a real eye opener for my son to learn more about Gerry Anderson, The Prisoner and all those PCS reruns of Dr. Who. Let us further home that the BBC realizes that those few 700,000 are people who care, and appreciate both the content and the effort to bring it forward in such a nice manner.

    God Save The Queen!

  • 700,000 not correct, response from BBC (Score:5, Informative)

    by REBloomfield ( 550182 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:08AM (#12959774)
    Whilst we are not commenting on the proposed closure of the cult site, could we clarify a point made in a quote from one of the users of the website? The quote is question is " I mean, 700,000 hits a month, the second most popular BBC site"

    The bbc.co.uk/cult does have 700,000 unique users a month, however this does not mean it is the 2nd most popular BBC website. Indeed some bbc.co.uk sites get 700,000 hits in a few hours. The Cult site came second in the BBC's Online Audience Appreciation Survey, which was voted by users of the bbc.co.uk, which is where I believe a misunderstanding has occurred.

    We appreciate the opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding and to assure you that we are listening to the feedback given to us.
  • ..without memories like this [bbc.co.uk]
    • the same way it's survived every other massive data loss, eg the Library of Alexandria.

      Is it a Good Thing (tm) that we've lost a lot? Maybe not. Have we gotten on without it? Yep.

      What about all the collective memories of people who've died, or fires destroying historical artifacts? One of the more interesting (to me at least) WWII museums is the Yankee Air Museum [yankeeairmuseum.org] outside Detroit MI. Last October they had a huge fire that wiped out most of their records and interior displays, among which were large quanti

    • Kenny Everett, now there was a genius eh! That picture might become my wallpaper for a while...

  • The real reason? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I suspect this has some connection with a recent review of the BBC's online content, which concluded that the BBC should not use license payers' money to replicated online services that could realistically be provided elsewhere.

    Over the last few years, the BBC has built up a pretty vast online empire, going well beyond the normal news, sports and weather sections that most people use. Smaller, private enterprises complained that they were being forced to compete with what was essentially a rival taxpayer-f
    • How on Earth have you managed to modded as a Troll is beyond me.

      It's true, the BBC got into the Internet fairly quickly and in a big way which is why they have such an extensive all encompassing and generally excellent web presence, other potential web site operators who came to the party a little later are moaning about their ability to compete with an already established BBC and would like it to remove content which they feel they can provide for a fee.

      There is a debate to be had about this, personally
      • "However I can see that it isn't exactly fair to pay a compulsory licence fee for something which you may choose not to use"

        Or, is it fair to be forced to pay the licence fee ("Telly Tax") when those who view the content online and/or outside of the UK do not have to pay it at all?

        • I think the BBC does collect revenue from selling its programs abroad so thats not an issue but as far as the website goes I am happy that it is accessible by foreigners.

          The content has already been produced and paid for and so long as making it available to the world at large doesn't cost an unreasonable amount then it's easier to just let anyone view it rather than implement some kind of daft DRM scheme or impose geographic restrictions. The main thing is that it is primarily geared toward the UK licence

  • This is NOT strange... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by hal2814 ( 725639 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:28AM (#12959900)
    Two of the Beeb's biggest cult shows, Who and HHGTTG, have been revived. I'm not surprised to see them shut down the cult site now. A lot of the remaining shows in the cult section are not even Brittish shows. Angel? Buffy? Firefly? The Simpsons? I can see why the BBC isn't very interested in hosting a site to promote American television.
    • Adult prime-time cartoons? I know I can search google but I have no idea what I'm looking for or if it even exists.
      • There was 'Bob and Margaret' which was alright, but nothing special. Not 'laugh out loud' funny like the Simpsons or Family Guy, but more satirical.

        Then there was Monkey Dust which was like a sketch-show but in cartoon form. Quite dark and hilarious. I don't know what happened to it.

        2DTV is good as well. A sort of political satire thing, like those impression shows (Dead Ringers etc.) but a cartoon. Short sketches of various politicians (mainly British), but often Bush, Saddam and bin Laden.

  • Um (Score:3, Insightful)

    by t_allardyce ( 48447 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:28AM (#12959902) Journal
    Isn't the whole point of cult TV that its not mainstream 'masses' but a smaller number of dedicated fans? And while we are at it, the internet is not a broadcast medium, unlike TV/radio where a transmitter costs a fixed amount no matter how many people tune in, a website costs less to run with fewer visitors, sure it gets to a point where the overhead outweighs the variable cost but 700,000 people? The BBC should just start a BitTorrent tracker or something similar if the costs are too high for a full video server.

    Anyway the BBC is supposed to be pushing the masses up not dumbing down. A commercial network might bow to the biggest demographic but the point of a socialist/communist/whatever corporation is that it gives the masses good intelligent programming whether they like it or not, both types are needed - commercial TV is more 'fair' in its finances, non-commercial tax-funded TV is more 'fair' in its representation of all demographics. I call on the BBC to go back to educating people so they will realise how valuable a service it is and continue to make sure its funded.

  • How to complain (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:33AM (#12959958)
    1. Official channel: bbc.co.uk/complaints [bbc.co.uk]

    2. the suit responsible: Jonathan Kingsbury jonathan.kingsbury@bbc.co.uk [mailto] He looks forward to hearing from you.

  • ... then you can always express your opinions on the matter. Failing that, you can just vent spleen at them, although I wouldn't reccomend it.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/make_complaint_s tep1.shtml
    Select the "Make official complaint" option, and say what you want to say.

    I wrote to them suggesting they may be able to turn it into a more community-based site. IMHO it would make sense to keep a base of loyal fans than to put them out in the cold.

  • They never advertised this site.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mikael ( 484 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @09:45AM (#12960058)
    I didn't know about this site until it came up in this slashdot topic. Perhaps they should have linked to other sites like TV Cream which has all the theme tunes and info on British TV programming. Although, as other comments have stated, there's no point in the BBC maintaining a web site dedicated to TV programming from the USA.

  • What part of the concept of ``cult'' do they not understand. If they wanted lots of hits it wouldn't been very ``cultish'' now would it? They were hoping that their viewership would have number like, say, Star Trek?

    Sorry if I seem to be struggling with the problem they claim to be having over putting up content that is decidedly less than mainstream and then complaining that the number of viewers isn't what they hoped. (If it pleases the court, i'm going to plead lack of caffiene.)

  • I don't think we can trust the inaccurately-named 'internet archive'. There are two things we need to do 1) Petition. Hard. 2) Save all the content of the site, else the BBC will let it mould.
  • Let's help them out.

    wget -o /dev/null --mirror --no-parent http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/ [bbc.co.uk] &

  • Government policy (Score:5, Interesting)

    by panurge ( 573432 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @10:02AM (#12960245)
    The real trouble with the BBC is that it's too good at what it does. Which, for those who may have missed it, is telling the truth without being told what to say by advertisers. The funding cuts are basically punishment for being right about Government disinformation over Iraq; even getting an obnoxious Northern Irish judge to run a fixed enquiry failed to convince the public that the BBC was wrong, so the BBC had to suffer.

    Currently GB PLC is demonstrating that public enterprise is often better than private, contrary to the official government line. Failed privatised railways had to be rescued; private prisons are a humanitarian disaster; privatised schools are failing. So let's get the absolute flagship of public service, the BBC, and wreck it.

    The amazing thing about this is that some of the British politicians who spout the privatisation nonsense - the unlamented M Thatcher among them - don't have a clue about how much the US depends on charities, not for profits, and local government at many levels, when it comes to delivering essential services. Sorry about the rant, but this whole thread is about the Government cutting BBC funds so it cannot do its job of ensuring that minority interests are heard. I guess next they'll be bringing in Fox to do the fair and balanced reporting that the BBC is famous for (but obviously getting wrong since sometimes it opposes the government...)

    • Re:Government policy (Score:5, Funny)

      by CmdrGravy ( 645153 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @10:34AM (#12960565) Homepage
      This government is worryingly petty when it comes to meteing out revenge on those who don't believe its in the right the whole time.

      Take the example of their recent new law to ban unauthorised protesting within a mile radius of parliment ( not sure it's a mile but some distance anyway ) which seems to be purely aimed at getting rid of the guy who has been sat outside protesting about the Iraq war for a few years. They have tried to get the courts and police to get rid of him but failing that they are willing to make up a specific law just to get rid of this one person who disagrees with them.

  • As someone who pays a licence fee (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @10:09AM (#12960315)
    As someone who pays a licence fee (rather than a lot of people here on Slashdot), if the BBC is spending more of my money than it is worth on maintaining a site with very few visitors then I would prefer that they use put my money to better use.

    If not, then I would be contributing to the maintenance and upkeep of a 101 sites of which are of little interest to anyone.

    The BBC serves the public licence-paying viewers interests and if they are not interested in something, then it should not be wasting its money on such a project.

    Without trying to sound completely negative, I hope that the BBC will be sensible enough to allow someone else to host the content and continue to maintain it.

  • They're cancelling the web sites for everything *except* for Doctor Who. What wonderful Bizarro-world-paradise have I woken up in?
  • So where exactly does the BBC make episodes available to download? /Misses the old H2GT2G episodes watched back in the early 80s
  • lost like so much of it's other content.

    Malkavian, read this important announcement [img104.echo.cx]!

    It's not that tough!

  • The reason for the cull... (Score:3, Informative)

    by McFadden ( 809368 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @11:04AM (#12960849)
    It would appear that most of the commentators who have posted so far, are a fair degree wide of the truth.

    The fact is that the BBC is a state broadcaster. It is funded by the license fee, (read: television tax) paid for by the general public, and maintained by government charter. Every so often this charter comes up for renewal. This gives the government of the day a chance to push its own agenda and influence the future of the BBC to its own advantage. If the BBC doesn't play along, the government can ensure that the threat of charter non-renewal hangs over the organization (effectively the end of the BBC as we know it).

    The current government (the Blair administration as our American cousins may call it) is blatantly in love with private industry and wishes to ensure that the BBC does nothing to infringe on areas in which the private-sector could otherwise profit. The Blair government believes that the BBC has an unfair advantage in that it has guaranteed funding via the license fee and does not need to compete with other private-sector companies to maintain its profitability. Therefore the government has decreed that in order for the BBC to receive charter renewal, it has to relinquish anything that is not a "core public service function".

    In a nutshell, the government argument to the BBC is: "If you're providing something that the private sector could do, it doesn't matter how useful, beneficial, or loved by the public it is... Kill it... We want our friends in big business to line their pockets with some half-assed imitation of what you do so well".

    Sadly this has resulted in a severe over-reaction on the part of BBC management, who have subsquently decided to close down anything which doesn't fit this "core public service function" and have a demonstrable benefit to the license payer. Cult TV just doesn't cut it as far as they're concerned.

    • Cancelling the BBC's charter would be absolute political suicide for any party. Not going to happen, no matter how much further the BBC dumbs down.

      The BBC should be allowed to offer whatever services they want, as long as they keep the quality higher than commercial alternatives.
  • Well I know I tend not to bother looking at much mainstream media but I didn't even know this existed.

    So now I take a look, it looks interesting, and they're shutting it down. Bloody typical.

    Oh well I'd best get emailing the BBC to compain then eh ?
  • OK, who's going to mirror the site? Then torrent it?
  • The beeb has it's balls in a vice that is controlled by Tessa Jowell. After Hutton the BBC survived it's Charter Renewal with the licence fee intact on the condition that it reformed and spent less money.

    The BBC had to sell off a bunch of it's departments in order to please our privatisation loving government.

    Whilst I have no problem spending 120quid or so a year on the BBC a lot of other people do.

    I expect the licence fee wont survive the next charter renewal and the BBC needs to reposition itself so th
  • Well I didn't even know there WAS a Cult TV repository ... never seen it advertised on BBC television programming or when looking through some BBC websites. I'm not surprised they've used the "reduction in public value" spiel because if I'm a typical member of the public, no-one would have known about this site. Sigh.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • Solution (Score:3, Funny)

    by Nom du Keyboard ( 633989 ) on Friday July 01, 2005 @12:41PM (#12961816)
    Easy solution. Send it to Google Video. They're actively looking for content to host.
  • Attention, visitors of bbc.co.uk/cult. I regret to inform you that in order to make way for the new hyperspace express route to our new repository of commercial brainwashing dumbing bullshit, your website has been scheduled for demolition. Have a nice day.

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