ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades How many BBC employees to change a light bulb?

It's 'elf & safety gawn mad, I tell ya!

For those outside the U.K., remember that this is an organization which is funded by the forcible extraction of a "license fee" from the public whether they wish to avail of its services or not.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/25/nbbc25.xml

Crikey!.
How ludicrous is that?.
I mean, it's only a light bulb, how dangerous can changing one possibly be?.

“Here’s a list of cast and crew,
Christ alone knows what they do.”
[Alas Smith and Jones]

No surprises, this is the Beeb, home of excess! Take the BBC News: Two newsreaders take it in turns to read one line in turn off the autocue, while the other stands grinning and posing in his/her latest outfit. The prog. is spattered with special correspondents world-wide who appear at the drop of a hat. Add the business guy, the weather guy, the sports girl, the occasional celebrity, and then after 30 minutes, we go to the “local news where you are”, and stap me if we haven’t got a spare set of the buggers = 2 reading the local news, another weather forecast man etc.etc.

Bring back the pros like Robin Day or Reggie Bosenquet, who read the news for best part of an hour, off a sheaf of papers, at desk on their own, with no autocue or secret earpiece! Doubly impressive for Reggie, as he was usually as pie-eyed as a newt as well!:D

Alan

So what would happen to you if you replace the bulb without telling anyone?

I wouldn't be worried about the creative side of the BBC i.e. people actually making, presenting or producing programmes. BBC's lashing vast resources into endless administration and projects that could be done commercially.

e.g., while I like BBC.co.uk, I can't really understand why it's done entirely at licence fee payers expense.

RTE in Ireland's similar, vast amounts of cash (from licence fees) wasted on admin etc.

Parkinson’s Law, [ cf C. Northcote Parkinson,1955 ], states that “work expands to fit the time available for its completion”, based on his experiences in the British Civil Service Colonial Office. Parkinson observed that, though the British Empire was being drastically reduced in size due to colonies gaining independence, staff numbers in the Service rose at a steady 7% regardless. The Law appears to be linked to those of supply and demand, or of one’s expenses rising in line with one’s income, of which we are all painfully aware.

At the BBC, as Paul stated, income is fixed by the cost of the TV licence, [ a radio licence now being free ], multiplied by the number of households owning a television set.

That’s right folks: an annual TV ownership tax! £131.50 p.a. for color, £44.00 for black/white, free if you are over 75 years old, and due to rise this week to £135.50 / £45.50, a rise of c. 3%

94.3% of the British population view BBC with a TV licence. Satellite, Commercial Station or cable viewer? You still need a licence. Non-payers are prosecuted with vigor, the BBC has special trucks with ‘detectors’ to catch evaders, and fines are gigantic, around £1000 [US$2000].
Fact is, if you are on a Postal [Mail] Code Database and don’t have a licence, a computer will issue you a form demanding you state that you don’t own a television set.
You also must have a licence to watch TV on a mobile phone or a laptop.
Upside: There are no advertisements, and programme quality is good.

Last year, [2006] there were 24,972,000 TVs licenced, 20,810,000 of which were for color.

Income: £2,919,643,000 = about 58 thousand million US dollars [2006] from licence fees. One should add that the BBC gets additional income from publishing, intellectual property rights, copyright, programme sales abroad, phone-ins at premium rates etc..

As we can see, if the Law holds and expenses rise with income, the BBC can well afford to employ a few professional light bulb changers.

Alan

You're off by a factor of 10 on the high side..
its ~58 hundred million, or 5.8 billion, or 5.8 Gigabucks.

actually 5,748,439,672 (or so).

Yes, by the time I spotted the mistake, the 3 minute edit time had expired.

Alan

Gidday Alan,
Just as a note, I removed your last post.
Not sure if any Mod here has had to do that under the new system, but be careful, you can take out a whole thread with one click of the mouse.

To be pedantic, the radio receiving license isn't free, it doesn't exist at all anymore. It was abolished in 1971.



Now that's something which is totally wrong about the system. The tone of the correspondence from TVL in Bristol isn't far removed from a what you'd expect of a bunch of hoods running a protection racket.

The thing I like the least about them is the way they try to imply things which simply are not in the law, like the "If you do not watch TV, you should call us on 0870 xxx-xxxx or write to tell us. We will contact you in due course."

I don't agree with the license fee, but the legal obligation is to buy a license if you receive broadcast TV. Nothing more.

There is no legal obligation to contact TVL if you don't need a license. If you did decide to call anyway, why should you have to pay extra to call an 0870 number?

The last part of the above says it all anyway -- Even if you do tell them that you don't watch TV, they won't believe you and will still send threatening letters anyway.

Then there are the letters along the lines of "We have authorized an officer to visit your premises and interview you under caution in accordance with the police and criminal evidence act." It all sounds very official, as though you must talk to these clowns just because you don't have a license.

Some of them really do try to give the impression of having more authority than they actually do. It's surprising how many people have been led to believe that they must allow a TVL inspector into their home at any time to check for unlicensed reception.