[merraksh]

Long debates about philosophy might not have been what the public wanted, but BBC bosses thought they were good for us.

I think a form of education is one of the primary purposes and responsibilities of a country's national TV. Managing a broadcaster so that it gives the public what it wants, rather than what's better for them, is akin to giving kids fries and coke all day, because that's what they want.

[jstanley]

Actually, no.

The public are grown adults who are perfectly capable of deciding what we want for ourselves, thank you very much.

[ItsMe000001]

It seems to me that not a lot of thought and introspection was put into that comment, because I highly doubt you have that same benign attitude towards everyone. I'm sure there are plenty of stories about what people think/say/do that make you take a different position. For example, just today I read a story about a man who murdered his wife - with the son in between, and he pushed the knife through the boy to hurt the wife. But the problems were there long before, and such people exist aplenty. It's easy to be satisfied with everybody and their choices only for as long as you don't get to know them all too closely...

I doubt there is a single person that really benevolently accepts what each and every person does/says/thinks. Except maybe my late grandmother, who probably never raged about anyone in her entire life.

[throwawayjava]

I think this issue is a bit subtler. Month to month viewership statistics are not the same as an explicit ballot.

Grown adults consistently reveal preferences that are different from their stated preferences.

In other words, people may lose what they really want by voting against it with their eyeballs and pocket books. Even when they woukd vote for it in an explicit ballot.

"I would prefer to eat healthy, but ice cream is just so much better tasting than broccoli."

One check on this is a regulator who imposes the choices for you based on your stated preferences, which is a check that grown adults often choose to add to their lives. Dieticians and personal trainers are popular for a reason.

[jstanley]

It's perfectly reasonable for you to setup your life such that you achieve the things you want even if your laziness might thwart them.

It's not reasonable to try to setup other people's lives so that they achieve the things you want.

[throwawayjava]

I think this just strengthens the case against ratings-oriented broadcasting decisions (side-note: broadcasting, by its very definition and due to the scarcity of spectrum, necessarily requires making decisions for others. The only question is whether ratings are the best way to determine what people really want!)

Our office has someone in charge of food. That person used to pay attention to what people would/would not eat and then purchase accordingly. LOTS of pizza/brownies, not a lot of salads. We (unanimously!) asked that person to just ignore our gluttonous choices and gather explicit preferences. We now eat more healthily. Of course, our preferences did not change -- we'd all totally opt for the pizza and brownie over the salad. But the choice is easier to make on a ballot than when both options are in front of you and you're salivating... needless to say, the person who just does what we explicitly ask them to isn't manipulating us into eating more healthy food.

Similarly, pure ratings-driven programming in an ad-driven business model almost necessarily means setting up others' lives (building viewing habits) to achieve what you want (selling ads)!

So, de-emphasizing ratings is NOT equivalent to manipulation! And emphasizing ratings can sometimes be in service to a manipulation!

[briandear]

Assuming the “public” is equal to “children.” A bit arrogant to suggest that. Adam Smith suggests that people will always act in their own self interest; perhaps advanced philosophical knowledge doesn’t have the same utility to normal people. The attitude that the public doesn’t know what’s good for them is disgusting; it’s the very core of the nanny state.

However, I will concede that many people would consume a healthier diet of entertainment of it were available. But suggesting that people need to have broadcasters or governments to be parents of an ignorant citizenry smacks of the same though patterns condemned in the book 1984.

[DaiPlusPlus]

> The attitude that the public doesn’t know what’s good for them is disgusting; it’s the very core of the nanny state.

It’s very demonstrable though - it’s why practically every country has an equivalent to US Social Security - and why most democracies are Representative instead of Direct.

Your argument would have more strength if the BBC or national arts funds operated in a vacuum - but they exist in competition with other private, profit-driven organisations. I feel it’s important that the public get exposure to programming that commercial sponsors (and thus network-execs/channel directors) wouldn’t touch. And it’s also essential for unbiased (or as close to unbiased as we can get) broadcast journalism.

(I accept that when a “Premium”-service customer base is large enough, e.g. HBO-sized, the need for state funding is minimised - I think HBO in particular is in a good place to launch a US-based, commercial-free broadcast news service - but smaller countries and markets would definitely need to employ some form of state funding to ensure editorial independence and an informed populace - which can only be good for democracy)

[AnimalMuppet]

Not quite "in competition". If I understand the way TV licenses work (or perhaps worked, in the past) in the UK, you didn't have a choice of paying for the BBC if you had a TV at all.

If that has changed, it might lead to the BBC having to face competition now, when it didn't in the past. That might have an effect on the content, which might be (at least part of) what the article is observing...

[soneil]

I think it was perhaps poorly worded, but I have to agree with the spirit.

Contrast bookshops vs libraries. We expect the state to provide libraries, not bookshops. Not because we think bookshops are bad, but because we believe libraries should exist despite not being commercially viable.

The state broadcaster (in our case, the BBC) should be providing the library, not the bookshop. Not because "we know what's good for them", but because there's hundreds of commercial channels to "give them what they want".

[LifeLiverTransp]

Is it that arrogant? The public are children - and so are theire masters and various Lichtgestalten.

Every article on neurology, every new app hacking that legacy eletric-jellyfish proofs it.

The dignity and rights we got, are not because we are some sort of superior beeings, but because we all together decided to turn the eyes away from the mess and give even the most primal beeing, sitting in a cardbord box near the train station, rights and respect, disregarding of birth, status, accomplishment and intellect.

The debate is not about wether we the people need behavioural checks and balances, the questions is how to prevent those enforcing and enacting them from doing that with similar runaway retardations. I have no answer to that.

[sykh]

The public, the great mass of humanity, does not always know what’s good for them. They often times do dumb things, allow irrational fear to take over, or engage in senseless mob activity. In the U.S. there are great numbers of people who decry taxation as theft but want roads to be fixed. A balance is needed. We need learned people in charge who are not too selfish and where too much power is not too concentrated.

[merpnderp]

This isn't some new argument, and was an issue thoroughly hashed out by the time of the American Revolution and was the basis for the Bill of Rights and why a republican form of government was chosen. All of history's examples of smaller, less accountable forms of government had been tried and failed. All the more accountable forms of government even including direct democracies had been tried and failed. Representative democracy, with a mostly unaccountable judiciary, wasn't picked on a whim, and hasn't lasted this long by accident. We certainly don't need to change it to some technocracy like has been tried over and over with genocidal results.

[sykh]

We are in agreement so long as those who get elected are not too selfish or too easily duped and there is balance in the system. But as far as I know all empires eventually fail. Some last much longer than others. Since the U.S. style republican form of governance is a recent thing it’s hard to conclude that it’s the best form. Why is it better than the British constitutional democracy? Or Canada’s system?

You also seem to be unaware of the U.S.’s role in genocide within its own borders and its role in genocide within other borders. We should keep in mind that it used to be the case that only white, land owning males could vote. That slavery existed for a long time in the U.S. and then we had Jim Crow.

The American Republic will last as long as there is balance in the system and only if those we elect are not knaves and fools. Populism based on fear or hatred is a dangerous thing in any system and can bring instability. The U.S. is not immune to forces that can destroy the essence of the country.

[badosu]

It's not like all channels are obligated to perform as dictated.

So, for a free, subsidized public channel, it makes a lot of sense to offer something different from the commercial crap.

I learned a lot watching public funded science divulgation material.

[magduf]

You think an angry mob of adults with pitchforks and torches knows what's best for them?

[merpnderp]

History has shown that form of government to be far less deficient than the opposite which would be a small band of highly educated technocratic leaders, which always ended in genocide.

[magduf]

>a small band of highly educated technocratic leaders, which always ended in genocide.

Exactly how many historical examples of that form of government are there? 1? 2? 0? If you're talking about Nazi Germany, I don't remember the Nazis being "highly educated", and in fact, they were known to throw the intellectuals in the gas chambers. Over in China, Mao was some kind of farmer, and not at all an intellectual. The Soviets were all about the "proletariat" (the workers), not the intellectuals. I seriously can't think of any real-world historical examples of a government of "highly educated technocratic leaders". Such people usually tend to shy away from government. The closest I can think of is probably modern-day China, and they haven't committed any actual genocide that I know of (maybe some oppression of certain groups, but that's not genocide, and almost every government is guilty of this to some extent).

[merpnderp]

Every non-democratic government has claimed some form of reason they alone are uniquely qualified to run the country, be it the socialist governments saying they are doing as science and reasoning guide them, or even the Nazis who likely had more PhD's in their government than any since.