The BBC

Have adverts like ITV,,, simples

 

It's actually not that simple. Advertising budgets don't increase just because there are more advertising channels, companies have a fixed ad budget and then decide where to spend that budget. We already see more and more places to advertise making budgets more stretched. The BBC going ad supported would just make that even worse, even media companies that have agendas against the BBC don't want the BBC to go ad supported as it would hit everyone's advertising revenue (it would likely even impact this site) but especially TV networks as they would draw a sizable amount of existing ad spend. Ultimately for TV that means everyone has less income and thus less budget and that means more and more low quality TV as the budgets now don't support an expensive nature doc or a prestige drama, they just support a Kardashian style reality shows

 

They absolutely aren't overpaid. A good example is the Director General of the BBC who has to oversee the whole operation, that's multiple TV channels including a number of niche channels (S4C and BBC Worldwide), iPlayer, the websites, national and local radio, content production etc etc gets paid £550k a year. The Daily Mail who hate the BBC and constantly push for the end of the Licence fee pay the editor £2.5mill, that's to oversee a Single newspaper.

Also alot of the time the reports aren't accurate as it's not what is actually being paid to a person. For example Graham Norton is often someone who is criticised for what the BBC pays him, however the amount isn't actually paid to him, it's paid to his production company to not just make his chat show but also a certain amount of other content for both TV and radio each year. Yes he gets paid out of that figure buts it's a fraction of the amount.

The BBC not paying the industry rate is one of the problems they face. They are one of the biggest trainers in media but they often don't benefit from that because by the time they reach the level to bring some real value a commercial network offer then many times more to jump ship so they do have a talent drain both in front and behind the camera

 

The ITV drama came off the back of this and earlier BBC TV .

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0675m1j/panorama-trouble-at-the-post-office

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0016t20/panorama-the-post-office-scandal

The BBC did a magnificent piece of investigative journalism. None of the papers really touched it.

The drama on ITV and the major national current scandal would not have existed if it wasn’t for the BBC.

 

To be fair I don't think @bailiff bridge bantam was having a go at the BBC not covering it, more the fact that Andrea Ledsom wasn't asked the question on QT first. I believe that comes down to the fact to ensure that one person doesn't just take over who gets to answer first is rotated through the panel. And as you ideally want the first person to be best qualified to answer the question and maybe start a debate I would assume there were questions later on where it related to her department that they wanted her to answer first. And seeing as the system went into action when Labour was in power it might very well have been a better question of the rep from the government at the time to answer