BBC Red Button Service Giving Wrong Information.

Steve Harris said:

The only thing is, the most vulnerable people in society will miss it !

My 80 something dad doesn't have internet access and already gets frustrated when he's in conversation with a company and he gets told "check our website".

I fully understand that something has to give but it would be interesting if something like this ever got took to court on grounds of discrimination.

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I can imagine if you had (for example) a certain stage of dementia you might still be able to use this facility independently when other devices were beyond you.

duffield said:

I'll miss this, despite being online a lot it's part of my morning, drink coffee and look at the national and local news.

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I know just what you mean, as I used to do this with Ceefax despite having been online since the 90s, but the red-button version was so woefully clunky by comparison, on any hardware I've owned until now, that I gave up on it. Seriously, taking nearly a minute to load the front page was just ridiculous.

duffield said:

If they hadn't have wasted money making fancier versions (e.g. adding images and videos on my Virgin V6 box version)...

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Ironically though, after reading your post, I've just tried it out for the first time on the new V6 I got a couple of months ago. It's great! Much snappier and, as you say, has plenty of eye-candy and a much better layout!

Now I'm almost sorry to see it go, as it had been very occasionally useful (e.g. when stuck in a hotel room without my phone and/or any reception).

However I totally get why, in these budget-slashing times, it's an obvious thing to cut, especially, as @Mathew S points out, the sheer number of devices now makes it quite tricky to implement.

Steve Harris said:

The only thing is, the most vulnerable people in society will miss it !

My 80 something dad doesn't have internet access...

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Yeah, I was already thinking much the same. Quite ironic given that the money from this cut might (or might not) help go to restoring the free over-75 TV licences that the government cut.

Steve Harris said:

The only thing is, the most vulnerable people in society will miss it !

My 80 something dad doesn't have internet access and already gets frustrated when he's in conversation with a company and he gets told "check our website".

I fully understand that something has to give but it would be interesting if something like this ever got took to court on grounds of discrimination.

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It's worth saying that the "red button" will continue to exist, but in the form of on-demand video content / pop-up content, rather than the current text-based services.

Mathew S said:

It's worth saying that the "red button" will continue to exist, but in the form of on-demand video content / pop-up content, rather than the current text-based services.

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I fully appreciate that, however, my father is more inrerested in sports results and the main news headlines.

RichT54 said:

The BBC Red Button text service won't be giving the wrong information for much longer, as it's going to be discontinued in early 2020, according to the BBC.

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There was some info on teletext which said certain parts of it were going not completely

That said bearing in mind ITV ditched their teletext years ago and the concentration on internet news I wouldn't be at all surprised if teletext is completely abandoned soon

Steve Harris said:

I fully appreciate that, however, my father is more inrerested in sports results and the main news headlines.

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My dad is exactly the same, so I do understand.
Unfortunately, it's just not viable to continue offering the service.

When you think that serious consideration was given to closing down BBC2 as a way to plug the hole in the budget, it does start to put the scale of the problem into perspective, I feel.

Mathew S said:

My dad is exactly the same, so I do understand.
Unfortunately, it's just not viable to continue offering the service.

When you think that serious consideration was given to closing down BBC2 as a way to plug the hole in the budget, it does start to put the scale of the problem into perspective, I feel.

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Kind of.
Personally, the BBC has got to big and overexerted itself and become bloated. Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Live, 1 extra, 4 extra, World service, Asian network and 6 Music. Do we really need all these stations? As there must be some cost saving to be had there.

Steve Harris said:

Kind of.
Personally, the BBC has got to big and overexerted itself and become bloated. Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, 5Live, 1 extra, 4 extra, World service, Asian network and 6 Music. Do we really need all these stations? As there must be some cost saving to be had there.

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World Service is a bit of an anomaly because it operates under a number of direct funding streams that can't be used for anything else anyway. It also feeds a huge amount of valuable expertise back into the BBCs wider news and current affairs work at, in real terms, little to no cost to the BBC.

Radios 1, 1Xtra, 2, 4, 4 Extra, 5 live, and 6 Music all get more listeners than any of their direct commercial competitors. The exception is Radio 3, but that won't get cut because of the demographic who do listen to it. All of these stations serve distinct, different audiences who have distinct and different requirements from a radio station.

Asian Network listening figures are always going to be low numerically because of the limited potential audience compared to other national stations, and it's a station of which I have limited to no knowledge, so I can't really comment.

On the wider point, BBC Radio - especially local radio - is run on a tiny, tiny budget at a time when commercial local radio is fast becoming an oxymoron. Station editors across the country are screaming for more resources so that they can do a better job. The gymastics and shenanigans that I saw colleagues in the North West and North East of England having to resort to in order to properly cover the Whaley Bridge incident a few weeks ago are proof of that.

The fact is that, unpopular though it may be, the BBC has never had to do more with less. Nor has it ever been subject to greater scrutiny, a stronger push for efficiency and economy, or received a higher number of complaints (which is not a coincidence).

It's fair to say that there will always be wastage to be found, and efficiencies to be made, in an organisation the BBCs size but, and I speak from recent first hand experience, there are very few, if any, more economies to be had before whole services have to be cut.