Footballers make 300k a week and no one complains. This is a post about the slim survival chances of British media.. well salary caps will be the nail in the coffin as talent will simply go whey get the best deal.

The best paid football players aren't easily replaced with cheaper talent though. Top clubs will need to compete against other top clubs, so e.g. a striker with better performance is going to be heavily in demand and can make a lot of difference to the success of the club.

Arguably, news readers aren't critical to the success of the news broadcast (the content probably makes far more difference), though I can see that presenters can make a big difference to the popularity of shows. I've got nothing against Gary Lineker (quite like him, but rarely watch him on telly), but I do object to being "forced" to pay for his excessive salary when they should be helping younger, unknown talent to get exposure etc.

the issue is that Gary Lineker does a spectacularly good job, and the unknown talent they've been bringing through are by and large unwatchable. it's a moot point now because he's gone, and whatever, I'm glad the psychodrama is over, but I'd much rather be "forced" to pay his salary and enjoy the show, than not be "forced" to and instead be forced to watch some people who'd do a better job reading the news. imo they should have taken his salary and used it to poach Dave Jones from Sky or even Kate Scott from CBS. why should the country's most popular football show not have the best presenter available?

> Footballers make 300k a week and no one complains

To be fair, plenty of fans (and the occasional pundit) complain (and have been complaining for years) but unless the authorities get involved (FA, UEFA, FIFA, etc.) and implement proper financial controls (there's some coming in 2025/26 around player salaries but we also need controls on money coming from TV rights, self-sponsorships, etc.) with actual transparent penalties (they're still soft-pedalling City whilst kicking Everton and Forest), nothing will happen.

As an Everton fan I agree about city but I don’t think we should try and control these other things. You’re literally trying to limit the input (tv revenue) and output (salaries). If this happened countries that believe in a free market will outcompete and destroy the premier league which is one of the few things this country has going for it..

Footballers don't take 300k/week of tax payer's money.

it's not tax payers' money

You're technically correct (the best kind of correct), but the TV license is very much like a tax as you're required to pay for it just for having equipment that can possibly receive broadcast TV.

this isn't true. you're required to pay for it if you watch live TV. you're perfectly allowed to have a TV or laptop or any other device that can pick up live TV

Sorry, I haven't checked the rules in a while. It used to be the case that owning a reception device required a license, but as you say, that's no longer the case.

You think the BBC License Fee is not a tax? Lol.

>Fee

Lol. They can call it a non-voluntary charitable donation. It doesn't matter what they call it. It's still a tax. You probably think "National Insurance" is not a tax.

You understand that what something is called is not always the same as what it is, right?

>You understand that what something is called is not always the same as what it is, right?

e.g. how you just called it a tax? you're arguing against yourself

my man, your entire contribution to this discussion has been proxy arguments and rhetorical tricks without ever actually getting to the point of what you really think. who cares if it fits your personal definition of a tax vs someone else's definition of a fee? do you even pay it? and can you just pack in all the sophistry and proxy arguments and have out with your real motivations

You're reading comprehension seems low, and you blame every argument you don't understand on "rhetorical tricks".

my friend you're insulting my literacy after referring to a possession of mine with "you're", while making yet another attempt to emotionally trigger a sidetrack instead of just saying what you really think about the core issue. you read like you learned your style of discourse from tabloid newspapers

are you embarrassed of the real reason you don't like the BBC?

and you didn't answer, do you pay the license fee?

Ah, yes - that famous rhetorical trick - typo policing.

Yes, I pay the license fee. Do you?

Even if I thought the BBC was the most perfect organisation with sublime programming and insightful news coverage, I still wouldn't want it to be the cause of scores of women getting criminal records. You seem to think it a price worth paying though.

of course I pay the license fee

my friend let's leave this here, because you know full well how disingenuous you're being, you're just talking nonsense to see what reaction you get

Not being disingenuous at all. You seem unwilling to engage with the argument as made, instead indulging in clairvoyance to infer the "real reason".

my friend I responded to your initial point by pointing out that even if this really is what you care about, what you're describing is clearly an issue with the current enforcement strategy, not the thing itself. quite clearly directly engaging with your argument as made

-- your response entirely ignored that engagement entirely besides taking a quote out of context in a weak and obvious attempt to draw moral outrage, more or less proving my point that you were simply using women's rights as a way to produce outrage and scare people into agreeing

to be honest perhaps I was a little quick to judge your motivations, and if you hadn't replied like this, perhaps you might have a leg to stand on, but instead you proved the point for me

whether or not calling it a tax was a rhetorical gambit or not, when pressed, it was instead a "non-voluntary charitable donation", and yet, is watching live TV not a choice? are you so unable to tear your eyes away from the 800th repeat of the Botswana special on Dave? is it "charitable" if the person who "donates" is provided with a consumable product?

can you avoid taxes by simply not letting the taxman in your house? can you avoid taxes by simply living in a house with someone who does pay taxes? can you avoid taxes by simply denying that you earn money?

and then you just started to make childish personal attacks about literacy. boring

You really do have trouble understanding.

what a surprise you once again have nothing more to say than "nuh huh, your stoopid". you have no confidence in your own position

Like I said. Free market, who cares. But not for a publicly funded organisation.

And if one group of talent moves on it'll make space for the next generation.

>it'll make space for the next generation.

space promptly filled by B or C tier talent as the best go and work elsewhere to get paid appropriately

The world we live in, apparently, since they're getting that much money to do those jobs as we speak. Might as well complain about executive pay and the Royal estates while you're at it.

I completely agree with and understand this reaction to people like Huw Edwards being paid stupid amounts of money to read words off a screen while managing the colossal task of simultaneously looking concerned, doing a serious voice, and not vomiting or getting their nipples out. I personally think that BBC News should just be disbanded or spun off into a separate entity, because otherwise one day it will bring the whole institution down with it. reading the news is a genuinely low-skill job that could be done by literally anyone with a few weeks of training

however, I think you're very wrong to include the presenting of entertainment and educational shows with that. presenting these shows well is something that requires a genuine art. if news presenters wages were capped, nothing significant would change. if entertainment presenters wages were capped, there'd be a huge talent drain and shows would become worse in quality, giving a massive advantage to the generally awfully produced commercial channels that make lower quality content interspersed with brainrot fucking adverts and phone in quiz competitions