BBC MOTD total waste of money

If the BBC started exclusively showing **** programmes like antiques roadshow and gardeners world, people would eventually get sick of paying the license fee and it would end.

Why does the BBC waste so much licence fee payers' money on Match of the Day.

The cost of the rights to just show the highlights for only one season is £60m, a shocking amount of money.

The presenters are on a fortune. Lineker and Hansen are supposed to be on about £1.5m each. Shearer and Lawrenson supposedly were on something around £1m. Then take the MOTD2 team, the pundits are less established and are on smaller contracts but this is cancelled out by the fact there are more of them on a show and the pool of people is larger. We can then estimate that the bill for what the BBC ironically calls "talent" is just north of £10m.

The production costs are staggering too. The BBC need to send a commentary team to every Premier League match. This is in addition to the 2 other commentary teams they typically have at a game. One for national radio, 5 live and another for BBC local radio. That's 3 BBC commentary teams and their entourage per game. The BBC are sending almost 300 staff just to cover the world cup for 4 weeks in the summer. There will also be hundreds at home in the UK assisting in production work. Then there's the expenses associated with production, which are breathtaking. For example, they spend £15k on taxis just for Gary Lineker a year. Shearer, Lawrenson and Hansen are also regularly chauffeur driven from Merseyside and Tyneside to the studios and back again, a one way trip costing about £500 each. Then there's hotel bills and transport to be chucked in for all the other staff. A years production costs, excluding highlights rights and talent salaries, is likely to be around £15m-£20m at least.

The total annual bill for MOTD probably comes to somewhere just shy of £100m. Put it this way, every radio station the BBC has, the annual cost of each is less than MOTD. The same for it's TV channels, except BBC 1 and BBC 2. Even for BBC 2, the MOTD budget it ONE QUARTER of the total BBC 2 budget.

How much content do we get for this money? Well MOTD is on for 1.5 hours a week and MOTD 2 for 1 hour, 38 weeks a year. Averaging this out we get a figure of just 1.8 hours a week. That's 1.8 hours a week for £100m, are you bloody joking? The BBC are committed to at least 15 hours a day of quality content on BBC 1 and BBC 2, the rest of the time it'll be repeats or the news. A week that's 105 hours of content per channel. Put it this way, you get 105 hours of BBC 2 content, for £400m a year, and 1.8 hours of MOTD for £100m a year, good value or what?

The BBC is a public service broadcaster, it should be covering things that other broadcasters won't cover and that the public want covered. With the internet, ITV, Sky, BT Sport, phone apps showing all the goals, there is no justification.

WASTE OF MONEY, licence fee payers money to be precise.

Now I'm presuming it's not just football that makes you angry - you must be angry at other things too - so presumably you're one of the BBC-hating tories.

Football is part of culture, football is the most watched and participated in of any sport, regardless to say it has a large mother****ing fanbase. Therefore it draws a large audience across multiple platforms (TV, radio, internet etc.) and these people want to know what's happening live and watch the goal and highlights later on.

The important thing about the BBC's coverage is that it is free-to-air, meaning that people who aren't on a zillion pounds a year and do not have all 42 sky packages, can watch good quality coverage for free. This is very important for the integrity of the game, the english league is arguably the best in the world and the people have a right to see highlights of it for free.

Rights to broadcast content is of this type will always be astronomically and the fees rise with every new contract, similar contracts have increased sinced being privatised like the international and domestic cricket rights, but football is the most expensive European sport bar none. I think it's a simple calculation of supply and demand; yes the contracts are expensive, but the rewards in terms of audience ratings and brand value are infinite. The MOTD contract is one of - if not the - most valuable contracts they have, especially considering all the other material they've lost, F1, Live football, cricket etc.

The Tories will destroy the BBC at some point and it'll be a massive shame.

I am actually a Tory, had to chuckle when I read that.

Just because the public want it doesn't mean the BBC have to show it.

Of course you're a Tory, the only people who hate the great institution of the BBC are nitwit tories, now run along and join your Bullingdon club bros please, the BBC's hear to stay.

Wow; how many baseless, irrelevant generalisations can you get in one post?

Whilst we're at it, everyone who votes Labour is a workshy chav on benefits. Just as legitimate a point.