CLIFF AT THE BBC

[Fenderman]

I watch the BBC, the only thing i don't like is the licence fee but looks like it's here to stay!
I do watch some shows regularly such as Have i got news for you, not going out (a sitcom) and some BBC4 stuff but not enough to justify paying £143 as i also pay £91 a month for Sky!

[GoldenStreet]

I do watch some shows regularly such as Have i got news for you, not going out (a sitcom) and some BBC4 stuff but not enough to justify paying £143 as i also pay £91 a month for Sky!

£1092 per annum for Sky would appear to make the current BBC licence fee of £157.50 seem pretty good value for money!

Bill

[drakula63]

I do watch some shows regularly such as Have i got news for you, not going out (a sitcom) and some BBC4 stuff but not enough to justify paying £143 as i also pay £91 a month for Sky!

£1092 per annum for Sky would appear to make the current BBC licence fee of £157.50 seem pretty good value for money!

Bill

Ah, but you don't HAVE to subscribe to sky. If you have a TV and intend to watch it, even if you never watch the BBC, you have to buy a (BBC) TV licence. I would be willing to bet that if was no longer a criminal offence NOT to have a TV licence, then the BBC would be finished within 12 months. I think that's worth considering.

[GoldenStreet]

I would be willing to bet that if was no longer a criminal offence NOT to have a TV licence, then the BBC would be finished within 12 months. I think that's worth considering.

You could well be correct but, were that ever to occur, I would certainly miss the BBC radio services.

Bill

[Fenderman]

I do watch some shows regularly such as Have i got news for you, not going out (a sitcom) and some BBC4 stuff but not enough to justify paying £143 as i also pay £91 a month for Sky!

£1092 per annum for Sky would appear to make the current BBC licence fee of £157.50 seem pretty good value for money!

Bill

I never thought about it like that!

[drakula63]

Here's the Radio Times listing. The Shadows are not mentioned in it.

https://www.radiotimes.com/tv-programme/e/mq78sw/sir-cliff-richard-at-the-bbc/

It was a good programme... and I've lost count of the number of times Hank and the lads appeared in it! OK, it was three or four... or five. Hank appeared more than the others, courtesy of some clips from comedy sketches and it was good to see the clip from Cliff in Scandinavia, which featured Hank, Alan Hawkshaw and Dave Richmond. That clip from 1970, Cliff and the Shads playing Move It, was shown... but they cut the bit out at the beginning where Hank misses his cue! Also we got to see Licorice Locking standing behind Cliff as they performed The Young Ones at the 1962 Royal Command Performance. All in all, good stuff with one or two very rarely seen clips.

[GoldenStreet]

In the Scandinavian clip Cliff is seen with his cherry Gibson J-200, a fairly unusual occurrence.

Bill

[JimN]

I do watch some shows regularly such as Have i got news for you, not going out (a sitcom) and some BBC4 stuff but not enough to justify paying £143 as i also pay £91 a month for Sky!

£1092 per annum for Sky would appear to make the current BBC licence fee of £157.50 seem pretty good value for money!

Bill

I never thought about it like that!

Just for the sake of accuracy, Sky does not cost £1092 per annum.

We pay £1065 a year to Sky and of course, you might be tempted to conclude that the £1092 wasn't all that far out. But... that £88.80 a month includes:

(a) Sky subscription for the several hundred channels you get via satellite, plus

(b) all the extra movie channels (and unlimited downloads of films)

(c) access to "box sets" of TV series,

(d) truly unlimited broadband (without which the possibility of downloading unlimited movies and TV programmes would be less valuable),

(e) telephone (landline) rental and

(f) inclusive calls - free of extra charge - to virtually every landline phone on the planet and to mobiles (cellphones) in the USA (very useful with a son living in Texas).

Additionally, we were provided with the Sky+HD box free of charge.

A basic Sky subscription and a free box (giving access to three hundred and eighty-eight TV channels including the well-known pay-channels, plus the ability to record and download broadcast TV, catch-up TV and box-sets) costs £25 a month, which is £300 a year.

[GoldenStreet]

Thanks, Jim, for the detailed clarification. As you might have guessed, I am not a Sky subscriber and, certainly, the BBC is not positioned to even begin to compete on such terms. I doubt, though, if I would be able to find enough hours in the day to take advantage of probably half of the services on offer, impressive as they are!

Bill

[Iain Purdon]

I enjoyed “Cliff at the BBC” and “Rock’n’Roll Britannia” which was also shown as part of the Cliff 80th birthday. Between them there were plenty of Shads members.
In the Cliff programme we saw Hank, Bruce, Jet, Tony, Brian, Licorice and John, as well as Alan H, Dave R, Cliff H and Mark G. No Farrar, Tarney or Jones that I spotted.
In the R’n’R programme we also saw Brian and Licorice playing at the 2I’s as well as both Bruce and Licorice reminiscing.
For us, a great evening’s viewing on BBC4 and still available on the BBC iPlayer. I’m pleased to see it was a BBC production, not an independent job.