You’ll all be familiar with the history of Redsave, the online retailer that’s had a barrage of criticism from consumers, solicitors, Hot UK Deals and others besides. There’s plenty of history to read up on if you’ve don’t know about the company, but we wanted to let you know that the BBC’s report into Redsave that we reported on last October, finally aired on the BBC last week.

The company was featured in a segment on Inside Out South – most of the country doesn’t see this regional version of the show, so thanks to several Bitterwallet readers for letting us know about it. You only have a few hours left to view it on the BBC’s website, but it’s definitely worth a gander:

Redsave have acted on previous complaints and changed their site to more clearly explain the £20 monthly subscription fee. But what we didn’t know about was how Redsave justified charging the subscription. We’d heard the company claim they’re saving many satisfied customers hundreds of pounds, but how does that work?

One thing Redsave does, as boss Max Walker explains, is they redefine what an RRP is. Absolutely true. It’s fair to say there’s a very public understanding of what an RRP is, and what it’s an abbreviation for – Recommended Retail Price. Therefore, you might think Redsave would explain if they deliberately changed the meaning of RRP when using it on a retail website, otherwise it might cause some confusion.

You’d think wrong.

Every product on the site has an RRP. The programme features a 32GB iPod Touch – Redsave states the RRP is £269.99 but sell it for £229.99 – a saving of £40! Yet you can order the same item from Apple for £234, so it’s clearly not an RRP. What are these RRPs that Redsave are quoting? Watch Walker squirm as he attempts to explain in the report, but here’s the gist of it:

Walker: “We don’t refer to it as a Recommended Retail Price… it’s quite a difficult thing… in consumer-”

Reporter: “Well it says RRP…

Walker: “No, that’s our Redsave Retail Price… so we’re not quoting RRPs.”

The Redsave Retail Price! Of course that’s what it means! So Redsave aren’t quoting RRPs, they’re just giving the standard abbreviation a completely different meaning which in turn may exaggerate the savings available – as it clearly does in the case of the iPod Touch – and all the while not explaining the fact. Nothing confusing about that, at least not according to Walker, who appears astounded that RRP may have another meaning:

Reporter: “Do you think that’s clear to most people?”

Walker: “Well I think so because we’ve got so many people shopping with us every day.”

Reporter: “Could you make it clearer, though? Because RRP to most people is Recommended Retail Price.”

Walker: “Right. Well I’ll consider it, but I don’t think it’s unclear.”

Not unclear at all, apart from the fact the definition is NOT EXPLAINED ANYWHERE ON THE WEBSITE. There’s also another interesting claim from the mouth of Walker:

“All our Redsave prices are cost price – we don’t make any money.”

Anyone familiar with Quidco knows that Apple offers affiliates 3 per cent on sales, which would make the same iPod cheaper than the Redsave price, and we’d be of the opinion that retailers tend to buy in goods to sell with wider margins that that.

Next – Max Walker redefines space-time and sells you your own great grand-children. And that hoverboard from Back to The Future 2.

A iphone, yesterday. We could have illustrated the story with a Nexus One or a Blackberry but we didn't.

The BBC have announced they’ll be launching free, official mobile apps for iPhone, Blackberry and Google’s Android later in the year, in a move that is certain to annoy other news-carrying organisations. Especially Rupert Murdoch’s News International – which we’re sure you’ll agree is an enormous boon. And we’re always on the look out for enormous boons.

As traditional newspapers struggle to get to grips with a paper-less future, apps are being seen as a new way to direct traffic to their floundering websites, but only if there’s money in it. The Telegraph and Sky already have free apps but with limited content, while The Guardian have launched a paid-for iPhone app, but it costs £2.39 and is somewhat lacking when it comes to usability. The BBC News app could well be a significant kick in the chops for other newspapers with similar paid-for plans.

The News app, due in April will contain content from the BBC News website, including written stories, correspondent blogs as well as audio and video. It’ll be followed up by a BBC Sport app in time for the World Cup, which has got our app glands leaking all over the place.

The Beeb say it’ll focus on football from its launch, with content from the BBC Sport website and 5 Live radio, including live commentary, and, if events are screened live on the BBC Sport site, they’ll also be available to watch through the app.  No plans have been announced for the apps to be available on the most-popular Symbian platforms as yet.

If you have a car, what are the chances of it failing its MOT? Obviously wear and tear is a major factor, but are some makes and models more likely to fail than others? One body that should know is the Vehicle and Operator Services Agency (VOSA), the area of the Department for Transport which oversees MOTs.

Except they have, up until recently, refused to tell anyone about MOT pass rates; even after the BBC made a Freedom of Information request in the Summer of 2008, the Government body wouldn’t release the information. It wasn’t until last month that the information commissioner overturned VOSA’s decision, meaning the data is now available.

The BBC has begun to trawl through the information (and there are 1,200 pages of it to trawl through); in this example, the list of MOT failure rates is based on stats from tests conducted in 2007 and concerns vehicles that were three years old at the time of testing:

It’s not as clear-cut as it looks, however, and is hardly a shitlist for which cars will cost you more in the long term. For example, certain types of vehicle are likely to cover more mileage than others – Vauxhall are quick to point out that during the survey period, they were one of the largest suppliers of fleet vehicles to businesses and these tend to rack up higher-than-average miles. That also leads to another factor – the type of driver behind the wheel. If it’s some cocksocket of a businessman who doesn’t care how he drives his company car, it’ll obviously be more likely to fail.

That might explain away some of the results, but why would a three-year-old Renault Megane be over twice as likely to fail an MOT than a Honda Jazz, or a Fiat Punto be 50 per cent more likely to fail than a Toyota Yaris? Doubtless other factors will affect these results but the question remains – are some manufacturers producing cars of poorer build quality than others? In time plenty of effort will be made to drill down into the numbers, which are currently only available from the VOSA website as a PDF file of 1,200 pages.

So why did the Government try to block this information becoming public?

“The release of information relating to specific make and model would be likely to be commercially damaging to vehicle manufacturers whose failure rates appear higher, and therefore less favourable, than other manufacturers…this information would be likely to be used by some manufacturers to gain a competitive advantage, for example by publicising that their failure rate is lower than another manufacturer’s failure rate for a comparable vehicle model.”

And there we were assuming the Government held the interests of the tax-paying public higher than those of the car industry. It’s possible the information will be abused by manufacturers, but surely it’s better to see the data released and analysed for the good of the consumer?

[BBC] thanks to Bitterwallet reader Kiran

At Bitterwallet we’ve made our living over the past year by propagating idle speculation and wild gossip. But even we can’t hold a candle to the BBC, who this morning raised the spirits of a nation by declaring the UK economy was on the road to recovery, only to drag us back into “the longest recession on record” three hours later.

0814 – “Figures due later are expected to show that the UK economy grew slightly from July to September, meaning the recession is over”:

1136 – “The UK economy unexpectedly contracted by 0.4% between July and September, according to official figures, meaning the country is still in recession”:

As you may know, Microsoft launch their exciting new Windows 7 operating system this Thursday. As you may not know, it is named after the classic BBC sci-fi TV series Blake’s 7, so naturally the BBC have decided to cover the launch of the new product.

However, it seems as though they didn’t assign the task to their most tech-minded member of staff. See this picture and caption taken from the BBC News website.

Ooh, personalised desktops! What else has it got? A music player? Solitaire? The internets??

Oh BBC, you’re such a bunch of cocks sometimes…

[Thanks to Bitterwallet reader Mark]

This week saw Panorama attempt to stick it to Ryanair on primetime television, except the BBC hadn’t reckoned on CEO Michael O’Leary and his near-unlimited powers of spin and manipulation, not unlike a modern-day SuperJesus. Our considered opinion is that the show was commissioned before the research was complete, leading to the somewhat embarrassing situation of a programme exposing little more than its own lack of substantial content.

Weak editorial combined with Ryanair’s masterstroke of publishing its full correspondence with the BBC put O’Leary in the driving seat. Add to that the Sky Marshall playing the corporation like a fiddle – by agreeing to an interview on terms that would have been unacceptable to any broadcaster, O’Leary appeared to be the injured party – and it seemed to us that the budget airline won hands down. You have no idea how much it pains us to say that.

But what did you make of the programme and the media circus that followed it into town? Did the BBC deal a savage body-blow to the Sky Marshall, or did Ryanair batter the beeb into a bloody pulp? You decide, as a man once said.

Well, what can we say, eh? We’re still going to be holding our head in our hands this time next year when Ryanair announces passengers must donate organs or their least favourite child to board their flights, but last night’s hard-hitting investigative journalism from Panorama turned out to be insubstantial, pointless and bound to leave most the audience saying “and your point is…?”. The press seems to consider Ryanair as the victor of past few day’s media slagging match, and that a simultaneous kick in the baby-maker has been dealt to the BBC.

Sky Marshall O’Leary promised to give away 100,000 free seats for every false claim he deemed the BBC to make – hence at midnight, 1.1 million free seats went up for grabs on the Ryanair website. O’Leary wins the battle of the spin once more. Unsurprisingly, it’s not quite as straight forward as all that. Read through the correspondence between the two sides (as published by Ryanair) and you’ll notice that Ryanair’s defense of their policies isn’t always convincing, or indeed, true:

“Any additional charges over and above our guaranteed lowest fare (with no fuel surcharges) are discretionary. All passengers can avoid these charges should they wish, by declining those services.”

If Ryanair can explain to us how a mandatory £5 online check-in fee each way is discretionary (without changing the meaning of the word to something meaning the exact opposite), we’d be happy to let everyone know. Oh, and remember – you might be lucky enough to bag a seat for free, but Ryanair will still charge you £20 to carry your infant on your lap. Infants under two years old aren’t allowed their own seat, which a) allows Ryanair to sell another seat, and b) means it can cost more for a child to fly with no seat, than an adult who has one. But of course this charge is also discretionary, since toddlers can be left at home alone for up to several days at a time.

If you haven’t read it yet, have a read through the email tennis as the BBC becomes increasingly desperate to find fault and justify their programme budget. Our favourite retort from Ryanair is:

10. Is there an “ideal” Ryanair customer?

10. Yes. Any human being with a brain, a pulse and a credit card, who doesn’t want to be ripped off with BA or Easyjet’s high fares and frequently delayed flights.

Stay classy, Ryanair.

Bloody hell, Sky+ is ganting at the prospect of this one. Panorama on BBC1 is preparing what Ryanair has already described as a “hatchet job” on the company. In order to head Auntie Beeb off at the pass, the budget airline has released all correspondence with the BBC on the matter, which includes a list of over 20 questions the programme’s reporter demanded answers to.

Ryanair PR commander Stephen McNamara accused the BBC of refusing the budget airline an “adequate right of reply”, because the BBC wouldn’t grant Sky Marshall David O’Leary’s request of an interview that was either live or unedited:

“Ryanair calls on the BBC to explain why Panorama refuses to provide balance in its programming and why licence payers are funding such rubbish-filled investigations which don’t stand up to scrutiny.”

But either live or unedited interviews are rare in such programmes, and tantamount to an attempt to control the editorial content, according to the Corporation:

“We do have a statement from Ryanair in the programme and a couple of clips of Mr O’Leary speaking in it. We wanted to interview Michael O’Leary but he wanted editorial control and that is something no broadcaster would agree to. We urge viewers to make their own minds up by watching Panorama on Monday.”

Of course that argument assumes that the BBC’s editorial control won’t show bias; after all, it’s fair to say that Panorama doesn’t have a reputation for depicting companies in the best light, and nobody is going to watch a programme that doesn’t spread some muck about the airline. Panorama: Why Hate Ryanair? is on BBC1 at 8.30 tonight. Let us know what you think once you’ve seen it in the comments.

[The Times]

Tomorrow morning, Freeview is getting a bit of spit and polish. Not literally of course – unless your Freeview box is made of shoes. Some TV and radio channels will shift positions and without retuning you’ll be staring into an endless photonic void. Around 25 million Freeview TV sets, set-top boxes and digital recorders will be affected across the country, but thankfully the BBC has provided you with a concise website address where you’ll find the latest information:

[Twitpic] via Stephen Martin

Could this be one of the most powerful men at Ofcom?

If you’re looking to enjoy the high life, you should try working your way into a position of influence at broadcasting and media regulator Ofcom. Their staff have enjoyed over 700 free meals and drinks over the past two and a half years, according to cold, hard facts released under the Freedom Of Information Act.

Around 10% of those soirees were funded by the BBC, with the bills for others being paid from the purses of the likes of ITV, Channel 4, Yahoo, the US Embassy, Vodafone and Harry Ramsdens. Except for that last one.

Not only that, the Ofcom executives have also had a regular stream of gifts coming their way from various sources. The lovely pressies range in quality from the useless (a book of poetry, some stamps and a tie) to the brilliant (malt whisky, a jar of sweets and a Nepalese hat.)

We’ve approached Ofcom to see if any of their high-ranking officials would like to come for a kebab from Fat Alan’s in the precinct so that we can get to the bottom of this whole T-Mobile cancellation thing, but they are yet to respond. If they don’t fancy it, we’ll gladly send them a doner that they can reheat in the office after returning from a lunchtime piss-up.

Remember the innocent days when a top whack computer game cost £9.99 and was loaded by cassette? Good times. Sadly, even when it was brand new, the Acorn Electron was third rate. Thankfully there was big brother BBC Micro with its glorious red, black and beige keyboard which were ok until all the cool kids got their Spectrum +3’s and Commodore 64’s. For those of us with parents lacking any sense regarding the home computer revolution, we were left to play the likes of Ravenskull instead of Afterburner (Superior Software titles were quite decent, though).

Still it’s nice to see trivial anniversaries celebrated, and at the same time note what BBC planning editors consider a reasonable use of a BBC film crew. That’s not strictly fair; Elite was one of the first computer games to use 3D wire animation, combining space battles with a role-playing architecture. It was eventually ported onto most other major consoles including the NES.

If your 25th Elite birthday party is already in full swing, don’t let us keep you from it – everyone else can watch the BBC’s walkthrough of the original game with creator David Braben. Those of you in your late teens with no concept of world history may see the graphics and expect an air raid siren to sound in the distance.

Recent findings from research by communications watchdog Ofcom has documented that Brits put only personal care items and groceries at a higher budget priority than broadband. 47% of respondents said they would cut down on dinners out, while 41% would cut down on travel holidays, and 25% would cut down on clothing purchases. At the same time, television viewing and internet use have gone up over the past year, perhaps as a result of cutting all those restaurant meals and holidays from the budget. Watching video content on the internet is steadily gaining popularity.

Half of the British population have watched on-demand video over the internet, with 20% of those watching it regularly every week. With the boundaries between Internet video on demand (VOD) services and traditional broadcast television blurring a little more each day, perhaps it would be a good idea to summarize the current popular VOD options:

1. BBC’s iPlayer. Based on Adobe Flash Player, iPlayer is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. You have your choice of watching streaming video online or downloading the iPlayer to your desktop. If you download the iPlayer and download programmes to watch, you can choose from the previous week’s BBC shows. Once you download them, you have 30 days to watch. Or you can choose from the BBC’s streaming offerings and watch online. Legally, you only need a TV licence to watch TV on the iPlayer when they are being broadcast live.

2. Channel 4 4OD. To watch 4OD, just go to the website and start browsing. Programs are categorized as follows: food, homes, film, 4car, news, sports, health, entertainment, and drama. 4OD has Big Brother, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and First Cut, which showcases works by new film directors.

3. Microsoft VOD. Just launched this week, Microsoft’s VOD portal carries UK hits Shameless, Hustle, and Peep Show among its 300 hours of programming from BBC Worldwide and All3Media. Programmes are ad-supported.

Coming this year or next to the UK:

4. Hulu. This American VOD service launches next month with 3,000 hours of American content and Channel 4 and ITV as content partners. Hulu hopes to get a piece of the action that would have gone to the defunct Project Kangaroo, which was blocked by the Competition Commission earlier this year.

5. BBC Canvas. Details continue to emerge slowly about this project in which the BBC, along with Channel 5 and ITV will create a “platform” to support programmes delivered by broadcast and broadband. The proposed launch time is Christmas 2010.

6. Arqiva. Arqiva is buying the technology behind the now-cancelled Project Kangaroo to launch its own VOD service. The company is now looking for partners in content provision to supply the video content that will be available online. The schedule for Arqiva is “in the coming months,” and it will offer free and paid content.

In Part II we’ll explore what kind of hardware gives you the best VOD experience.

Another reason to abandon the direct debit payments for your TV licence will be handed to you by Microsoft next week, when it launches a free TV on-demand service. The MSN Video Player is headed up by the former BBC executive responsible for the iPlayer and Project Kangaroo – a VOD player combining content from ITV, BBC Worldwide and Channel 4 that was killed before launch by the Competition Commission.

Microsoft has struck a deal with BBC Worldwide and independent producers to screen programmes after they’ve expired on the VOD players of their indigenous channels. The six month pilot is also launching with 300 hours of content, hopefully not all of it the pant-shittingly bad Hotel Babylon or the rage-inducing How To Look Good Naked:

MSN are launching their commercially funded aggregator to steal the march on the likes of Hulu, a phenomenally successful VOD service in the US which is expected to become available in the UK this Autumn, and Arqiva, the transmission infrastructure giants who last week snapped up the remains of Project Kangaroo in order to launch their own VOD service.

In February we published a story concerning the BBC breaching copyright rules by publishing a photo without permission, taken by Bitterwallet reader Michael Baily. It was this image of Birmingham’s skyline on Flickr that Michael spotted on the BBC News channel one evening, as the “live” backdrop of Birmingham city centre:

The image was clearly marked All Rights Reserved on Flickr, requiring any usage to be agreed in advance. When Michael contacted them, the BBC provided a very long and slightly dubious account as to how events had unfolded, and initially offered to pay £75 for the unauthorised usage of the image on national television, while demanding that Michael stop drawing attention to the incident.

Following our coverage of the story (which was picked up by several other sites including The Guardian and The Register), a BBC spokesperson contacted Michael with a revised agreement. Michael has been in touch this morning to tell us he was offered and has now been paid £600 for misuse of the image. That’s four licence fees that won’t be spent on Bolly for the DG or flowers for Jonathan Ross or, at a push, public service broadcasting. Hats off to Michael for not letting the Beeb get away with it, and props to the BBC for spending more public money on correcting their basic schoolboy errors.

We’ve talked about BBC funding in passing before, as a side issue to that of technology, and how consumers might fund the TV license in the digital age. Ultimately though, it’s a another tax that most of us have to pay, regardless of your views on the value for money it delivers and regardless of whether we make full or little use of the services it funds; if you own a television, you pay the fee and tough tittie if you feel otherwise.

So what exactly are you paying for? Well, there are two national analogues television services, several digital stations, nine nation radio stations, 40 local stations, local tv services and an online empire.

Oh, and a dinner for Terry Wogan costing over £1,100. And a car hire for the BBC’s director of future media and technology. Over £800. For a day. And a night out in Vegas for 29 people costing nearly £1,500. And £2,236.90 to hire a Cessna jet.

Yes, you might think you’re pushing it by sticking in an expense claim for a few extra miles of petrol, but it’s fair to say the executive committee of the BBC are royally taking the piss with their receipts. The publicly funded corporation has released the claims of its ten executive board members going back five years after saying it planned to publish more salary and expenses details.

The Guardian is sifting through the details that have so far been released, and has also created spreadsheets so Daily Mail readers can do the same. Expect the Mail to carry at least five pages of furious, vein-bursting outrage in tomorrow’s edition.

[The Guardian]