The Money Programme

Since the birth of the internet, the giants of the entertainment industry have been unable to get their act together to sell their wares successfully on the web. Instead they've been outmanoeuvred by pirate networks which give away the product for nothing. [ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/the_money_programme/archive/ ]

As tills overflow and rivals reel, Tesco is the UK's first supermarket superpower. The Money Programme reveals its route to the top - and asks if Tesco's dominance is in the best interests of the consumer Tesco is a retail phenomenon. With profits topping £2bn a year, it has nearly a third of the UK's grocery market.

The online auction site eBay is ten years old - that's pensionable age in "internet time". But this original star of Silicon Valley's dotcom boom is still growing at over 40%, and now earns half a billion pounds a year.

The Real Big Brother Increasingly we're all being watched at work, at home, even out shopping. The Money Programme investigates the new technology which allows businesses to track their goods, their workforce and their customers.

The website eBay has become the focus of a new breed of entrepreneurs who hope to make money by trading online. Jameel Verjee is a corporate lawyer turned entrepreneur, who wants to raise funds from potential investors in the city.

If you've ever taken out a mortgage or loan, or hold a credit card, you've probably been offered Payment Protection Insurance, or PPI as it's called. It's meant to help you if you become ill or get made redundant, so that you can meet your repayments, but all too often, it's letting people down.

In the fast moving world of fashion, 2005 has unquestionably been the year of the budget chain Primark. With 123 shops in the UK and more on the way, it has become a leading player in the high street. It scooped one of the major prizes at the High Street fashion awards this autumn, and its low-cost, high-fashion clothing has even appeared in the fashion bible Vogue.

Some of the world's biggest airlines, including our very own British Airways, stand accused of ripping off consumers in price fixing conspiracies. The Office of Fair Trading in the UK and the Department of Justice in the US have launched investigations into two alleged conspiracies with a series of dawn raids on airline offices.

We've all had to break a motorway journey, whether it is for petrol, food or to go to the loo. Yet, many of us will hesitate before taking the slip-road to a service area for fears about the quality and the price of the food on offer, or even the state of the loos.

Forget the campaigning celebrity chefs and the growth in farmers markets: as a nation we are hooked on convenience foods. We spent £1.6bn on ready meals last year and ate nearly half of those consumed in Europe.

Some of Britain's richest people pay remarkably little tax. A Money Programme special investigates how they do it.

In the 18 months since its stock market flotation, Google has been transformed from a company that prided itself on being simple and effective, into a multi-headed high tech beast which wants to get involved in everything.

Millions of people are opting out of real life and signing up to "live" in computer worlds instead - and there is a fortune to be made there by selling goods and expertise in the virtual world. Big businesses including Reebok, Nissan and Calvin Klein have spotted the potential for making real money in the virtual world.

Guinness is one of Britain's best loved brands, yet sales of the famous black stout have been falling year after year both in the UK and Ireland. But with nearly 250 years of history behind it, Guinness is not about to go quietly.

One of the most famous names in toys is back, after going bust. Airfix has been bought by model train giant Hornby, which plans to rebuild the brand. But will today's Playstation generation even notice?

The credit crunch may have put the brakes on the UK economy, but a fast-growing but relatively unknown financial institution may just come to the rescue - the sovereign wealth fund. Typically owned and run by countries in the Middle and Far East, these funds have huge reserves of cash and they want to invest it.

Britain's 10 million small shareholders are being systematically targeted by an international criminal network of fake investment firms who have conned them out of millions of pounds. When Dr John Ashley got a letter from Spain offering him free advice on his savings, he thought it wouldn't do any harm to say yes. How wrong he was. Eighteen months later and £60,000 poorer, Dr Ashley rued the day he listened to Madrid-based investment firm Benjamin Fisher.

"Nudge, nudge, wink, wink, interest you in a cheap watch, guv?" That's the traditional image of fakes, the way it used to be, the spiv with his coat lined with counterfeits. But things have changed. These days there is nothing that's not being faked; films, fashion, spare parts, drugs, tea bags, cigarettes, even toothpaste. You name it, someone somewhere will be knocking it off.

With 620 million cars worldwide and fossil fuels running out, are biofuels the green solution to our energy needs? Now there's a revolution going on in the garages of the UK as individuals and companies switch to biofuels. Retired teacher Dick Jones makes his own biofuel, to power his people carrier from the local pub's converted chip fat. Although the chemicals involved are potentially dangerous, the rewards can be worth it. Jones says he likes "the idea of using a waste product to make oil, and I like the idea of being energy independent, but it also saves a lot of money". It costs him some £21 for a tank of home-made bio-diesel, compared with £80 at the garage. Growing phenomenon Businesses including McDonalds and Stagecoach are starting to experiment with biofuels. # UK Biofuel consumption 2004 - 21 million litres # 2005 - 118 million litres # 200 - 264 million litres # 2006 - 264 million litres # 2007 - 500 million litres Source: HM Revenue & Customs They are both trialling fuels made from used cooking oil. But unfortunately there is not enough used chip fat to power our entire economy, which is why biofuels made from food crops like maize, wheat, palm oil and rapeseed, are seen by some as the answer. The justification is when the plant-derived biofuel is burned in an engine, the CO2 released is offset by the amount of the gas that the plants absorbed as they grew. Previously, only Brazil (and at one point Zimbabwe) made fuel from sugar cane, but now the US and Europe see biofuels as the way forward. The UK Government has said that by 2010 5% all UK fuel should come from biofuels. The EU has gone even further, setting a target of 10% by 2020. Food or fuel But how are we going to reach those targets? Critics argue it will mean diverting crops from food to fuels. Will the knock-on effect be a hike in the prices of cereal and grains which hit those already living in poverty hardest? Greenpeace's John Sauven says that "when it comes down to it, you can put food in someone's stomach or you can put fuel in the tank of the car and it's that kind of black and white". And the criticisms don't stop there. Mr Sauven says the demand for biofuels has piled even greater pressure on the world's already fragile rainforests. "It's a disaster to see the rainforests being cleared whole-sale and massive monoculture palm oil plantations put in their place," he says. Traceability Both the UK and the EU have issued guidelines on sourcing biofuels from sustainable sources, but it is hard to enforce. # Average UK unleaded petrol prices Feb 2008 - 104 pence per litre # Feb 2007- 86 pence per litre # Feb 2006 - 90pence per litre # Feb 2005 - 80pence per litre # fact here # Feb 2004 - 81.9pence per litre # Feb 2003 - 80.2pence per litre Fuel giant Shell says it could not guarantee its biofuels do not come from palm oil. Shell's head of Future Fuels, Graeme Sweeney, says "traceability will improve over time". "It won't be possible in the beginning to trace everything, but that doesn't mean to say that we shouldn't do all that we can," he continues. But the bio-fuel industry is not the only one to place demands on palm oil resources. National differences Andrew Owens, of biofuel manufacturer Greenergy, believes the biofuel industry has been unfairly blamed. Although it does not use palm oil, Mr Owens says "you have to look at all the consumers of palm oil, and not just biofuels". "The lion share is the food industry." The car industry has embraced biofuels, investing in designing the so called 'flex-fuel' car, which can run on either unleaded petrol or biofuel. The market leaders are the Ford Focus and the Saab bio-power., but if you do want to run them on the maximum biofuel efficiency, there there's a hitch: the cars take 85% biofuel, known as E85 and it is only available at a handful of UK forecourts. There is a country where things are different: Sweden. There are more than 1,000 biofuel stations there and...

hey did not exist a decade ago, but now it is estimated that the price comparison website industry is worth more than a billion pounds a year. When it comes to making financial decisions, from switching energy providers to buying car insurance, more than six million of us log on to them every month.

The Money Programme's Fiona Bruce gained exclusive access to Bill Gates as he prepared to step down from full-time involvement with Microsoft in June 2008. His audacious mission to put 'a computer on every desk and in every home' is now close to a description of modern life. In building his multi-billion dollar company, Gates made himself the richest man in the world, but he has also been dogged by controversy, as his ruthless leadership contributed to Microsoft being sued by the US Government. In a special one-hour edition of the Money Programme, Fiona Bruce presents the definitive profile of Bill Gates as he embarks on his latest challenge - giving away the billions he has amassed, through the charitable foundation he runs with his wife and his father. She examines the fortunes of Microsoft as it faces up to competition from internet-based companies. And the programme talks about Gates the man, the businessman and the philanthropist with a who's who of his friends, colleagues and rivals.

The value of gold has been going through the roof. Its price has quadrupled since 1999, and in March this year it reached $1,000 an ounce for the first time. With uncertainty in the markets and turmoil in the banks, more and more people are turning to gold.

Despite the credit crunch, increasing inflation and falling house prices, some businesses are reporting record profits. Pawnbrokers, bailiffs, company liquidators and discount retailers are recording bulging order books and soaring profits. The boss of Ryanair says the slump is actually good for his business.

A decade ago, the UK was a net importer of television programmes. Now we're one of the most powerful players on the international television stage, exporting more than half the world's TV "formats". But a transformation in the way viewers consume television is turning the industry's business model on its head and threatening the long-term future

Financial speculators have been blamed for inflicting recession on the rich world and starvation on poorer countries. They have been accused of buying up contracts for vital commodities - not to use, but to hold in the hope of price rises. And, by buying up billions of dollars worth of food and oil contracts, it's claimed that they artificially drove up prices, wrecked businesses and put food out of the reach of people in poorer countries.

Newspapers are facing tough times. Over the last decade, the UK's favourite dailies have lost some 2.25 million readers. Falling circulations mean less money through the till and newspapers' other main source of income - advertising - is also drying up.

James Caan takes a trip out of the Dragons' Den to look at the job market as unemployment figures in the UK reach their worst levels in decades. Unemployment could reach over three million by 2011. In Scotland, the jobless number could almost double in the next 12 months. It is a problem that is affecting every sector from finance to manufacturing. Some employers will have to cut 75 per cent of their staff. Is there any cause for optimism?

Curry is Britain's favourite food. And it's big business. Curry houses, takeaways and ready meals make up an industry worth more than £3bn. At least 18 tonnes of chicken tikka masala is eaten across the country each week, served up by Britain's 15,000 Indian restaurants.

In the last of the Money Programme series looking at Britain in recession, financial journalist and author Merryn Somerset-Webb sets off to find out what we should be doing with our money as risk is high, interest rates are low and pensions are in turmoil. Merryn meets experts and savers of all ages who are each tackling the savings dilemma in a different way.

For the past ten years, the British have shopped till they dropped. Now recession is threatening the nation's favourite pastime, and one of its biggest industries. It is the latest blow for many of Britain's beleaguered high streets. Retail guru Mary Portas wants to discover why boom towns are becoming bust towns, and what can be done to stop the extraordinary number of shop closures around Britain.

In the second of this Money Programme series looking at different sectors of Britain's economy in the recession, Newsnight's Paul Mason covers the moving story of rising unemployment from the shop floor of two struggling manufacturing companies in the Midlands.

As the recession bites into our wallets one of the first things we've tried to cut back on is our spending on food. And the downturn is affecting not only how much we fork out on food but also what we are putting into our shopping baskets.

The Money Programme's Fiona Bruce gained exclusive access to Bill Gates as he prepared to step down from full-time involvement with Microsoft in June 2008. His audacious mission to put 'a computer on every desk and in every home' is now close to a description of modern life. In building his multi-billion dollar company, Gates made himself the richest man in the world, but he has also been dogged by controversy, as his ruthless leadership contributed to Microsoft being sued by the US Government. In a special one-hour edition of the Money Programme, Fiona Bruce presents the definitive profile of Bill Gates as he embarks on his latest challenge - giving away the billions he has amassed, through the charitable foundation he runs with his wife and his father. She examines the fortunes of Microsoft as it faces up to competition from internet-based companies. And the programme talks about Gates the man, the businessman and the philanthropist with a who's who of his friends, colleagues and rivals.

Sir Gerry Robinson, the UK's foremost business troubleshooter, takes a look under the bonnet of Britain's troubled car industry. Sir Gerry gets stuck in on the production line at Nissan's Sunderland factory, finding that even this, Britain's most efficient car plant, is struggling. He finds out what the industry must do for itself and what the bosses and experts say the Government needs to do to keep the business alive. Searching for short- and long-term answers to the car industry's problems, Sir Gerry test-drives the world's first electric sports car, challenges Lord Mandelson on the Government's efforts to lead Britain's car industry through the recession, and asks billionaire inventor Sir James Dyson the really big question - whether Britain should be in the business of manufacturing at all.

Delia, Jamie, Gordon, Nigella, Rick, Gary and Antony - their names and faces are everywhere, they are all over the TV schedules, their own brand products dominate the department stores and their cookery books fill up the bestseller lists. We think we know them well, but for the first time this is the story of how they took British cuisine out of the joke book and into the record books. With behind-the-scenes access to the chefs and the teams of experts who helped build their empires, this is the untold story of how they turned their cooking skills into vast multi-million-pound businesses and international brands.

Investigating Toyota's recall of millions of cars. How did this happen to a company synonymous with reliability and customer satisfaction? Toyota is the blueprint for modern manufacturing, with a philosophy widely studied and imitated, but it is now engulfed in a perfect storm with 8.5 million cars recalled.

The Money Programme team presents an inside account of the BP oil spill. Features a host of interviews with key industry insiders, including world exclusives with Bob Dudley, the new Head of BP and Tony Hayward, his predecessor.