– from today’s Sunday Times:
Commercial companies – from giant ITV, Emap and Yahoo down to minnows such as Island FM on Guernsey – complain that relentless BBC expansion is hurting private- sector enterprise in areas from parish-pump television to magazines, the internet and classical-music publishing.
Lobby groups representing the radio and local-newspaper industries have sent letters to Tessa Jowell, the culture secretary, in the past few days, setting out their concerns about the BBC’s ambitions and about the way it uses its licence-fee revenue.
They plan to increase pressure in the run-up to the government’s decision later this year on the next licence-fee settlement.
Tom Moloney, chief executive of Emap, the magazine publisher and radio-station operator, complained last week: “The reason this situation has occurred is that the BBC is overfunded and is therefore looking for things to do.”
Do read the whole thing.
So, the private sector tells the BBC to get off our turf.
Better late than never, the private sector has finally woken up and realised that, until now it was not even competing.
In fact, the BBC was not distorting the market – the BBC was the market.
The private sector made small amounts of profit without really ever competing. At best they only ever modelled the BBC.
Put down this beast.
Any Conservative MPs rushing to support the view of commercial enterprises & press for the pruning (at least) of the BBC?
“Lobby groups representing the radio and local-newspaper industries have sent letters to Tessa Jowell,”
And writing to rich Marxist Tessa Jowell is going to prompt what action, precisely? If she can bludgeon her way through vast sums of money appearing in, and then being transferred out, of her personal bank account and her multi-millionaire husband’s strange business dealings, she can sleepwalk through ignoring the pleas for fair play by private enterprise.
The BBC is an organ of the Labour Party. It’s not going to change. It has to be utterly destroyed. That includes dynamiting Broadcasting House. Get rid of all traces of it.
The BBC will die when New Labour gets booted out of Office…….
It’s already on the cards with their shedding of Millions of viewers every year…..
A big hit used to get 20-25 Million viewers……now their “Big Hit” Dr Who can hardly scrape together 6 Million Imature Adults to watch it…and they call it a “success”??….lol.
TV is dead, and so are the Big Broadcasters of Old………long live the internet…..
PS. And ain’t it great how the UK population has ignored BBC and New Labour propaganda…….and given them an un-holy kicking at the recent elections….:)
Not only are the BBC dying, they are being ignored as well…..lol. And as they do so, they get more desperate and amateur…..
I’m loving it……
In response to Carl:
“The BBC will die when New Labour gets booted out of Office” –
That’s a rather silly thing to say. The BBC is a British broadcaster that works for the British people, not the Labour government. I have no doubt that New Labour spin doctors try at every opportunity to influence the BBC, and they probably do to a degree, but the BBC won’t die off when they do. I would say that the TV licensing system might change when Labour leaves office, but this will be mainly due to advancing technologies, not politics.
Also:
“Not only are the BBC dying, they are being ignored as well…..lol. And as they do so, they get more desperate and amateur….. ” –
Have you seen the Planet Earth series? Anyone with even a slight knowledge of camera technology and filmic style can this series is absolutely stunning. – Its first episode had 11 million viewers. And the new Doctor Who series? Again millions of viewers. Amateur? – No. Ignored? – Hardly.
Personally, I think my TV license is money well spent.
(Oh and for those who really want to see biased Programming and News, watch Fox. – Bill O’Reily? Enough said.)
Oh and for those who really want to see biased Programming and News, watch Fox. – Bill O’Reily?
Ralph, should you add your thanks to us for continuing to fund your viewing choice, even whilst we are chewing the carpet in the company of Bill?
And the new Doctor Who series? Again millions of viewers. Amateur? – No. Ignored? – Hardly.
The Chairman of the BBC cancelled Dr Who when he was Director-General.
Dr Who ceased to be interesting after William Hartnell and the decline accelerated after Patrick Troughton. I have no wish to watch this incarnation on BBC…………it is a dead franchise after the goofy films the BBC had made – not a patch on Peter Cushing in the 1960s..
Ralph, you’ll have to run by me how the occasional top quality piece of work such as ‘Planet Earth’ is sufficent return on billions of pounds of tax payers money. The BBC should be the HBO of Britain, instead it’s destroyed in the entertainment stakes… But then HBO is open to market forces… subscriptions.. maybe that has something to do with it.
A friend of mine had a nice business. He used to publish interactive CDs that were used in schools. They covered geography and historical subjects.
Suddenly his market disappeared – schools just stopped buying his products. They got free stuff from the BBC instead.
Jack Hughes
‘they got free stuff from the BBC instead’.
So, if we were to scrap the licence fee we’d have to put taxes up to provide schools with the money to pay for your friend’s corporate Jag?
‘Personally, I think my TV license is money well spent.’
Presumably Ralph, if the licence fee was scrapped, you wouldn’t receive a salary.
formmaster – experience has shown me that the maxim ‘those who can’t, teach’ holds true
Formmaster completely misses the point
Let’s just abolish the market place altogether and have the BBC provide schools with pens, paper, PCs and books all funded by the licence fee.
This whole site is a disgusting mistake. You would have a barbarian like murdoch provide advertisements disguised as facts instead of the BBCs NPOV. Thankfully your crass penny pinching will never prevail. You’re a disgusting troll of a chinless tory, get back into the dustbin of history.
Sean,
Nobody is forced to pay for Murdoch’s “advertisements disguised as facts”. If I wish to watch an ‘infomercial’, I can choose to do so. However, even if I don’t watch the BBC at all, I still have to pay a TV Tax (soon to be £200 per annum).
Why should I be forced to pay a subsidy so that you can watch your ‘wonderful’ BBC on the cheap. If it’s that fucking great, introduce a subscription service similar to Sky.
See how much you like it, when only 25% of the UK population bother to subscribe to the BBC and your subscription fee is £800 a year.
Formaster,
I’d prefer to pay for a small business man to drive a Jag, than some parasitic arse at the BBC.
1) Man sets up small business. Costs are low and product standard is high (essential, if you want to make a profit)
2) Man works his arse off, to ensure success.
3) BBC, funded by £3 billion TV Tax, copies man’s idea and fucks up his life.
4) Company with worldwide growth potential is destroyed by socialism. Horray!
Seán: “This whole site is a disgusting mistake. You would have a barbarian like murdoch provide advertisements disguised as facts instead of the BBCs NPOV. Thankfully your crass penny pinching will never prevail. You’re a disgusting troll of a chinless tory, get back into the dustbin of history”.
That’s rich, coming from the Irish Republic as it does – the cheeky hypocrite doesn’t even have to pay the BBC’s state-enforced tellytax!
just how low will the bbc go to get a cheap dig at mr bush..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/soldonsong/whatson/springsteen_competition.shtml
this has to be an all time low
‘You’re a disgusting troll of a chinless tory, get back into the dustbin of history.’
Who, me? Disgusting troll – yes. Chinless tory – hardly.
“just how low will the bbc go to get a cheap dig at mr bush..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/ sold…mpetition.shtml
this has to be an all time low”
And managing to spell as both as “Seeger” and “Seegar” on the same page.
Indeed the BBC can distort the market, but that often makes things better. If 5Live hadn’t been created and turned out to be a sucess would Kelvin MacKenzie have been able to sort out funding to launch TalkSport? What was the BBC supposed to do then, abandon 5Live because the market caught up with them and provided a similar service?
Or how about commercial radio. Rather than spend time moaning about the dominance of the BBC perhaps it might be better to ask why. The MD of Radio Pembrokeshire has told his commercial collegues to stop blaming the beeb and buck their own ideas up. If they did they might be as successful as his station.
Perhaps subscription might be one way for commercial radio to go forward in this country? Stop moaning then and do it.
Of course the BBC can have a huge impact on the market, the recent Radio3 Beethoven downloads are a very good example of that. But once the dust has settled you see CD sales of Beethoven rose as the downloads piqued interest. What stopped any classical music website from offering free Beethoven dowloads themselves with adverts at the start of the downloads?
It is a market. The BBC is part of it. Stop moaning, raise your game and compete with it.
Alan,
It’s a distorted market. Do you think it’s much consolation to the owner of a small classical music shop, that sales ‘recovered’ after the Beeb finished trying to put him/her out of business?
I note the Sunday Times (prop. R.Murdoch) article neglects to mention who owns Sky TV (prop. R.Murdoch) a large commercial TV operation with much to gain from the dismantling of the BBC, reasons of time & space no doubt.
Some of us are old enough to remember the intense lobbying by the BBC to the Wilson Labour Government to hound the pirate radio ships out of existence because everybody had stopped listening to the quaintly named ‘Home Service’ and ‘Light Programme’, the latter contantly playing Victor Sylvester.
No lectures please on the BBC being part of a market.
That would be Alan@BBC, by the way 🙂
Thanks Andrew.
This blog is under fire from a consortium of BBC employees, ranging from the asinine to the downright crude (see maxx on the other thread)
Alan
“If 5Live hadn’t been created and turned out to be a sucess would Kelvin MacKenzie have been able to sort out funding to launch TalkSport?”
I think you’ll find you’ve got this the wrong way round. The 1053/89 band was well served by the original Talk Radio station. I well remember enjoying the Mike Dicken morning prog and before that didn’t Littlejohn do the gig?
It was the encroachment of R5 into the market that eroded Talk’s ratings and resulted in the relaunch with a sport orientated format. Not a good thing for those of us who find football about as interesting as watching paint dry.
“Some of us are old enough to remember the intense lobbying by the BBC to the Wilson Labour Government to hound the pirate radio ships out of existence”
Now here’s a funny thing because some of us are also old enough to remember the hounding of the CBers in the mid 70’s(Citizen Band transeivers for those more recently hatched) Detector vans chasing around the country looking for long whippy aerials sprouting from the roofs of metalflake Escorts. Conviscation of equipment and big fines if caught but must have cost the authorities a fortune.
Fast forward to ’06 and the airwaves are full of pirate stations broadcasting all over the licenced channels. Can’t remember the last time I was able to listen to LBC on FM withoutit being drowned out by some moron with a penchant for roots music. Offcom says it hasn’t the funding to enforce the regs
Strange that the Beeb’s channels are so unaffected though……..
Allan@BBC “Perhaps subscription might be one way for commercial radio to go forward in this country?”
& what’s sauce for the goose ..
formmaster
“So, if we were to scrap the licence fee we’d have to put taxes up to provide schools with the money to pay for your friend’s corporate Jag?”
My friend drives a mondeo. He was just planning to take on his first employee when this happened.
Tell us what your trade is – and how you would feel if the BBC started to offer it as a free service ?
Lets imagine you are a male escort, for example. Then the BBC start to provide male escorts free of charge to allcomers.
Jack:
Who would want to go out with the BBC presenters? Eeewww….
PJ
Seeing as Talk Radio launched a year AFTER Five Live if you had tuned in you would have been “well served” by static and nothing more.
(Talk radio launched 14th February 1995, Five Live (as we now know it) Monday, March 28 1994.)