Please use this thread for comments about the BBC’s current programming and activities. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog – scroll down for new topic-specific posts. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments, rants or chit-chat. Thoughtful comments are encouraged. Comments may be moderated.
This complaint apparently merits a news article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7131352.stm
32 people complain that the BBC don’t like Poles, and they get a grovelling apology and a news story. I, and I’m guessing a damn sight more than 32 people, complain about a topical debate programme being ideologically slanted, and I get told it’s all in my mind and that the BBC are awesome.
Martin | 06.12.07 – 7:59 pm,
I was surprised to hear a programme on the World Service today – it might have been Assignment but I don’t have time to check right now – actually critical of the Iranian judiciary for the appalling case of a young woman who had been sold into prostitution as a very young girl and then sentenced to death. She was given a reprieve.
Also another appalling case of a young man accused of rape and then hanged even though the accusations had been withdrawn.
A human rights lawyer and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were involved so I guess the BBC was prompted into action here, but still it’s good (and unusual) to see the BBC publicising the satanic actions of the evil regime in Iran.
I am a Brit, I live in France and though I do not pay the licence fee (I do pay one in France) I vote still in the UK and therefore the bias of the BBC impacts me.
Bryan in Israel is directly affected by the bias of the BBC in that it is directly threatening his country’s survival by withdrawing support of normal people in the UK from Israel. Because the BBC is also aimed at a world audience. He has just as much right as I have to criticise the BBC, especially as the BBC wrongly declares that it is impartial.
I understand that the World Service is funded by the FO, be it fully or in part I do not know, but if that is the case then the licence fee is not relevent to Bryan at all.
Shug Niggurath | 06.12.07 – 6:32 pm
First off, both stories are the opinions of Lords, not policy statements of government…
One was the Lord Chancellor and the other the Attorney General!
What does qualify as ‘the opinion of a lord’ is what Ahmed says.
Mr Reith finally appears, but in the wrong thread.
One word: paintball.
AJukDD | Homepage | 07.12.07 – 9:24 am,
Thanks for that. I find it a bit rich that Roland Thompson-Gunner (and Reith probably feels the same) expects the BBC to be able to spread its biased tentacles all over the planet without being accountable to those outside the UK who are seriously affected by the bias.
Bryan, no problem, it was very rich indeed. Keep up the great posts.
Ben | 06.12.07 – 10:28 am |
“And you’re sure this is funded by the license fee?”
Yes. BBC America is technically a semi-autonomous company, your Auntie Beeb is the ultimate owner and proprietor. The cable channel itself is a commercial channel, driven by advertising dollars. The original funding for the creation, development, and operation of BBC America came from the mother ship, using a portion of the telly tax.
While the channel does get some reasonable advertising revenue these days (if the rates are similar to BBC World, it’s something on the order of $175K per 30 second spot in prime time, like the news hour). The advertising is currently handled by Discovery Communications, as part of the ad bundle they flog to cable and satellite distributors. That will change next April, I believe, when BBC America has its in-house advertising division up and running. But that’s not the whole picture, is it?
Fully half the content of Matt Frei’s low budget affair comes directly from the mother ship. Video footage and pre-recorded reports are from BBC News in the UK and/or BBC World. The production of these segments is fully funded by the license fee, and BBC America does not pay a royalty or commission to run them. It’s only the second half of the broadcast, generally, that has content produces in Frei’s studio or by his skeleton crew.
The ad money pulled in by the channel probably doesn’t come anywhere near paying for the operations budget.
So yes, the license fee does fund a significant portion – at the very least – of what I call propaganda on BBC America. That goes for polishing China’s turd or telling me how to vote.
has anyone ever seen the bbc put phrases like “insulting islam” in square quotes?
to my reckoning, bbc-style scare quotes a la “war on terror” mean either a direct quote, or a distancing by the bbc of itself from any objective validation of the words or sentiment in question…
stuck-record: Three words; “contempt of court”
However the segments would presumably be made with our without the existance of BBC America – I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say my license fee money has suddenly started to be used to produce unique commercial content
The ad money maybe doesn’t cover it, but it’ll be worldwide footing the bill won’t it? just as World only relatively recently became profitable
if these commercial enterprises fail, as far as I’m aware the BBC has no financial responsiblity (unlike the private backers)
this all came out when people accused the BBC of using license fee money to buy lonely planet….which it wasn’t
Ben,
The BBC won’t get left holding the bag if the commercial enterprise which is BBC America fails, but that’s the legal loophole of an LLC. That doesn’t have anything to do with where the founding money came from, nor where the money comes from now to prop it up.
BBC America as a marketing and distribution division has been around for many years, much longer than the tv channel. It is ultimately under the umbrella of, as you point out, Worldwide, which makes oodles of cash.
Of course, BBC Worldwide is a wholly owned subsidiary of the BBC. It makes a profit on its own, but as owner, Auntie makes a packet.
We could also discuss at length just how much money BBC Worldwide makes on the magazines. The bulk of that money is tied directly into the incestuous relationship Auntie has with the child company. Top Gear Magazine wouldn’t exist without the show itself, etc.
As you well know, BBC World gets its own funding from a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but that’s also your tax money at work, just a different tax.
It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out which of the news reports they show on BBC World News America are made by BBC World, and which are made by your own BBC in Britain. Any of the latter are essentially funded by the license fee. If they are crap propaganda pieces and are shown in the US, that’s your license fee being used for crap propaganda in my country.
Any of the former are crap propaganda pieces being shown in my country which are paid for by another branch of your own government. So it’s still crap propaganda in my country being paid for by the government of an ally.
It all adds up to this: When Matt Frei and Katty Kay tell me how to vote, their salaries are paid for by BBC America, owned by BBC Worldwide, owned by the BBC. You pay various taxes which fund all of them.
“As you well know, BBC World gets its own funding from a grant-in-aid from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, but that’s also your tax money at work, just a different tax.”
Actually I wasn’t aware of that. I was aware that the World Service is funded by the FO, but not World.
“It all adds up to this: When Matt Frei and Katty Kay tell me how to vote, their salaries are paid for by BBC America, owned by BBC Worldwide, owned by the BBC. You pay various taxes which fund all of them.”
Are you sure that their wages are paid for by the license fee and not Worldwide’s various other sources of income? I’m certainly not, and I’d be surprised considering the sensitivity regarding how license fee money is used.
“BBC Worldwide has £350m available to spend on deals so critics ought to start getting used to these sorts of purchases. That money comes in the form of a loan from a syndicate of high-street banks.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2602557.ece
Ben,
I’ll accept that the license fee doesn’t go towards Frei’s compensation for his show over here, but I think he must get some compensation straight from Auntie for things like his recent, wrongheaded Washington Diary about China. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t come to the studio on Fridays, because he has a second paying gig, and not just because the budget is so low.
In any case, some of the news content shown in the first half hour of the daily broadcast is most certainly from the mother ship, BBC News specifically, which is part of what the license fee pays for. No matter where it’s shown, paid for by the license fee.
Aside from any financial details, BBC Worldwide is still beholden to the Royal Charter, so even when he’s doing his low budget show in the US, Frei needs to follow the guidelines. The blatant bias featured regularly on the news broadcast is definitely in breach of that. Further, giving favorable treatment to China by running a China Tourist Board advertisement immediately after a news segment on China (I’ve seen it three times in the last two months), is in breach of the Fair Trade Guidelines for commercial activities by BBC entities.
Climate-Change Love-in:
The Corp’s obsession with climate change reaches orgasmic new heights this morning with blanket doom-mongering coverage of the Bali scarefest.
On the website, environment correspondent Roger Black provides ‘analysis’ which contains not one iota of alternative opinion, and casts (surprise, surprise!) George Bush as the villain who won’t go along with the tide.
There’s nonsense galore about the billions needed for an ‘adaptation’ fund, and of course, Indonesia’s call for more money to protect forestry – without a single mention that one of the the biggest pressures on rainforests is now the EU’s insane targets to generate 20% of energy via biofuels based on palm oil.
It’s time our ‘leaders’ and the BBC read the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches) – the 1520 Inquisition document by two anti-witch fanatics that defined new crime of ‘witchcraft’ and led to the judicial murder of thousands of innocent women. They would find many chilling parallels.