I see that Conservative leader David Cameron has caused a bit of a furore by threatening to make the BBC hand £250million of its (OUR) money to other broadcasters. The Tories plan to force the Corporation to give away part of its licence fee funds to create new competition in public service broadcasting. The move will break the BBC’s “monopoly” over programmes and guarantee more quality output in areas such as children’s television, the Tories claim. It’s an interesting idea coupled with a plan to scrap the governing BBC Trust and replace it with a more independent “public service broadcasting commission”. Naturally the BBC have reacted angrily to the Cameron suggestions..“Once you take away part of the licence fee you break the trust between the BBC and the licence-fee payer,” said a senior BBC executive. What trust? Wonder what you all make of Cameron’s suggestions?
BREAKING THE MONOPOLY?
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In the United States, the phrase, “some of my best friends are” (black, Jews, English, Muslim, et cetera), is almost universally understood to be an admission of bigotry, because the phrase has been used so often by bigots.
For example, if I were to say that some of Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s best friends were white, nearly everyone would understand that I was accusing him of bigotry. (I haven’t said that yet, because I can’t make up my mind whether he is a bigot, a charlatan, or both.)
They should scrap the license fee alltogether
Jim M:
In the United States, the phrase, “some of my best friends are” (black, Jews, English, Muslim, et cetera), is almost universally understood to be an admission of bigotry, because the phrase has been used so often by bigots.
We guys have so much to learn from you.
Some of my best friends work for the BBC.
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Oscar – my point is that if trust in the BBC has recovered without the government interfering (which it has according to the DG, although I would like to see the original data…) then is there a need for the government to intervene to ‘preserve’ it?
I am merely pointing a fact (according to a DG email) out. ‘nice’ ‘not nice’ doesn’t really come into it.
Otherwise this is a debate that needs to be held, some new ideas are required, and it would be nice to see them in a manifesto or two somewhere.
Martin: “I was amazed yesterday at just how slow the BBC were to react to the aircraft crash in Kent. Sky had a helicopter, TV reporter and whatever else at the scene whilst the BBC was still fannying around with blurred camera phone pictures.”
Of course, had the BBC deployed more than a single junior reporter with a camcorder to the scene, many BBBC punters would be up in arms crowing about chronic overstaffing and waste.
There’s just no pleasing you lot!
Anyway – carving up the license fee and giving it to the private sector? Utter madness. It’s not that commercial broadcasting are prevented from competing in public service arenas – they just choose not to, because of their cowardly devotion to their advertisers who demand total pap to get the biggest reach in a strangled, oversupplied market. The BBC themselves are forced into this market to be a short-sighted, commercially-obsessed government whose only measurements of success are viewing/listening figures.
The market cannot provide for every single need. This is fine for baked beans, sofas and family cars, and but not for information – which, as Chris Morris famously told us, is paramount.
This is fine for baked beans, sofas and family cars, and but not for information – which, as Chris Morris famously told us, is paramount.
hexenduction | 01.04.08 – 9:39 am | #
I agree with this point, but I still don’t see why a bit of competition for funds to provide impartial public service information would be a bad thing, compared to the current monopoly?
Enter the wonderful world of Farming Today , as viewed by beeboids !
Firstly lets have 30 seconds on the obligatory scruffy peasant from the hills, complaining just because he has to pay hundreds of pounds and sit a test to qualify for an EU licence , to load his sheep in the trailer and tow them to market with his land rover.
Now, lets devote the rest of the programme to someone traveling round on a bicycle and foraging in the hedge rows for a vegan diet, that’s more like it.
From Sarah Jane above:
“The BBC returned it’s highest ever figure for Trust in Jan, according to an allstaff email from the DG I saw last time I was in there. I haven’t seen the actual research.” and “although I would like to see the original data..”
Wouldn’t we all.
“..highest ever figure for Trust”
That’s ‘ever’ as in the 60’s & 70’s when the BBC was generally accepted as the uncontested definitive for impartiality? Yet now it’s hard to read a newspaper letter column with out coming across a complaint of BBC bias on one subject or another?
Sorry, but the DG’s claim is counter to common sense. Now of course, if you did a web poll open to anyone who accesses the website from anywhere in the world & counted up the number who checked the ‘trusted’ box & compared that with UK audience returns from pre web days I should think the numbers would look very encouraging, but…
Which is exactly the point. Even BBC employees are losing confidence in their own employer. Aren’t they Sarah?
BBC trust has reached an all time high so quickly after this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/jul/28/broadcasting.bbc
Really?
Frankly I doubt it.
If it was true I would expect an enormous fanfare of self publicity from the BBC.
In fact I hear crickets and see tumbleweed.
The BBC’s recent record of falsification makes me doubt this trust record hugely.
Please show me the evidence.
Martin: “I was amazed yesterday at just how slow the BBC were to react to the aircraft crash in Kent. Sky had a helicopter, TV reporter and whatever else at the scene whilst the BBC was still fannying around with blurred camera phone pictures.”
Martin, thought you’d have realised that that’s because most of them were packing their bags for the Beijing gravy train. All 437 of them.
“Anyway – carving up the license fee and giving it to the private sector? Utter madness. It’s not that commercial broadcasting are prevented from competing in public service arenas – they just choose not to, because of their cowardly devotion to their advertisers who demand total pap to get the biggest reach in a strangled, oversupplied market. The BBC themselves are forced into this market to be a short-sighted, commercially-obsessed government whose only measurements of success are viewing/listening figures.
The market cannot provide for every single need. This is fine for baked beans, sofas and family cars, and but not for information – which, as Chris Morris famously told us, is paramount.
hexenduction | 01.04.08 – 9:39 am”
Yes a carve up makes no sense.
It should be total privatisation and goodbye poll tax (licence fee).
Other nations such as the USA seem to manage just fine in fact better for their information needs without a state broadcaster.
They do have public service broadcasting but no state broadcaster.
And you are wrong, not only do other channels provide some public service broadcasting, in line with their obligations, but channel 4 does this in particular, yes it receives government funding, but it remains commercial.
The BBC’s main channel is BBC1
It brings us as its main programmes
Eastenders
Casualty
Holby City
I’d Do Anything
Antiques Roadshow
What would be out of place on a commercial channel?
And if viewing figures are totally unimportant how do you justify the enormous over 3 billion tax that hits the poor proportionately by far the worst.
Which is exactly the point. Even BBC employees are losing confidence in their own employer. Aren’t they Sarah?
point of order | 01.04.08 – 10:52 am | #
(and Anonymous)
Well you will have noticed I was careful to attach a caveat to that statement 🙂 I haven’t seen it and remain skeptical until I have.
Somethings/areas are getting a bit better, but if you work in Factual programming then it’s still pretty glum.
People are starting to respect Thompson because he will do what he thinks is necessary and doesn’t care if people like him, this IMO is a healthy contrast to the cult of Dyke. I suspect he wants to be bolder than the Trust will let him be, but they seem to want the BBC to be all things to all people, which is just bad strategy in my book.
But, yes, if I had total confidence in it I would have stayed full-time rather than going freelance. Some of this is because of the way things are going, some because working for more than one company and in more than one industry is more interesing, some because I didn’t want to become institutionalised.
And no, that doesn’t mean have my centre-right politics replaced by lefty groupthink, but you do lose sharpness if you stay out of markets for too long.
This is not destroying the BBC but expanding its power. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and Cameroon will only give the license fee to ideologically pleasing bidders, just you watch.
hexenduction: “It’s not that commercial broadcasting are prevented from competing in public service arenas – they just choose not to, because of their cowardly devotion to their advertisers …”
As I understand it, ‘public service’ programmes cannot be produced commercially, by definition. What do you think ‘public service’ means, exactly?
hexenduction: “… who demand total pap to get the biggest reach in a strangled, oversupplied market.”
If the market for total pap is oversupplied, why does the BBC produce so much of it?
hexenduction:”The BBC themselves are forced into this market to be a short-sighted, commercially-obsessed government whose only measurements of success are viewing/listening figures.”
So, you think the BBC is strongly influenced by the Labour government. Welcome to B-BBC!
hexenduction: “The market cannot provide for every single need. This is fine for baked beans, sofas and family cars, and but not for information – which, as Chris Morris famously told us, is paramount.”
Baked beans, sofas, family cars, computers, mobile phones, books of all kinds, including obscure academic textbooks, magazines catering to every imaginable interest, newspapers, hundreds of TV channels and thousands of hours of programmes, the best schools in the country (ie private ones), the best medical care (private), the best dental care (private), the internet, etc, etc …
Hmmm, some of that looks a bit ‘informationy’ to me. Which telly programmes, exactly, do you think the market has failed to provide? Why do you think the goggle-box is so important in this new information age?
Incidentally, your “the market is fine for baked beans …” line is something state-worshippers learned to say after the death of their god in the 20th century, and is commonly seen in internet forums these days. It’s the sort of naive remark I would expect to hear on the BBC.
Your reference to Chris Morris would suggest that you are old enough to have outgrown such a naive worldview. Do you work for the BBC by any chance?
I missed out a point above – after the ‘bad strategy’ line I also wanted to say:
Which makes you wonder why all people should have to pay for it? Or should the money be spread around verious groups some of whom have shown themselves to be rather better at serving audiences who don’t really relate to the BBC?
As I said earlier, it would be good to see debate, and some ideas people can vote on.
He who pays the piper calls the tune,
WoAD | Homepage | 01.04.08 – 11:52 am | #
I bet Ed Richards (head of Ofcom) has got his eye on as big a slice of pie as he can get his mitts on.
That’s pure speculation on my part and not the view of my employer etc
Hexenduction: You are so wide of the mark. Firstly, the aircraft crash in Kent is not exactly at the end of the world is it?
What is the point of the BBC operating a 24 hour rolling news service if it end up using members of the public for its video feeds and Sky News for breaking news?
Regarding the issue of “public broadcasting” and the commercial channels. Sky 1 produced the Ross Kemp in Afghanistan. Is that not public service broadcasting?
Where a television programme informs or educates people then I consider it “public broadcasting”
The original function of the BBC was to entertain, inform and educate. Not to employ a load of camp/gay Guardian reading arts liberals on 6 figure salaries.
Does the BBC really need to send 450 people to the Olympic games?
Richard Littlejohn had to go to Channel 4 to get his programme made. The BBC refused to do it.
The BBC should be scrapped. There perhaps should be an “amount” of money put into a central pool for program making. This money could come directly in part from central Government, a tax on new TV sets (a one off) a % of advertising revenues and perhaps money from the lottery.
This money could then be bid for to make TV programs that have a public interest.
My concern is at the moment that if someone went to the BBC to make say a program on say “alleged corruption” in McLiebour the BBC wouldn’t fund it, but would if it involved the Tory party.
Take for example the Under cover Policeman documentary and the one about the BNP. Yet the BBC refused to do an Under cover Mosque (Channel 4 did it) type story.
My view is the BBC is politically motivated because within the organisation it’s run by leftie losers who see the world from only “their perspective”
There is no trust between the BBC and the people it purports to serve. Just where do letters threatening criminal prosecution, detector vans, vast databases of every UK address, clogged up magistrates courts and officious snoopers figure in the customer relationship programmes of most large corporations?
The BBC doesn’t even trust me not to use its products if I don’t pay for them. Why they think I have any desire to avail myself of trash like Eastenders, its biased news service and its other flagship products is a mystery to me.
Pete;
I’m not sure you’re making yourself clear. Could it possibly be the case that you don’t like the BBC?
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Hillhunt: I really couldn’t give a Shit about the BBC if I wasn’t forced to pay for it. Can’t you lot at the BBC get that through your thick skulls?
Martin:
Can’t you lot at the BBC get that through your thick skulls?
Will do, Marty, just as soon as I get my first job there. Couldn’t put in a good word, could you?
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The BBC has acted like an indestructible rent collector for too long.
Deep down Hillhunt knows its days in its present format are numbered. It is as though he is trying to stick up for a corpse: the BBC has been dying a slow death since the Birtian regime.
The Beeb is a dinosaur: bloated, uncompetitive, archaic and arthritic. Unless it undergoes a radical shift it cannot possibly survive.
Hillhunt: You want a job at the BBC?
Here’s a few tips
1. Make sure your bum is clean
2. Mince as you walk
3. Subscribe to the Guardian (always call it a good read)
4. Only eat vegetables
5. Vote McLiebour
6. Say you hate the Tories (not hard in your case I’m sure)
7. Say you love Islam.
That should do it.
He should sell it as a climate change measure.
Scrapping the BBC will make evryone £140 pa better off to offset rising fuel bills, reduce CO2 going into the atmosphere, reduce BBC electricity usage, and he has several £billion of assets to fill Brown’s black spending holes with.
BBC would of course be delighted to play such an active and positive role in saving the planet….they could not fault that!
This excuse was used by Maggie T to bash the miners – worked once, will work again.
I think Cameron has played a blinder with this statement. At the risk of sounding like Atlas Shrugged Cameron represents a different set of the middle/upper class from those in charge at the BBC and they believe that their time has come to control the levers of power. They are implacable in their dislike of the BBC because it represents the social liberalism that they believe has damaged the country so badly.
This leaves the BBC with only two choices, attack Cameron with all its resources and hope that this will ensure another Labour win (or even a hung Parliament) or pull its punches in order to soften Cameron’s blow after the Conservative win. Carrying on as it is will just guarantee a loss of income.
One thing I have never understood is when nearly all the criticism of the BBC comes from the right (excluding the loony tunes left) why it hasn’t adapted to counter it, unless of course one considers sucking up to the current government as adaptation.
Martin
No 7 points are not enough for hillhunt to be really sure add…
8. Say its all the fault of the Americans
9. Affirm the Hutton Report lied
10. Tell everyone Israel is the new Nazi Germany
11. Deny the Balen Report has any worth
12. Say all Americans are fat
13. Offer to pay two licence fees, its really such jolly good value
14. Say all americans are stupid
15. Disparage Christianity at every possibility
16. Shout loud five times a day George W Bush is worse than Hitler
Martin, anonymous:
That’s invaluable. Many thanks.
I was wondering if you’d like to do a humorous version, too, so we could all have a laugh.
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I think Cameron should simply say that people will not be expected to pay for a TV licence under a future Conservative government and leave it like that. Guaranteed popular policy surely? Let the Beeboids do the talking and Cameron can then decide how to deal with the approach the Beeb takes.
I don’t think Cameron will ever get the Beeb to back him. He should just admit that to himself and go for them. If the Beeb attacks him due to a threat to their funding it would be pretty plain what they were up to and would undermine their own propaganda. What do they have to fear from competing for business like the other channels need to? The Beeb will claim that Eastenders will go of course, but it’s patently false and ITV will no doubt pop up to make that clear – if the Beeb won’t continue with Eatenders then they will! Meanwhile the Murdoch news channels and the daily rags would cheer Cameron to the rafters. He can’t lose as far as I can see. Thing is he hasn’t got the balls to do it – paralysed by fear of throwing it all away like Brown and Blair.
hillhunt,
When you do a humourous post I will consider it, so far its a grade of E1 for you – full marks for a lot of windbag effort but you seem to have zero marks and no luck at all in being funny ever, period.
I dunno, that “Year 7 Comprehension Test” with the Sara Jane Olson story was reasonably amusing.
Andrew Marr’s response to the Tory proposals for the licence fee:
“If you want partisan and biased broadcasting, just you wait. You have no idea how demeaning it will feel for you. Broadcasters will become like bloggers, but with vastly more firepower, as they rip into you just as newspapers do. Be careful what you wish for.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/01/media.conservatives2001
Sounds a bit like “Stop saying Islam is violent or we’ll kill you.”
DB:
Sounds a bit like “Stop saying Islam is violent or we’ll kill you.”
Only if you’ve got your head inside a very noisy machine. He’s suggesting that the even-handed broadcasting environment Britain enjoys would gravitate towards an attack culture much more like the USA. He might possibly have Fox in mind, rather than the BBC.
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I love it when the delicate sensibilities of Toynbee etc get all upset by the imminent ‘threat’ of Fox-style broadcasting.
The invigorating jolt received from a dose of Murdoch media will do these lefties the world of good.
These anemic pedants prefer journalism to be a gentle intellectual exercise rather than any scourging honest dialogue.
Andy:
The invigorating jolt received from a dose of Murdoch media will do these lefties the world of good.
Quite so.
Would that be the same scourging honest dialogue which led Mr Murdoch to close down parts of his Star TV service in Hong Kong because reports about Chairman Mao’s awful human rights record were upsetting the Godfathers of Tiananmen Square?
Or the same Murdoch who abandoned Chris Patten’s book lest it offend the Chinese leadership and damage his business interests? Oh…and the same Murdoch who invested millions in the People’s Daily, the hub of the autocratic state?
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He’s suggesting that the even-handed broadcasting environment Britain enjoys would gravitate towards an attack culture much more like the USA. He might possibly have Fox in mind, rather than the BBC.
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Hillhunt | 02.04.08 – 10:00 pm
Alternatively, he’s worried there’s a risk to the cosy left-of-centre broadcasting environment guaranteed by the licence fee.
Incidentally, have you actually watched any American news coverage lately? Independent research (backed up by recent comments from Hillary supporters) indicates that Fox is giving the most balanced coverage of the presidential campaign. If you want to get with it, MSNBC is the station to use as an example of extreme political bias.
Hillhunt
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You could have said exactly the same things about Google censoring itself for China. At the end of the day it all reveals more about China than what it says about Murdoch/Google/whoever.
At least you acknowledge China/socialisms awful human rights record.
“Or the same Murdoch who abandoned Chris Patten’s book lest it offend the Chinese leadership and damage his business interests?”
Cor, that story must be at least 10 years old?
“Oh…and the same Murdoch who invested millions in the People’s Daily, the hub of the autocratic state?”
That Murdoch is able to do this means China at last is waking up to the fact that COMMUNISM DOESN’T WORK.
Andy:
That Murdoch is able to do this means China at last is waking up to the fact that COMMUNISM DOESN’T WORK.
I think everyone twigged that, Andy. Question is about the authoritarian tendencies that remain behind.
Google is not a news provider. It simply aggregates other people’s coverage.
Murdoch’s empire does see itself as a news centre, of course, and his kowtowing compares badly with the BBC’s commitment to proper coverage of Chinese issues, don’t you think?
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Andy:”I love it when the delicate sensibilities of Toynbee etc get all upset by the imminent ‘threat’ of Fox-style broadcasting.
…These anemic pedants prefer journalism to be a gentle intellectual exercise rather than any scourging honest dialogue.”
Toynbee failed her 11 plus and was thrown off her history course at Uni for being too dim. I think we can safely say she is no intellectual! Hence her long career at the BBC and the Guardian. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
“Murdoch’s empire does see itself as a news centre, of course, and his kowtowing compares badly with the BBC’s commitment to proper coverage of Chinese issues, don’t you think?”
Mudoch finds the need to gag his publications in China. So what? Is that my problem? Does the BBC actually have any outlets in China? If the Beeb ever says anything the Chinese don’t like then they gag the Beeb. Generally they don’t gag the Beeb because the Beeb never says things the Chinese don’t like. Does the Beeb broadcast to the Chinese regularly denouncing its human rights record? Given that it can’t even bring itself to criticise the CCP to a British audience it seems highly unlikely that it does so for the benefit of the Chinese.
Sadly the issue rarely arises, because of the Beebs unjustifiable moral equivlence.
“Google is not a news provider. It simply aggregates other people’s coverage. ”
This is a gross understatement. Google is an awesome means of access
to news and information from a vast range of sources. No wonder it
gets up the noses of the Chinese authorities.
“Murdoch’s empire does see itself as a news centre, of course, and his kowtowing compares badly with the BBC’s commitment to proper coverage of Chinese issues, don’t you think?”
In my view the Digger’s coverage pisses over the boring and flabby BBC by a height of ten miles.
Some of the breaches the BBC makes in its reporting are in my view quite glaring.
By a mere omission of key facts, the BBC provides reports which portrays distortions of the truth.
BBC reports are often misleading, appearing to invent material to suit their own bias.
Ryan
“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
And the People’s Polly has very little knowledge.
A bit more “attack culture” might stimulate debate and engagement in the democtratic process – precisely what the Beeboid gliberals don’t want.
Just to nail this once and for all, here is the BBC’s view of the trial of Chinese human rights activist Hu Jia:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7327718.stm
Compared to the Murdoch view:-
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3674414.ece
Seems to me that the Murdoch press is pulling rather fewer punches than the Beeb when it comes to China.
Andy: “That Murdoch is able to do this means China at last is waking up to the fact that COMMUNISM DOESN’T WORK.”
Communism works exactly as intended domestically. The only drawback is that it can’t compete militarily with freer societies, so commies can’t enslave other populations quite as easily as they would like.