I’m sure you have seen the news that the BBC is facing a record fine of up to £250,000 after repeatedly ripping off licence fee payers on a string of shows. It’s expected to receive its biggest ever sanction when Ofcom rules on its faking of competition winners on a number of programmes. Viewers on shows including Children in Need, Comic Relief and Sport Relief were all duped. Production staff were found to have made up names of winners and even posed as contestants. The regulator, which will rule on 12 cases, will not give the BBC any special favours. An Ofcom spokesman said: “Whether publicly funded or not the same rigorous high standards apply to all.” The fine will almost certainly be a record and the maximum £250,000 censure is thought to be under serious consideration. Now I do understand that other TV broadcasters were at the same sordid scam but then again no other broadcaster forces us to fund their activities. Given the years of BBC crowing about how much good work it does for charity, this recognition of a lack of control over how production staff operates rather blinds Pudsey in the other eye. How can we trust them when they have shown they cannot regulate their own standards?
RIP OFF BBC.
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The best review of the BBC’s calamitous election coverage
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/may/bbc-local-election.htm
The only downside is that we’ll end up paying the fine on the Beeb’s behalf, thanks to “the unique way the BBC is funded”.
Or is the 250k being docked from the appropriate salaries?
The BBC gets away with a £250,000 fine.
Meanwhile we get a £3.2 billion fine every year as we have to subsidize the state broadcaster of choice.
And pay huge salaries to utter wankers.
This is old news. As for:
“I do understand that other TV broadcasters were at the same sordid scam but then again no other broadcaster forces us to fund their activities”
I can accept its “unique” funding means WE Joe Public pay the fine in the end (although not really, since they’re not exactly upping the licence fee, are they?), but what other broadcasters did was far, far worse – no matter where the funding came from. The BBC instances did not involve “ripping off” anyone – it involved dishonesty, and the senior management responsible should have been punished more severely, but there was no massive profit made by anyone at the BBC. The only “premium” lines were those use during charity drives, and that was, what? 10p? 25p?
In most of the BBC competitions, entrants lost the cost of a text or local call (usually zero if you’re on a contract); in others, it was sometimes more than £1 per call or text. Can any of it be justified? No. Of course not.
And as for the Blue Peter cat? Misguided, but they thought they were doing the right thing (although what sort of idiot translates “cookie” as “vagina”?) which in the end discredited a British institution. Didn’t the producer get sacked over that? More than happened at ITV who stole ££millions from viewers. And yeah yeah, we don’t pay a licence fee for ITV, but that’s not the point.
Again, this is old news spouted back at the deeply flawed BBC to earn nit-picky points for the people who hate the licence fee.
Come on – I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – there are much bigger things to hit the BBC with than this petty crap. I pointed out the disgraceful treatment of Boris Johnson on QT last week, but if all you prefer to do is twist words (eg, the Prince William non-story) and re-hash long-acknowledged mistakes then you are going to get nowhere.
The BBC should be taken out and its throat slit.
Martin:
The BBC should be taken out and its throat slit.
Harsh. But fair.
Sorry, Barry, but you are talking nonsense. You are saying that because there are big crimes, we should never bother about small crimes. What a bizarre suggestion.
Cookie does mean vagina.
.
Cookie does mean vagina.
Not in my household it doesn’t.
Cookie does mean vagina.
Oh. So when my wife gets upset when I admit that I’ve been munching cookies behind her back, it’s not because I didn’t share them with her?
The problem with the BBC’s attitude towards multi-culturism is that it assumes that being critical of any aspect of a minority culture is a de facto racist act. That way we get Radio 1 and it’s lesser satellites pumping out the racist/sexist/homo-phobic ‘black’ sub-culture music from the US without a word of approbation. Our chavs, of course, lap it up as it is far more ‘interesting’ than the other side of the coin, the hard-working, deeply religious ‘Black’ majority culture. We thus get a culture of street crime prevalent amongst the idle young. Well, it’s better than working …
So we end up with a state-funded broadcaster that cannot distinguish between good and evil where minorities are concerned. Rather than take a stance and be accused of racism, a career killing accusation after all, they blithely accept everything.
We therefore end up with ‘Cookie-gate.’ They think they will be a laughing-stock if they call the cat ‘Cookie’, although I’d bet most kids were blissfully unaware of this connotation, and have to ‘do something’ that doesn’t look like a criticism. So they lie.
It would be funny if the under-lying problem weren’t so serious.
So we`ve paid for the bbc ,now we fund their screw ups by paying their fines.
Time for disemployment you would have thought.
Yes these fines are ultimately paid by the licence-paying public but I still think this is the right approach, and will hit them hard.
The future is already seems to look bleak for the BBC. Their last licence-fee deal created a £2bn shortfall for the next six years, leaving Mark Thompson with some unpleasant choices for its future funding.
It’s no surprise therefore that they are trying to reduce licence-fee evasion even further. Many new investments will probably be shelved in favour of efficiency drives, and dare I say it, less left-wing drivel.
Also the government are insisting that the costs of the change-over to digital for the elderly and vulnerable should also come out of the BBCs own pocket.
The Tories hired former Channel Five chief boss David Elstein to chair its BBC funding review. After so many years of the BBCs output being forced down unwanting throats I’m hoping his words turn out to be prophetic, and with non-coercive means of licence-fee collection:
“… when electronic collection becomes a reality, the licence fee will evolve naturally into a form of subscription – flexible, sophisticated, socially equitable and politically attractive”
Yep, i could live with that.
And who pays these fines? Certainly not the people who committed the fraud. No, it’s the licence payer again. just what is the point of being honest when, in every case, taxpayers pay for the crime.
No, it’s the licence payer again. just what is the point of being honest when, in every case, taxpayers pay for the crime.
Avril | 06.05.08 – 8:20 am
Actually that’s true in so many areas. Companies pass fines on to advertisers and subscribers. The real punishment is bad publicity leading to fewer advertisers, fewer subscribers and fewer participants in contests and a greater chance that the charter will not be renewed, at least in the future.
I wish they had their Message boards looked into. there’s some seriously dodgy characters who never have their posts pulled. They seem to get a lot of others pulled though and spend all day on there.
Cookie does mean vagina.
Remind me not to ever invite you over to my place for quick snack with the wife and me, please.
“We don’t pay a licence fee for ITV, but that’s not the point.” Barry | 05.05.08 – 10:52 am
Actually it is the point.
ITV have just been given a whacking great fine.
Three guesses as to which hypocritical media organisation is milking the story for all it’s worth while taking snide pot-shots at ITV.