If you’re wondering why it doesn’t work
Steve Hewlett’s piece in The Guardian offers an interesting insight into accountability at the BBC. The discussion is about the proposals for top-slicing the license fee, but the point is more widely applicable:
Senior Ofcom executives have privately expressed surprise at the lack of obvious separation between the BBC Trust and the BBC management on these questions… The Trust, meanwhile, continues to maintain that it represents licence fee payers.
Hewlett’s conclusion (and he has worked for the Beeb) is interesting: Yes, the Trust is required to demonstrate independence, and to represent the interests of licence fee payers by holding BBC management to account. But the Trust is, constitutionally, the BBC – so once you engage in bigger questions about the role, funding or even the very existence of the corporation, the Trust, quite properly, speaks as the BBC and not as a separate or independent regulator of it.
If you’re wondering who actually represents your interests regarding the BBC, then, the answer would seem to be, no one.
If you wonder just who represents the real interests of the BBC viewer?
I can answer that easily,
BIASED BBC among others, trying to shine a light on the dark and grubby activities of the BBC!
A bit like asking pimps to Police prostitution in my view.
Martin:
A bit like asking pimps to Police prostitution in my view.
Martin | 28.10.08 – 9:35 am | #
Yup – and never forget that the regulator OFCOM was set up with ex BBC “Director of Corporate Strategy” and Downing St Spinmeister Ed Richards at the helm:-
Ed Richards was Controller of Corporate Strategy at the BBC until 1999. Before that he was an adviser to Gordon Brown
He left the BBC in 1999 to become Tony Blair’s senior policy adviser on media, telecoms, internet and e-government.
As a policy researcher at No 10 ahead of the 2002 general election, he was responsible for drawing up a key political strategy outlining a “vision of what Britain should be like at the end of a second Labour term .
According to the Guardian, he is :- A quintessential New Labour man – Greg Dyke famously referred to him as a “jumped-up Millbank oik”
While at Downing Street, also he helped draft the act which established the broadcasting regulator OFCOM. In 2005 he became chief executive of OFCOM , at a salary reported to be over £300,000 . OFCOM is responsible for adjudicating complaints against the BBC.
Ed Richards has dismissed accusations of New Labour cronyism as “tittle tattle”
http://bbcpioneers.blogspot.com/2008/01/yet-more-heroes-of-socialist.html
So NULAB took over the umpire’s job as well as supplying the Club Manager, Team Captain and most of the players.
Everything except paying for their in house propaganda machine, in fact – that’s your job.
Your BBC – “The Truth Shall Set You Free” (but not here)
I’m surprised to hear that senior Ofcom staff are surprised at this state of affairs. It’s obvious to most people that the trust was always intended to be as pro-BBC as the governors it replaced.
No, the answer is the BBC Trust represents your interests regarding the BBC.
This is their website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/
And here are some details about how they carry out consultations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/consult/index.html
And here are some details about how they carry out consultations.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/co…sult/ index.html
Nick Reynolds (BBC) | Homepage | 28.10.08 – 11:43 am | #
Nick – the first “consultation” question on your linked page says it all really:-
“What do you think about the way in which the licence fee is collected? The BBC Trust wants to hear from you.”
Not much scope there for those of us who think the “licence fee” is a corrupt, illiberal, anti-commercial, neo-fascist abomination is there?
Your BBC – Answering all the questions you never asked
Nick (BBC)11:43
If the BBC Trust represents licence-payers interests, why aren’t they appointed by licence-payers ?
Nick (BBC) 11:43
The Trust website says that the Trust members are appointed by the Queen “on the advice of ministers”.
Hardly very independent of NuLab is it ?
Nick Reynolds
If the BBC Trust is supposed to represent us who pay for the bloated BBC, how come the Chairman of the Trust failed to act when the Ross/Brand affair was splashed across the front page of the Mail on Sunday as its main headline ? Has he done anything meaningful even now ?
Sorry – many of us simply do not trust the Trust.