An item on Today about the popularity of Venezuela’s Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra gushed about the uplifting effect of such projects. I agree, but I couldn’t help thinking of the Palestinian string orchestra that was disbanded by the Palestinian Authority for performing to holocaust survivors. A mention would have been nice.
However, today’s Today was not its usual self. Chris Grayling was given a jolly good stab at both radical Imam Anwar al-Awlaki’s hate-broadcast and the email smeargate.
I was wondering if the BBC have sensed a change in the air, and fearing the the end is nigh for Nulab, like rats, they’ve decided now’s time to desert the sinking ship?
They are definitely rats, as far as ship is concerned it is more like shi*
The palestinian string orchestra tragedy is symptomatic of all that is wrong with the Palo “authority” and the moslem mindset. Have there been any follow up reports by the BBC? No. Have there been follow up investigations as to WW2 history and the Jewish people as portrayed or tought by the Islamists? No. Is there any discussion of Holocaust denial in the P.A. ? No. The BBC news gathering entity in the ME is clearly unfit for purpose.
You may have something there Sue.
In this afternoon’s News 24 news anchor Philip Hayton, tore Liebour slimeball Draper off a strip over the email smear campaign.
Maybe they are hedging their bets in the hope of saving their sinecures.
But…wait, he who leaves a slime trail behind – Livinghell, is on the BBC more than ever…….and the noxious little squirt Jeremy Bowen is still oozing…….
Reading the report on ‘smeargate’ in the Telegraph its no suprise that someone like Derek Draper appears to have had his hand it.
Smear tactics won New Labour power in 1997 and they worked hand in glove with the BBC. It dragged British politics through the mud and it has not recovered since. Let’s hope that there are more senior people left in the Labour Party than Charles Clarke that put country before party and make the Labour Party still worthy of the name ‘democratic’.
I wouldn’t count on the BBC changing – All the usual lefty beeboids will be away on weekend trips to their villas over Easter (or whatever these atheists call it)- come Tuesday they will be back to normal.
They have had Draper on news bulletins, whining excuses. But have not been repeating eg Guido Fawkes comments.
It will all break wider open in the press tomorrow, if not on the BBC.
come Tuesday they will be back to normal.
Jon | 11.04.09 – 8:04 pm | #
Not so sure. I suspect that, especially with all that is currently ‘not newsworthy’, most will not be back ’til after the school hols.
It’s just the rest of us that might need to come in, to work, or at least provide adequate coverage.
However, if some do struggle in, I am sure some Spring Festival bonuses will be in the offing.
Jon | 11.04.09 – 8:04 pm is right. The BBC is probably a little bit worried over how it will be treated by a future Tory government. But not by very much. They remember that the last Tory government did not abolish the Licience Fee so why should another one?
Shirley
The imminent move to all-digital channels gives the TECHNICAL ability to move to subscription-based funding, pay-per-channel or pay-per-view etc. The last review of the licence fee and Royal Charter ducked this issue, but the next one can’t. The Tories could pretend that a move to subscriptions gave the BBC the chance to raise the same amount of total funding – and one way of sliding the reform through would be to retain a BASIC licence fee (eg 30 to 50% but reducing compound year-by-year as the BBC adjusted to having to fight for its wider revenue. It could all be presented as a normal technical change, moving with the times, rather than as antagonism to the BBC.
Cutting (if not abolishing) the BBC tax could look worthwhile, especially when every effort is being made to find savings that shield us from the overhang of Brown’s follies.
And if there was a compound annual reduction of eg a disarmingly small 3% in the “basic” licence fee, this would rapidly cut the BBC adrift from the teat of the commonweal, especially if the reduction was annual in real terms rather than money terms.
(When BT was privatised, we required them to reduce their tariffs by 5% compound per annum in real terms. They had foolishly claimed in their as-usual optimistic 5-year corporate plan that technology could allow them to cut prices to that extent, so we said “snap” and turned their “paper promise” into a legal requirement of their telecoms licence. But that of course was under a radical Tory government – we stuck it into the 1982 White Paper on BT privatisation, no Green Paper waffly nonsense, straight for the jugular.)
JohnA | 12.04.09 – 9:09 am
ability to move to subscription-based funding, pay-per-channel or pay-per-view etc.
You obviously understand all this stuff.
When you say there is technology for ‘pay per view’ – do you mean there could be a system where one could just pay for an individual programme or series?
If so, that’s the way I would want it to go.
I am prepared to pay for SOME BBC programmes, I just don’t want to pay for the whole ghastly edifice.
Any subscription would probably cost as much or more than the licence fee – so unless I was willing to forego ALL BBC watching, I’d probably be better off with the telly tax, but if I could pay by the programme or even by the hour, that would be much better.
Is this technlogically possible?
Yes, the BBC’s gushing about the Venezuela Youth Orchestra-which is a good orchestra- (as now, and at the BBC proms) is at least partly political, and pro-Chavez; in contrast, the BBC shows little interest in opposing the political left’s boycotts of Israeli culture, including orchestras.
Tom
First off, there should be a pay-per-channel option. I NEVER listen to Radio 1 or 2 or 5, so would not pay for them. I do listen to Radio 4 so would pay for that. Probably Radio 3 as well. I don’t listen to local radio so I would blank those.
I would not pay for BBC 3 or 4 TV. I would pay for BBC 1 and 2.
Of course the BBC would resist giving fine-grain choices – but that would risk people saying “OK, I’ll do without the whole lot if I can’t delete the stuff I regard as rubbish”.
Because many people could survive entirely without the BBC.
………….
Pay-per-view is not much used eg on cable and satellite, except for major sports events or films. But the technology is well-established.
I think the BBC would be forced to offer pay-per-view for some of its major programmes – to try to win back some revenue from those who deleted the whole BBC package…………….
And there is nothing to stop the BBC from charging for stuff on its iPlayer service.
Moving straight to subscription plus possibly pay-per-view and totally abolishing the licence fee would be the ideal solution – but I do not think it is politically feasible. But I would want to see the licence fee at least halved, with a ratcheting down year by year to force the BBC to adjust quickly, and eventually to move to an entirely subscription-based sevice.
Also, of course, the BBC would be free to add advertising, generally or for special occasions. I think the ideal would be to tell the BBC to forget the idea of having a licence tax over a transitional 5 years. Or maybe a £10 per annum tax, down at the dog-licence level, for essential “public broadcasting service” tosh. That would cover the costs eg of Radio 4 and some TV stuff.
I have said before that there should be no more than a 25p per week per household/user TV licence (£13 a year). And it should preferably be paid by another method, not by the present collection, with all the costs and enforcement associated with that.
With this small base, there would be no monthly or annual bill looming large in the face of state pensioners or the other low-income people.
Besides, that, it would force the BBC to curb its unseemly growth, sprouting all over like a plague of triffids. No publicly funded broadcaster should be allowed to get above itself and above the people who pay for it. It already makes money commercially and can make up the rest of its income in that way.
Only a drastic cut of that magnitude can force it to cut out all the extraneous stuff, the proliferating channels and stations, the excessive pay and splurging, the arrogant bombast, the global empire- building, the sheer waste and feather-bedded self-indulgence of the current BBC.
George R | 12.04.09 – 1:54 pm |
Yes, the BBC’s gushing about the Venezuela Youth Orchestra-which is a good orchestra- (as now, and at the BBC proms) is at least partly political, and pro-Chavez; in contrast, the BBC shows little interest in opposing the political left’s boycotts of Israeli culture, including orchestras.
It’s also because almost everyone in the Classical Music world is enamored with their floppy-haired conductor. There are plenty of youth orchestras around the world better than this one. Not that they’re not very good, but this is definitely more about emotions than reality. Half the attraction is to the conductor (who is very good on his own, mostly), and the other half is the moistness of the political angle.
The privileged, insular, white liberal Beeboids think it’s wonderful that all these dark-skinned children from a poor country (they must all live in those slums we see in films and on charity ads, right?) doing these mid-level works so well. Then there’s the added sexual attraction to both the floppy-haired conductor and the political angle. Of course, La Systema has been around for decades, doing quite well thank you before Chavez and the Socialist Utopia. Venezuela used to be a fairly useful country, but don’t dwell on that too much, or you won’t appreciate the miracle of poverty and Classical Music or whatever the Beeboids were babbling about.
Lots of people think the floppy-haired conductor is the second coming of Leonard Bernstein. I don’t think he is, but enough people do that he’s taking over the LA Philharmonic. Of course, some of Lenny’s early success was due to sexual attraction as well….
Millie Tant
I too would prefer the BBC to be cut off at the knees financially. But I doubt if this is politically feasible, I think a revised licence fee of £50 per annum with ratchening downwards thereafter might be feasible.
I should have thrown in – the BBC should be encouraged to “privatise” bits of its empire – like Radio 2 and 5 for a start.
Oh, I agree: I don’t think for a moment that such a drastic cut will ever be made.
The best we can expect from cautious and fearful politicos is some mild trimming at the edges which will do nothing to fundamentally alter the BBC.
Something for free for everybody to see!!