Wonder what you makes of the news that BBC will be forced to give up some of its £3.6 billion public funding in a massive shake-up of the licence fee, it was claimed today.
Technology minister Lord Carter is to propose “top slicing” the BBC’s budget by up to £130 million to help under-pressure ITV and other programme makers, the Sunday Telegraph said. His White Paper – to be presented to Cabinet on Tuesday – could also call for Channel 4 to receive financial support through a partnership with BBC Worldwide, the corporation’s lucrative commercial arm.
My thoughts are that this news is designed to give the appearance of doing something about the obscene license tax but in reality it perpetuates it. It’s not the top-slicing of it that matters much to me, it is the very existence of it.
Meanwhile, isn’t it nice to know that some of our favourite BBC star broadcasters are able to rake in a few extra pounds?
Sarah Montague, a presenter on Radio 4’s Today programme, Radio 5 Live political reporter John Pienaar and Newsnight anchor Gavin Esler have received up to £5,000 to appear at the events for politicians, civil servants and NHS bosses
Ah yes – the NHS, the envy of the world (The third world, that is) .
I mentioned this on the open thread – be a bit careful with reports from Carter, he's one of the potential candidates for the top job at ITV and therefore is very unlikely to be impartial.
Give some of our BBC license fee to "under-pressure ITV"? What's that got to do with us License Fees payers?
God, the Public Sector love mickey mouse financial jargon like "top slicing". It sounds sophisticated but it's just our money: it doesn't come from the top, the bottom, or anywhere else except from our pockets.
The whole point of the private sector is that it responds to being "under-pressure" by adapting innovating, cutting fat anything except what the BBC does: "Please sir, can I have some more"
The BBC can't 'give up' part of the licence fee as you and the Daily Telegraph say.
The fee is a tax which the government then gives to the BBC. If the government decides to give less of this money to the BBC then this cannot really be described as the BBC giving anything up. The corporation will simply be given less of our money. Our elected government can choose to give all the TV tax money to a stray cats home if it chooses. The money is not the BBC's by right.
To talk of the BBC 'giving up' this money implies it is their money to start with. It isn't.
This is lunacy piled upon lunacy.
Stop the licence fee extortion and sell off the BBC now to put some cash in the UK PLC bank account. Let the broadcasters finance/fight it out among themselves and the market will dictate who survives.
We have enough parasites sucking on the taxpayer teat already without adding ITV.
Cleverly designed to sound fair, smokescreen the "BBC Tax" argument, while in reality broadening the constituency of broadcasters who depend on State funding.
A beautiful object lesson in how our Labour masters operate.
Charles has it right, I think.
"Money for influence"? Thats all it is.
I would like to make a contribution to the site by telling you how to avoid the tv tax.
write a letter to the tv liscensing scum and tell them that you are withdrawing thier right to go onto your land (driveway)
order them not to write to you again (barring a reply to say they will obey) they will reply and then leave you alone for several years.
try it youll be glad.
ngg
I was not aware that anyone, much less the TVL guys, had a presumed owner-granted 'right' to trespass upon my land unless specifically withdrawn.
Sadly my front door is on the street.
'Evening Standard':
"BBC bids to stall licence fee carve-up"
(By Amar Singh.)
"The BBC is lobbying the Government to let the public decide whether licence fee money should be used to fund regional news on ITV, the Standard can reveal.
"Senior executives at the broadcaster want the licence-fee payer to choose whether the corporation should give up some of its £3.6 billion annual public funding — a proposal set to be made in a White Paper this week.
"They hope that a public consultation would delay the implementation of any top-slicing of the licence fee up to the next general election, when a Tory victory could take the process back to square one."
What would the BBC have said if England fans had booed India onto a cricket ground in India?
"Boos inspired us – Pieteren"
[BBC Sport -cricket, video clip].
'Times':
"Boos inspire England to dethrone champions India in World Twenty20"
[Extract]:
"England will play West Indies at the Brit Oval this evening with a place in the semi-finals of the World Twenty20 as a prize for the winners.
"An inspired display in the field against India at Lord’s yesterday helped the host nation to knock out the defending champions. Aggressive bowling and disciplined fielding lay at the heart of a three-run victory that broke the hearts of a billion Indians and silenced the large and passionate crowd of away supporters.
"Paul Collingwood, the England captain, said that being heckled as his side warmed up had spurred on his side. 'We got booed at the home of cricket by the India fans, which was a bit strange, so that gave us a bit of motivation,' he said."
Above : KEVIN PIETERSEN.
I can remember BBC representatives coming on this site to tell us how misguided we were to think that:
1.) 'the BBC' and
2.)'BBC World Service',
was one interlocking organisation, because 1.) is BBC licencepayer-funded, and 2.) British taxpayer funded.
But what takes place in practice is that there is, e.g., political interlocking. Mr. J. Simpson, of BBC World Service, come out on occasions such as Iranian elections to pontificate on the BBC outlets(licencepayer funded); and the same goes for Ms. L. ('humanity of the Taliban') Doucet, currently in Iran.
The BBC's Mr. P.Horrocks speaks on behalf on the BBC Persian Service (see 'BBC The Editors' and "Stop the blocking now" article). Is the BBC Persian Service now financed by the BBC licencepayers too? There is interlocking at Broadcasting House, London between the BBC, and the BBC Arab TV Service. Is this Arab TV Service also surreptitiously being partly financed by BBC licencepayers to put out Al Jazeera English type propaganda? (BBC has a technical agreement, and many ex-Beeboids, there. ) The BBC puts out anti-imperialist propaganda -except against its own insidious world wide broadcasting Empire and its Eurabian mission.
George R,
All that stuff is run with nice grants from the Foreign Office. Your taxes, their agenda.