Interesting to read how the private sector could help us all by running parts of the BBC; I am advised;
“As the BBC comesunder increased pressure from tightened budgets, the executives of theBirmingham-based commercial radio station brmb have come up with a solution tomaintain localness and save money. There is serious debate about limiting BBC local radio stations to one or twolocally produced shows a day with BBC Five Live filling the rest of the time.In light of this the management of brmb has offered to run BBC WM at asignificantly reduced budget with a saving to the BBC and the licence payer.
The senior team behind brmb, Phil Riley and David Lloyd, have a track record ofmajor achievements in the radio industry. Between them, they have experience ofmajor roles in broadcasting in the UK from regulation to content creation andbusiness management. They successfully rebuilt London talk station LBC,re-establishing the image of the station and its audience. The team alsoapplied in 2003 for an OFCOM licence to run a commercial talk station inBirmingham ‘WBC’. Chief Executive of Orion Media (parent company of brmb) Phil Riley believesthat it is unthinkable that the UK’s second city should not have a fullyoperational news talk service: “The suggestion is outrageous. This city creates a mass of news and sportstories everyday. It is unacceptable that the BBC should be cutting back on itsservice to the city. We already have an accomplished and credible news andsports team based at brmb ready and willing to provide the service.
“Great talk radio is about not just news, but local presenters, interesting guestsand listeners who want to participate and reflect the richness of the areawhere they live.” The financing of the service is not an issue, Mr Riley says:“From our understanding of the costs of running BBC WM, we believe we couldachieve a fifty percent saving. This would be great news for the listeners andthe people of Birmingham and the country at large. Isn’t this the ‘Big Society’in operation – a commercial business offering to provide a public service at afraction of the cost?”
Have to agree with this….just think, a 50% saving simply by getting the BBC bureaucracy out of the way…
The Russia Today site tells that the BBC is seeking funds from the US State Department…
http://rt.com/news/bbc-us-state-department/
“The cuts in the BBC budget are so draconian that they are looking for money any place they can get it and I am sure the State Department was aware of this,” said Brian Drolet from Deepdish television. “I think what you can interpret from this is that the United States feels comfortable with the political line and the interpretation of world events that are coming from the BBC.”
Ho!-Ho!Ho! And a bottle of rum.
Have been asked to do interview with the Russia Today folks but am just too busy.
I’ll bet the State Department wasn’t as comfortable with the political line of the BBC during George Bush’s time.
The American Thinker blog is reporting that Obama’s government is offering to put funding into the BBC World Service. Expect to see an increase in Mark Mardell’s sickly love letters to the Obamessiah.
Sell the BBC and let it compete on an even playing field with commercial TV? Definitely!
… And if it becomes the mirror image of Fox News, so be it. The market and advertisers will decide if that is what they want.
deegee you are 100% correct – let the market decide if the public really want to listen to the ideologically driven BBC news and opinion programmes.
Let the market at least have a local choice. The way it stands now, the BBC has a grossly unfair advantage, using money citizens are forced to give them to muscle out any local competition. What happened to a Britain Fair For All, BBC?
In light of this the management of brmb has offered to run BBC WM at a significantly reduced budget with a saving to the BBC and the licence payer.
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Smacks somewhat of, ‘…we’d like a slice of the license fee too’.
I’d rather *we* had that slice… and indeed the whole cake.
Considering its vast income it is surprising how little the BBC does.
Surprising until you remember that the BBC’s main purpose, like that of all public sector organisations, is to provide amenable employment to its staff, with the short hours, generous holiday, allowances, expenses and overtime payments, and superb pensions that this entails.
Providing a service to the public comes a very poor second and is never allowed to interfere with the main objective.
Re commercial radio and TV I will repeat what I have always said. Sky channels ITV2 3 and 4 and their ilk are just unwatchable a lot of the time due to the intrusive and annoying adverts that come along too regularly. I am all for a tv or radio station being a commercial concern but I just wish that quality of service was at the top of the agenda and not income from advertisers. Being constantly bombarded with adverts for tat I don’t want, loans I wouldn’t be stupid enough to take out and all manner of other crap just makes me turn the dial or switch off.
Planet Rock is a station I like but you would think it was Planet Autoglass the amount of times you have to hear that advert in an hour. Itv 1 when it is showing a drama now has 4 advert breaks in an hour show and I’m sure it used to be three years ago. Basically being reminded constantly that we are a shallow consumer and celebrity obsessed Nation every 10 minutes is not what I want from a broadcaster. Admittedly I also do not want a taxpayer funded propaganda organisation like the BBC currently is.
The following list of private companies could remove the need for the BBC Tax entirely:
http://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/view-companies/Demolition-Contractors/22