There’s a surprising interview from the ‘Today’ archive (from 2009) between James Naughtie and Will Hutton. Naughtie asks Hutton to speculate on the future of newspapers in the U.K. Hutton replies:
Well I think there is going to be a transitional period. It could last 10 years, it could be as long as 20 years, in which the way we’ve done it over the last period is plainly going to be uneconomic and there are not going to be new ways of doing it that ARE economic, and I think that what’s going to happen is that in Britain at least..I actually think the BBC..there’s a grave danger it’s going to become THE sole news provider in the country, with one or two organisations – maybe the Guardian/Observer, maybe News International, maybe the Daily Mail and General Trust organisations – just falling besides the wayside, and in this period actually people are turning more to the BBC. The evidence from OFCOM is that people are actually using television news and BBC radio more actually, not less. So we’ll be in a danger…we’ll be in a period when there’ll be a monopoly provider…
So, Will Hutton two years ago was predicting that the BBC was the main danger when it comes to a potential news monopoly in this country. That monopoly situation looks to be getting ever more likely.
He does offer some hope though that after 15 or so years of the BBC monopoly people would be so fed up they’d be flocking willingly to pay for news online. Cold comfort.
Top find, Craig.
How can anyone know what going to happen 10 to 20 years hence, it’s meaningless (a bit like Globall Warming).
Will Hutton may as well have a pointy nose, big, dangly earings, and be playing with his crystal balls.
Yes; and in its permanent mode of political operation to denigrate News International, BBC-NUJ emphasises News International’s significant prersence in the press media, but relegates the BBC-NUJ’s own significant presence in TV and radio, and not only nationally.
And, hiding behind the ludicrously inaccurate words of ‘political impartiality’, BBC-NUJ continues its increasingly explicit campaigns for Labour, EU, mass immigration, Obama, Islam, etc. using our money to do so; and in its culturally imperialist way, BBC-NUJ has global plans of expansion too.
“How the BBC’s silence on immigration damaged the country. Mark Thompson’s confession that the BBC shied away from subjects like immigration shows how an insidious culture of the unsayable took hold under Labour, says Jenny McCartney. ”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/jennymccartney/8627157/How-the-BBCs-silence-on-immigration-damaged-the-country.html
I keep telling you guys (and have done for years) that the BBC wants Sky killed or at least broken up.
The BBC managed to get rid of ITV news, which I think is wrong, some of the TV tax should have been removed from the BBC and given to ITV (say a 50% split) to force them to offer a 24 hour news service.
We need MORE news from providers not fewer.
If only you were wrong… sadly I don’t think so…
Heh Martin, great to see you back again.
Imagine for a moment that you want to work in television, as a journalist say, or as a script writer. You will notice that pretty much all the jobs in this country are with the BBC. You will also notice that if you do not adhere to a Leftist world view you are not going to be employed.
Contrast this with the publishing industry. For example, if you write a book that Leftists do not approve of, say on the American War of Independence, or about the virtues of free markets, of hell that was China under Mao, you will not sa, well that it is not going to get published so why bother. You simply appeal directly to the reader.
Now compare the number of people who read non-fiction books, with the number of people who watch television. The BBC is quite simply the biggest threat to freedom of thought in this country in our time.
When you hear BBC Leftists venting about the dangers of “Murdoch” giving people a choice, what you are hearing is the authentic voice of totalitarianism.
Do you believe in a free country or not?
‘Contrast this with the publishing industry’
Mark Lynas is concerned at efforts to suppress his latest book.
It’s all across twitter, including such as Dr. Goldacre.
It’s very simple, the BBC don’t believe in freedom. The BBC believe that the views they support are the truth and alternative views are dangerous and should be supressed. Look at the permanent quotations that are on this site:
“..the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress. It may be my Presbyterian background, but I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good. Stamp hard on certain ‘natural’ beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off.”
Andrew Marr, The Guardian Feb. 1999
Very well said, Wild. Big Brother, or rather Big Auntie, has arrived, not with the stamping of jackboots but with an endless supply of rainbow treacle, with which to gum up the eyes/ears of the viewing/listening public, especially the young. Contentious subjects are either downplayed, or omitted, because nothing must be permitted to puncture the multiculti/green/pro-Islam/amoral/valueless/Obamarama balloon. Any threat to the sanctity of the Beeboid ‘narrative’ must be discredited, or destroyed. Look at the venom turned upon Murdoch, not from any genuine sympathy with the Dowlers or soldiers’ families, but because they see a chance to knock out a feared rival & secure an even greater hegemony in the broadcasting stakes.
The time will come when all pretence of reporting on what actually occurs in this beleagured land will cease all together. The BBC will have massaged reality away, & we will have a relentless junk diet of how the White City spinners want things to be; even though the streets are on fire. We’re not far from that now.
The BBC must be one of the most discriminatory employers in the country. Not, of course, to ethnic minorities or gays, these people are to be lauded simply for being, regardless of talent, but discriminatory towards anybody who hasn’t swallowed the cultural Marxist medicine & still thinks for themselves, not like an automaton. A playwright submitting a script on the reality of Tower Hamlets, the political corruption, the intimidation & violence, the misogyny, the reduction of a London borough to a retarded medieval shambles would probably be shopped to Trevor Phillips & the grievance brigade at the Equality & Human Rights Commission. To the Liberal Left, the truth is anathemama & must be suppressed.
The BBC must hope that by the time civil war breaks out in this country what is left of the indigenous population will have been so intellectually neutered that it slumps obediently into a shallow, prepared grave. A grave in the perpetual shadow cast by a super mosque, & a forest of wind turbines.
As I write this comment I can hear somebody singing an old Al Jolson number, but with slightly differing lyrics. ‘I’d walk a million miles for one of your smiles, my Imaaaaamy!’ That could be turned into an inter-faith musical; right up the Beeboids street. Like hell.
‘the BBC..there’s a grave danger it’s going to become THE sole news provider in the country, with one or two organisations – maybe the Guardian/Observer…’
There is a certain predictability in the airwaves being alive with many, afflicted by selective Alzheimers on top of their hypocrisy, demanding ‘the press’ be constrained from interfering in politics and trying to (or succeeding in) influencing policy.
That such as BBC Newsnight – http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/fromthewebteam/2011/07/friday_8_july_2011.html – runs a panel almost exclusively comprised of such folk, including the wife of a Graun Editor (of Clarke County and AV shenanigan fame, I do believe) is beyond irony.
The BBC, its employees and carefully selected one-degree of faux separation guests do nothing else but try to influence policy.
Backed by a uniquely-funded £4Bpa media budget piped via scores of outlets 24/7 into every home whether the payer thinks the service is fit for purpose or not.
So when some say ‘one down’ on the media monopoly front, I tend to agree with the sentiment, but perhaps not in the way they had imagined.
Careful what you wish for, groupies.
“The case for Murdoch”
by Colin Brazier of Sky News
[Excerpt]:
“On parts of the British Left, Rupert Murdoch is a panto villain; a Darth Vader of the media/political complex. They hate what they see as the craven behaviour of politicians who seek his patronage. They cannot forgive Tony Blair for agreeing to be summoned to Australia for a News Corp conference. They remember the headlines which finished Neil Kinnock and celebrated the sinking of the Belgrano.
“And now the sound of axes being ground grows louder. For nobody enters this debate Immaculately. Newspapers outside of News International’s magic circle are terrified that there will be a cover-price cutting war when NI is bloated by BSKYB cash. The BBC, which – let us never forget – reserves the right to prosecute any of us who refuse to pay for their services on pain of a prison sentence (it’s called the Licence Fee) is petrified of a rival which threatens its cultural hegemony.
“And when so many interests are vested it is easy to lose sight of balance. Rupert Murdoch has not destroyed the media in Britain. If anything he saved large swathes of it and, in doing so, thousands of jobs.”
http://blogs.news.sky.com/familyaffairs/Post:972d581f-3036-4091-a214-4a7aa8a3deee
I’ve been depressed by the furore of this week. I almost used the word ‘events’ of this week – but I’m still not clear as to what has actually been added to the sum of human knowledge by these so-called revelations?
In the great arm wrestle (as I see it) between the liberal elite and Britain I think this must have been some kind of pay back for the lost AV vote.
The BBC has shown its hand and lets be honest its holding all four aces. I was half expecting Jim Naughtie to call on a Miliband to come up to Broadcasting House for a chat about forming a new Government – with a Dimbleby as his Deputy and a Toxteth QT audience as his new upper chamber.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Call me Dave is on the back foot and when the dust settles see how the BBC come away with some new concessions.
The tories and Cameron in particular had better grow some balls, and sharpish. The BBC/Guardian axis has already claimed the scalp of a NI flagship title, and now I suspect (with the help of the Labour Party) they are turning their sights on Cameron.
So it’s time they stopped all the navel gazing and dancing to the beebs latest tune and went on the attack against former Labour governments – who are more guilty in this grubby affair than the present tory government. And they may also want to get someone on the case of digging dirt on the cosy BBC/Guardian relationship. We know already that they are very tight, but I suspect that it goes way beyond what little is already known.
“The Tories, and Cameron in particular, had better grow some balls, and sharpish.”
Indeed.
Well the right has been silenced and were totally out maneuvered by the BBC/Guardian/Nu Liebore.
Somewhere is a smoking gun, a meeting, a conversation, emails that will one day expose what is an unholy alliance of leftists.
I don’t think Murdoch will recover from this, I think he’s lost the plot, the future of the media is online not printed papers, the BBC and the Guardian know that, why do we see so many beeboids on Twitter for example?
Murdoch just doesn’t get new media, their ownership of My space has been an utter disaster, Murdoch sees everything in terms of money, the left see ideology first.
Murdoch is putting more and more of his products behind pay walls and whilst that works (at the moment) with Sky it doesn’t work in the online world.
The left have been growing their influence online by blogs and in particular Twitter, the right seem stuck in the last century.
I’m sure Murdoch can’t work out why the bloke who own Facebook doesn’t sell or charge, if Murdoch owned Facebook, he’d kill it dead within 12 months. But Facebook have huge influence on hundreds of millions of people, what politician wouldn’t want ot be friends with Mark Zuckerberg?
And that is the biggest problem we see today, newspapers like the Sun don’t have anything like the influence Twitter does, individuals and companies can now have MILLIONS of followers and getting your message out to that group to give opinion or organise is far more powerful than getting a few dollars out of them for access. On Twitter no one has to buy a specific product to get information.
‘the BBC..there’s a grave danger it’s going to become THE sole news provider in the country, with one or two organisations – maybe the Guardian/Observer…’
But we know that BBC news meetings consist of hapless editors sifting through the morning’s newspapers. If the newspapers disappear, the BBC will have to – what? – make it up? Oh sorry, I fogot.
Ah well Louis there is a well known BBC technique for either bigging up a story they want to promote or killing one just as fast.
To big a story up the BBC will start on Newsnight the evening before (this is the hat tip to the Guardian who can then run it the following day)
The BBC will also mention it on Radio 5 that evening, but the real broadside comes the following day
Radio 4 will run the story hard, Radio 5 also joining in, we will then have the 5 live phone in and Vicki Pollard also doing the business, then News 24 chimes in, the evening news pounds away and of course Newsnight then runs the Guardian story which of course was originally the BBC story, so the BBC can claim it’s not THEM promoting the story.
I’ve yet to ever see the BBC big up a Daily Mail story.
The BBC have used this technique for years, when the BBC wants to kill a story they simply either fail to mention it (and neither does the Guardian) or the BBC will run the “it’s a right wing conspiracy” angle to kill it.
Anyone who has watched the BBC in action knows by description above is accurate and how the BBC bigs up a story.
A case study in media analysis Martin-thanks, no reason at all to doubt it!
Hope that Murdoch will close down NuLabors rag of educational grooming that is the Times Educational Supplement.
If you want to see how teachers have willingly prostrated themselves before the Lavender Mob whilst striking poses at the Man Murdoch-whilst drawing fat cat salaries and getting the goss on the new” jobs” that have nothing to do with teaching(but plenty to do with Marxist grooming!) just have a read…so simple even Blairs Citizenship Facilitators of Directorate Coordination could read it!
As long as learened to read as opposed to parrot!