OPEN THREAD

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Friday arrives and time for one of these to take us all off into the weekend….please feel free to let us know what YOU think of BBC coverage!

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  1. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 10:46 am

    TUNISIA.

    INBBC is trying to hype today’s Tunisia election as part of some ‘Arab Spring’ myth (courtesy of INBBC’s Mr LITTLE here).

    But as the INBBC report has to admit: Tunisian Muslims vote for Islam:

    “Islamist party Ennahda is expected to win most votes…”

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-15416702

    And as Peter Oborne ‘Telegraph’ writes:

    “In today’s vote in Tunisia, for example, the Islamic group Ennahda is set to emerge as the largest party. That outcome will be especially unwelcome for France, which continues to regard Tunisia as part of its sphere of influence more than 50 years after the country gained its theoretical independence. ”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8843214/Libya-The-Arab-Spring-may-yet-turn-to-chilly-winter.html

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  2. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 11:27 am

    In a couple of years, BBC licencepayers will be funding BBC World Service, including ‘Arabic TV’ 24/7 from Broadcasting House, London.

    Now, ‘Express’ has article on how E.U. is providing money to BBC ‘World Service Trust’, apparently a charity.

     (Although the ‘Express’ article has ‘Somalia’ in headline, there is no reference to ‘Somalia’ in body of article.)
    “WHY IS BBC FUNDING SOMALI RADIO STATION? ”

    http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/279097/Why-is-BBC-funding-Somali-radio-station-Why-is-BBC-funding-Somali-radio-station–

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  3. Craig says:
    October 23, 2011 at 11:36 am

    Why are so many people (apparently) so fascinated by zombies? That was the question on this morning’s Broadcasting House. John Sudworth’s report attempted to look beyond the obvious answers (that people like horror films & enjoy dressing up).  
     
    Guess which “thinkers” he turned to for deeper insights into this crucial question? Nick Pearce of the left-leaning IPPR think tank (long the BBC’s favourite think tank), who said a lot of unskilled men since the 1980s have had such a poor future ahead of them that they are like the living dead, and then Paul Gilding, former Greenpeace chief executive, who said our system has eaten itself alive, what with its obsession with economic growth on a finite planet. So someone from the IPPR and Greenpeace. Classic BBC.  
     
    It’s almost as if BBC reporters are guided by some unthinking instinct to call up the same sort of people all the time. 

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  4. John Anderson says:
    October 23, 2011 at 11:38 am

    Where does all the BBC money go ?

    I have just watched the World Cup Rugby Final on ITV – the coverage of the whole competition by ITV has IMHO been excellent.  The BBC these days do hardly any sport – except events that are by law reserved for them such as Wimbledon tennis.   Sport is a big-budget item which the BBC mostly ducks.

    Likewise films.   Look at BBC iPlayer,  check back which really good films have been on BBC over past weeks – answer,  virtually nothing.   Again,  a big-budget item that the BBC ducks.

    Films and sport are the backbone of Sky’s marketing,  and a huge within its budget,  yet the entire Sky budget is smaller than the BBC’s.

    …………………….

    BBC money I reckon goes on overmanning,  overpaying “talent”,  duplication of effort,  running far too many channels,  fingers in too many pies.   Result = “Delivering Mediocrity”.

    So – a wasteful overlarge corporate empire,   failing to give us value-for-money,  funded by the most regressive tax in Britain – and grievously biased as well.

    Roll on the demise of the BBC – or at least a budget / licence tax cut to £1.5 billion p.a.  If it wants more,  it can try to win subscription revenues.

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    • Geoff Watts says:
      October 23, 2011 at 2:50 pm

      BSkyB’s revenue for the year ended June 2010 was £5.9bn. The BBC’s annual revenue is £4.7bn. The BBC runs a national radio and TV network – it spends about £2.4bn on its TV network – roughly half the money BSkyB spends.

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      • John Anderson says:
        October 23, 2011 at 3:40 pm

        Sky runs many many more channels than the BBC – including very expensive programming like films and sport which the BBC largely neglects these days,  and latterly some of the blockbuster US TV series which cost a mint.

        People PAY VOLUNTARILY for Sky.   People are FORCED TO PAY for mediocrity on the BBC.  

        If you can see £2.4 billion of value in the BBC’s mostly-rubbishy TV channels,  many of us can’t.

        I bet Murdoch could run the same output on the BBC channels for half the price.  

        That is why the BBC should have its tax on all of us cut back to about £1.5 billion tops.   That would force them to cut out a lot of their dross – and to cut out nil-purpose channels like BBC3 and BBC4.   The BBC was far better when it was just BBC1 and BBC2.

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        • Geoff Watts says:
          October 23, 2011 at 5:11 pm

          It is always cheaper to import programmes than make them yourself. Sky does not commission very much in the way of original programming itself. If you think of some of the great BBC series they are very expensive to produce and the BBC has a public service mandate which Sky does not have.

          Does Sky really run more channels? I would be surprised (I am not a subscriber so I don’t know). If you add up all of the main networks plus all of the regional TV networks I would be surprised if that was less than the number of Sky channels. Regional broadcasting is very expensive.

          Of course the BBC also has to pay for its radio network and its online service as well.

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          • John Anderson says:
            October 23, 2011 at 5:31 pm

            Yes there are umpteen Sky channels.   “Regional” BBC channels are hardly significant – most of the programming is the same as on the main channels.

            But you are missing the main point.  Sky spends a fortune on sport and films – delivering what the public wants.  And now,  on major US TV series which are far more expensive than any original BBC programming.

            The BBC programming is largely recycling of repeats.   Precious little new programming of any quality.

            And if the BBC spends £2.4 billion on TV – it must be wasting a bloody fortune on most of its other activities.   £2 billion or more – and it is not yet carrying all the World Service costs.

            The BBC in its present bloated form is the result of decades of leeching on the British public,  empire-building,  overmanning etc etc.  It truly needs lots of pruning – or axeing.

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            • Geoff Watts says:
              October 23, 2011 at 7:51 pm

              Fortunately the BBC produces very detailed P&L figures, so you can see what they spend it on for yourself

              Click to access bbc_ar_online_2010_11.pdf

              And then compare it with BSkyB
              http://annualreview2010.sky.com/our_performance/Default.aspx

              Sky spent only £380 million on commissioning programmes – a much smaller figure than the BBC. I can’t find a comparable figure for the BBC – except that the head of drama has a budge of £200 million on its own.  
              Again the BBC has a public service mandate which other broadcasters don’t have so there are programmes it has to make.
              Sky buys a lot of content from the US. It is much, much cheaper to buy content than to make it yourself. So while it is true that US TV series may be more expensive to make, they are considerably cheaper to buy than to make your own programmes.

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      • john says:
        October 23, 2011 at 4:16 pm

        And what prey does the balance sheet tell us the BBC wastes £2.3bn on each year ?

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  5. Craig says:
    October 23, 2011 at 12:19 pm

    Last week’s ‘BH’ had a friend of Liam Fox, Conservative MP Daniel Kawczynski, on its press panel. Paddy O’Connell used the opportunity to press him over Fox’s wrongdoing. This week it was Labour’s Kim Howells, former Foreign Office minister with responsibility for the Middle East, to review the papers – just the man to press about the Labour government’s dubious dealings with Gaddafi. This being Paddy O’Connell,  though, no such difficult questions were asked of the Labour Party man. It was ever thus. 

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  6. Craig says:
    October 23, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    Well, credit where credit is due, Jon Sopel gave Ed Miliband a thorough fisking on today’s ‘Politics Show’. Yes, the programme may have played the  BBC’s beloved ‘Tories at War Over Europe Again’ card with a vengeance – with Sopel confessing more than once that he was enjoying it – and it also played up the largely 24-hour MSM-driven “controversy” over the killing of Gaddafi (the “controversy” is growing, don’t ya know, according to Sopel), but Sopey made Ed look, frankly, like a shallow, opportunistic prat. (Yes, Ed gave him a lot of help in that!). His questioning over the cosy but anti-democratic consensus between the Conservatives, Labour and the Lib Dems over Europe being pursued with some tenacity, questioning Ed’s “false opposition” (he is almost exactly where Cameron stands) and challenging his typical use of the word “barking” to ad-hom-attack Eurosceptics. (Miliband is prone to gratuitous ad homs, as also over those evil “climate change” deniers). Unlike Paddy O’Connell, he even brought up Labour’s dodgy relationship wih gaddafi. Good on Sopey.

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  7. As I See It says:
    October 23, 2011 at 4:12 pm

    To be fair to the Beeb, it must be hard to be simultaneously the standard bearer for minority interests such as multiculturalism, the EU, man-made global warming and to act as the unofficial opposition to every non-leftist move made by our democratically elected coaltion. Expensive too.

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    • John Anderson says:
      October 23, 2011 at 5:33 pm

      Much of Radio 4’s book programme today was about a book of short stories – all about “climate change”.   Crazy.

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  8. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    BBC-NUJ and FRANCE: anti-Marine LE PEN, pre-elections.

    Settings the political scene for the run in to the next French elections, BBC-NUJ shows its political colours, even in its politically biased headline here:

    “Marine Le Pen: ‘Detoxifying’ France’s National Front”

    By James Coomarasamy


    Of course, that title implicitly raises the question, which is never asked:

     -Who ‘toxified’ Marine Le Pen in the first place?

    -Surely not the leftists and much of MSM, inc BBC-NUJ?

    Here are two reports, relating to Ms Le Pen:

    1.) ‘Galliawatch’

    “Marine Le Pen Defies the Feminists”

    http://galliawatch.blogspot.com/2011/10/marine-le-pen-defies-feminists.html

    2.) BBC-NUJ:

    (Note the anti-Le Pen comment about her folding her arms!)

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15405326





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  9. Craig says:
    October 23, 2011 at 5:37 pm

    Blake Hounshell of ‘Foreign Policy’ magazine expands on something found, almost in passing, in the vague report of the ‘liberation’ speech in Benghazi on the BBC News website (which seems to still be stuck on the ‘controversy’ over Gaddafi’s death) by Abdul Jalil, Libya’s new head, who has said that “the new Libya would take Islamic law as its foundation”:

    Libya’s new leader declares an Islamic state

    “The issue of religion in politics came roaring back Sunday, however, when interim leader Mustafa Abdel Jalil, thought to be a moderate, declared in his “liberation” address that Libya would be an Islamic state and that sharia law would be a fundamental source of legislation. That remark differed little from statements he had made previously, however (and all Arab states have similar provisions in their constitutions). What did catch people’s attention was when he got into specifics: Libya’s new constitution “will not disallow polygamy,” he said, and charging interest will be forbidden.
    Libyans seemed satisfied, but secular Arab commentators were taken aback.”

    Hounshell’s commentary as a whole is far more insightful than the commentary on that BBC article provided by one Jeremy Bowen, who frankly needn’t have bothered.

    Thank goodness for the internet, so that we don’t just have to rely on the BBC to get a fuller picture (as George R’s comments keep proving to us.)

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  10. My Site (click to edit) says:
    October 23, 2011 at 5:39 pm

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01644j3/Newswatch_22_10_2011/

    Why don’t they just call it ‘GratuitoustripeNewsWedon’tthinkso,soifyoudon’tlikeit,tough,don’tWatch’?

    Moody bozo in a blazer ‘thinks they got it about right’.

    Still, ‘for balance’, it seems they have not been covering the ‘Occupy’ protests enough. Maybe Mr. Mason was miffed he and Penny were not on ‘Strictly”?

    And for the life of me I can’t stand the end slot, with a smug Uncle Ray riasing and issue and then… leaves it hanging.

    Unique.

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  11. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 5:47 pm

    Not only does BBC-NUJ-Labour chum LIVINGSTONE like to spash the public’s cash:

    “I fathered babies for two women friends, says Ken Livingstone”

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052105/I-fathered-babies-women-friends-says-Ken-Livingstone.html#ixzz1bd0P7VRO

    Will BBC-NUJ-Labour investigate further, you know, like it does with Sarah Palin?

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    • Buggy says:
      October 23, 2011 at 10:52 pm

      The mating rituals and seemingly ‘arranged marriages’ on the professional Left are always a source of queasy wonderment, but this takes the biscuit really.

      What sort of woman takes a dekko at the reedy-voiced newt-obsessive, his pallid complexion the colour of cheap cardboard and thinks to herself : “That’s what I’d like my child to look like” ?

      Seriously: Take that, Theory of Evolution !

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  12. The Cattle Prod of Destiny says:
    October 23, 2011 at 6:29 pm

    Apologies if this was raised at the time but I just listened to <a href=”http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9618000/9618445.stm”>this</a> again and am somewhat gobsmacked.
     
    At around 3:15 the reporter asserts that if the system he is reporting on was used nationwide it would save 16,000 lives.
    Go back and look at that figure again. It’s 16,000. Not 16 nor 160 nor 1,600.  16,000!
     
    So 16,000 people are dying each year because of poor care in NHS hospitals? Are they serious?
     
    I once heard an eminent medic declare that if the NHS did not exist it would cost 4000 lives a year. That was the number of people estimated to to be able to afford any type of health care.  Do we really need to be spending billions to lose 4 times as many people than if we just didn’t bother?
     
    Another question, of course, not ask by the BBC man – Why are 16000 people dying each year with no one noticing?

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  13. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 11:04 pm

    The state of ‘democratic debate’ in Britain:


    “This is no SuperCam – just Ted Heath Mk 2 (… complete with his own Thought Police) ” 
     
     
    By Peter Hitchens  
     
     
    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2052264/This-SuperCam–just-Ted-Heath-Mk-2—complete-Thought-Police.html#ixzz1beGyfYLW

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  14. George R says:
    October 23, 2011 at 11:08 pm

    “How many MPs will deserve a white feather after Monday?”

    By Donal Blaney

    Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2052543/How-MPs-deserve-white-feather-Monday.html#ixzz1beJfxQ3F

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  15. Jeff Waters says:
    October 24, 2011 at 9:22 am

    1 in 7 of the people jailed for this summer’s riots was born abroad (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2052617/Rioters-came-44-countries-1-7-jailed-summer-violence-foreign-national.html).

    Yet that fact is not mentioned in a BBC article on the demographic profile of the rioters (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15426720).

    That omission is presumably because the BBC doesn’t want to encourage anti-immigration sentiment…

    Jeff

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:
      October 24, 2011 at 11:00 am

      The ommision does seem a ‘unique’ piece of editorial given the relevance of such a stat.

      (URLs may be compromised by brackets)

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  16. Kendall Massey says:
    October 24, 2011 at 9:59 am

    The BBC is campaigning to reverse the government’s decision to save taxpayers £1b on carbon capture.
    See here: http://tinyurl.com/67oexaz
    The BBC is a powerful lobby so taxpayers beware!

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:
      October 24, 2011 at 10:57 am

      2 days, 30 comments before closing. 

      I might have chipped in that lobbying is not really the BBC’s remit, but there you go.

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