David Elstein, former head of Channel 5, calls for BBC to be broken up in the wake of Savile scandal
David Elstein, the former chief executive of Channel 5, has called for a “radical” break-up of the BBC following the scandal over child abuse allegations involving the late TV presenter Sir Jimmy Savile.
There definitely needs to be a radical overhaul of the BBC…it constantly, see Patten’s recent comments, claims independence from political interference….but of course the BBC itself is ‘political’…..at one time seeing itself as the ‘official opposition’.
The BBC is almost a political party in its own right….with endless party political broadcasts pumping out its version of truth and reality and the ability to ‘force’ politicians to dance to its tune…..see Cameron and the new ‘not nasty’ Liberal friendly, Tory Party.
Time for change…..a truly independent regulator instead of the BBC Trust, and even perhaps putting the ‘BBC’ out to tender in order to break the cosy consensus of left wing journalists who gather under one roof and all march to the same tune….and expect us to also.
….we can live in hope.
In your dreams. Where are all the arrests in the wake of Savill? The problem throughout is lack of evidence that’ll withstand x examination. The police can’t just arrest on whim as the consequences for innocent men is immense. The BBC won’t be broken up as these matters sad as they are happen in many walks of life without such results. No school has ever been shut over s paedo teacher or a Church closed. It isn’t going to happen.
Agreed, it should be done DESPITE these Savile stories.
prole. You seem to proudly claim this ‘derogatory’ label. So were you offended by the Tory chief whip calling police men ‘proles’ If in fact he did. I am a Diego. I term I first came across reading C. S. Fosters Hornblower novels as a child. i have always been very proud of the epithet Diego.
Diego Diego
Gender Male
Origin Hebrew
Related names Jacob, James, Santiago
Diego is a Spanish male name derived from the Hebrew Yaʻăqōbh (Jacob), via the name of Saint James the Great (Sant Yago), re-analysed as Santiago and SanDiego. The assimilation of the final t of Sant into the name is attested in other saints’ names, including Spanish and Portuguese Telmo ‘Elmo’ (< Sant Elmo) and Slovenian Tilen 'Giles' (< Šent Ilen).
By he By I still love Foresters tales. of Hornblower's exploits and thank god for the defeat of the French and Spanish at the Battle of Trafalgar. Let's face it the Spanish where genocidal imperialist.
Wow, I did not know that. Seems obvious now that you point it out. Thanks.
“Another radical step would be to divest BBC Production from BBC Broadcast. It has never been clear why the nation’s largest creative force should be restricted to supplying just one of the UK’s broadcasters.”
It’s clear: to make it indispensable; to mask it’s sinister interior; to maintain the ‘good old Auntie façade.
This is a democracy, perhaps we could vote on it?
Yes I know, in my dreams.
Investigative Journalism at the BBC has been replaced by Editorial Guidelines
set by secret seminars made up of people of unknown identity and qualifications. Do they not read the Daily Mail, Daily Express or Telegraph or know of the growing number of other publications including British Mensa publications complaining of bias by omission verging on fraud at the BBC. Or do these morons live in isolated bubble of a left-wing Guardian reading middle-class Labour voting fantasy world.
” Or do these morons live in isolated bubble of a left-wing Guardian reading middle-class Labour voting fantasy world. ”
Err….yup!
Just break it up anyway.
If the BBC is as well loved and popular as it claims it would make perfect sense to privitise it. It is not as if the BBC has no advertising now (10 mins of trailers per hour) and there is hardly a discernible difference between BBC TV output and commercial channels – and people would be willing to pay for a subscription service (as per BBC World) if they really valued the BBC.
So privittisation
1) Eliminates the need for the TV Poll tax with all its associated criminalisation of poor people [POPULAR].
2) A huge revenue receipt of I guess 15bn(?) to pay down against the national debt [POPULAR]
3) Annual tax receipts from the company running the BBC to off set against the defecit – reducing the need of evil Tory Cutz [Again POPULAR.
Media companies would jump at the chance of getting the BBC – the lavish tax funding in the past has gold plated every aspect of the corporation. Its back catalogue alone will be worth billions so there would be no shortage of buyers.
If the govt is willing to privitise the Railways, electricity, water supply, nuclear power, air traffic control, harbours, oil pipelines, defence suppliers – all pretty critical national infrastructure why the ***k won’t they privitise the BBC when it is all upside and no downside – BBC quality will not get worse, it will probably improve.
It won’t happen because the BBC owns the currency of ideas in the UK – and it fights dirty. No political party would survive the full fury of the BBC – a state within a state if ever there was one.
A good summing up. The case for privatisation is overwhelmimng and in a digital age logical.
get a paper closed over the most serious crime in the world that is phone hacking
but an organisation which employed paedos and covered up for them………..dismantle it?
are you kidding?
they’re above all that populist nonsense-except when it involves someone else that is
hypocritical scum
The BBC has had its day, OK some were colourful, some were not, but it matters not. What actually matters, is the fact that the British public are waking up to this. We will not continue to pay this self imposed tax to fund a station who can not do better than Paxman “oh they forced me not to pay tax”
The BBC is a rats nest of lefties. Re-organising it will no more deal with that than changing the furniture layout in a house infested with the real ones. Dissolution – a complete cessation of public funding, getting rid of the tv licence en route – that’s what we need.
The BBC is exactly what you say. Sadly though, it’s true of most of the media and comes as a consequence of them all fishing for recruits in the same pond.
University humanities departments were effectively taken over by the Left after WWII (some before) and their products today are pretty much thoroughly indoctrinated by the time they leave.
In the ‘good old days’ the media recruited from a wider gene pool and journalists were frequently non-graduates, who had learned their trades in the regional press, having avoided the now compulsory indoctrination process.
Once in the meejah pond they can swim from outlet to outlet, rarely meeting anyone with a dissimilar point of view – which is why there’s barely any discernible difference between the ‘liberal’ tosh pumped out by the BBC, Sky or ITV .
The BBC needs disbanding for all sorts of reasons – political, commercial and cultural – but until something is done about the education system, the same fundamental issues will remain with whatever succeeds it.
‘rats nest of lefties’ very appropriately put!! I don’t think I could stand even 5 mins in the company of a sanctimonious leftie!
The more Lefties who come on here defending the BBC at all costs, the more the case for bias is proven.
Yes!
How does that work?
Are you really that dense that you need the obvious explained to you?
Well, personally it spreads the debate – if people do object and have a different opinion they should be encouraged and alternatives discussed.
If all we get is each agreeing with one another the consensus is never challenged, the construction never reinforced with reason and evidence.
This is something libertarians and right wingers are good at – our case can be argued with reason and sense. Lefties despise critique, making challenging it even more important. Sometimes I do think what biased-bbc suggests is stretching things a bit, and so robust debate is vital to defend and explain the thinking.
I’m not suggesting for one minute that we should not encourage alternative views on here – in fact the opposite as some posters do more harm to the BBC cause than good, helping to affirm B-BBC’s raison d’ etre.
The whole point of this website is to campaign until the BBC can consistently show it is impartial and politically unbiased. Unlike the Left, who would shut this site down given half the chance, and who stifle debate at every opportunity if their world view is being threatened, we want free and open discussion without fear of censure. The language of the Left speaks for itself on this (‘denier’, ‘racist’, right-wing bigot’ etc) and is tantamount to a gag.
But then, most of them don’t know any better, because their role models and mentors are from the education system and the BBC, who encourage it.
johnny, you’ve worded it as ‘defending the BBC at all costs’, others would say ‘pointing out the mistakes that are made by people on this site in seeing bias where there is none’. How does that prove the case for bias?
Chris, what you say sounds reasonable and up to a point you may be right but considering the bias is often CLEAR and to consider that NONE of the ‘chosen few’ have EVER agreed that there is any bias AT ALL tends to lend the reason to what johnny says.
Neither Labour, Tories nor Libs would entertain any such thought, which is why you should vote UKIP at every opportunity.
Do UKIP “entertain any such thought”?
People Power can bring down the BBC just withhold the license payment for a few short months (Job Done)
Contract Law only applies under Common Law not under Statute BBC operate under Statute therefore they cannot force a Contract on you.
It’s actually frightening how big(and powerful) the BBC really is and I’m surpised it hasn’t broken some law in relation to it’s dominance and unfair competition on the market.
It almost seems to be above the law(i.e untouchable) and there seems to be no higher or independant agency that can intervene to reel it in either.
Exactly, Sinniberg. If a private company had anything near the BBC’s near monopoly position in some areas of any business, never mind broadcasting and political propaganda, there would be a hue and cry from the authorities and politicians, especially those on the left, demanding it be scattered to the four winds, and quite rightly too. Well, sorry, the bBBC is no different and should get the same treatment immediately.
In all of this Savile business, there is a third aspect of the BBC’s behaviour that is, disgracefully, not being investigated; that is the way that the BBC has responded to the Savile / Newsnight disclosures and how it has used its dominant position and broadcasting resources to minimise and deflect scrutiny.
Not only did the early reponses from Entwistle and Jordan give an insight into their dismissive complacency, Patten the regulator-in-chief immediately aligned himself with the Corporation using the interesting turn of phrase, ‘we (the BBC)’.
Then appeared a procession of BBC staffers and guests complaining and bleating, ‘on-air’ of the unfairness of the criticism. Amongst their number, Robinson, Bacon, Brillo, Edwards, Snow.
Compare that with the dignified way in which Sky News handled the venemous criticism of News International and, despite the firewalls established to guarantee their independence, the political and media slurs, inuendo and claims that they themselves were an organisation not fit for purpose.
Sky found themselves facing unwarranted criticism. They handled themselves in an exemplary manner.
Meanwhile one cannot help but imagine that the BBC have enjoyed seeing (and I believe have played a part in engineeering) the focus switch on to the Tories.
The BBC has had its day. The world’s most trusted broadcaster just cannot be trusted. It’s time to destroy it.
QED as they say!
It emerges that Newsnight’s Tory slur has hit the buffers. What a train wreck. As I say this behaviour must now be the subject of an inquiry
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/nov/08/mistaken-identity-tory-abuse-claim
“New evidence obtained by the Guardian suggests that the senior Conservative figure at the centre of sex abuse allegations broadcast last week by BBC2’s Newsnight has been a victim of mistaken identity.”
Can we expect the smearing to stop now AND suiatble portions of humble pie to be eaten after this article in its print arm – or is this now an established leftist fact – that a Thatcher era senior tory was a pervert. I suspect that the damage is irreparable, shit sticks when thrown; this is a meme that will fuel the news quiz and BBC ‘comedies’ for decades to come. They didn’t like Fatcher so it must be true irrespective of fact.
Funny how the BBC came out with this now demonstrably FALSE allegation just after feeling bit bruised by Sa-Vile-gate. Plus have we seen any critical analysis in the BBC of the role of Witchfinder General in stirring this up, I am assuming that he did this purely in the interest of the victims.
With this level of multiple high level catastrophic failure how can Newsnight continue? Just watch it roll on – “we got it about right”.
When newspapers make an error (and are called out on it), they make the one correction announcement. But what should be the rule for the BBC, which has multiple outlets? Honest question.
Just the one admission of error on an editor’s blog or whatever surely isn’t an equivalent correction. Shouldn’t each show – or channel, I guess – be made to publish an admission of error and (if necessary) apology? I mean, if the erroneous report is published on the BBC News website, and is made on Today, and is made by a Radio 5 chimp, and is made on the 10 o’clock news, shouldn’t each channel be required to make a public correction? The audience for each can’t possibly have that much overlap that the one correction on an obscure editor’s blog is sufficient. If it is, then that raises a couple of other questions.
The BBC website is treating the Guardian’s fisking of Newsnight in a low-key way.
It’s not being splashed as a main story, Up till now they screamed every allegation against top Tories as a main headline. Here they have a discreet minor headline – ‘Identity mix-up’ in abuse claim.
Their short report, which appeared overnight, then goes into as little detail as possible about the claims that Newsnight has royally screwed up again.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20263420
The Telegraph has taken up the Guardian story too and reports the claims against Newsnight in great detail.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/9665974/Senior-Tory-wrongly-linked-to-child-abuse.html
It looks like a very dangerous moment for Newsnight. What’s left of its reputation could be about to be destroyed.
If Newsnight had belonged to Murdoch he would have closed it down by now. Which shows the different levels of integrity of him against the BBC.
And the BBC would have been the leaders in condeming Murdoch’s programme.
McAlpine has the money to take on the BBC and sue them. I agree with many post about the overmighty BBC and the seeming lack of appetite of the Tories to take them on. But here a public figure is being presented with an opportunity to do so. He must take it.
The Newsnight team obviously made a pact with Watson to deflect some heat over Savile and jumped the gun. They have just dug themselves deeper in and I hope that they pay a heavy price. After all, the reason they gave for cancelling the original Savilegate programme was that they didn’t have a cast iron case. Well this time they seem to have done just the opposite and presented us with a programme based on rumour only which turned out to be totally untrue.
Good post, #88. The BBC act as both poacher and gamekeeper.
BBC’s Newsnight admits that its claim that “a leading politician from the Thatcher years” repeatedly raped boys from a children’s home is untrue.
BBC’s Newsnight editor pulls a broadcast claiming that Jimmy Savile was a child abuser because he did not find the evidence convincing.
Baroness Boden of Labour Party says the BBC gets it just about right.
First Panorama’s reputation heads into the bin, now Newsnight. Is there a BBC current affairs programme with a shred of credibility left?
Just do what I do- tell the tv licence man to piss off when he comes to the door. I’m 6 foot tall and built like a shit brick house. Trust me, he didn’t come back, although I did see the chicken shit bullying some frail pensioner across the road! His mum would be proud!
This should be the BBC anthem
Privatise it [Beeb] definitely.
But don’t expect the cosy lib’ left consensus and crappy journalism to improve – have a look in at Sky and our supposedly ‘independent’ broadcasters – they all toe the same line in ‘newpeak’, have rampant EUphilia and political correctness tattooed on their foreheads.
One way to shake up the BBC, is to use the time honoured tactic of “modernisation”. The “modernisation” tactic in this instance would be to use two primary reasons.
1. In these times of austerity, it is necessary to streamline the BBC to get more effective use of taxpayers money.
2. An information revolution is ongoing, where the public has access to a greater variety of information outlets. The BBC has to be modernised, its management structure, news and views, to reflect the greater variety in society, as well as information outlets.
Under these two guises, one can do virtually anything. The conservatives are the only ones who can do this. In fact, for their political survival, as well as offering the public a choice of sorts, it is absolutely necessary.
Any opposition from BBC apparatchiks can be dismissed as Luddite, resistant to change, old fashioned, or whatever comes to mind.
I will be happy to see any solution the problem of the biased BBC. But unless there was a mass strike of License Payers , there would need to at least hundreds of thousands, that showed they had lost popular support only a political party could reform/get rid of the BBC. And we know that can only be the Tories, but they seem totally uninterested in doing anything about the BBC. I agree that unless they do they will become a marginal party. Surely they must see how much the BBC bias damages them so why don’t they do something?!
Unless the government were able to prove the bias at the BBC and the need for reform through an inquiry which could be seen by every licence fee-payer as whiter-than-white independent (and where are you going to get that?), it would simply be a dream propaganda ticket for BBC/Labour to accuse them of political interference (on the hour, every hour and on Newsnight, Today, Panorama, Question Time, HIGNFY, The News Quiz etc etc in perpetuity).
I watched the opening item on Newsnight the day after the election of Barak Obama. It was a debate moderated by the multi-millionaire (and soon to be retired on a huge public sector funded pension) autocue reader Jeremy Paxman between Howard Dean and Andrew Sullivan.
I say debate, it would be more accurate to say two Leftists agreeing with each other.
I say moderated, as their claims gradually got more and more insane Paxman just nodded and did not challenge a word.
Essentially they were saying that the election was the dawn of a new America, in which race was now irrelevant, that a new social democratic political foundation was being laid that was not going to change, and that because it was such a landslide the Republican Party was finished.
Given that the BBC was obsessed with discussion about the growing size of the Hispanic vote , and Mardell insinuated that white Republicans only voted against Obama because he was black, and that the generally poor performing Obama (to all fair minded commentators) got nearly 100% of the black vote this was was puzzling.
Given that the Social Democratic model is in a state of collapse in both the USA and Europe because of its unsustainable costs (caused by public sector workers (and tax avoiders) such as Jeremy Paxman voting for ever more largess from the public purse) this was puzzling.
Given that the Republican Party retained control of the Congress, and Obama gained 50% of the overall vote and Romney gained 48%, you could be forgiven if for a moment you thought you were watching Goebbels TV.
Then you realised, you were watching Goebbels TV – stick around for more yet more Israel bashing, hatred of capitalists, and the promotion of Socialism. One Party. One Leader. A Unified Europe. Then you remember who is paying for this crap. The BBC is more than just embarrassing.
We are heading for the end of democracy, courtesy of the EU, the UN, Obama, and the leftist media.
Their goal is enshrined in UN Agenda 21.
Just the fact that the BBC views Sarah Palin’s Personal Womb Inspector, who also declared just before the election that a map of all the States shown in polls as supporting Romney was an exact match of the Confederacy, as any kind of credible voice speaks volumes about the political bias of Newsnight producers.
‘a truly independent regulator instead of the BBC Trust
Any examples of such an entity in the UK that has teeth and integrity?