This is from a speech Patten gave recently….not much needs to be said other than perhaps it is interesting as to just how much reach Patten admits the BBC has compared to Sky…and how influential it is in defining the cultural and social narrative of Britain….something they would never admit to whilst fighting the Murdoch BSkyB bid….and how the scale of the BBC allows it to take risks that commercial companies cannot….of course it is the nature of the funding of the BBC that really allows it to take risks….though you have to ask ‘what risks are they then?‘….they didn’t use the scale of funding to buy surefire sports rights….and repeats of Dad’s Army and Top Gear is hardly cutting edge stuff.
‘We have to aim always for the truth, including the truth however horrible it may be about ourselves.
The BBC aspires to a series of ideals – universal reach, accuracy in reporting, impartiality, pluralism, the highest standards of quality and distinctiveness – that should never allow for complacency or the development of a “holier than thou” spirit.
I think the public buy into these ideals. But that means they are rightly hard on the BBC when it fails to live up to them.
Inevitably, the trust on which the BBC’s place in our national life above all depends has been hit by the Savile scandal and its handling. Despite that, the polls continue to show that the public still trusts the BBC far more than any other news organisation. That trust translates into audience habits and behaviour so that, for instance, while the BBC accounts for just over a quarter of all the TV news minutes which are broadcast it is responsible for something nearer three quarters of all the TV news that is consumed. I am a big admirer of Sky’s rolling news programmes (which took for instance an admirably independent line in covering the problems of the Murdoch empire), but when the Trust reviewed the BBC News Channel in 2011 we found that it had a higher reach than Sky News even in homes with a Sky box.
Second, any well-founded criticism of the quality and accuracy of our journalism will always require urgent attention. On almost every sensitive issue from the Middle East to climate change, from Europe to macro-economic management, we are likely to find ourselves criticised from both sides. It is not enough for the BBC to argue that if it is being criticised from both sides, it must have got things just about right. We have to try to ensure that we reflect the complexity of issues, and that intelligent contrary opinions are given proper weight.
We must never be driven simply by ratings. As I have argued consistently since I became Chairman of the Trust in mid-2011, we have a licence to be different. The BBC’s scale, security and independence allow us the freedom to experiment, to be creative, to take risks. To surprise, sometimes to shock and even sometimes, unfortunately, to offend.
That is what it should mean to be a public service broadcaster, and in the BBC’s case to be at the social and cultural heart of our nation’s life, a part of the national conversation.
For the BBC, the challenge has always been to set our own standards and boundaries in the right way so that we can promote our core purpose – the pursuit of truth – in a way that the public trust and respect. And that includes from time to time pursuing the truth about ourselves even when it is grisly.’
‘….pursuing the truth about ourselves even when it is grisly.’….so publish the Balen Report.
We have to aim always for the truth…
And so they fail, patently, several times daily.
So the BBC has a clear monopoly on TV news in the UK. Is this legal? It wouldn’t be in any other industry.
A monopoly means no choice. Hardly the position in UK except public prefer BBC. Tough for the haters to accept!
A monopoly means no choice.
The idiot just defined the BBC without even knowing it.
Does the British public HAVE A CHOICE about paying for the BBC idiot?
I know you try so hard to be clever. Your efforts just show how particularly stupid you really are. If you weren’t so abrasive with your pathetic attempts we would be far more gentle on how we let you know this.
No, Colditz, folk watch the BBC news because of the lack of repetitive adverts everyone else has to resort to, as a way of funding their output.
If the BBC is so wonderful, let them stand alone, no more license fee…deal?
Lets see how quick folk reach for the remote when the ad’s start flowing.
We could settle the matter by including a simple referendum at the next General Election.
Do you wish to abolish the TV licence and stop funding the BBC from taxation?
I would be quite content to abide by the result. Democracy in action.
We are often told that the majority of people are happy to pay for the TV licence – so let them do so on a voluntary basis. The BBC should return to being a true public service broadcaster, say with a single free-to-air TV channel that combines news and programming that predominately reflects traditional British values and culture. It can also run a commercial operation – it already does – that provides additional channels on a subscription basis for those that wish to pay for them. Radio stations that simply duplicate the output of the commercial stations should be scrapped, sold off, or at least franchised. The unnecessary local stations can be dispensed with.
As Patten concedes the funding by the tax payer allows the BBC to dominate the airwaves. It cannot be healthy for democracy to have one organisation in such a dominant position in such a key and sensitives sector. This alone should motivate governments to cut the BBC down to size as outlined above.
Of course we understand that Labour would never dream of reducing the size and scope of the BBC , quite the opposite, as the BBC Labour bias gives them millions of votes. The Tories seem to have decided that the BBC is too powerful for them to take on, or even for them to follow policies that the BBC would not approve of.
So we seem to be left with a situation where the state funded broadcaster has so much influence amongst the politicians that the country can only be governed with the consent of the BBC.
What a state democracy is in in Britain.
Let us hope that the BBC doesn’t find a way , with the help of its Labour friends, of cornering news and current affairs delivery via new technology as this is probably the last hope we have of breaking out from under the heel of their jackboots.
“Cornering news and current affairs delivery via new technology”, there is already a precedent, DAB. 15 years ago this new technolgy was going to give us hundreds if not thousands of new radio stations. A few tried but all failed. Why ? because they could not compete with someone who has a guaranteed income of £4 billion.
I went to the launch at BBC Manchester and what a fantastic buffet they laid on, I made sure I got a big chunck of that years licence back that year via sausage rolls and volovants. BBC Leeds launch was done on the cheap. But it always comes back to that £4 billion. They will crush any threat to their dominance. If they are so f*****g confident then whats wrong with subscription ?
And if they’ve got so much money why is the bit rate so low?
Here in Wales ( South-west) the bbc dab service serves up a range of 1 and 1 extra, 2, 3, 4 and 4 extra, 5 and 5 live, world service, and last but not least Asian. Is there any radio wales? Is there any radio cymru? Nope, none, diddly squat, so I’m paying for asian service but they cant put on f*^*ing welsh stuff? FFS!
There are more “Asians” than you people, I guess. Not worth the BBC’s time, because ratings = value for money.
There is very little choice as far as speech radio is concerned.
This is a wonderful expose of the hopeless Chris Patten a man solely interested in his own career, and as is stated how can a man with 5 jobs oversee a corporation with a £4.4 billion budget?
http://lastfoundling.com/2012/11/17/the-bbc-deserves-better-than-patten/
This article pretty much sums up the problems at the corporation including it’s obvious bias, and “Its current amateur level of journalistic rigour “
Wow – so if you read Pattern’s words then the BBC has absolutely no justification for pursuing the completely barmy global scam of climate change!!
http://scepticalthoughts.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/chris-patten-and-popes-visit.html
I’ve been absolutely stunned by this extremly precient article written in 2010 calling into question the appointment of Patten owing to his background as a school ‘special advisor which saw a Paedophile priest conduct a 36 year career of abuse, and another convicted of the abuse of 3 of the pupils.
The schools child protection policy is described as a shambles, and they refuse to attend meetings called by the Dioscisan safeguarding advisor.
If these allegations are true then why was Patten allowed to remain as chair of the board of governors during the Saville enquiry, and shouldn’t questions be being raised as to his suitability as continuing as the BBC tries to establish child protection policies when in the past he has (allegedly) failed.
Pluralism?
It would be wrong to say that the BBC goes from A to B. It goes from A1a to A1b.
A1a is Blairite and A1b views Blair as a Tory.
Pluralism is everything they are against. Their mission is to instruct you in correct thinking. All correct thinking arrives at the conclusion that “pluralism” is a debate between two Guardian readers about what they hate most about Britain.
Repeats of Dad’s Army — that is one of the best things the BBC does
It’s a good thing Jim Dandy and Nicked emus no longer show their faces here, because I’d be rubbing their faces in this. They and other defenders of the indefensible always like to claim the BBC has no influence, or precious little if any, and certainly not as much as the “Tory Press”. When I once pointed Jim D to a quote from Ceri Thomas that the Today programme sets the nation’s news agenda, he told me it was delusional. Yet even Patten knows that’s not the case.
But it’s a national treasure, you know, so an attack on the News division is an attack on Blue Peter and Only Fools and Horses and David Attenborough and all the lovely costume dramas and the Proms, and complaining means you want Rupert Murdoch and endless commercials instead.
How’d I do, defenders of the indefensible?