Daniel Hannan thinks a subscription form of funding will be the end of the BBC:
Budgets come and go, but something more far-reaching will take place in the House of Commons today; something that might change our political discourse significantly, benignly and permanently.
The Government has indicated that it will back a Bill, brought in by the backbench MP, Andrew Bridgen, to decriminalise non-payment of the Television Licence Fee. Instead of being dragged through the courts.
Once the BBC becomes a private institution, [BBC bias] won’t matter any more. No one will think its values are supposed to be neutral. It will simply be one more news outlet, like the Guardian or the Huffington Post, entitled to its point of view. For what it’s worth, the fact of no longer being state-funded will probably make the Beeb a little bit less Leftist, but that’s neither here nor there. What counts here is that Britain will no longer have what in any other country would be called a state broadcaster.
I think he is wrong…because nothing will substantially change if subscription is brought in…. the subscription can be for the whole package and not pay-on-demand per programme which means the BBC as a whole is maintained even with those bits few really watch or listen to (which is after all part of its raison d’etre)…you want the BBC then pay an annual fee or pay monthly as now…the only difference to now would be…if you don’t want it you don’t have to pay for it.
As for lessening its left wing bias….that worked for the Guardian, and China didn’t it? Desperate to make money but still holding onto the ideology.
He said No one will think its values are supposed to be neutral.…therefore, he suggests, it will make less effort, not more, to control the bias…possibly true….if it were an entirely private service…but of course it won’t be…it will still be required to meet the demands of the Charter….it ignores them now but at least pays lip service to implementing them which keeps it from straying too far into obvious political bias.
Hannan titles his piece ‘The BBC will, in effect, be privatised – with vast consequences’ but that is not what is happening…the major consequence might be solely confined to the amount of funding, I see little reason why anything else should change, unless other laws are also changed as regards to bias….which won’t happen.
As for programming..the BBC already competes hard for the ratings with the commercial stations and pumps out populist programming to keep us watching…I doubt its output will change dramatically in terms of content.
One other thing of note is the usual description of anyone doing ‘bad things’ as ‘conservative’ by the BBC:
The BBC, as Andrew Marr put it, is not so much partisan as culturally biased. There was a neat demonstration on Twitter the other day. How long, I asked playfully, before the Corporation started calling Vladimir Putin, a former KGB man who rails against Ukrainian nationalism, “Right-wing”? A BBC radio producer Tweeted back crossly that it was a perfectly fair way to describe him since he was conservative. Hmm: what he wants to conserve is the old order of the USSR, but never mind: in Beebspeak, “Right-wing” simply means “baddie”.
Stalin was presumably also a ‘conservative’, as was Lenin, Hitler, Chairman Mao and Osama Bin Laden….and maybe even Tony Benn…or Ralph Miliband.
Ah yes-in figures gathered by TWATO-we find out that yoof services are now cut by up to 70%…they`re at Chelmsford Youth Services as I write.
1. How does the BBC get off on commissioning such data to provide mulch for Martha and her Muffins?
2. Did they ever do this under Labour?
Is it a BBC effort to stymie any good news re the economy, inflation and jobs as announced today…how long have they kept this spoiler on reheat, and why today?
Is there something we should know here?
Seems to stink-and the plummy voices of yoof( alongside some girl who wants the vote and to shut down the care homes) is classic Grange Hill auditions and Will Straw/Owen Jones and their munchkins feel to it all.
Luckily the BBCs tears over Muslim girls, sex ed and kids who commit crimes or attack teachers are only causes that the BBC and its TWATOs could love.
Maybe we could send them all into prison early to bring some books in-and pick up the library ticket for later years.
Won`t somebody PLEASE think of the Children…not you Savile?
I myself would shut cBeebies and cBBC down forthwith and ensure a table tennis table for every church hall in the country with the money saved.
The sooner technology forces the change form a TV poll tax to a subscription service the better. If I had to pay £145 to receive all BBC programmes I would not take out a subscription. On the other hand if I could pick and choose then I might take some of their programmes. So come on BBC give us a choice. After all if the country likes the BBC as much as the corporation claims they won’t lose much revenue.
If they continue to fund excellent comedies like Inside Number 9 then I would definitely pay for that service. The news and just about everything else I would happily avoid and keep £145 in my pocket to go towards other bills….not a concern for the massively overpaid BBC staff I add
If the BBC is totally privatised and becomes 100% subscription-funded I would have no further argument with it. It can propagate all day long its abysmal leftwing agenda and I wouldn’t care a jot: not being forced to pay for it (and therefore not watching or hearing it at all), it would not impact on my viewing/listening habits and I would have no reason to object to it using its commercially-obtained funding in any way it sees fit.
The worst outcome for all would be a part-privatised, part subsidised BBC. That’s not a solution anyone could be happy with – just look at Channel 4 to see how well that kind of arrangement goes (and I would argue that Channel 4 news and current affairs, under the regrettable Jon Snow’s strangulating grip is possibly even more of a bastion of hard left socialism that the BBC at times).
“…Stalin was presumably also a ‘conservative’, as was Lenin, Hitler, Chairman Mao and Osama Bin Laden….and maybe even Tony Benn…or Ralph Miliband…”
In answer to the above, I refer you an excellent book I’m reading at present on my Kindle: ‘Liberal Fascism’
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Liberal-Fascism-History-Mussolini-Politics/dp/0141039507 – a great discussion about just how figures such as Hitler and Mussloni became painted by leftwing revisionist historians as hated figures of the Right when all the historical facts point in precisely the opposite direction.
you could not make it up with these stalinist commies at the bbc with there scare storys today about the bbc will lose £200 million by not making poor pensioners and single parents familys into criminals whether they can afford to pay the tv license or not,the arrogance at the bbc is mindblowing, iam alright is there attitude and 2 fingers up to the poor,they make me puke the lot of them and there sychophant middle class leftie supporters,anyway,the sooner the tv license goes the better,we all have freeview boxes that allow us the freedom to watch what we like without fear of being made into criminals by these north korean stalinist bullys at the bbc.
I think there is an argument for part of the BBC to be funded from taxes, and that should be from general taxation, not on a per household basis.
How the BBC should be funded is really the wrong argument; the argument should be whether the BBC should exist as it is (the conservative ‘right-wing’ option!) or whether it should be broken up, (the Marxist, radical progressive left-wing argument).
For instance why not have an independent news service that sets out to report what happens, without opinion. Current Affairs would then be a separate option, free to hold an opinion. The first could be tax-funded and the second would be funded by subscription or sponsored. We would then pay for the opinion of our choice or at at least know who was backing it, rather than the present situation where we know who pays for it but we don’t know the ideology of those pushing the agenda.
I must rarely disagree with Alan on his surmise that a BBC subscription basis will not change things.
To my mind, first it is the false cloak of the charter that makes the BBC so dangerous to our society as far as their bias is concerned. Removing that, they can be as biased as they want, but the blinders will be removed from the public.
As far as the poor quality and wasted £millions, once they’re in the real world they will have to address that properly or find themselves out of business.
One only has to see the Guardian circulation figures to know with what regard they are held in this country. if the BBC want to continue emulating them then they must suffer the same fate.
As far as I can see – this is everything we have been working towards 😛
The irony would be that they would be propped up by Top Gear. These analogies keep popping up don’t they?
‘the false cloak of the charter that makes the BBC so dangerous to our society as far as their bias is concerned. Removing that, they can be as biased as they want’
Indeed.
Though I am rather getting used to the £30 a month extra in our coffers, and regaining the right to watch live broadcast TV like the rest of the world may tempt me back to a sub or two.
However one thing would still annoy, and that is the false representation in the name.
Unleashed from any restrictions they have mostly been ignoring anyway, like British Airways the BBc would still be trading under a rather dubious banner and still reflect upon me.
I have lost count of the number of times I have had to explain to friends and relatives that they do not speak for me, and possibly only do speak for the narrow views of a very restricted set of people anyway.
Dealing with the realities of actual accountability and consequences like any other media may be a bit of a shock.
No more hapless licence fee payers picking up the tab for a McAlpine might see some market rates out on their ear rather than tending garden and oozing back in after the fuss has died down to earn even more.
I know what you mean.
On the other hand it might provide more of a comeuppance for them trying to live up to it as they try to find their way in the real world and show just how incompetent they are. Think of the scoffing they will face as the British public show just how much value they think the BBC is really worth? 😉
Dan Hannan, despite his exquisite demolition of G.Brown in Brussels a while ago, is hell bent with others, Cameron included,on having Turkey’s 70 million muslims admitted to the EU…..ponder that…..he is eloquent…..but so is George Galloway.
I too wonder about these blind spots even among the best of our political class.
Hannan/Boris=Turkish member of the EU
Delingpole=drugs legalisation.
I`d have thought there`d be an internal consistency within them…Mel and Peter H seem better rounded, but how Hannan can advocate for Turkey in the EU is beyond me.
It might break the E.U true,…but not before it broke the nation states that comprise it in the process.
Pop over to Dalston, East london. You would think that they had joined decades ago.
I think it would change things quite considerably, but don’t think it is a binary thing- if the subscription model came to pass (and I hope it does), there would out of necessity still be certain services that would need to maintain availability to all in a Freeview type environment.
I think I’m correct in saying that SkyNews and various other service providers all contribute to Freeview?
I can see it may be quite a complex thing and expensive to move to, with possibly bundles/ packages being set up and elements free for all still but overall I think it would be a good thing.
Yes, “right wing” has often been a codeword for baddie, so I prefer conservative. At least it has an etymology, a dictionary definition and still means something.
But it isn’t just the Beeb. I was watching something on Youtube once about, co -incidentally, Russia. This American guy was going on about “right-wingers” and right wing this and right wing that until he went into the headquarters of one of these “right wing” Russkies. Guess whose photo took pride of place on the wall? – Stalin! Absolutely breath-taking.
Just sell it to the highest bidder. Or float it on the stock exchange. Don’t really care. I just want it gone from the public purse.
As for the bias that will continue, albeit maybe a bit muted, until this country gets it’s head straight and ditches liberal fantasy politics.
It could be sold off as quickly as the Post Office was. I cannot see any problems.