Evan Davis, the BBC’s economics goto guy, is in the Newsnight hotseat:
Evan Davis to replace Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight
“Evan is an outstanding journalist,” said BBC director general Tony Hall. “I think he is an extraordinary, clever and intelligent interviewer. He has a wonderful presence on TV and I’ve got no doubt he’ll be a really great presenter of Newsnight,”
Wonder if he will get away with the giggling and smirking interviews on Newsnight as he did on the Today programme in which his sole aim seemed to be to make a fool of the politician, usually Tory, point scoring rather than a sensible interview.
Apparently no one will replace him on the Today prog, surplus to requirements:
His appointment solves a conundrum for the Today programme, which has been widely perceived to have had one too many presenters since Husain’s appointment last year, bringing the total number to six, along with John Humphrys, Justin Webb, James Naughtie and Sarah Montague.
The BBC said Today would continue with a rota of the remaining five presenters.
The BBC is losing some of its audience as well:
The news was revealed on the day the BBC’s annual report was published. It also stated that audiences spent 18.5 hours with the BBC each week.
That is an hour less than 2012/2013. The figure includes radio, TV and online use.
But 96% of UK adults still use the BBC each week.
“But 96% of UK adults still use the BBC each week” Maybe this just reflects the BBC’s monopolistic position and not its popularity?
“The BBC is losing some of its audience as well”
Newsnight being somewhat of a pioneer in this regard.
With Lord Pantone’s ‘read this Tone’ ra-ra quotes from BBC PR making him sound more like Young Mr. Grace daily.
http://order-order.com/2014/07/21/evan-davis-new-newsnight-presenter/#comment-2249739
“A radical change in direction for the increasingly influential show…”
Got to love the power of a tonality-free quote.
I’m sure they’ll all do very well.
Spot on.
The BBC knows that if we had a choice of whether to subscribe to their services or not, at least a sizeable minority would choose not to do so. So the BBC would much rather insist that a) the UK needs a public service broadcaster and b) that this should be paid for by a tax on all TV sets, at least for the next few years.
Of course the BBC is bound to say that the UK needs a public service broadcaster and will advance all sorts of spurious arguments to support this view. I think that there is little evidence that the BBC does anything that commercial broadcasters can’t do and of course once a broadcaster is commercial the issue of bias become redundant. You pay your money and you take your choice.
As to the LF, I’m also sure that the BBC knows that it is obsolete and belongs back in the last century, but is arguing for its retention, at least for a few more years, until the corporation builds a strong position in new technology enabling it to ‘overpower’ its future commercial rivals and continue its domination of UK news and current affairs.
If the Tories win the next GE and lack the guts to force the BBC to become a subscription only service, they must at least ensure that the BBC revenue stream is confined to the LF at the present level or lower, and not to allow it to levy tax on new technology users. In this way the BBC funding will slowly wither and it won’t be able to compete so easily in new technology leading to its eventual demise.
Hang on. This is the Evan Davies notorious for hitting the gay clubs of London with an unnamed Labour minister of the day? Nope, no bias there then
Didn’t know that Col, it gets worse……i despise him, as i said on the other thread, i consider him rude and shrill, precious and preening, a typical gay idiot. He comes across as un-professional and treats most situations with sickly humour, cackling like a hyena……Newsnight are welcome to the pillock.
“a typical gay idiot”
What’s one of those, then? And does this mean it’s okay to write many Biased BBC commenters off as “typical straight idiots”, or is the sexualilty modifier redundant in that case?
Scott, its hard to deny that there are those in the gay community who come across as Catty. Its a bit stereotypical but feminised gays such as Graham Norton Julian Clarey and Lilly savage have all made a career of being quite rude in the manners sense.
I totally get there are plenty of nice normal friendly polite gay people but the Cattyness, if that can be a word, is one of the archetypes taken up by a small but significant proportion of gay men.
I believe what Robert ws trying to say in a regretably un diplomatic way was that Evan has shown himself in the past prone to this sort of adolescent female type point scoring.
It was wrong to portray all gays that way but even you must admit there are others of your brethren who let the side down somewhat.
Always strikes me as a bit odd why people conform to the camp stereotype. Surely the days of having to broadcast your sexuality by your manner should be in the past.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a gay newsnight presenter. What someone does with their dick should have no baring on how far they travel in their career path and what job they do,> However unwarranted rudeness is wrong and using your sexual orientation to excuse it is no excuse.
Well put, Paddy. As a pedantic point (apols) I don’t think Paul whassisname who does Lily Savage is gay.
I think Mr O Grady is quite out. He may have a daughter and all but he has been fairly open about his batting for the other side for a while.
Gay or not, idiot or not, is this really the guy that should be presenting the ‘flagship’ Newsnight?
Assuming you have a job, does your employer insist that you dress appropriate to your role when you’re on your own time?
If you make a value judgement based on somebody else’s casual attire, that’s your problem rather than theirs.
But I’m not lucky enough to be working for the BBC, or indeed public sector or the arts. But any current or future employer in the private sector may take a very dim view if such a picture of me were to appear on any social media site.
But really how can you take this guy seriously when interviewing political heavyweights?
You can’t.
Someone mentioned BBC camp comedians, the thing with Norton and Carey is they are absolute comic genius’, and I really dont get the point about their ‘rudeness’, I dont see it.
I dont think anyone would necessarily assume when they listen to Davis that he is homosexual, but what they do gauge is he’s absolutely useless and patently left-biased.
Humphrys and Naughtie have an appalling bias but at least there’s no argument about their ability. I think Evans is only where he is either due to a dearth of talent or the BBC’s notorious ‘pink mafia’.
Scott, middle aged men who dress like they are teenagers are just embarrassing. And that is their problem.
What a silly thing to say Scott. Are you seriously suggesting you would not judge a person dressed head-to-toe in Nazi/KGB regalia?
And quite frankly, that image above does not represent a nice gay man looking to settle down with another nice gay man and adopt some nice children to dote on in a nice way….
Rather, he looks like he is into group sex, S&M, bondage, humiliation, public toilets etc etc.
In other words, not a nice man at all, and certainly not the sort of person to front Newsnight.
Good grief!
“a typical gay idiot”
They are also described as ‘thirteen year olds’. Newsnight has got one more ‘thirteen year old’
I suppose I should feel grateful to Evan Davis for alerting me to BBC bias for the very first time.
1997 – The new Labour government, one of Gordon Brown’s first acts was to plunder private pensions with his £5 billion per year tax grab. One of the nastiest stealth taxes ever, stealing from people’s future old age, and pretty much destroying what was the healthiest private pension provision in Europe at the time.
Evan Davis who, I think, I was economic’s correspondt for Newsnight at the time, welcomed this tax raid because, and I remember it clearly, “it will encourage people to save more for their old age”.
It was such a biased interpretation, utterly illogical, I could not believe it. It opened my eyes to what the BBC was really like. They were at the very worst in the early days of labour, with no critical analysis of the government whatsoever until Iraq, and then only criticism from a left-wing standpoint.
On a brighter note, good to see viewing figures in rapid decline, over 5% in just one year is a huge drop. Supermarket chiefs get sacked for less. The BBC is dying – I used to think it was reformable and that it should be preserved. Now I think it is a lost cause, they even admit their own faults but do nothing about it. Its demise cannot come soon enough.
To me Davis is the most biased presenter on Today (which is saying something) and I have posted many times on here giving examples of his huge contrast in style when interviewing Labour politicians (chatty, agreeable, consensual, shared laughter) and Tories (aggressive, interrupting, shirty, sniggering).
But then when Newsnight is stuffed with Guardianistas and a top £300k per year job is awarded to an ex-Labour minister, no questions asked, what else should we expect?
I actually think Justin Webb is more biased than Evan, Justin does the sneering better (interview with Israeli today was a fine example) and (when we win the election) Naughtie with his long rambling questions to Conservative ministers usually have a jibe or row hidden in them.
As much as I despise the BBC bias (and I do), LBC is a dozen times worse. But on the plus side, they don’t demand I pay for it and they don’t pretend otherwise.
On No it is not LBC is a beacon in the evil al bbc state monopoly of news & views . They are always going to have one or two lefty presenters , but in the main they are to the right . Even Fox News puts its liberal left opponents up for interviews ,before ridiculing them for their views . I know you probably hate the O`Brian presenter , but ring him up & tell him how wrong & what a smug bastard he is .
Bodo reminds us of one of Evan Davis` most pernicious interviews/commentaries.
He is right to say that he has done us all a favour by being such a clot as an interviewer.
His worst interviews for me was that one with Lord Young a few years ago, when economics was supposed to be the content-turned into whether Young supported legalising drugs or such( it WAS a Saturday, and Evan had clearly been out the night before-and some personal insights were evident in the rant).
There was also a crap one with George Osborne a while back, where we were unable to find out Osbornes policies. Evan seemed to want us all to know HIS economic policies instead.
Good old Arthur Laffers scorching of Davis is worth a re-run.Last week it was-and no doubt, will be getting binned very soon.
Davis on the Newsnight flagship eh?…bit like getting the Italian captain to float the Costa Concordia, and to pay him for it.
Was that job put out to proper tender-or is the Labour Pink Mafia further enriching itself at our expense?
Personally I’d like to see Newsnight fronted up by a nice bit of eye candy with plunging neckline and massive knockers to take my mind of the relentless left wing evangelising.
evan davis,as dull as dishwater and as boring as hell,andrew oneil was the perfect replacement for paxman but as usual the bbc go for the easy politacaly correct option and that has nothing to do with evan davis being gay.
To be fair to Evan Davis, during the last election he did stand up to a few Labour politicians, notably Mandelson, and wouldn’t let them come on and just tell us how evil the Tories were. He did constantly challenge them about what Labour would do if they won power and didn’t give them the easy ride that Naughtie would have.
I am interested to see how he does, I have my suspicions more of the same, otherwise they wouldn’t have chosen him.
The key is in the viewing figures, if he can turn them around then fair play to him.