40 Responses to Sun Light On The BBC’s Dark Places

  1. dave s says:
    December 4, 2014 at 12:16 am

    These wages for the top lot are more than a lot of small businesses turn over let alone profit.
    I will wager that if you ask the taxpayer whether he or she would rather have the TV tax in the pocket or have the BBc the answer would be the former.
    Self serving hypocritical lot these BBC people. By the way it is not just 2.80 a week it is 145.60 a year. Does not sound so cheap then does it?

       47 likes

    • John Anderson says:
      December 4, 2014 at 1:13 am

      There are lies, damn lies and statistics. I bet the Sun makes mincemeat of some of those figures.

         37 likes

  2. Richard Pinder says:
    December 4, 2014 at 1:12 am

    The BBC must have a larger number of ex-Labour people than all other media organisations put together, and because it is funded by a compulsory subscription, it is supposed to have none at all. This makes the BBC immoral and corrupt, if compared to the Murdock Empire. Anyway, there is enough evidence to prove that the BBC has broken its Charter obligations in a big way, and the survival of the BBC now depends on ignorance through censorship. I have just asked if the stuff submitted to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s inquiry on the Future of the BBC has been sent to Roger Helmer, the answer was no, but he will be included in the list. That is because Helmer is involved with a clash with the Speaker of the Commons, and it would help UKIP if some of the un-published material about the censorship of science, scientists and scientific debate revealed in failed complaints to the BBC by Mensa members, was more openly available. I hope that this will lead to an article in the UKIP supporting Express, by Roger Helmer, and a demand to end the immorality of state imposed compulsory payments for this left-wing media organisation, and that the BBC should then be funded by the morally superior free market voluntary subscription system of a truly free media, which can reflect the biases of its watchers, if any remain, and not the biases of left-wing middle-class morons with arts and media qualifications.

       54 likes

  3. Ian Hills says:
    December 4, 2014 at 1:24 am

    “We recruit from a wide variety of backgrounds”

    means

    The Guardian
    The Labour Party
    Er….

       79 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      December 4, 2014 at 7:21 am

      They also have increasingly done so without following their own rules/guidelines/Charter obligations, as highlighted by other news media and blogs, all shared here. It has turned into an old boys and girls’ market rate incompetents club, handing each other nice little sinecures without even pretending to bother with transparent hiring processes. Even their own staff, at least those not wallowing in gravy, have noticed and are livid.

      These prissy ‘because we say so’ selective callouts may have seemed a good idea to rush to Lord Pantone, Sidestepping Hugs, Danny, James, James and that lady director who needs to get to her coffee shop early afternoon to show ‘something has been done’, but the era of BBC claim swaying anyone is over.

      They are clearly petrified of any sensible debate; scratch even the surface on what really is going on and there’ll be a raft of public-funded FoI lawyers down before you can say ‘most trusted and transparent national treasure’.

      The 142…147… 210 little beavers in the BBC propaganda Ministry may have been better advised to keep quiet.

      They didn’t correct any inaccuracy; they simply tried… and clearly failed…. to re-spin their own delusional self justifications. A flotilla of farce that has sailed, sunk, and lies at the bottom of the deepest ocean trench.

         34 likes

    • Jeremy Poynton says:
      December 4, 2014 at 10:48 am

      and Islam. Mustn’t forget that

         6 likes

  4. Steve Jones says:
    December 4, 2014 at 9:28 am

    The BBC is a bloated, overfed, indulgence that must not be allowed to continue in its present form. It can abuse its position and direct its propaganda at all sections of society because it is awash in our cash. The BBC licence fee should be reduced to a maximum of £50 a year and the corporation made to manage on a third of its current budget. Then, if it wants to pander to every minority with specialist programmes, and even whole channels, it will have to make some very tough decisions. If it goes down that route, it will realise it is playing to a relatively small audience and will be the root cause of its own demise as irrelevance descends upon it.

    £50 a year – £1 a week. Now that sounds like VFM.

       28 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      December 4, 2014 at 9:41 am

      With the greatest respect, being forced to pay a pound for inaccuracy and/or propaganda and/or unelected social engineering still does not seem VFM still.

      The money is where the debate is being steered. The content is what is being avoided. There may be a reason for this.

         31 likes

      • Steve Jones says:
        December 4, 2014 at 9:57 am

        Guest Who,

        I agree with you entirely that £1 a week spent on propaganda is not VFM. I had deluded myself into thinking that cutting the purse strings might take us back to the good old days of the BBC. One can only dream!

           26 likes

        • Guest Who says:
          December 4, 2014 at 11:54 am

          🙂

          Excuse my leaping in, but having followed the progress of the ‘Future of the BBC’ inquiry and other ‘debates’, I have noticed that it has sunk in with a few in high places and higher salaries that that saying how wonderful the BBC is does not seem to be convincing many Christmas gets sacrificed to keep the talent that was Mark Byford in comfort forever and a day.

          And the internet is carving chunks out of their few remaining compulsory options.

          Hence I get nervous when talk moves to Marrakesh market bargaining that still involves the BBC getting money (via ISP slice or council poll tax) to ply its main trade, which is keeping 20,000 cubicle garden warriors in pay and pensions to decide what is news ((c) A. Newsroom Tealady, not news, or news that needs adjusting like an East Anglian Uni computer model (GIGO ensured).

          By way of concession, if a proper subscription model is created, I may be tempted to pay for very specific items I still appreciate on a case-by-case basis, but these are mostly the products of highly talented independent production houses and I’d prefer the money went straight to them than layers of meddling BBC management or PR teams, or diversity commissars, all adding their dead wood, empire-building cut on top.

             13 likes

      • ManchesterLad says:
        December 4, 2014 at 10:24 am

        I bitterly resent paying this tax.

        If the BBC fulfilled its charter I would pay it reluctantly, but I would pay it. I see no need for a single national broadcast media organisation any more with the choice available through the internet and satellite coverage, and I resent the stranglehold the BBC has on the UK media and the stifling of all competition – so effectively we don’t have a choice in most media.

        However, as the BBC doesn’t fulfill its charter (and has no interest in ever doing so) it angers and disgusts me that I am compelled by law to pay this money towards a fetid, smug, lefty hegomany that has done more than any other single body to degrade and destroy the culture of my home country.

        If the BBC paid me £145 a year for the privilege of beaming propoganda into my home 24/7 I would still want it dismantled.

        The BBC. An idea whose time has come – and gone.

           42 likes

        • Jeremy Poynton says:
          December 4, 2014 at 10:49 am

          Well get rid of your TV then. You won’t miss it and anything you might want to watch is on the internet.

             6 likes

          • ManchesterLad says:
            December 4, 2014 at 10:58 am

            Thanks for this suggestion 🙂

            However, I don’t see why I should be denied the choice of watching any live TV, plus my daughter likes to watch some things.

            Plus, even if I remove my funding from the BBC it will still be there subverting the nation.

            I want it gone, not just to save a bit of money for myself.

               24 likes

          • Guest Who says:
            December 4, 2014 at 12:02 pm

            We use our TV to watch things on the internet. Free and legal. Living with dire bandwidth buffering and denial of access to some things any other country would shake its head are prosecutable to view live.

            Trouble is, as it sits in our sitting room, and signal-enabled tech in studies and kids’ rooms, TVL/Capita appears able to persuade a complicit, thick, or venal legal system in this country that they can demand access, deceitfully cause to self-incriminate and on occasion frame householders, tenants or students with relative impunity using techniques, police and legal support abuses that any other company, and certainly public sector organisation, would be closed down for in a week.

               13 likes

            • Richard Pinder says:
              December 5, 2014 at 1:14 am

              You could always hide one of those little hand sized Freeview adapters inside the Telly, disguised as internet linked, but linked to a different AV.

                 1 likes

  5. JimS says:
    December 4, 2014 at 10:08 am

    P.D. James got it:

    PDJ: …they’re sort of asking why people have £400,000 for jobs which are… one wonders what exactly these people are doing and I think the old argument, you’ve got to pay these salaries because otherwise you don’t keep them – where in fact are they going to go? If they’re on £200,000, £400,000, where are they going to go outside which is going to pay them more than that, I don’t…

    MT: Well, I …

    PDJ: …see where these jobs are in the private sector.

    MT: Well, I mean it, it, I, I, I’ve just…

    PDJ: It seems so extraordinary.

    MT: We, we, the, the, it… the private broadcasters, as you know, are, um, ITV, er, Channel 4…

    PDJ:… but ITV is in a very desperate state, and so is Channel 4 and…

    MT: …but, but…

    PDJ: …if they’re paying more than you’re paying, they must be in a desperate state, frankly.

       29 likes

  6. Rob says:
    December 4, 2014 at 11:30 am

    Add to this a generous final salary pension, which is index linked for life, and then subsequently for the remainder of the widow/widowers life on their death.

    This means we have a retirement fund that is likely to actually pay out more in pension than they ever received in wages while they were with the BBC.

    I suspect the BBC is an unfunded pension scheme (does not hold any assets within the pension fund itself as per NHS and Police etc), therefore this is likely to come straight out of the tax payers coffers and not the license fee, therefore it is worse than you think…………

    As Alan Partridge once said “I wish I was on the BBC gravy train”

       26 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      December 4, 2014 at 12:19 pm

      This was of course a pension scheme that, uniquely, could only go up as well as really up, and used licence fee money diverted away from core remit activities to prop it up.

      http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/15/bbc-pension-scheme-deficit-licence-fee

      ‘Licence fee payers will foot the bill, with the BBC shying away from attempting to increase staff contributions’

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/10570964/BBC-to-pump-740m-of-licence-fee-payers-cash-into-pension-scheme-deficit.html

      ‘The BBC has decided not to ask its long-serving staff – who, in common with much of the public sector, enjoy guaranteed pension benefits when they retire – for any additional contributions’

      And as you point out, pensions are almost never factored in in any comparisons on anything, especially when the BBC is making a point.

      My home is our pension fund. And my Mum’s legacy paid off the mortgage a bit early, in a small way compensating for looking after her for several years as a carer.

      So some smug git from government, media, NGO or a charity on £150k now and the same in perpetuity, or a Bob Crow-union boss on the same plus living in a council house, can keep their hypocritical ‘savings or capital is theft;, my pension is my right’ traps shut.

      I bet BBC Staff are really thrilled Press Office brought this out into the sunlight.

         17 likes

    • uncle bup says:
      December 4, 2014 at 6:50 pm

      The BBC pension is funded by assets.

      But, and it’s rather a large but, when the pension scheme actuaries tell the BBC that the fund is of insufficient size to meet its future liabilities (ie droid pensions) then the BBC tops it up to the tune of several hundred million quid from licence-fee money.

      Remember that when the management bleat about how they need so much money to pay for ‘quality programming’.

      I believe that though most private sector final salary pension schemes closed to new members 15 or so years ago, the droid management kept theirs open to new members til about three years ago.

      It’s good that so many people in the UK are contributing to pension schemes.

      Generally someone else’s pension scheme though

         7 likes

  7. pah says:
    December 4, 2014 at 11:48 am

    Oh the joy of statistics …

    Number and pay of senior managers down by ‘over a third’.

    A third of what? Are they saying they had 100 in 2009 and now have 66 or have they changed the definition of ‘senior manager’ to reduce them by ‘ a third.’

    Tony Hall is paid 46% less than his predecessor.

    Is that 46% less in basic, gross, net? Is he doing exactly the same job as per his ‘job description?’ Are his responsibilities the same etc?

    Bonuses capped at £150k

    Per bonus or per year?

    £1.1b saved

    They have saved £1.1b but the licence fee has not been reduced by a similar amount so where has the money gone? Sending Brian Cox to an island in the Pacific for a thirty second shot of him explaining a basic concept he could have done from Clacton? Where has all that money gone? Certainly not on improving the same old crap they produce year in year out.

    Salaries are 20-80% less than ‘commercial sector.’

    ‘Commercial Sector’ is an odd phrase. Do they mean ‘Private Sector’ and if not what do they mean? Or are they hinting at paying presenters’ companies rather than presenters.

    So they pay their stars, senior managers or tea ladies the 80% less do we think? How many unpaid interns and zero hour contracts do the BBC run I wonder?

    Is the 20-80% on an individual basis, a scale basis or an overall per capita employee basis?

    £2.80 is excellent VFM

    [panto]Oh no it isn’t![/panto]

    How much more subjective could you get?

    We appoint the best people wherever they come from

    Really? Not just public schools and Oxbridge then? Oh and relatives – the BBC seems to have the same qualms about hereditary jobs as the labour party, naturally – it only applies to others.

    support for the licence fee has risen since 2004
    Really? Again an unsubstantiated claim with no indication as to who was asked the question. Not me or any one I know? Did they pass a questionnaire around the canteen?

    I have been wondering why, considering the death of David Kelly, that shit Alistair Campbell keeps showing up on the Today programme. Perhaps he has been training the BBC PR staff in the black art of lying to the public and just happens to be in the building …

       18 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      December 4, 2014 at 12:25 pm

      And the joy of a great fisk in response. Bravo.

      Bet the Christmas Cards to the BBC Press Office via internal mail for opening this Pandora’s box will be… frosty.

         9 likes

    • lojolondon says:
      December 4, 2014 at 9:03 pm

      Zackly – I would really like to hear who exactly that person is at the BBC who gets 80% less than they can in the ‘commercial sector’, perhaps he can’t hack it in the ‘commercial sector’? I think we deserve to be told.

         6 likes

  8. BEEZ says:
    December 4, 2014 at 11:57 am

    I had the misfortune of receiving a ‘warning’ letter from our much loved BBC.

    Pay up or we’re coming for you, was the general feeling created.

    Now I’m not so sure they would have taken action against me had I not given them £150 of my hard earned money, but the fear factor took hold in the end and I succumbed to it’s threat none the less.

    I have to admit, it was a pretty miserable experience being held hostage by this anachronistic monster.

    The sooner it begins to fund itself and stops relying on the very people it hates (White and British) to keep it running, the better!

       27 likes

    • Essex Man says:
      December 4, 2014 at 12:42 pm

      In your dreams , the evil Bbc is going into ultra PC mode ,faster than the USS Enterprise at Warp 6 . All white ,hetrosexual Englishmen, will be culled as soon as the orders come through from Millipeed , Harperson ,& Ball`s, Labour Bunker HQ .

         13 likes

  9. Quackquack says:
    December 4, 2014 at 12:43 pm

    If they are so left wing then why isn’t there at least one loud rant a day against the parasite monarchy?

       1 likes

    • pah says:
      December 4, 2014 at 12:52 pm

      There have been in the past and perhaps the solid kicking the BBC got from the public after the Queen Mum’s death coverage has been salutary?

      You surely don’t think the BBC is anything but republican do you?

         22 likes

    • Guest Who says:
      December 4, 2014 at 3:49 pm

      ‘why isn’t there at least one loud rant a day’

      Have you thought of checking the twitter feeds of BBC staff?

      Views there are their own. Apparently.

      On matters monarchy, they have on occasion with editorial screened to CRT TVs connected to freeview boxes tried to work their magic by sucking up, but incompetently.

      Didn’t work out well, and lessons were likely learned that when there is an actual, genuine national treasure willingly funded still by their core market, dissing Madge may see TVL/Capita marching biddies to the Magistrates before you can say ‘envy of the world, Ma’am’.

      Leaving them uniquely funded solely by the taxpayer-funded expenses of MPs from all parties who choose to believe Aunty’s delusional claims and secret research results.

      And 700x£145.50 isn’t going to cover Russell’s green-room rider for his next Newsnight outing.

         6 likes

    • JoShaw says:
      December 4, 2014 at 5:01 pm

      Perhaps they’re concerned that comparisons might be drawn with a far more expensive, far more powerful, but equally unelected and arguably more parasitic institution on the other side of the Channel.

         3 likes

    • johnnythefish says:
      December 4, 2014 at 7:53 pm

      If you are so sure they are not left wing, why haven’t you challenged every single post on this website?

         5 likes

  10. Doublethinker says:
    December 4, 2014 at 3:25 pm

    Personally I would be happy , in fact very willing , to continue to pay my £145 pa to the government as a deficit reduction tax, provided that the BBC was closed down entirely . The benefit to the country of not having the leftist megaphone bellowing at us would be immense.
    As an above post said, the issue isn’t value for money, its the bias of the content. I strongly believe that the BBC is steadily undermining democracy in our country and pursuing , with great determination and effectiveness , a liberal left agenda which many of the public do not agree with. If the BBC was not state funded they could say whatever they wished, but because of their funding they have a responsibility to be impartial, which they are not.
    I doubt that any state funded organisation can, overtime, resist the self interest of becoming an advocate of greater state spending. Particularly so when the statist Labour party hands out large salary increases and job increases like sweets to children. There are some facets of modern life where a state provided service is overwhelmingly sensible eg defence and policing, but the media and news coverage is certainly not one of them.

       13 likes

  11. Guest Who says:
    December 4, 2014 at 3:37 pm

    Just as I suspect few in the corridors of Westminster and its remora camp followers frequent these pages whilst obsessed by what Guido shares, I suspect few here brave the comments to Order-order much as the experience of sifting for diamonds in the rough can task the most robust.

    But beyond the editorial (which must be causing knashings of teeth and rending of ‘This is what the top floor tells me to look like’ T-shirts in W1A and Salford), it can be worth the laugh, especially when the BBC and blatant but badly conducted propaganda are now nearly deemed inevitable as part of the unique way they do things.

    31. BBC News Spin says:
    December 4, 2014 at 12:21 pm
    The BBC owns up to having 141 PR people, down from 147.

    http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/bbc-spending-slick-pr-condemned-after-website-reveals-220-press-contacts

    One of the few FOIs the trusted and transparent national holder-to-account couldn’t dodge (but I bet they tried).

    Love the fact they also wheeled out a high dudgeon spokesdroid on this one too to say ‘this isn’t because we say it isn’t’.

    http://order-order.com/2014/12/04/bbc-spinners-bash-giant-straw-sun-man/

    ‘Auntie Beeb’s spinmeisters completely fail to address the original charge’

    “A BBC spokesdroid says that they are comfortable in the belief that what is good for every template blow-off from CECUTT is certainly good enough to put peons in their place”.

    If I was the corporation cat I’d make myself scarce, as after this latest PR Cluster-FUBAR there’s a kickin’ a-comin’ for whoever gets side-stepped on full pay and rehired as a Director of Mystery Projects in the next hiring cuts round.

       3 likes

  12. Guest Who says:
    December 4, 2014 at 5:43 pm

    For a ‘when in hole, hire a JCB’/’Gift that keeps on giving’, in other news…

    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/re-gifting.html?

    ‘not a way to move forward with one of the few papers that will generally back the BBC, and Danny needs to calm down’

    Well, yes. The BBC’s top honcho permanently coming across as a Mafia Mob boss or setting himself up for the next Downfall really makes the BBC looks like it is being steered by utter nutjobs. Note he can’t actually debate but feels lobbing ad homs around and saying it often enough will serve. Sounds familiar.

    And all while pissing off a supporter whilst confirming they do it all the time seems… unique, yes.

    Anyway, our author does pour some oil on troubled waters by pointing others are almost as bad.

    Yes, but folk are not compelled under threat of fine or prison to fund their ranting execs salary or pensions. This being a key difference.

    Equally…

    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/packages.html?

    Not sure highlighting just what the public sector gouges out across other poorly-serving departments helps much either. Especially any ‘who managed to make it look less, with the help of interesting accounting’.

    And finally:

    http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/mixed-messages.html?

    ‘..is this best use of organisational effort, punted out at 2.15pm, when the BBC2 coverage is still going ?’

    No. But this is Ian Katz we’re talking about.

    Hope the Cohen family pets are secured away safely.

       4 likes

  13. TPO says:
    December 4, 2014 at 5:54 pm

    The Telegraph are taking this on board too and are ripping the BBC’s rebuttal of the Sun to pieces:

    “The BBC vs the media: are they telling the whole truth?”

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11273181/The-BBC-vs-the-media-are-they-telling-the-whole-truth.html

    The BBC is now so tired and stale that it really is past its sell by date.
    Subscription viewing now please.

       11 likes

  14. Nibor says:
    December 4, 2014 at 7:04 pm

    I want to send £2.80 per week to the Ebola victims , the BBC won’t miss it as they think it’s a trifling amount and it will go further in Africa than London .

       5 likes

  15. Ember2014 says:
    December 4, 2014 at 7:43 pm

    “support for the licence fee has risen by 22% since 2004”

    Funnily enough support for more immigration controls has also risesn since 2004 but the BBC is too coy to discuss it in any depth.

       10 likes