The BBC will live on for ever, or that seems to be the hope.
The Luvvies are out in force demanding the Public largesse that props up their lifestyle remains fully on tap…
Leave the BBC alone, Hollywood stars and TV presenters tell David Cameron
Daniel Craig, Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough are among the star names today warning David Cameron that his plans to reform the BBC will damage Britain’s global standing.
In an open letter to Downing Street, more than two dozen figures from the world of arts and entertainment claim that “a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain”.
Joining forces to defend “a very precious institution”, the celebrities express fears that the government will turn the BBC into “a narrowly-focused market-failure broadcaster”.
The letter states that…
“The Government and the BBC are now entering the Charter Review. We are writing to place on record at the very start of the process our concern that nothing should be done to diminish the BBC or turn it into a narrowly focused market-failure broadcaster.
“In our view, a diminished BBC would simply mean a diminished Britain,” the letter reads.
We already know that the alternate and more credible view is that the BBC in fact does enormous damage to Britain, a Britain that many in the BBC seem to hate, to its identity, to its social cohesion, to democracy, to free speech, to economics and national and international politics, by its attempts to manufacture a society in its own image, a society framed by the values and beliefs of the small group of self-selected liberal elite who control the BBC and much of the Media, government, academia and the various and powerful NGO’s and campaign groups….the other delusion that the BBC holds is that it is the voice of the People and that it listens and responds to their concerns…..all of the above makes this from Tony Hall laughable..
I believe in a BBC for everyone. The BBC is a profoundly democratic force. Universal usage of BBC programmes that inform, educate and entertain is central to our democracy and our shared culture. It is part of what makes Britain, Britain.
Tony Hall has again made the claim that the BBC is all about the British People….and he’s only looking out for them and their interests….
The people who will lose are not the commercial interests and people with particular vested interests – it’s the people who pay for us, the people who love us.
“The debate is too often in terms of this interest or that interest, not in terms of the people who are, in the end, our shareholders.”
He added: “The BBC does not belong to its staff. The BBC does not belong to the government. The BBC belongs to the country.”
Here he is in a statement made yesterday…
The case for the BBC doesn’t rest on ideological arguments – it rests on this – what we do day in and day out. Great programmes and great services. That’s why people like the BBC. That’s why they enjoy the BBC. That’s why they trust the BBC. That’s why they value it. That’s what they pay us to do.
This argument is powerful because it is so simple. We enhance the lives of everyone in the UK, in more ways than ever before, and more often than ever before.
Liked this….not as if we can choose to pay for the BBC or not…
When people have so much to choose from, it’s testament to the quality of what we produce that 46 million people in the UK choose to use the BBC every day.
This is laughable as Hall makes a defence of the BBC based upon its ability to boost business and British influence abroad….entirely against the ethos that the BBC and its employees express everyday as they rant against nationalism, the imposition and control of borders, British power, British history, commercial companies and big business, success of any kind…Apparently the BBC is….
…. vital if the UK is to continue to punch above its weight as one of the most creative nations in the world. And grow Britain’s commercial success, and its global influence.
Again he hypes the BBC’s commercial side…
To fund great programmes in an era of global competition for talent and ideas, we must work even harder at the partnership between the licence fee and our commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. Seventy-one per cent of the funding of BBC One’s Life Story was commercial funding. The licence fee paid for less than half the budget of some of our biggest dramas last year.
Worldwide makes its money by taking BBC programmes and exploiting them commercially. It’s an integral part of the BBC and gives licence fee payers better content for less investment. So, any proposal to remove it from the BBC simply doesn’t make economic sense.
So he admits the BBC is a massive competitor to other commercial Media companies and yet it has an enormous advantage in its public funding model. No wonder Sky et al are pissed.
Then he’s playing the same old tune again…just how much the BBC loves the Public…in fact it is the ‘Public’…
The fundamental question remains. What does the British public want from the BBC?
Our audiences are not asking for a significantly smaller BBC. Properly tested, the public shows no appetite for that. Top of mind, the great majority are happy to pay the current licence fee, or more.
The BBC does not belong to its staff. The BBC does not belong to the Government. The BBC belongs to the country. The public are our shareholders. They pay for us. So it is their voice that will matter most in this debate.
You have to ask would the world really collapse if we had a smaller BBC or even no BBC? Probably not….the commercial companies produce a vast array of highly entertaining and successful programming and much of the BBC’s output is in fact produced by those very same companies.
Would we be in a worse place if the BBC’s news service was silenced? Again probably not. The BBC mocks and scorns Fox but the BBC is in fact just as partisan, and perhaps is more damaging as it hides its extreme partiality under a cloak of claimed impartiality…Auntie is just Big Brother in drag.
The BBC relies upon its entertainment programming to capture its audience and their hearts and minds…it knows that audience will then be less inclined to examine their news output, and be less inclined to care too much whether it is biased or not as long as it keeps putting out lovely old friendly faced presenters like David Attenborough to front their programmes and create that familiar friendly atmosphere.
That’s why the BBC fights so hard against any suggestion that its entertainment programming be curtailed in any way….the BBC needs its sugar coating to help the medicine of its Newspeak go down more easily.
Read 1984, a book essentially about brainwashing and thought control, and you may recognise much that is reflected in how the BBC acts today…..consider a couple of famous lines from the book…..
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery
‘Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.’
‘Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O cruel, needless misunderstanding! O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast! Two gin-scented tears trickled down the sides of his nose. But it was alright, everything was alright, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.’
The end.
Love the BBC and all will be well. Believe.
The end.
“…the great majority are happy to pay the current licence fee, or more.”
As I pointed out when the BBC allowed comments yesterday, if the great majority is so happy, they’ll pay a voluntary subscription, won’t they Mr Hall? Got me equally high in the most popular and most unpopular votes!
Exactly….Hall must put his confidence in his product where our money is…..strange that he doesn’t dare.
Exactly! That argument is a red herring for that exact reason so hopefully it will be used to counteract these stupid types of things from celebs with vested interests
249:99, so a ‘split’ in BBC terms?
The 141-7/210 BBC PR staff and freelance ‘support’ were out in force on this one.
At least it staggered past usual closing time on the same day.
If I was a highly-paid luvvie and a frequent dipper in the BBC’s “talent pool” I’d want to preserve the status quo. No surprise here.
David Attenborough retired and then took the Sky shilling…
The BBC belongs to the country
Good, here are your P45s.
Bye.
‘Leave the BBC alone, Hollywood stars and TV presenters tell David Cameron’
Their provenance seems self-defeating if seeking to ‘assist’ the BBC as anything other than a champagne socialist money spigot.
Surprised, given her heritage, to see Rachel Weisz there, despite her politics.
“The debate is too often in terms of this interest or that interest, not in terms of the people who are, in the end, our shareholders.”
It’s about self-interest: the BBC’s, and its many hangers-on. The British public are not shareholders. Shareholders can divest shareholdings if they are not keen to support the corporation in question for any reason, as the Guardian demands weekly of folk across the ‘eco’ sector, by example.
‘Great programmes and great services. That’s why people like the BBC. That’s why they enjoy the BBC. That’s why they trust the BBC. That’s why they value it. That’s what they pay us to do.”
With such trust and value why then do they ban critics and deploy FOI exclusions to refuse to be held to account, and require force of law to ensure payment is made even when they don’t do what forced paid to?
‘We enhance the lives of everyone in the UK, in more ways than ever before, and more often than ever before.’
They do not enhance mine; they degrade it. That is why i stopped paying the licence poll tax. As have around a million others so far. His statement is therefore a flat out lie.
‘When people have so much to choose from, it’s testament to the quality of what we produce that 46 million people in the UK choose to use the BBC every day.’
Another flat out lie. There is no choice.
‘…. vital if the UK is to continue to punch above its weight as one of the most creative nations in the world.’
That word ‘vital’ they do like. And have rendered meaningless. ‘Strictly’ is not… vital. An MRI scanner or insulin… is.
‘Our audiences are not asking for a significantly smaller BBC’
No. As an audience for information and education and entertainment I want the option of not having it at all to choose what I do want with £145.50 more in my pocket, and no creep in a hoodie knocking at my door to ‘sell’ me a licence under false pretences.
‘…the great majority are happy to pay the current licence fee, or more.’
Then, as Roland’s top-rated comment was supported in asking, why not simply open up to public choice via subscription? The public who want it get what they want and pay; the public who want nothing to do with it are free to choose elsewhere. Why, if this is true, the compulsion? Why the deployment of money, resources, industry supporters, friendly political parties, etc, to keep things as they have been since the year dot as all else in media has moved on?
‘Who controls the past controls the future, who controls the present controls the past.’
Who controls the production meeting controls the topic and the presenters and the guests; who controls the edit controls the message. Who controls the transmitters controls the frequency and volume of that message.
£4Bpa+ buys a lot of control. Internal oversight and zero accountability ensures such propaganda enjoys total censorship in favour of those in ‘control’.
Aunty… Uncle Ernie… Big Brother… call it what you will. My family is my family. These are not family. They are state impositions I did not ask for and do not want.
Clint Eastwood is a star, these nonentities like foul mouthed degenerate Grahame Norton are not stars.
Hmm
When Savile committed his crimes they remained silent !
When the BBC handed up one of it’s own journalists to Campbell they couldn’t be found .
When the BBC betrayed a good man to his enemy’s in Labour and then to his death they were all on set or doing interviews .
When the BBC was convicted of ageism they were all away on business
When the BBC allowed a young man to be bulled and sexually harassed till he committed suicide they were all setting up tax dodging company’s.
When the BBC smeared and lied about a sick old man all that could be heard was their tapping #sharealibel on tw$tter .
But touch their coin fountain and here they are in all their self interested wrath !
Guido adds some numbers:
http://order-order.com/2015/07/15/roll-call-of-luvvies-bbc-turkeys-protest-christmas/
Comments going well.
I liked this one:
Roger Ackroyd • 4 minutes ago
You can get to see the mindset of the Beeboids just by the fact that they are happy to let this heavily monied, and in many cases lightly qualified, tribe put out this appeal. Most other organisations would be too embarrased to let the staff, who suck large on the public teat, get their heads above the parapet.
If only for the notion the BBC can be embarrased by anything.
“…46 million people in the UK choose to use the BBC every day…”
Complete bollox. What is this ‘choice’ Mr Hall speaks of? I don’t choose to ‘use the BBC’ every day, but – sure enough – I am certainly forced against my will to pay for it everyday. There is no ‘choice’ in the matter – apart from facing criminal proceedings if I refuse to hand over the money.
Lying, thieving, bottom-feeding progressives. They really are the scum of the Earth, epitomised by the sanctimonious twaddle and misdirection propagated by upper-echelon apparatchiks such as Mr Hall.
There are many things that Lord Hall said that I would take issue with but one stands out that makes me so angry, viz ‘ the BBC is a profoundly democratic organisation’.
The BBC has done more to undermine British democracy than any other organisation , indeed perhaps more than all the other anti democratic forces combined. The combination of the enormous size and leftist bias of the BBC , has meant that the right of centre argument has only been heard fleetingly for the past 30 years and even then it is usually attacked and ridiculed by the BBC or those it chooses to give a platform to.
If British democracy is to flourish then the BBC must be cut down in size and other broadcasters given the room to grow and so provide the plurality of views that the UK so conspicuously lacks due to the long shadow of the BBC.
Another contribution – on The Conservative Woman: http://conservativewoman.co.uk/david-keighley-stephen-fry-and-his-fat-cat-friends-defend-their-bbc-gravy-train/
The BBC luvvies and sycophants have said that the BBC is ‘the envy of the world’. Like the NHS is suppose, yes, the one that allowed thousands to die through deliberate and callous neglect.
They and the BBC treat us in the same way, we must be thankful that they know best, and if we would only follow them in all things we will be much happier.
They sicken me, the attitude from the BBC of arrogance is on the contrary an embarrassment to the nation.
The BBC in the sixties ( as far as I can remember being a very small boy ) and seventies was a decent corporation, with the old fashioned humour ( now outlawed ) well spoken and very smart presenters. It’s wildlife and other documentaries were what made it.
It mistakenly believes that those laurels it planted all those years can be relied on forever. I would suggest most presenters now weren’t around to watch the Albeeb in its heyday, and if they were they would of course be shocked at the ‘racism, sexism, ‘inappropriate’ humour, and non partisan offerings it used to have, they would think it almost ‘fascist’ in a ‘UKIP way to coin a PC phrase ( luv ya UKIP ).
It has now become quite obvious that only those with the ‘right on’ credentials have a place with Albeeb now. When was the last time you saw a ‘right winger’ on the One Show or presenting a show? When was the last time a documentary showed any ‘ right leaning’ issue favourably? I knew when Cumberbatch became almost overnight a BBC and media luvvie he leant to the left without knowing his politics his ‘racial utterances’ forced him to come out as it were as another lefty. His acting is really quite awful and he plays the worst rendition of Sherlock Holmes, (this goes for all new ‘celebs’ now unfortunately ) so it was the only explanation possible for his fame.
Fry is another non entity rich only because of his views.
I was surprized that Daniel Craig put his ‘comrades hat’ into the ring, a left wing spy…. no change there then! But of course his job as Bond is under threat from a black actor, so perhaps he’s keeping his options open.
The future if the status quo stays intact is bleak as standards will not be set on ability, true worth, vision and the success those attribute bring. The future is a dumbed down, backward, narrow minded, bigoted, intolerant media source. In a way very similar to our multicultural society that spends more time worrying about quotas than getting a job done by the best available regardless of gender, colour, sexuality ( yawn ) etc etc.
The Chinese must laugh at us, a wonderfully homogenous society moving on in leaps and bounds whilst we flagellate ourselves in to oblivion.
Nick Ferarri announced that a certain Annie Nightingale let slip that this so called letter of support was just handed to her to sign by a member of the BBC without any clue what it was about.
All may not be as it seems. As per usual with the beeb.
Be good to see that confirmed.
Either way, it backfired spectacularly… per usual.
http://isthebbcbiased.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/what-has-danny-cohen-been-up-to.html
Looks like Danny Cohen may have played another blinder to justify his market rate.
And yet again we are confronted by the always anonymous, too frequently coy BBC Press Office, allowed to stay mute when the BBC would savage any other organization doing the same.
And of course an FOI which may very well come up against a certain ‘purposes of’ exclusion?
I really hope this one blows up in their faces too.
We shall miss all this when they are gone. Where would they all go and what kind of work could they do (presuming they had any skills outside the BBC)?. Lord Hall would probably work in the circus, Fry is forever chasing Oscar Wilde (same verbosity but without the talent of imagination), the list is endless but one thing in common is that they would all have been arrested for either Treason, sex crimes or and political agitation with intent to commit Treason. I could add money laundering and tax evasion but they do have a license for that kind of thing. Plus the fact that EVERYTHING is on ‘expenses’ and you get the kind of press media the BBC luvvies are famous for… (or hiding it). No remorse. None whatsoever… Brazen hussies. The BBC is hardly the pinnacle of British achievement, and its glory days are long gone, the luvvies will all have to get a proper job elsewhere on £9 per hour.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3103307/230k-BBC-boos-pays-800-taxpayers-cash-seven-taxi-rides-Mark-Linsey-accused-frittering-away-money-lengthy-cab-rides.html
anything funded by the taxpayer ends up with abuse of funds. Always. The BBC just has to go
The late Ian Fleming must be turning in his grave at the thought that his beloved Bond character is now being played by the deeply untalented Daniel Craig. I have always thought that Craig was the least convincing Bond character – bring back George Lazenby!! Can we start a petition? Again Cumberbatch is an embarrassment as Sherlock Holmes, while beneath his so-called erudite exterior, what claim to fame does Stephen Fry have? These characters have had their reputations blown out of all proportion by Auntie, and so they feel the need to support her in her demented leftist dotage!! Pass the sick bag!