Jonathan Dimbleby is worried….the family inheritance, the hand-me down job at the BBC, is under threat…what will the young Dimblebys do to earn a crust?
He urges a public revolt, an uprising to save the BBC….to save it from what I’m not sure…
Jonathan Dimbleby urges public to rise up in support of embattled BBC
‘The veteran political broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has attacked the commercial enemies of the BBC for setting out to destroy it, and has urged audiences to rise up to defend the corporation.
“Even people within the BBC [who are] now beginning to stand up for it, fail to identify those vested interests. The Murdoch press is an enemy of the BBC for commercial reasons,” said Dimbleby, 70, in reaction to the release of the government’s green paper on the future size and remit of the corporation.
Making an unexpected intervention at a recording of Radio 4’s long-running current affairs comment show, Any Questions?, Dimbleby, brother of David and son of the BBC’s first war reporter, the late Richard Dimbleby, said the corporation’s opponents “have to be taken on by the BBC and by those viewers and listeners who own the BBC”. He added: “Go around the world, listen to what people say about the BBC, they think it’s astonishing we are having to think about whether or not it should survive.”
Dimbleby’s comments were not broadcast and are not included in the iPlayer version of the programme. His impassioned outburst was made over his radio microphone at the end of the recording in Leamington Spa, in response to a question from panellist and shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna and it came as the BBC Trust, the body that oversees the corporation, prepares to step up its information campaign.’
Ah it’s the usual suspects that are being lined up as the villains of the piece….criticism of the BBC or its reform are a machiavellian plot by Murdoch and his toady politicians…..and all in response to a question from a Labour MP…one too chicken to attempt to win the Labour leadership.
As the Guardian says the BBC Trust is also on the campaign trail…
‘A trust official said trustees were about to launch “the biggest ever version” of the research and public consultation work they regularly carry out. “There will be more intensive work than we have ever done in a single period and larger-scale research likely to reach more than 100,000 people,” he said. The trust was determined to broaden the debate and prevent a focus on perceived failings of the corporation.’
Astonishing how much effort and money they are putting into defending the BBC’s entrenched and very privileged position…money and effort they never put in before to discover the Public’s views….because they didn’t want to know them…on Europe, Labour’s economic policies, immigration or Islam.
The Guardian quotes another BBC defender…
Dimbleby’s sentiments were echoed this weekend by Frank Cottrell Boyce, the writer behind the most popular recent display of British cultural values, the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics in London.
“It speaks for the nation”….. ‘the “range of tones and ideas” embodied by the BBC formed a sense of national identity and provided the varied voice that politicians often claim Britain needs to defeat extreme ideologies and terrorism.’
No, it doesn’t speak for the nation, it speaks for a small group, a self-selected metropolitan elite that has no desire to listen to what the lesser mortals want or think, they only want to impose their own values and beliefs and to have to discuss or negotiate this with the Plebs is far, far beneath them.
As for defeating extreme ideologies and terrorism…has he never listened to the BBC? Has he never listened to Nicky Campbell or Victoria Derbyshire pandering to Islamist callers on the phone-ins? Has he never listened to the relentless drumbeat of anti-Britishness that blames everything from ‘carving up the Middle East’ after WWI to the Iraq War for Islamic radicalism…never once actually blaming the real culprits…the people who adhere to the Islamic religion and follow its commands to its inevitable conclusions.
The Guardian is in full-on save the BBC mode publishing article after article in its defence, however this one by Anne McElvoy has slipped through the net….
‘The BBC is not undergoing involuntary euthanasia’
‘[There are] howls of mawkish protest and rallying cries of “save the BBC” – before we’re entirely sure from what.
A collective protest letter from celebrities, which turned out to have been encouraged from within, has not helped. We should treat such confections with the scepticism we reserve for letters from self-interested business folk calling for Tory votes before an election. Deep breaths all round. The BBC is not really “under attack”, being “bullied”, nor on the brink of being replaced by a porn-funded network based in an offshore tax haven. But it is undergoing an exercise that it does not like – having to defend its funding model and growth of its services.
Neither is an unreasonable question to ask, which makes me think that it might be better to show an interest in the process and be firm and clear on what its red lines are, rather than adopting a “how very dare you?” one about the exercise.
Scope and finance are very much legitimate questions for publicly funded broadcasters. The BBC is big and has expanded rapidly from the 1990s. There are some good reasons for this – and some not so good. It is large because scale helped it achieve impact in a global media world and technology has enabled it to add services quickly. It has not, however, undergone much scrutiny for the impact of this on others. A serious radio competitor, for example, has never got off the ground, while newspaper websites are up against its prodigious online offering. Asking a group of people who have run other broadcasting bodies to advise the government on the BBC’s impact on media markets is not lese-majesty.’
A far more measured and reasoned tone….the BBC is not threatened with closure or very much at all in reality. The review process has only just started and yet the BBC is firing broadsides at anything that moves trying to win the non-existent argument….or rather one, of a dire threat to the BBC, that it has concocted out of its own imaginings.
The BBC seems entirely unprepard to even contemplate the review….it may after all end up with the recommendation that nothing changes other than a few minor tweeks….and the likelihood is that the BBC’s funding will be on an even firmer footing with a simple subscription system or national tax and a charge for the iPlayer. I fail to see how it will be prevented fom making all those programmes that the likes of Frank Cottrell Boyce say provide the UK with so much overseas influence….and even if they’re not made by the BBC they’ll be made by someone else….as with Top Gear, which will probably be resurrected under a different guise on ITV. The real ‘soft power’, the ‘World Service’ will also still be funded and broadcast whatever.
The BBC is not under an existential threat. Calm down and stop crying wolf.
The Olympic Games opening ceremony 2012.
The most remarkable synthetic synopsis of cultural values ever given simultaneous global promotion.
A pity it was the antithesis of British cultural values which were on display. Therefore loved by all at Al-Beeb.
May God sink this ship and all who sail in her.
Fly – you beat me to it by nanoseconds.
Have an upvote!
Sorry Frank Cotterell Boyce but I couldn’t disagree more with you.
The opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics was a complete embarrassment. Looking back i can still recall such gems as the token black top-hatted industrialist, the Windrush passengers whose body language suggested something out of Tolkein (the first children of men peering nervously into a strange yet wonderful new world etc), the jive dancing nurses, the laughably smug references to CND and GOSH or my personal “favourite” the Busby Berkeley style opus in praise of texting. God help us if the rest of the world was taking notice.
P.s. I almost forgot Doreen Lawrence and Shami Chakrabati carrying the Olympic flag!
Oh thanks a bunch John. I had actually managed to forget that truly unbelievable scene – and now you’ve brought it all back!
I thought it would be shite. So I never watched it!
It was worthy of North Korea.
I had forgotten Doreen Lawrence and Shami Chakrabati.
Yes, thanks a lot John.
Only good bit was AbFab lighting their ciggies from the torch
Midday yesterday Radio 4, yes Radio 4 , was running an advert all about some wonderful broadcasting organisation. I was so surprised that I didn’t catch its name.
They must be really worried, a tax-payer funded minority of minorities that wants to be unaccountable to anyone except Allah and Marx.
except Allah and Marx.
That is only because the followers of allah will behead, and the followers of Marx will shoot in the head.
People around the world may well hold the BBC in high regard but they don’t have to live with the consequences of its political campaigning do they, in fact many of them probably benefit from those campaigns at the expense of the UK tax payer.
Andrew Marr’s newspaper reviewers this morning were Diane ‘Smugmug’ Abbot and Blair scriptwriter Phil Collins. Does the BBC not have the wit to recognise that this suggests just a hint of imbalance, and therefore bias? Or do they simply not care?
And why, at the time, did nobody ask how Richard Dimbleby could gain his pre-eminent position within the organisation while at the same time owning and publishing two local newspapers? Surely that breached the precious charter, just a little bit?
The BBC reposts that their programs are in response to public feedback.
What I remember of “Have your say” is that even the most balanced and fair criticisms of the BBC were dealt as if they were the ravings of idiots. In fact, the entire “Haye your say” progarm was to poke fun at the ignorant public.
The veteran political broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby has attacked the commercial enemies of the BBC for setting out to destroy it, and has urged audiences to rise up to defend the corporation.
Well your ‘Any Questions’ audiences will certainly rise up, Dimbleby. At the next backslapping gala there really should be an award for ‘Most Biased BBC Audience’ on a TV or radio programme. You will win easily, despite tough competition. Deserved reward for the effort your team must put into audience selection, I’d say.
He added: “Go around the world, listen to what people say about the BBC, they think it’s astonishing we are having to think about whether or not it should survive.”
In the corner of the world where I live no one is remotely interested and that includes the liberal left TV channels CBC and CTV where there has been no coverage at all.
These BBC types are so far up their own backsides that they really do think they are the centre of the universe.
This whole supposed early negotiation is typical Cameron and Conservative party fluff, designed to distract us from the facts.
The BBC’s licence fee and its income is unchanged, because it is going to remain at £145.50 per year with increases for Inflation until 2026.
The way to actually make the BBC do less or change strategy, considering the fact they are an independent organisation, is to reduce their income. This forces them to do less and change strategy.
As the government has ring fenced their income for another 10 years, and failed to redefine the meaning of the licence fee, they have fallen at the first hurdle. Everything else is meaningless fluff.
It has Call me Dave’s cack hand all over it too. It reminds me of the faux-EU renegotiations.
Poor old Dimbleby’s. Just imagine having to do a real job to earn a crust.
Luckily for them they never had to.
Will the BBC luvvies tell us which great British institutions and traditions, cultures and mores;
Should be scrapped
Should be subsidised
Should pay their own way if they are to survive
For example The Pub . Is this an institution the Beeboids think should be kept , and how ?
Hang it I’ll go further . Here’s some more
Driving on the left
Our weights and measures
The Church of England
Morris Dancing
Bonfire Night
Our history
Our food
Beer
Our clothing
Northern humour
I’m sure there are many others
The Dimbletroughs have lineage and tradition thanks to the BBC, do they think others should have the same , which others , and what for the rest ?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11748797/The-BBCs-ridiculous-threat-meddle-with-the-licence-fee-and-Strictly-gets-it.html
Almost 2500 comments.
The current highest rated deservedly so.
So that`s TWO weeks running now that Roger Boltons “Feedback” has banged on about the Tory threats to the BBC-whatever they are.
Cue lots of stoolies who say what Roger likes to hear on the topic-who knew that the Purnells, Harmans and Heseltines had so many accents to use as “ordinary listeners”.
As for that “luvvies letter”…the pay rates for a Norton, an Evans or a Lineker?…well who`d question things like THAT?-only nitpickers and grouchies from the lower orders.
BBC impartiality at its most typical-if we can dump a Dimblebot from his f***in perch then all this will have been worthwhile.
Still waiting for a BBc apologist to justify imprisonment being used to enforce payment of their wages from the public.
Will wait for ever as they know it is indefensible in a free country. For that reason alone I would scrap the current business case of the BBc and make it live in the real world of commerce.
I have some difficulty understanding how so many people around the world are (allegedly) so envious of the BBC when they can’t actually access its broadcasts.
Anyone at the BBC need to apologise? I think so..
Recording ‘shows Sir Tim was joking’
The same man would condemn nepotism elesewhere.
Tolpuddle was full of the class warrior crap yesterday about nepotism and jobs for the boys.
As for Kinnock, Straw, Prescott, Dimbleys. Attenboroughs, Milibands and the serial dynastic blowhards-the Benn Family…well, that`s dandy-for the Cause merits those who are brought up to pat a cloth cap as it passes.
Same logic doesn`t apply to the Royals of course!
And-to top it-the Beat were on…Rankin` Roger( not to be introduced by Wossy) had not one but TWO of his kids up there on stage.
And none of that open interviews stuff there-nah, it`s in the name, the bloodline.
But the Lefties see no contradiction.
Fuckwits!
There is a revolt all ready. Almost 1.5 million households are refusing to pay the compulsory state enforced licence fee, despite all the fascist style threatening letters from the BBC. And the BBC is getting a massive 35 percent year on years increase in complaints. With all that paranoia about Murdoch, strangely, I don’t read any of Murdock’s publications, most of the criticism about the BBC comes from a growing variety of sources.
Dimblebys…Classic BBC nepotism.
Damn.
The BBC is going the same way as its sister organisation the Labour Party. Arrogantly steering its own course. Patronising the masses. Disliking the English and their values (particularly the white English Working class). And now? Guess what? No one gives a shit when they need our support.
Shame.