The Radio Times, the BBC’s independent but apparently still loyal, Pravda-like publication has trumpeted this finding today:
Two-thirds of viewers opposed to the licence fee changed their minds after just nine days without BBC services
“Being without the BBC was absolutely dreadful, just awful,” said one man involved in the ‘deprivation study’. “I just didn’t realised how much we watched it…”
First comment of course is that no one is proposing abolishing the BBC and therefore the BBC’s association of licence fee changes and such an abolishment is clearly just outright scaremongering intended to whip up a storm in response however ridiculous and unthinking its roots.
Curiously the very same story came out a month ago in the Radio Times:
BBC puts families through two weeks without Sherlock, Doctor Who… and everything else in “deprivation test”
Why, why you might ask is the Radio Times recycling an old story on behalf of the BBC?
The Daily Mail might have the answer as today it published this very disconcerting news for the BBC:
We would endure adverts to end BBC licence fee: Just over half of viewers back abolishing charge and forcing corporation to fund itself
Now I’m not claiming that the BBC, and its friends, are engaged in a Machiavelllian plot to counter that bad news with their own pro-BBC propaganda by grabbing the headlines with this recycyled piece of BBC funded self-promotion…but they are aren’t they?
The problem with the BBC’s ‘Deprivation Study’ is that firstly the BBC’s premise is based upon a lie that the BBC is to be abolished, and second, that no alternative was provided…even if the BBC were abolished in its present form there would be something else in its place…so to metaphorically ‘broadcast’ a blank screen or the sound of silence on the radio is just slightly dishonest.
Very creative these creative types.
Here is the Comres poll as reported by the Mail:
Whitehouse Consultancy BBC Survey
Poll of 2,032 British adults about how to fund to BBC, on behalf of The Whitehouse Consultancy.
| Support | Oppose | Don’t know | |
| Abolishing the licence fee and making the BBC fund itself, even if that means adverts during programmes, reducing the number of original programmes they can produce or scrapping their public service broadcasting duty | 52%(+1) | 34%(NC) | 15%(NC) |
| The current system of a compulsory licence fee paid by individuals who watch live television | 41%(+1) | 41%(+1) | 18%(-2) |
| Abolishing the licence fee and introducing a subscription fee paid only by those who want to access the BBC | 36%(NC) | 46%(+2) | 18%(-2) |
| Abolishing the licence fee and funding the BBC through increased taxes | 15%(-3) | 69%(+5) | 17%(-1) |
Base: GB adults (n=2,035). Changes may not sum to zero due to rounding.
Funnily enough, I’ve been a participant in my very own little experiment which involved isolating myself from all BBC output: I’ve never felt better. I feel like I’ve awakened from a long ontological sleep.
The BBC and its supporters are always going on about adverts, but I record virtually everything I watch so can fast forward through them, and the BBC has any number of “adverts” for forthcoming programmes which I find intensely irritating (they don’t have anything like the originality and ingenuity of commercial ads, which are occasionally worth watching for their own sake).
I am very concerned that this deprivation study may have contravened the The Declaration of Helsinki which was established in 1964 to regulate international research involving human subjects. The World Medical Association’s Declaration of Helsinki requires researchers to take special care with consent involving vulnerable subject populations which have barriers to informed consent.
Clearly these families would fall into the category of vulnerable subjects, whose inability to give informed consent was indicated by their willingness to cooperate with anything involving the BBC
There are no indications that the trials were first conducted on animals before subjecting humans to the deprivations entailed.
Furthermore the scientific validity of the study may have been compromised insofar as there is no indication that a control group was in place, consisting of viewers subjected to the full range of BBC productions from dawn till dusk.
“Being without the BBC was absolutely dreadful, just awful,” said one man involved in the ‘deprivation study’. “I just didn’t realised how much we watched it…” Sounds like a real wimp, try living in a Soviet Union labour camp mate.
Spending a week watching the BBC feels like being subject to undertaking a Soviet Union style re-education programme.
Well, I’ve gone without TV for 10 years now. I’ll give the radio cold turkey a go as well, if you like. Can anyone suggest a substitute for Radio 4 that I can get online, please?
Is this a joke? BBC deprivation? Are they raving mad?
To misquote Harry Lime
2000 years of civilisation and what do they come up with? The BBC
I am surprised that people support adverts more than subscription. Did they think that, like Sky, it would be both? Have adverts a future? As mikef says above, with time- shifting , viewing adverts is now voluntary. The BBC’s present advertising just ensures that recordings of their programmes cease about 2 minutes before the end of the show.
What does this guy do when he goes on holiday for two weeks, does he have cravings for Bargain Hunt, Cash in the Attic ?
After two years without the BBC over here in France, I can honestly say that I feel rejuvenated.
“First comment of course is that no one is proposing abolishing the BBC”
I am. The sooner that paedophile protecting, corrupt, vile, hateful organisation is gone, the better. The BBC is a terrible and shameful stain on British culture and should be completely destroyed.
So am I, as the pseudonym indicates.
Add treason to the list.
I am not satisfied with the destruction of the organisation, I want the staff in jail.
We can argue about whether there should be trials before jail. Seems like a waste of tax payer’s money to me.
I expect that what they actually did was deprive them of television full stop! Not just the BBC, because there’s enough material on line to stream, plus DVDs and alternatives to keep any family with half a brain to search them out amused.
Despite all that a third of them managed quite well and didn’t want to go back to the BBC there’s only 12.6% difference between those who couldn’t do without TV and those who could.
The reason for my suspicion is that the test is impossible to police especially with freeview TV sets which cannot detune stations out, the test would have had to have been done on trust, and that’s no basis for scientific study.
“BBC’s independent but apparently still loyal, Pravda-like”
Trying to think of another, similar entity. I will, trust me.
Meanwhile, back to yet another BBC bit of BBC research about their favourite topic: the BBC.
It seems safe to say that, like so much the BBC’s market rate PR division concocts, the blowback to their latest propaganda special has been quite epic.
If the survey was truly objective, based on overall popularity, audience participation and ‘end message’ efficiency, Jeremy Kyle has to be a serious contender for the next Director General – assuming Keith Vaz turns the offer down, of course.
Ten tears TV and Licence-free. My brain has been detoxified and I am much better enlightened by news sources other than the BBC.
…..no one is proposing abolishing the BBC and therefore the BBC’s association of licence fee changes and such an abolishment is clearly just outright scaremongering intended to whip up a storm in response however ridiculous and unthinking its roots.
Scaremongering like ‘climate change’, privatisation of the NHS, fracking, nuclear power – in fact, like any pet agenda of the BBC/Left. Scaremongering is all they know once they’ve run out of arguments, people have sussed out the propaganda, and ad hominem attacks have failed.
The police and HMRC don’t care that I haven’t got a TV licence.
And I don’t care if the BBC thinks I’m a criminal.
Some things never change
Or so they thought in the soviet union