After much skirmishing Tony Hall has finally fired the opening salvo in the Charter Wars and set out his initial gameplan for the BBC march to victory.
It is a gameplan with imperial ambitions. Less is definitely more in Tony Hall’s world it seems. That world is to be seen by more and more people but filtered more and more through the BBC lens…if Hall has his way. This is a huge, ambitious power grab to make the BBC the king maker, the interpreter of world events that everyone turns to whether they realise it or not as the BBC feeds its news into other ‘independent’ outlets and controls how that news is interpreted and perceived.
However we must remember that ‘this is not an expansionist BBC.’ And Russian troops are not in the Ukraine.
Let’s look at some of the detail……
He tells us, as usual, that we all love the BBC..
The BBC has a very simple purpose. We’re here to make great programmes and services. That’s why people love the BBC. That’s why they enjoy it. That’s why they trust it. That’s why they value it.
The BBC makes great programmes…that’s why he says…they enjoy it…they love it….they trust it…they value it.
Just one thing missing from that of course….here’s how the sentence ended….’That’s what they pay us to do.’
If Hall really was so sure that the people loved the BBC, trusted and enjoyed it, he would have said ‘That’s why they pay us to do it’ Of course he couldn’t say that because the audience doesn’t have the choice as to whether they can make that ultimate signal of approval by paying hard cash for something.
When Hall puts his confidence in his own genius to the test and starts to ask how many people will pay for this service, and how much, we might start to believe him.
And let’s also start with a bit of truth…Hall claims that ‘The iPlayer helped create a market, and others followed with successful players of their own.’
Really? YouTube went live in 2005….Channel 4’s 4OD in 2006:
Channel 4 Launches 4oD Video-On-Demand Service
16 Nov 2006
Channel 4 today announces the launch of 4oD, its own-brand video-on-demand service, making it the first UK broadcaster to make all its home-grown programming available on an on demand basis.
The iPlayer? 2007…
BBC iPlayer launched
Dec 27th 2007, 00:00
Christmas Day saw the official launch of the BBC’s much anticipated online iPlayer, with television adverts pushing the playback service to viewers.
Hall is trying to create the idea that the BBC is at the centre of creativity and the new digital world…clearly they are in fact behind the curve on this not leading from the front. Sky, and Alan Sugar, were the pioneers of innovative digital technology not the BBC….the BBC which spent £100 million on a digital management system that never got off the ground….Youtube cost a couple of million to start up….where did the BBC go so wrong?
Hilariously Hall says…‘We intend to put our technology and digital capabilities at the service of our partners and the wider industry – bringing us closer together for the good of the country – to deliver the very best to audiences.’ I’m sure they are all very grateful…but going backwards probably isn’t in their own gameplans.
Onto the meat of the speech and we get to Hall’s over-inflated, high flown bombast that pumps out the self-adoring flattery of the BBC…he tells us that the essence of the BBC is “excellence without arrogance” and then goes on to say that not only does he want the BBC to be ‘a BBC that is a creative powerhouse for the whole of the United Kingdom’ but that it already is that powerhouse….’We are the cornerstone of one of the most successful media industries of the world.’ No bloated self-regard and arrogance there then.
Many might quibble with his claim as there are many more broadcasters and creative movers and shakers out there….and essentially the BBC is in its position purely because it is in its position…it is too big to fail…and as Stalin said ‘Quantity has a quality all of its own’. The BBC maybe a big player in the media industry but that is only because of its unique, abundant and risk free funding rather than any other innate talent or quality that only the BBC possesses….it has relatively vast amounts of money, it spends it, therefore it dominates…possibly an argument against the license fee rather than for it, especially when you consider how the BBC uses that power to disseminate highly political messages within its programmes which kind of makes a mockery of Halls ‘watchwords’….‘Creative freedom. Universal reach. Trust and consent. These are the watchwords of the BBC.’
What of that freedom to be as creative as they like?….
We want the BBC in the next decade to be a magnet for creativity – the place people come to make brilliant programmes, programmes of distinction. For producers, directors, writers, artists to have the creative freedom to do things they would find it harder to do elsewhere.
And, by the way, that isn’t just coming from me. It’s what Peter Kosminsky, who directed Wolf Hall for us, Hugo Blick, and other extraordinarily gifted people – it’s what they tell me.
That’ll be the BBC that carefully ‘manages’ what can be said about climate change, which even now is ‘managing’ how we are meant to perceive the immigration crisis…how many times have you heard a BBC presenter ask ‘Have you changed your mind yet on how we should treat refugees?’? Clearly we are supposed to listen and learn……as I type Craig at Is the BBC Biased? (Hell yes!) brings us this from Mark Easton…
Our conscience has been pricked, our hearts have been softened. The tragic image of little Alan Kurdi lying dead on Europe’s shoreline has, we are told, awakened Britain’s generous nature….But I’m afraid I don’t believe it.
No, ‘fraid not Mark.
This is the BBC which refuses to publish the truth about Islam and has censored its own programmes to hide uncomfortable truths…for example about the causes of radicalisation…the BBC’s preferred cause being Western foreign policy…when the truth came out that it was due to the increasing identification with Islam by young Muslims the BBC suddenly shelved the film that they had commissioned in search of the answer…an answer they didn’t want to find.
And as for Hugo Blick…the man who brought us ‘The Honourable Woman’…a highly, highly politicised anti-Israeli, pro-Palestinian tract that wasn’t even particularly good TV. Freedom to be creative? God help us.
What else? Oh yes…
Our aim, as we set out in the paper we’re publishing today, is to create a BBC that is more distinctive than ever – and clearly distinguishable from the market.
That’ll be Strictly, Doctors, The Voice and a few historical bodice rippers. Very distinguished.
Then we have….
The BBC’s mission was set nearly a century ago by its founding father, Lord Reith. It was to inform, to educate and to entertain. That mission is as pertinent today as it was then. And as necessary in the future as it is now.
The BBC doesn’t ‘educate’ and ‘inform’…it provides us with very subjective material that provides a very one-sided view of the world….as with immigration.
Which brings us onto this…Trust….
The internet strengthens the case for the BBC and its enduring role in serving the public.
In the internet era, it is easier to find information but harder to know whether to trust it. In the internet age our mission is simple: great British programmes and a trusted guide for every one of us.
‘Trust’ the BBC? You are kidding.
However if you do trust the BBC you can provide them with all your personal data that enables them to personalise its service to you…
Mobile also provides the best opportunity to deliver a more personalised news service and to inform audiences in new ways – the relevant data, context and information that everyone needs, delivered to suit their requirements.
A bespoke BBC News, made to measure for you, wherever you are.
Big Brother is watching and taking notes of everything you do.
Then there are those imperial ambitions…to take on the world….curiously India is counted as amongst those nations in need of the BBC’s help in democratising itself…alongside those other paragons of virtue…Russia and the Middle Eastern states….just another example of the BBC’s anti-Hindu stance that is all too apparent at the moment?…
It’ll also be the backbone of our global news operation helping us to reach 500m people, building on the unique power and brand of the World Service – one of our country’s greatest assets abroad.
This is a service we want to strengthen and expand through new proposals we are also publishing today. My own strong view is that this is one area where this country’s voice could be much stronger – especially in the Middle East, India and Russia and the states that used to make up the Soviet Union.
And then there is the local news…Janet Daley isn’t impressed and nor are local newsmen…here’s Hall blowing smoke up their backsides….
Local democracy really interests me. I’ve seen for myself how important our local radio stations are, and I’m really proud of the way they serve their communities. But I now want us to go further.
So, in future, The BBC would set aside licence fee funding to invest in a service that reports on Councils, courts and public services. And we would make available our regional video and local audio for immediate use on the internet services of local and regional news organisations.
In my view, that’s good for audiences, good for the industry but we look forward to hearing the views of others.
So having the BBC provide independent news outlets with news is good for democracy? It sounds more like something Stalin would have been overjoyed about as the local press seem to suggest:
The BBC’s plans for “a network of 100 public service reporters across the country” did not find favour with the Scottish Newspaper Society, who labelled the proposal “a Trojan horse which will undermine long-established publications and destroy local news agencies”.
“Instead of helping local news publishers, it would make the BBC even more powerful and would further concentrate coverage of news in the hands of the state-funded broadcaster,” said its director John McLellan.
“Under the guise of being helpful, the BBC would end up replacing independent local news services,” he told Radio 4’s The World at One, calling the plan “a further expansion of the BBC’s encroachment”.
The BBC disagrees…
This accusation was rejected by James Purnell, the BBC’s director of strategy, who told the same programme it was “very much not the goal” for the BBC to “take over all local journalism”.
Then we get onto another brick in the Berlin Wall that the BBC seems to want to build to annex off the media world as its own little kingdom…the ‘Ideas Service’…..a ‘gift to the world’….like Communism no doubt……
In the 20th century, Britain created the World Service, a democratic gift to the world. In this century, building on the wealth of British knowledge and culture, we want to offer another gift: the Ideas Service.
It is a core part of our vision for an Open BBC.
The Ideas Service will be a platform for the ideas that matter and for the people who want to explore them. An open online platform.
The Service will host the best content from the BBC but also from some of our country’s leading cultural institutions: from the British Museum to the Royal Shakespeare Company, from the Edinburgh Festivals to the Liverpool Biennial, from this amazing institution – the Science Museum – to the University of Manchester.
Our new, Open BBC will act as a curator bringing the best from Britain’s great cultural institutions and thinkers to everyone. Britain has some of the greatest cultural forces in the world. We want to join with them, working alongside them, to make Britain the greatest cultural force in the world.
So the BBC will be the ‘curator’ of these ‘ideas’?…it will file, manage, analyse and interpret and then disseminate….everything once again filtered through the BBC lens. No area of life is to be free from the BBC thought police it seems.
As Hall admits…others may bring you the news but the BBC will help you to ‘understand’ it….all coloured by its own particular and very prejudiced way of thinking.
We are extremely ambitious for this new service.
Where Google’s mission is to organise the world’s information, ours, in a smaller way, would be to understand it.
It’s a brave new world out there.
And there’s more of this to come…
Today’s paper is the first in a series of four key moments. The second paper, which will be published at the Royal Television Society conference later this month, sets out our proposals on the future of BBC production and Worldwide. The third, which will be published in early October, will be the BBC’s direct response to the Government’s questions set out in their Green Paper. The fourth moment, later in the year, will set out the BBC’s money saving proposals.
“Excellence without arrogance “. LOL ! The other way round,surely ? What a smug little creep is Hall. Sums up everything that is wrong with the BBC.
#tellitoftenenough #101
I wonder how many aides Hall had to concoct this fairy tale? How many man hours were wasted? At what cost to the licence payer was this guff drawn up?
Their arrogance will be the death of them, but they’ll hang on by the fingertips until a government with guts finally pulls the plug…But which government will that be, as Tories and Labour alike whistle the the BBC’s tune.
You forget your place, sir. As the recipient of large amounts of the public’s money, it is your duty to husband that resource prudently, and make use of it only in honest accordance with the wishes of that public, where there is an obvious widely based consensus on its use. You are not the owner of this Corporation, free to follow your own vision on the backs of those who are compelled to fund you in that pursuit. You should avoid controversy like the plague, as you are required not to divide the country by propagating your views. Oh, and by the way, you can only hold politicians and the powerful to account if you show you are capable of holding yourself to account. Otherwise it is simply empty sectarian posturing.
Now, instead of informing us what the glorious BBC ‘vision’ is, go away and find out what the country’s vision of your future is, and humbly try to fulfil their wishes. Go on – off you go, and report back once you’ve got the message.
Unfortunately I don’t believe any of our political parties have got the balls to really take on the BBC. They are simply too uncertain of how it might affect their election prospects. How easy it would be for the left and the BBC to portray it as a threat to free speech. And the problem is that they are getting worse. Their arrogance almost knows no bounds. Nothing short of a mass refusal to pay the license fee will stop them. But could that ever happen?
Like a desperate man wanting to keep hold of his beautiful but fed up girlfriend by buying a Porsche, a new suit and a weekend at a top resort just to prove he can change and be better so the bbc try and convince the taxpayers that they are worth the money…really we are, once the bbc is gone you’ll never get better than us!!
Well we’ve got better than the unchangeable old dinosaur, across the board media outlets are pissing all over the bbc and on a cheaper budget, that’s what happens when people have to provide decent programmes in a cut throat market, they thrive under the pressure and innovate…unlike a fat bloated old sponger that has to do little for their money because they know it will always be there.
Like every taxpayer funded organisation, MPs, the Lords, local councils, quangos…etc,etc the bbc provides little value for money. Excellence? As in the ridiculously puerile ‘Odyssey’ on a Sunday night, a programme that was seemingly written by an Owen Jones type lefty after watching the box set of ‘Homeland’…I can do that, I just need to find a pathetically over complex story line and include the big baddie U.S. corporations and throw in a gay twist, a muslim cross dresser, a female lead and a special bond between a muslim boy and a white American female special forces soldier and hey presto…perfect bbc garbage…yeah, coz we’re better at everything at the bbc!!
Interesting that he should cite Wolf Hall, which was good, but hardly outstanding.
It’s all they have.
Citing Eastenders or Strictly as vital public services was but one of many backfiring PR claims.
Hall can huff and puff as much as he likes, but viewing statistics tell a different story. In 1980, BBC1 and BBC2 accounted for just over 50% of annual viewing figures (source: BARB). By 2014 the equivalent viewing stats had dropped to just 28%. BBC 3 and BBC 4 audiences would add back a few percent more to the stats in recent years, but overall BBC viewing percentages have declined steadily for more than three decades. Charging an almost universal viewing tax in these circumstances cannot be justified. In any commercial environment both the business model and the senior managers would have been changed long ago.
The thing that in all of my years that I have learned about Socialism is to listen to their words and expect the opposite. Try, ‘Trust and consent’ for example.
‘Trust’?, more and more people are finding, as contributors to this site testify, you cannot trust the BBC. In its activism, in its editorialising, in its censorship it has lost its once cherished integrity. It is too big for its boots
And ‘Consent’? Breath-taking hypocrisy. The BBC refuses to give me consent to (exclusively) watch alternative broadcasters, the content of others, without paying the BBC a fee. If the BBC was as good as it thinks it is, it would have no problem, confidently standing on its own feet in an open market place.
This is one of the most frightening, Stalinist, prospectuses that I have ever heard. No BBC, you do not have my consent to grow your empire further, you do not have my consent to snuff out and control other independent news sources, the message or our thinking.
We need less BBC, not more.
Alan
I have often thought that you could be a bit long winded. With this post I take it all back. An excellent forensic examination of the complete shite that Hall is spouting. Well done!
Sorry Alan, but you’re wrong regarding the iPlayer part of your article.
The BBC were streaming content many years before iPlayer. They just didn’t call it ‘iPlayer’ back in those days. I can’t comment on 4oD but I would assume that that was the benchmark for the “On Demand” service we get today. Note that we don’t refer to iPlayer as BBC On Demand (BBCoD).
“Youtube cost a couple of million to start up….where did the BBC go so wrong?”
YouTube cost more than a couple of million! And it wasn’t spent on software. It was spent on server space and bandwidth! BIG BANDWIDTH! Look up the history of YouTube (It was only 10 years ago) and you will discover some guys who were involved in a start-up company called PayPal and decided to give away video on the internet for free, rather than charging loads of money. They didn’t revolutionise streaming video – they simply used existing MPEG video formats.
And if you want to know where video software technology originated, look no further than online pornography. That’s the birthplace.
4 moments eh?
tell you what………….get moment 4 on the table in the next 24 hours…………..
And dont forget what we know
1) you are masively overmanned
2) the ratio of management to direct operatives is scandalous when compared to industry standards.
3) Payment for “talent” is an outrage
4) cut all executive pay by at least 50%
5) produce a 2 year plan which eliminates the licence fee or cuts it to £1/week.