‘I feel very confident that what we do is unique to us, that writers and producers still want to bring shows to us because of the relationship they have with us and the risks we take. When you get it right, it really does bring a nation together.’
Miss Hill also said audiences would ‘hugely miss’ out on agenda-setting dramas if changes to the licence fee meant that spending on original programmes had to be cut. BBC drama chief Polly Hill
The BBC is making great claims for itself, that it still produces those ‘watercooler moments’ where everybody is talking about a BBC programme. This is of course nothing more than self-justification for the continuation of its massively privileged position to impose the telly tax upon everybody regardless of whether they watch the BBC or not.
As for those ‘watercooler moments’? I was thinking about that and I can’t say I have heard anyone at work asking ‘Did you see on the BBC….?’. Did you see on Sky, on Quest, on Discovery, YouTube and of course on Dave where all the best BBC programmes go to be reborn and even C4 but not the BBC.
The BBC is dead or dying for most people. Twin Peaks, Homeland, Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, Game of Thrones, 24, Spartacus and on and on and on….the BBC just doesn’t do the big, big series. It’s got rid of its jewel in the crown, Top Gear, and it’s left with the admittedly brilliant Sherlock, but that’s a pearl amongst the swine….oh, there’s Strictly….but now we know its fixed, like the GBBO?, perhaps that will lose its appeal.
The BBC is now more for women and London metrosexuals than for the general population. It rarely produces shows that appeal to men and is steadily dumping sports. The only thing left is the News, which is unfortunate as it peddles the progressive, liberal soft left message so beloved of those London metrosexuals rather than genuine news.
Is the BBC worth it? Does it do enough to justify a compulsory tax upon us? Does it fulfill its remit to be impartial, accurate and balanced?
It claims to be independent of government but is in fact an arm of government providing ‘soft power’ that manufactures consent, or at least enough consent not to have the country up in arms, it suppresses or silences discontent…or indeed is happy to ferment discontent when it suits…student loan riots or anything to do with race, and especially Islamic issues, for example. It is a propaganda vehicle for government…it does it openly via the World Service flooding foreign countries with pro-democracy, liberal ideas and via its Media Action group trains journalists to be subversives and political agitators. In the UK it still perfoms those same exact services just less obviously. Sure it has its battles with the government of the day but that is when that government isn’t toeing the liberal, progressive line that the BBC is there to enforce.
The best way to undermine the BBC is to open peoples’ eyes to the fact that the BBC is that arm of government, a tool used by government to control them…it is almost literally the ‘Thought Police’ defining what can and can’t be said or thought. It is no coincidence that one of the first things to be taken over by revolutionaries is the broadcasting stations.
How long an the BBC maintain its grip on the political machinery of Britain, on its cultural identity, on its very thoughts…how long can the BBC be the ‘Thought Police’?
Break the BBC and we may well see a resurgence of thought and ideas, a blossoming of political and cultural thinking and activity that has long been suppressed by the BBC propaganda machine.
Perhaps it is time for the BBC’s very illiberal and intolerant boot to be removed from the British throat.
What’s your New Year’s Revolution? Sorry…resolution.
Sherlock and Strictly and Eastenders may have certain appeals to certain people, but they are not worth £4Bpa secured by compulsion, and are not ‘vital’ by any sane measure.
The BBC is desperate. As is Ms. Hill.
Is she the Cohen-endorsed replacement for Mr. Ben Left of Centre Thinking, now no longer of this parish?
“The BBC is now more for women and London metrosexuals than for the general population”
To be perfectly frank, I think it is for morons. I don’t expect endless series on art history or dissertations on Bach or quantum mechanics, but an evening watching BBC One would be like undergoing a prefrontal lobotomy (especially on a Saturday), while BBC Two has been so dumbed-down that it’s close to fraud to pretend it is anything other than a spill over channel for the same undemanding, childish pap.
The only BBC TV channel that does anything even remotely different is BBC Four and that is clearly run on a shoestring, packed with repeats and living on borrowed time.
Put the damn thing out if its misery. It’s only there as a make-work scheme for Guardian readers.
Actually GCooper, I would love any series on art history, a dissertation on Bach or even the quantum mechanics or anything else vaguely intellectual but where there is no bloody (‘scuse my French) agenda ie where the series isn’t used to prove Global warming, how wonderful our new citizens from the Middle East are or that women can do the job of men.
Well, yes, so would I and, to be fair, BBC Four has shown some good programmes on art (its music coverage is almost entirely lightweight trash). But I happily accept that my tastes aren’t everyone else’s nor are they even very common, so I don’t expect to be catered for very well by a popular medium.
However I don’t see why the viewer’s intelligence should be as insulted as it is by the BBC’s programming on One and Two. It is patronising and arrogant (and all too typical of the Left) to talk down to people the way the BBC does. You don’t need to be an Oxbridge don to find Eastenders insulting.
As for the bias, that is a given, of course. I was specifically addressing Alan’s point about the target audience.
BBC Four does actually produce some programmes that are worth watching, in fact whenever I go on iPlayer it’s 99% of the time for documentaries. Most are still infected with leftist bias, of course, but I’ve learned to live with it to a degree if it’s not too blatant. I don’t have Sky so don’t know how their Arts/Science/History programming compares.
What I can’t put up with is the rest of the BBC’s output – News, Drama, ‘Entertainment’, or any radio shows come to that. Pretty much all of it is propaganda and agitprop. Badly written and acted too if it’s a drama
I’d pay a few quid on subscription to keep BBC4 going -as long as they changed the name, changed the management and they ditched the leftist politics! But as for the rest of the BBC I’d shut it down tomorrow, without compensation – and probably put a few of ’em in prison for the treasonous rubbish they have shoved down our throats for the last 40 years.
I was looking through some old papers and came across Tony Hall’s pro-BBC apologia in the Radio Times of 14-20 March 2015:
“The case for the BBC doesn’t rest on ideological arguments. It rests on us making great programmes and services. The BBC reaches 97 per cent of people every week and is chosen a staggering 150 million times a day.”
“Since this Royal Charter began back in 2007 we reach more people, people’s trust has gone up, and their view of our quality has gone up, too. So I’m heartened those same MPs supported another ten-year Charter, as it is essential for our editorial independence. They support our record on efficiency and we’ll keep on delivering even better value.”
“Where the internet is making information easier to find but harder to trust, you need to have a trusted source readily to hand to find out what’s really happening. Somewhere that is affordable and accessible. The BBC is the most-shared news source on Twitter because our voice is free from commercial or political allegiances, answering only to the audience, not to shareholders, advertisers or paymasters.
As more of the best content elsewhere is going behind pay walls, the BBC will always make sure everyone has a front-row seat to the best programmes and the most important news.”
“Our mission is simple: great British programmes and a trusted guide for everyone.”
“As more of the best content elsewhere is going behind pay walls, the BBC will always make sure everyone has a front-row seat to the best programmes and the most important news.”
Excuse me, Lord Hall, but the BBC is the only broadcast media which sits behind a legally mandated paywall. Tell you what – let’s level the playing field …… make all media paywalls voluntary. We’d only have to change one.
“The only thing left is the News”
The only thing remaining is the news, you meant to state.
Everything else is hard left.
“agenda-setting dramas”
Islamic Al-Beeb has plenty of this, downplaying or dismissing men, white people, Christianity.
Islamic Al-Beeb is very sexist, very racist and very religiously discriminatory, why all BBC staff are not now in jail for this perpetual discrimination and law breaking, remains a mystery to me.
Do wish to see downplaying or dismissing of Western music, Western prose, Western poetry, Western painting, Western Sculpture, Western philosophy, Western industry, Western technology, Western science? If so, you will love Islamic Al-Beeb.
Impartial? You must be joking.
Sir Thomas Beecham said “I think I trod in some once” when asked whether he ever conducted the work of an “Avant Garde” composer.
That must be the fate of this disgusting coterie of gravy train traitors.
A stinking collection of rancid, perverted filth.
Remove them from our collective shoes for giving excrement a bad name.
Watercooler moments?
I read it as watercolour moments-as gaily and airily dabbled as the Ouse swells downriver on the Shambles.
I say this because I tried-I really tried -to listen to Paddy O Connells “Review of the Year”.
He and the BBC have already decided that we`re to write love letters to those who murder our wives at a pop concert-no help with the French translations mind-and singing the Marseillaise at a footy match puts Al Bagdadhi on a par as a gnat by a bulls ear…and if we don`t want our fairy cakes and china cups to be upset in Europes fascinating coffee shops and salons-well, we`d better get writing and offer Islam a knife-sharpening whetstone to be worn around the kids necks.
I took only ten minutes, then baled out…for I too saw the news this year-and did not note a love for Labour, a wish for more Islam and less anger at what Muslims do in our countries…but the BBC did-and always do.
Went To Something Understood-if only the BBC would remember that they used to be able to be proud of such broadcasting…and, hell even Howard Jacobson is being good as I type.
Review of the Year-Charlie Hebdo, Jewish kosher atrocities, Bataclan…now add bloody U2, Climate Crappers and FIFA Cup Draws…PARIS gives you all you need to know about this years collapse into Eurabias kiddie fiddling laps
Radio 4Extra is now feminised pap and humourless comedy, usually shouted at us by the bbc’s stable of tame self-proclaimed comedians. One person who springs to mind encapsulates both the unfunniness and effete and enervating content is someone called Jason Byrne ( I think I’ve spelled his name correctly). He specialises in shouting his material and shrieking like a girl. It’s unbearable to listen to him. Of course the execrable Arthur Smith heads the list of talentless fellow travelers. When was the bloody Now Show funny? Why do the programme planners put the drama programmes on after midnight when most of us are asleep? It’s obviously deliberately done but I can’t understand why.
Answer – Margaret Thatcher.
Question – Who is responsible for the current floods in York.
Also works for many other questions, if you are a blood red, mass murdering, Marxism promoting, scumbag.
Among my wife’s Christmas presents was a DVD featuring only flames and entitled “The Fireplace”.
It beats anything on the BBC and there isn’t a word of bias.
I can’t pretend that if the BBC disappeared tomorrow there are things that I wouldn’t miss, the extensive coverage of Wimbledon and the Proms to name two (If somebody is going to point out that these are both middle class interests, can I just state now that I couldn’t care less).
But the fact is in many areas, for example drama, the BBC has been resting on its laurels for a very long time. They are happy to spend huge amounts of money on expensive locations, but there is very little good original writing that rises above the repetitive sludge of mediocrity that fills the airwaves on most evenings. Just look at what HBO can produce for a comparison. Obviously there is still the occasional bright star. BBC 4’s “The Detectorists” was a good example – subtle, understated, wonderfully English and so well-written. In my opinion, of course.
As for Radio 4, ninety percent of it is little more than a talking shop for like-minded, left-leaning grownup adolescents.
What really sticks in my craw, what completely demolishes the BBC’s claim to be a public service broadcaster is their stated aim to “guide” us through the events of the day. The staggering, patronising arrogance of this position is beyond belief. No BBC, just give us the pure unadulterated facts in as balanced a way a possible and let us form our own opinions. Yes, that’s difficult to achieve at times, but we are paying for this. I’m not interested in the opinion of a news reader or a presenter. Nor am I interested in what the BBC deems to be the correct opinion. If something is “controversial” then we need to hear both sides of the argument and interviewees need to face an equally rigorous examination. I imagine this modest reformation would involve replacing almost all of the people currently employed in Current Affairs, but there is always the Guardian or the even more ridiculous Huffington Post for them to find a comfortable home.
I think you are very right to highlight the lack of writing ability. There are, of course, myriad weaknesses at the BBC, which we chronicle on this site day after day, but as far as drama is concerned, the lamentable, cliched storylines (often peppered with ridiculous anachronisms due to the youth and lack of experience of the writers and production team) make BBC drama stand out as peculiarly amateurish.
Even when they are drawing on reliable source material, as in the latest Agatha Christie adaptation, Ten Little Unmentionable Boys, the dialogue is absurdly anachronistic for 1939. This can only happen because the writers are too arrogant and too ignorant to have done their research and because no one else will tell them how wide of the mark they are. Presumably the same is true of the cast, who should simply toss the script back at them. One has to assume that they don’t know they are being fed lines that are 50 or more years out of context.
Couple this inability to come up with decent scripts with the BBC’s leaden use of drama as political propaganda and far too often you end up with something like a mediaeval mummers’ play, through which we are meant to be educated into the ‘correct’ point of view, instead of being entertained or informed. It is patronising, demeaning and one of the reasons why ITV’s drama regularly trounces the BBC’s . The perfect example is the well judged Downton versus the act of desecration that was the BBC’s sixth form attempt to remake Upstairs Downstairs.
And don’t get me started on how much better the best American series are…
Any private broadcaster that produced so many drama flops would have responded to audience opinion long ago, but Al Beeb is still locked into its Lord Reith paradigm of a pubic broadcaster which has no significant competition and which can “mould” social and political behaviours. As Al Beeb’s audience share continues to fall so its own promotional propaganda grows ever more strident. This in itself is an indicator of its failure.
> Any private broadcaster that produced so many drama flops
These’ll be the “drama flops” that ensured that in 2015’s Bafta TV awards, the entire shortlists for the TV drama series and single drama categories consisted of BBC productions? Those flops?
Do you not ever stop to think that your version of the world may itself be biased? If you have to make up facts in order to prop up your beliefs, does it not raise even the tiniest of warning flags in your brain?
I wouldn’t start criticising other commenters’ cerebral processes if you are so challenged that you fail to recognise the BAFTAs as much more than the BBC’s cronies patting it on the back in the most ingratiating way they can.
> I wouldn’t start criticising other commenters’ cerebral processes if you are so challenged that you fail to recognise the BAFTAs as much more than the BBC’s cronies patting it on the back in the most ingratiating way they can.
Thanks for jumping to the defence of your own “crony”. I’m sure s/he is very grateful.
However, just because you describe BAFTA as “cronies” doesn’t invalidate my point. It just suggests that you’re confusing your own opinion with the truth. And that’s a surprise, as it’s clear there’s a wide gulf between the two.
This place used to attract such a better class of clown from the BBC luvvies’ club.
I take it by that, by descending into petty insults, you’re conceding that what you thought of as an argument doesn’t hold any water at all.
Apology accepted.
You flatter yourself. Anyone naive enough to suggest that BAFTA awards prove anything of use about the quality of BBC drama, clearly doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about. Not to understand when that is pointed out to you puts you beyond the point where conversation is even possible. It would be like arguing with a dog.
> Anyone naive enough to suggest that BAFTA awards prove anything of use about the quality of BBC drama, clearly doesn’t have a clue what he is talking about.
I’d rather take BAFTA judges’ verdicts over an individual who I don’t know who posts on a website while providing no qualitative or quantitive facts to back up his own assertions, if it’s all the same to you.
Jerrod, You are so funny , especially as you are totally unaware of it. Either that or you are taking the “double piss ” !!!!
If you deem that an insult, you are in for a world of disappointment when released into the real one.
That last line is a great way to really clinch matters.
GCooper, I agree ! I almost miss ” Scott “. He was quite entertaining. He had a certain “cachet”.
However, I would not discourage Beeboids from posting here. We can at least demonstrate that we do not practice censorship and we have a sense of humour. 2 qualities that the BBC lack !
As for BAFTAS , they are a bit like OSCARS, they seem to come round 4 times a year. So why have I not been awarded one yet ?
You will do, Oscar, you will.
With apologies…
GC ! LOL !
> As for BAFTAS , they are a bit like OSCARS, they seem to come round 4 times a year.
Well, they hold different ceremonies, but each one is once a year. Not really that difficult to understand, I don’t know why you’re finding it such a struggle.
> So why have I not been awarded one yet ?
Well, they do recognise talent, ability and professionalism. I’m guessing the clue’s in there somewhere.
“These’ll be the “drama flops” that ensured that in 2015’s Bafta TV awards, the entire shortlists for the TV drama series and single drama categories consisted of BBC productions? Those flops?”
The US takes a different view, but then what do the Yanks know about TV eh?
http://www.emmys.com/awards/nominees-winners/2015/outstanding-drama-series
Downton Abbey & Game of Thrones get a mention.
> The BBC is now more for women and London metrosexuals than for the general population.
I don’t think poor Alan has really realised that women make up a smidgen over 50% of the “general population”.
Unless by “general population” he means “Alan”. He does seem to have a narcissistic belief that he is representative of most of the UK, which doesn’t seem a particularly optimistic or accurate viewpoint.
What he really means is that the BBC produces fluffy over feminised rainbow coloured lefty crud that many wouldn’t pay £14.50 a year to view, the BBC no longer has any relevance.
You’re either a rabid feminist or a metrosexual not to see it…
Geoff, I love ” Jerrod’s” use of the phrase ” particularly optimistic “. Orwell would turn in his grave ! Beeboids do not do irony !
> BBC produces fluffy over feminised rainbow coloured lefty crud
Diddums. Just because the BBC doesn’t gear its entire output to socially inadequate men who have difficulty relating to other people.
> You’re either a rabid feminist
There’s nothing wrong with being a feminist at all. I’m sorry if thinking that women deserve an equal place in society is something that fills you with fear – I appreciate that a level playing field may be something that makes you feel inadequate.
Alan – women form at least half of the population and many of us share the same sense of horror and disgust at what is happening. I have paid my BBC licence fee for over 40 years and have had ample time to witness, and listen to, the BBC’s repulsive evolution from provider of information and education to bloated hydra fighting with similar entities for control over the minds of the masses. Top Gear, Strictly, baking competitions, men kicking balls around, and soaps are just a few examples of the endless fodder churned out to keep the plebs from using their brains. Let’s use our brains together, irrespective of gender.
The only thing that fills me with fear is that there are actually blind socially engineered indoctrinated idiots like you inhabiting this once great nation, more so bigger pr&6ks that upvote you.
All us ‘inadequate men’ have great respect for woman, strangely we all had one as a mother and not the product of turkey basters. Real women don’t need to be feminists.
Just leave it to us inadequate’s when its time to fight a war….
(That was in reply to our resident Beeboid)
> blind socially engineered indoctrinated idiots like you inhabiting this once great nation
You really can’t cope with people disagreeing with you, can you? Poor man.
> All us ‘inadequate men’ have great respect for woman, strangely we all had one as a mother and not the product of turkey basters.
Even sexist brutes have mothers. Doesn’t stop them being pathetic. Your “argument” – and I’m being polite in describing it as such – is extremely weak and feeble. But I suspect you know that, and your calling me an idiot is you lashing out because you realise you don’t really have a leg to stand on.
> Just leave it to us inadequate’s when its time to fight a war….
I doubt whinging about how dreadful it is that BBC programmes don’t appeal to maladjusted men will be a particularly effective fighting tactic, somehow.
That camp reply is almost Scotensian …
It’s a pretty good flounce, you have to admit!
What is Jerrod on ? Camomile tea ?
> What is Jerrod on ? Camomile tea ?
Why do you assume I’m “on” something? Surely you must be used to the phenomenon of people who think you’re not very good at articulating yourself by now?
Still, I’m sure your inability is all the fault of women. And/or the BBC. And any other scapegoat that just happens to roll along…
Jerrod, I do not have the time to deconstruct this post of yours. Maybe I shall send it to some teenage intern at the BBC !
Jerrod
Simple question, do you think that the BBC is biased ?
Is this a men only site? I’m beginning to feel distinctly unwelcome. As our experiences of life are entirely different, it seems entirely likely that men and women will have differing reasons for antipathy to the types of mind controls that are currently bring exerted upon both sexes in 21st century Britain.
You are making far too many assumptions about who is which.
The joy of the Internet is judging an argument on its own merits – not assuming something must be true because it comes from a favoured source.
Pillar, By the way that is a lovely muslim ladies name ! Better spelled with one “l “. I have some times said that there should be more ladies posting here
Men only site? No, absolutely not. It is a free thinkers site, occasionally visited by authoritarians and fascist sympathisers (I think ‘leftist’ and ‘Corbynite’ are the modern day terms.)
I am a man. I don’t see how my gender, or ethnicity for that matter, has any bearing on the validity or not of my views or those of any others. I hope you continue to post here if you have something to express, variety is the spice of life ‘n all that.
As for ‘reasons for antipathy to the types of mind controls that….’, why do you think these would differ along gender lines?
Pillock in a circle
‘As our experiences of life are entirely different, it seems entirely likely that men and women will have differing reasons for antipathy to the types of mind controls that are currently bring exerted upon both sexes in 21st century Britain.’
Al Beeb are attempting the very same ‘mind control’ – they have been at it for years, eg ‘political correctness’ – They invented it !
Maybe a question best directed to Thoughtful, or Deborah?
Mind you, they do seem to stay on topic and debate the points without casting about for excuses for failing to convince.
Jerrod – men generally seem to lack the capacity to understand that things are as they are because men were the dominant force in the creation of our now. All organized religions grew from men imagining that they had special access to the mind of humanity’s creator and ‘his’ rules for humans. Throughout history, all the dictators who have sought to exert power over the masses have been male. The BBC was created by men – the list is endless. Geoff might like to imagine that ‘real women aren’t feminists’ . He’s probably a really nice man in many ways, but women forced into watching what men are doing to the world no longer need to comply with Geoff’s ideal version of womanhood.
Pillar, Get off the Waccy Baccy and get a job ! I suggest emptying dustbins ! No insult intended !
“men generally seem to lack the capacity to understand that things are as they are because men were the dominant force in the creation of our now”
Wow. The casual sexism didn’t take long!
> men generally seem to lack the capacity to understand that things are
I’m not sure you should group all men together just because Geoff’s proven he doesn’t understand much about humanity, to be honest.
Jerry boy , when anyone says “to be honest ” , I assume that they are lying ! Forget the Camomile Tea, lets move to the BBC favourite , Cocaine !
“I’m not sure…”
Bless. This is really no surprise.
But like the BBC tells us it is impartial, you advising when you are being honest may also struggle.
Guessing you are the Keymaster to Pillar’s Gatekeeper?
There’s a whole Woah Hour’s worth right there, maybe with Grayson & Eddie on the sofa?
Praise be…. after stumbling around so long in the wilderness, Pillar has found Jarrod, and a new late night tag team is born.
And now they can commune, endlessly no doubt.
Do you mind. I’ve just had my breakfast.
Men to be more realistic and rational and thereby sceptic whereas women tend to be more emotional and accept what they are told or want to believe. Hence the traditional favour of men towards the Conservative party and women towards Labour.
And of course the likelihood of men seeing the bias in the BBC and women just accepting it.
What an extraordinary argument. I wasn’t aware that anybody actually took the BAFTAs seriously, beyond being just light entertainment – another bit of television fluff. Clearly I was wrong.
I’m beginning to miss the manontheclaphamomnibus. Despite the suspiciously inconsistent writing style there was a comforting predicability about him. I also don’t remember him being offensive.
Clapped Out was a good old larf.
Great to be on a site where people can see through the brain washing that BBC push out. Its not just them its in our schools and Universities and workplaces.
Men (white variety) are constantly insulted on all media wether it be adverts or the BBC political programmes where Alex Neil ( thought to be last survivor of anything right of centre) presides over constant comments like its ‘unthinkable to have a male only panel of pasty white middle aged men in this day and age’
Quotas agendas everywhere.
Not sure where opposition is coming from in a two party rigged state?