Author Archives: Laban

And if this comment, on Alice Cook’s economics blog UK Bubble, is correct, diversity is compulsory at CBeebies. The comment is by UK blogger Electro-Kevin.

I can’t bear to watch any soaps, police/hospital dramas … There is an overt left-wing bent in all of them. Even Life on Mars was supposed to be a snipe at bigotry but backfired as the audience (sick of crime) loved Gene Hunt.

I feel compelled to check BBC news sources with other channels for balance.

I’ve felt the need to write to David Dimbleby about his biased treatment of ‘right wing’ panelists.

My boy’s school was the site for a Cbeebies programme. A school comprising 95% white, they asked for ALL ethnic minority children to be used in filming. This resulted in Highwood Primary School looking 50% ethnic (not that I care) with a lot of kids disappointed. It wasn’t the ‘names out of a hat’ selection that would have given kids an even chance of being on their favourite programme.

Try explaining that to a 7-year-old who hasn’t even noticed colour yet !

Auntie’s definitely not right.

The BBC are collecting tributes to Scotland’s first Muslim MSP, Bashir Ahmed, who has died at 68.

All well and good. The tributes are paid across the political spectrum, from Labour and the Lib Dems to Tories and SNP.

The BBC also offer us a potted biography of Mr Ahmed.

He came to Scotland aged 21 and worked as a bus conductor and bus driver before buying his own shop.

He subsequently owned shops, restaurants and a hotel before retiring from business.

He was elected five times as president of the Pakistan Welfare Association.

In 1995 he founded Scots Asians for Independence, and he had been a member of the SNP’s national executive committee since 1998.

In 2003 he was elected as councillor for the Pollokshields East ward of Glasgow City Council.

He was elected as an SNP member of the Scottish Parliament for the Glasgow region and Scotland’s first and only Asian MSP at the 2007 election.

He served on Cross Party Groups for Carers, Human Rights and Civil Liberties, Older People, Age and Ageing, Palestine and Tartan Day.

He was also a member of Holyrood’s Public Petitions Committee.

As well as his political interests Bashir was an active member of the Asian and Muslim communities in Glasgow attending a number of the committees of various mosques in the city.

Maybe it’s just me. But I can’t help thinking that if, say, a Tory MSP had died, and his CV featured the disruption of a religious service in a mosque, as part of a campaign for more Christian schools, that the BBC would find room to mention it. Probably in the headline and the first paragraph.

Just like that, eh ? When there’s a ceasefire and all. Norman Geras compares the headlines on the latest Gaza trouble. Not that the BBC are the only ones with such a headline.

Guido pictures BBC correspondent and R5 presenter Anita Anand in her Obama hat.

Squander Two asks if “some banks and a couple of car manufacturers being in trouble are stiffer challenges than September the 11th ?“

And Dumb Jon reckons that “on the plus side, this does mean the week after the death of Princess Di is no longer the stupidest moment in modern pop culture“.

The Head of Acquisitions at the BBC outlined the Corporation’s policy in a recent radio programme. She told us:

“The children of today are more used to the up-market, faster-moving things” and that “in today’s hugely competitive schedule we are up against about another twelve to fourteen children’s channels and we have got to stand out.”

As a policy that is, in my considered view, almost criminally preposterous.

Some accuse the BBC of being institutionally biased against markets. That may have some truth when it comes to news and current affairs, but that’s not how the late and much-mourned Oliver Postgate sees them when it comes to childen’s programming. Markets – and merchandise – are all.

” … the BBC let us know that in future all “programming” was to be judged by what they called its “audience ratings”. Furthermore, we were told, some U.S. researchers had established that in order to retain its audience (and its share of the burgeoning merchandising market) every children’s programme had to have a ‘hook’, ie, a startling incident to hold the attention, every few seconds. As our films did not fit this category they were deemed not fit to be shown by the BBC any more. End of story – not only for Peter and me – we had had a very good innings – but also for many of the shoe-string companies that had been providing scrumptious programmes for what is now seen as ‘the golden age of children’s television’…”

“Now, today, burdened with the search for the millions of pounds which they have to find to fund their glossy products, the entrepreneurs have to lead a very different sort of life. They must hurtle from country to country seeking subscriptions from the TV stations to fund the enormous cost of the films. Each of these stations will often require the format of the proposed film to be adapted to suit its own largest and dumbest market. They have to do this because, for them, children are no longer children, they are a market.”

To be fair to the BBC, there are still a few small areas of programming targeted at children where production values and solid scenery can go hang, because it’s all about the story. Like Eastenders. Trouble was, you were never going to be able to get much incest or domestic violence into Pogles Wood.

(If you want to see the “educational” BBC at its worst, take a look at its mealy-mouthed CBBC Remembrance Day page. Among the missing are the words “us” and “our”)