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BBC – Here in ten years?

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I’m loath to post this but after today’s Green Paper announcement by the Government I afraid to that it spells the end of the BBC as we know it. This is a purely ideological decision driven by the misguided idea the the Beeb is a hot bed of left-wing views designed to overthrow the Tories.

The Tories want a smaller BBC so the commercial rivals can have the playing field clear to scoop up the big shows and viewing figures, but they still want a ‘popular’ BBC but not too popular.

Of course the BBC isn’t perfect, but for 40p a day (a lot more and lot cheaper than Sky/BT/Virgin but people still moan!) it is an incredible bargain.

When we lose it (which I think we will) then we’ll all be sorry because we’ll never get it back. And then it’s the NHS next.

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Comments

  1. Say what you like about the Tories but they come through for their paymasters. Its just the rest of us who get shafted.
    And the NHS review has already been announced, but hidden behind the BBC review. Sounds like they favour an insurance based system.

    The plan has always been to make sure that the country was irrevokably changed by the end of their term. They also seem to have a plan to make sure that is a long time off (write off the other nations, cripple the Unions, bankrupt the Labour party, gerrymander the boundaries, EVEL, ensure all media in hands of supportive companies, jobs a good ‘un).

  2. I (sort of) agree. I am a huge fan of the BBC’s output, but think they are a management top heavy organisation, but that opinion isn’t from a position of knowledge, so WTF do I know?

    Does anyone remember the 1985 advert what has the BBC ever done for me? That is a bit like how I feel, I don’t listen to Radio 3 or watch the proms, but I am glad they are on the BBC, likewise
    Question time, Bake off, Eurovision song contest (I am proud to say I have never watched it, not even in a cheesy ironic way.

    I, like a lot of the good folk of this here parish of ours enjoy the documentaries the are usually shown on Friday evenings on BBC 4, mastermind, Masterchef, & I think the just finished ‘Episodes’ is the best sitcom the BBC have shown in years. Add in superb drama like ‘The Fall’, & that is enough to justify the fee to me.

    All of that is before I consider Radio. I cannot abide commercial radio, for no other reason than the wretched adverts, again, the BBC gives me what I want, 6Music is AFAIAC, a radio station designed almost exclusively to my musical taste. Most of the time that is all I listen to, but can on occasion find myself listening to 5live or even good old Radio2.

    Without a shadow of a doubt, I think my life is the better for having watched & listened to the BBC for most of my life.

    As ever, OOAA.

  3. ITs a done deal and has been for years But I got roundly jeered at by chiz and twang for saying this the last time I put my head round the door. ITs plain as a pikestaff. This is the Etonian version of Thatcher but more aggressive and more cynical.

  6. I love the Beeb but I am farly sure they waste a lot of money which could be refocussed into programme making. One hears of teams of 30 from commercial channels going to the World Cup with Beebteams of hundreds, for example. Also they produce a lot of crap I don’t like but I concede someone else quite possibly does.

    • That’s been the case since time immemorial. The BBC has always been seen as being better at ‘heritage’ events; it had an advantage from being the original broadcaster; it was seen as being more professional and classy than the vulgar commercial channels. That has nothing at all to do with the overkill in the vast numbers of staff they send nowadays in comparison to others.

  8. Best TV station in the World bar none. When or if it goes I will most likely get rid of the TV – virtually all the other stations are complete shit. The BBC under threat should result in us taking to the streets.
    It won’t – we are too docile.

    • I love these sweeping statements. Have you evaluated all other channels? How many countries have you compared?

      You may well be right, but have you watched e.g. TV Ontario?

      • Agree, dai. I’d like to know how many other countries he’s spent some considerable time in while evaluating the output from all the multifarious channels.

      • I have watched TV in around 40 different countries – I lived in USA for 2 years and have visited Canada on business around 25 times. So yes I have watched masses of North American tv – the endless adverts render it all completely shite. HBO is okay and so too is PBS but a patch on the BBC? I don’t think so.

  10. Subscription!!!! Let’s GO!!!

    HBO like a motherfucker.

    Get rid of the Hugh Bonneville-type knobheads, givethe revenue to the programme makers. Above all…. get it away from the f***ing government! What are we, North Korea?

  12. The cheerleaders for the BBC and The NHS blithely toss out platitudes about both being the envy of the world. This is the kind of jingoism that they’d deride in others, portraying them as ‘Little Englanders’ if they express some other form of patriotic belief, other than unthinking praise for these unwieldy, overstaffed organisations. ‘Public sector good, private sector bad.’
    To repeat, the BBC income p.a. Is over £5bn, of which £3.4bn is from an imposed license fee. It has an absurd number of layers of management, some of whomare paid enormous sums that they would not get in the private sector, no matter how often they proclaim that they would be able to. It’s pissed away enormous sums on properties, ‘star’ fees, relocations, severance payments. That cunt Yentob gets an additional £150K for presenting ‘Imagine’ on top of his already enormous salary. This ‘work’ last week involved droning on for 2 minutes before showing a documentary (Ginger Baker) that he’d had precisely zero input to. They send absurd numbers of staff to beanos like the Worls Cup and Glastonbury. Both they and the NHS are subject to producer capture, where the organisation is less concerned with the consumer. Its website and local radio stations are in direct competition with small stations and local papers to their detriment. Even its own former staff admit it’s left-leaning which is what one would expect from a public sector organisation.
    Given its enormous income, one would expect it could produce a few decent programmes and that’s exactly what it does – produce a few decent programmes. The rest of the schedules are filled with celebrity-driven dross that would not be out of place on the commercial stations. So, there’s no adverts. Big fucking deal.
    It’s only £140 plus p.a. So what? Why should I have to pay that for something I hardly ever watch. I, voluntarily, pay large amounts to Sky and BT, but I get films and sports which I want to watch.
    As for the Tories wishing to shape society as it sees fit – what else do you expect from a Government? Blair and, particularly, Brown went flat out to create their own client state by ‘sending out search parties’ for immigrants and increasing the numbers employed by the State. I suppose it’s okay if Labour do it as they’re on the side of the Angels and the Labour Party is ‘the political arm of the British people’.

    • Ianess, with respect your comments are a load of cobblers and display the paranoia that is endemic in this govt and its supporters. ‘Oh. the nasty BBC, bunch of lefties – all they do is say nasty things about us, aren’t they spiteful?’
      For what its worth I don’t watch the BBC from any political standpoint. I happen to think they make great TV including dramas, nature programmes, decent comedy etc. The comments about ridiculously high salaries doesn’t ring true either given the flight of slight celebrities like Susannah Reid to the ITV gravy train and a host of sports events to the big bucks of Sky – that fucking piranha tv station that doesn’t give a shit about anyone that stands in its way. And yes the BBC is the envy of the world – I have heard it said in many third world countries that in a time of crisis the first news channel they turn to is the BBC – certainly not fucking FOX News or CNN. Yes they have made mistakes over the years but which TV company hasn’t? The vast majority of the population who watch the BBC do so without any consideration for political content. It is our government of the day that is politicising the matter.

      • Name the great dramas and comedies they’ve been making recently. I’d be delighted to be alerted to their existence.
        ITV will pay bigger money to certain perceived ‘stars’. Commercial companies – that’s their choice. I’m talking about the fat-cat management of the BBC.
        Third world populations will tune into the World Service radio, partly because it has been around for many decades and mainly because it had a deserved reputation for reporting, from the ’50s to the ’80s, what was actually happening in countries that were run by dictatorships, mainly of the left.
        ‘Paranoia’ – ah, yes. Anyone who disagrees with you must clearly be mad or bad; a candidate for the psychiatric ward or the re-education camps.

              • Last year’s Marvellous was BBC. What a fantastic film that was. And A Poet In New York was pretty darn fine too. And Common with Michael Gambon. And Castles In The Sky with Eddie Izzard. Missing with James Nesbitt was great. I haven’t seen From There To Here or Life And Death Row or Murdered My Boyfriend but they have good reviews. All of these were in 2014!
                The BBC is simply amazing for drama. Simply amazing.

                As for comedy, the only thing I loved last year was The Detectorists.

                I live in Italy and jeez the telly is dire here in comparison. Thank gawd t’internet came along and changed my life!

                • Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

                  Doctor Who, for all its flaws, is still far better than any SF show on television

                  And the children’s comedy and drama shows absolutely wipe the floor with anything on the other channels

                • You’ve cited a grand total of five dramas in one year. Not sure I would categorise that as amazing, given the income of the corporation is £5bn p.a.. I did hear Marvellous was excellent.
                  Italian TV is appallingly bad. It’s irredeemably shit. I used to get their RAI channels when I lived in Belgium. Jaw-droppingly awful. I’ll keep my thoughts about Italy, overall, to myself.

                  • I’d be interested to hear them, Ianess. It’s a totally fucked up country in many ways (corruption, nepotism, bureaucracy) although in some ways I don’t think it’s as fucked up as Britain (binge-drinking, alcohol related violence). But yeah, the telly is beyond awful.

            • Comedy, I’ll grant you is a bit thin on the ground, but I struggle to think of any UK broadcaster that’s raised the bar in recent years. BBC Comedy not helped by losing one quarter of their staff and an even bigger share of their budget a year or two back.

              Stewart Lee
              W1A

              • Why did they not strip out several layers of management instead? Their comedies are unfunny, anodyne affairs, partly because they are desperate not to offend.
                I asked a genuine question upthread about comparative numbers of staff at major events. If the BBC take 300 odd to a World Cup, how many would ITV take?

                  • You’re repeating yourself. You already made that point and I attempted an answer. That still has nothing to do with the implied waste and profligacy.

                • BBC took just over 250 people, ITV between 140 and 160, depending which set of figures you believe. Given the difference in the quality of the output, I’d say that was licence fee money well spent. OOA, obviously, A.

                  Wolf Hall dull? Are you being serious?? That speaks volumes about the merits of your arguments, I’d say.

        • As I said in an earlier post, I think Episodes is just about the best sitcom the BBC have broadcast in many years.

          Likewise, the drama series The Fall is/was for me, the best British drama I have seen in years.

          OOAA

        • a note on “fat cat” management:

          BBC DG total remuneration 2013: £450,000

          ITV chief executive remuneration 2013: £8.4m

          as ianess will no doubt point out, ITV are a commercial organisation and can pay what they want, but the idea that the BBC are a bunch of champagne fuelled pigs at the trough lording it over their poor non-state funded competition is well wide of the mark.

          • While I’m inclined to agree with ianess that there is major wastage and a left wing bias at the BBC, programme quality and exec pay are non-issues, for me anyway.

            The reasons the Conservatives want to reduce/diminish the Beeb aren’t that they were a bit disappointed with the last season of Miranda. Clearly, the Corporation does make some good stuff, and draws pretty good viewing figures, particularly given the competition it faces. That’s not to say that they’re churning out masterpieces, merely that I don’t think the quality threshold is so offensively low as to necessitate reform.

            Likewise, I don’t think we can pretend that BBC execs live in a hermetically sealed universe – they need to be lured and retained in the face of the potentially far greater riches available in the private sector. Funnily enough, if you reduce exec pay you will only further damage programme quality: pay peanuts, get monkeys.

            I think there should be a sensible discussion (I always love that phrase: because so many people are agitating for a deranged shouting match, of course) of the BBC. What is it doing well? What is it doing badly? How can it improve? What should its role be?

            We can’t have that discussion if we’re pretending it’s the worst thing on Earth. Likewise, we can’t have that discussion if we’re pretending it’s a precious gem which defines our very nation and must be defended against the savages who criticise it. As with most things, the truth is to be found somewhere in the middle.

            • I’m just curious where the idea that the BBC is by nature a profligate and top heavy organisation has come from. It seems to have become a given these days, but the signal to noise ratio in any discussion (and this is as good as an example as any) is so low that it is very hard to get at the underlying reasons. Are people just parroting the received wisdom that other media interests have spent a decade hammering into them, or is it a consensus based on personal study of organisational charts and budgets? I’m asking without a particular agenda myself, it’s just my nature to kick against a majority view (you might say I was, ahem, Out Of Step).

              • Is that a Minor Threat reference? Because if that’s a Minor Threat reference then you know exactly how to get me to shut up and agree with you!

                Can’t say I’ve studied the org charts, but I know a ton of people who work/have worked in the organisation, and they all say the same thing: too many staff, too much management, lots of wastage. These are predominantly left-leaning individuals (I have never met a Conservative voter who works for the BBC). I have no problem with that personally: a state broadcaster is always likely to attract people who believe in state solutions, but I think it’s daft to argue that it’s not the case. Can’t speak for actual programme output, but the staff are clearly biased – frankly, anything else would resemble turkeys voting for Xmas.

                I also know from conversations with the same group of people that it seems to be a lot harder to get sacked from the BBC than it does most privately held media companies (where lay-offs occur on what seems like a regular 4-5 year cycle), which I suppose would support the notion that a little extra weight is being carried and could be pruned. It’s definitely seen as a “safe” place to work, with great job security, and where people get their feet under the desk and don’t budge. Maybe that’s the trade off for lower pay, I don’t know.

                I think the BBC is a great institution, although if we really want to have a purge on public sector wastage I’d trade it in a heartbeat for getting the royals out. I don’t think it hurts to take a proper look at the place and ask if it couldn’t be a bit leaner.

                • Interesting to hear something at a close remove to the issue, thanks. I do wonder if the BBC is scrutinised more for “too many staff, too much management, lots of wastage” than other organisations might be – I’ve been in the private sector all my working life and these are not unfamiliar complaints.

                  As for your last paragraph, my God, yes. If we’re talking about outdated public institutions that offer vanishingly small returns on our contribution, then let’s start on the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas! Time they realised their Salad Days are over.

                  • They’re not unfamiliar complaints, and all institutions are prone to inefficiency, but at some point we have to be able to square complaining about the brutality and callousness of capitalism (i.e. the private sector), with our apparent belief that public sector institutions are all just as efficient as their private sector equivalents.

                    I’ve never, ever heard anyone say they’re heading to the private sector for a bit of extra job security.

                    As ianess says below: companies have shareholders to keep them lean and mean. With the BBC, that role falls to the government. Who you would hope will approach the task in a responsible fashion…

                    • You don’t know many mercenaries then…

                      I largely agree with you on this, but playing a wee bit of devil’s advocate, why should the BBC have to be kept lean and mean? As I’ve said downthread, their income is much less than Sky’s and a little less than ITV’s, but they produce a bigger and more varied slate of home grown programmes than either of those. Enjoyment is of course subjective, but from an objective technical view the programmes are at least as well made as those of the competition, and perform strongly in the ratings. Doesn’t that suggest they’re doing something right as it is? Which brings us back to the ideological motives behind this Green Paper and back to the beginning of this whole fool’s carnival. Sigh.

                      Also, SALAD DAYS. What are you, asleep?

                    • Agh! How did I miss Salad Days? I must have had something in my eyes!

                      Why should the BBC be kept lean and mean? Because if they’re inefficient, they’re wasting public money. Money that could be used for schools and sick kids and all that other stuff.

                      I’m not saying make them smaller, make them produce less. I’m saying that if they can achieve the same results at lower cost – and my anecdotal evidence suggests they can – then that would be great.

                    • Not sure this will end up in the right place but Bingo, public money that could be used for sick kids? Am I missing something or is the BBC in receipt of government subsidy or do you mean the free pensioner license? I thought they only received license fee and revenue from programme sales.
                      Yours, confused etc

                    • Fair point!

                      I guess my thinking was cost savings = potentially reduced license fee = government take it out of your hide elsewhere, but you’re right that it might well not work that way, and probably wouldn’t under this government.

          • Where did I say they’re ‘lording it etc’. As you point out, ITV are a commercial organisation. The CEO is being rewarded for turning their results around. It’s up to shareholders to complain, if they wish.
            The BBC is guaranteed its annual income at a minimum of £3.7bn p.a. from license payers alone.. They have a substantial number of management who earn very large sums and substantial pension contributions by comparison to the private sector. Their redundancy payoffs have beggared belief when they’ve been recently revealed. They’re overstuffed with management layers, many of whose functions are replicated internally.
            It’s been highly amusing to have witnessed the Guardian readers falling over themselves to justify fat-cats, waste and profligacy, purely because the BBC is a public sector institution.

  13. Predictably, this debate has generated more heat than light.

    Ultimately, it is not about ideology, but technology and consumer demand. The ways in which content is produced and can be accessed is changing irrevocably and the BBC needs to position itself in that changing world.

    Of course, I remember fondly Blue Peter and Play For Today and the voice of John Arlott. But, I suspect, that just as with other cherished British institutions from the Police to the NHS to London Black Cabs, the BBC has a scelorotic mindset, antideluvian operational pratices and a hopelessly unimaginative approach to the future.

    Instead of embracing change and using its extraordinary market advantages to create something genuinely innovative and relevant, it totters from one preoccupation to the next with no clear strategy and self-defeating tactics.

    Lord Reith was a visionary but so is Mark Zuckerberg. As is Travis Kalanick, as is Reed Hastings.

    What they all recognise is that any organisation’s greatest asset is its audience. That technological advance is the facilitator of the way product and services are consumed. That finding a way to navigate the waves, rather than asking the sea to stop coming is a more likely pathway to success.

    • I may be wrong, I often am, but were the BBC not at the forefront of On Demand TV with IPlayer. That was extremely innovative at the time so what is to say they cant continue to move with the times without the need for the government to intervene.

      I’m sure that everything they do doesn’t offer value for money. They will make mistakes along the way just like any organisation of that size would and just like commercial organistations would. Just because a company suddenly operates on a for profit basis doesn’t mean it suddenly get every decision correct. However I firmly believe that the positives far outweigh the negatives

      • No, you are not wrong but iPlayer emerged at roughly the same time as other video on demand (VOD) services from a variety of terrestrial, cable and satellite providers as well Over The Top (OTT) platforms such as Netflix and Lovefilm.

        This illustrates the plethora of choice facing the consumer and iPlayer is an example of the way the BBC can play in the new order of things.

  15. I am sure they do waste money, but the fantasy is that commercial organisations don’t. You might think they don’t, and of course they shouldnt, but they do. Whether the BBC is better or worse than similarly sized companies I don’t know.

    • Commercial organisations can waste as much money as they want to, employ as many senior management as they feel like and pay whatever salaries they wish.
      Not my concern. It’s up to the senior management and the shareholders to take action if they wish.

  16. Yet again this Middle aged Lefty finds himself nodding in agreement with Ianess, not sure if it shows me as not being a true lefty (albeit one who has finally lost all faith, hope & belief in the Labour party), but Alan Yentob for me personifies a BBC man who has his snout deep into the public trough – bastard.

    I get the feeling that certain institutions consider themselves above critiscsm, NHS, BBC, even the Labour party.

    I carry no torch for Rupert Murdoch, but it was him that brought about so much technical innovation (especially in television) that we take for granted these days (Catch up, series link, +1 etc)

    The days of dear old auntie are in the past where they should be.

  17. What gets lost in all these debates about whether the BBC should be doing mass-market entertainment is its major selling point – no advertisements. It’s a rare oasis of quality and consistency where you are not being sold anything. And personally, I think these plans are ideological. If the government starves the BBC of the cash to make mass-market programmes, the public will protest at getting less for their money. Also, starving thecBBC of cash is a threat to its studiously impartial journalism; the market-driven, private networks, particularly Sky, simply do not ask difficult questions.

    • The BBC would not have to accept advertising if it migrated successfully to a subscription service as an alternative to a universal license fee.

      Although, it should be noted that BBC Worldwide has a lucrative advertising business model. As it reaches a high end audience, the advertisers are primarily corporations and luxury brands and the ads are no more incompatible than they are on CNN or the pages of The Economist.

      • BBC Worldwide is not BBC1 or BBC 2, as anyone who has spent time in a foreign hotel will know. Schedule here
        http://europe.bbcentertainment.com/schedule/

        The BBC is far from perfect but does at least provide a broad range of programmes on TV and radio for a nominal fee. Compare the offerings of Sky1 (seven episodes of The Simpsons back to back, preceded by Futurama, Matt Groening must be pissing himself.) It’s not enough to say, “I can pay for sports and film channels so the screw the rest of you.”

        • I pay for sports and films out of my own money. It’s my choice. Who’s being screwed? People who’re forced to pay to subsidise an overweening monolith. You’ll still be able to watch the dross on ITV, instead of the dross on the BBC, at no cost.

          • I pay for ITV through the extra cost of the products I buy such as food. I don’t get a choice about that as it would be almost impossible to avoid buying from at least some companies who advertise on TV or radio.

              • I was responding to Ianess’ point that the license fee is pretty much compulsory. I pay for commercial TV and radio indirectly whether I watch/listen or not. I don’t get a choice, in fact I get less of a choice because I could always choose not to have aTV at all but I would still be indirectly paying for commercial radio advertising every time I buy certain products .

                • The license fee *is* compulsory.

                  As for your wider point, the amount of turnover spent on marketing is around 7% for a consumer goods corporation.

                  Therefore, the amount spent on TV advertising is probably less than 0.5% of turnover even for heavy TV advertisers and this sum is diminishing.

                  This factor then has very little effect on the price you pay for products you choose to buy.

                  Arguably, if the advertising is good and helps sell more product, it will enable the company to take advantage of economies of scale and suppress or even reduce prices.

                  • I used the word compulsory because at the moment it is possible to watch BBC programmes via catch up without a license. As for the added cost to a product, not every advertiser will benefit from economies of scale. The cost of advertising to a company is subsidising commercial broadcasters, even subscription broadcasters such as Sky. As this denies me choice as to whether or not I contribute in the same way that the license fee denies choice to those who dislike the BBC, the only fair thing to do would be to prevent broadcasters such as Sky from receiving advertising income. They could fill the newly available air time with more episodes of The Simpsons.

                    • 1. If you claim you don’t watch live TV, only catch up then you don’t need a license.
                      2. In order for no one to have to contribute towards the cost of running a TV service, all channels, including the BBC, should be subscription only, ie the commercial channels should not receive any revenue from advertising. This would ensure that you only receive channels you are willing to pay for and therefore be “fair” to all parties. This would also apply to radio stations. Not sure how Sky and UK TV would manage although I’m sure the lowest common denominator would prevail in the end.

    • Why is ‘ideological’ considered a bad thing. Surely the creation of the welfare state, the NHS and, yes, the BBC itself, were driven by the ideology of the government at that time?

    • ‘No advertisements’. Sure. Instead you get these ghastly, oh so funny, trailers and promos starring our ‘much-loved’ personalities having ‘fun’. Have you seen the Bake Off one? That wizened old trout warbling ‘The Sound of Music’, together with the ubiquitous dyke (for once, not the beloved Balding) giving the camera her trademark, quizzically smug, cross-eyed look, then the tubby, adulterous ‘housewives’ favourite’ blunders into view. They probably get extra fees for inflicting this shit on the unsuspecting viewers.

  18. Wow, ianess – your comments are even more tosh than usual. Yes, the BBC wastes money, yes Yentob is a tosspot. But davebigpicture has it spot on – look at the Sky schedules, just look.
    Take away the licence fee and that’s where the BBC will end up. The BBC has done a brilliant job in embracing all the innovations thrown up by the internet revolution (OK some of it following the lead of Bastard Murdoch Inc) whilst still managing to produce populist and popular nonsense like Strictly and Bake Off.
    The right-wing bollox about left-wing bias is simply bollox.

    I am more worried than ever that this first Tory government in 19 years is thinking “fuck it, let’s settle some scores”…

    • Sky schedules – I watch their sport and film channels. They’re superb.
      Andrew Marr – the BBC is innately liberal. I believe Buerk and Tusa made the same point.
      The rest of your post is the usual hysterical, incoherent, mindless Guardianista babble. You’re all too happy to support practices in a public sector institution that would have you frothing at the mouth if it were a private sector company.
      Again, their annual income is over £5bn. Wouldn’t you expect a better quality product?

        • I’d respond if I understood the point you’re attempting to make.
          It’s Andrew Marr, one of their leading stars, made the comment.
          It’s the dog who didn’t bark in the night. If it was in any way centrist, or, Heaven forbid, right of centre, the massed howling from yourself and fellow liberals would be deafening.
          Head of Strategy, the dissembling, slimy weasel James Purnell was parachuted straight into his £300K plus p.a. role direct from the Labour Cabinet. No fuss from the Grauniad. Can you imagine the uproar if one of Cameron’s Cabinet were to be given a similar, top executive post?
          I presume you’re attempting to be sarcastic by exclaiming ‘how wonderful’. Fine for you and your unthinking tribalists, but you’d be correctly outraged if a State organisation were to show a bias towards the right, or worse instructed by the current government to display such a bias.

          • Other than parroting the same old wingnut trope about the BBC being a hot bed of communist conspiracy have you got anything of substance other than an Andrew Marr quote from 2007? Maybe an explanation for how this tribal bias has flourished despite Chris Patten’s tenure as Chairman, or why the BBC employes Brillo Pad Neill’s or Nick Robinson or the fact that Fruitcake Farage is Question Time’s most often used guest? Or why Question Time features UKIP out of all proportion to other elected officials, or why each week Marr’s review of the papers has more blue rinse than an Eastbourne hairdressers?

            • Apart from your own hysterical self, who’s ever mentioned Commies?
              The Marr quote is 2007 as you mention; it’s not exactly decades old. Are you seriously suggesting there’s been a sea-change in attitudes in the last few years?
              FWIW, here’s a few more quotes of ‘substance’ (including expanded Marr), not that it would alter your views in any way. Dialogue of the deaf and all that, old chap.
              Andrew Marr -The BBC is “a publicly-funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people, compared with the population at large”. All this, he said, “creates an innate liberal bias inside the BBC”.
              Peter Sissons – ‘In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the ­pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left. By far the most popular and widely read newspapers at the BBC are The Guardian and The Independent. ­Producers refer to them routinely for the line to take on ­running stories, and for inspiration on which items to cover. In the later stages of my career, I lost count of the number of times I asked a producer for a brief on a story, only to be handed a copy of The Guardian and told ‘it’s all in there’.
              Michael Buerk – ‘What the BBC regards as normal and abnormal, what is moderate or extreme, where the centre of gravity of an issue lies, are conditioned by the common set of assumptions held by the people who work for it. The Guardian is their bible and political correctness their creed.’
              Jeff Randall (former Business Editor) – ‘It’s a bit like walking into a Sunday meeting of the Flat Earth Society. As they discuss great issues of the day, they discuss them from the point of view that the earth is flat. If someone says, ‘No, no, no, the earth is round!’, they think this person is an extremist. That’s what it’s like for someone with my right-of-centre views working inside the BBC.’
              “I do remember… the corridors of Broadcasting House were strewn with empty champagne bottles. I’ll always remember that”– Jane Garvey, Radio 4 presenter, recalling Tony Blair’s election victory in 1997
              Fatty Pang, a lazy, troughing, wringing wet Tory, enjoyed his sinecure as Chairman of the BBC Trust.
              DG is obviously the key role – Birt, ennobled by Blair. Dyke and Thomson – New Labourites.
              Talk about ‘tropes’ -Brillo is a Tory – I’ve yet to see him show outright bias when questioning members of any political party.
              Robinson – Young Conservative. Are you implying that he’s maintained that allegiance since his student days? If so, then we should be worried about the political careers of such as Mandelson and Reid who were members of the Communist Party when younger.
              That’s two journalists out of the 8,000 they employ.
              I would imagine Farage is a frequent QT guest for the obvious reasons that UKIP poll quite highly and that he is the public face of UKIP and used by them almost to the exclusion of all others. It would be some leap to imply he’s invited on as he chimes with the values and mindset of the BBC management. I presume from your comments you’d prefer he was given no platform at all as his views disagree with yours.
              As for ‘wingnut’ and ‘fruitcake’. You should really reconsider characterising those who disagree with you as insane.

              • So, pretty much as I thought. No actual evidence, just a bunch of cut n paste quotes / opinions from http://www.biasedbbc.org – a site clearly as objectively factual and open minded as you are.

                Re Farage you’ve missed the point once again in a rush to hit the never ending replay button about “views that disagree” with mine (although as a Sky fan I’m sure you really enjoy repeats as well as inflation busting subscription increases – good to see BT got in on the act as well). Farage is the most used (not “frequent”) as part of BBC’s over-reaction to the constant bleating about bias; the same appeasing knee-jerk reaction that ensures so many Times and Spectator journalists get on to Marr’s show, or even Hooray Henrietta’s like Rachel Johnson when the barrel really needs scraping. That’s the problem with lefties – too workshy to get out of bed so early on a Sunday morning.

                As for characterisations, you seem content to label people by their weight or sexual orientation, and routinely make derogatory remarks on here about people’s intelligence. So, after you in the reconsideration line old chap.

                • As I suspected, not worth bothering. So, even actual quotes from people who’ve worked there are, to you, not ‘evidence’? Are you claiming they’re not factually based, that they’ve been fabricated?
                  How have I missed the point about Farage? With over 3m votes and being the self-appointed voice of UKIP, it’s only logical he’d appear, in person, fairly often.
                  As to comments about weight, sexual orientation or intelligence; these are not the same as claiming those who disagree with one are insane. Can you spot the difference?

          • I wasn’t making a point, I was tweaking your tail. But actually I don’t see any massive problem with being liberal and centrist at the same time. The extremely broad-brush portrayal of the Beeb as a hotbed of lefties brings a risk of singing from the same hymn sheet as the 70% of Mail readers who aren’t Labour voters.

          • I am right of centre: I make points about the BBC in a steely-eyed, logical and irrefutable manner, chasing down inconsistency and bias wherever I find it.

            I am left of centre: I howl.

            • ‘biased bbc’ – I googled for the Marr quote and found it and others on this site. I copied these and posted them in response to the usual tedious request for more facts regarding bias, knowing they’d probably be ignored anyway. I didn’t read any further. These quotes are factual, no matter what site they came from.

    • And here is BBC’s quality packed schedule for Thursday 17/07/15.
      Not sure which Reithian paradigm Flog It! or Motorway Cops is fulfilling

      06:00 Breakfast
      The latest news, sport, business and weather from the BBC’s Breakfast team.
      View Programme information

      09:15
      Right on the Money: Live
      Episode 4
      4/5 How you can raise cash by hiring out your tools, your bike – or your pet.
      View Programme information

      10:00
      Homes Under the Hammer
      Series 19, Episode 23
      The team look at properties in Camberwell, Telford and Alvaston.

      11:00
      Call the Council
      Series 2, Episode 24
      24/25 Twelve local dementia initiatives are given the opportunity to secure council funding.

      11:45
      Helicopter Heroes
      Down Under, Series 2, Episode 15
      15/15 Dr Carla helps a man who walked a mile through the bush with a broken back. (R)

      12:15
      Bargain Hunt
      Series 36, Kedleston 32
      2/32 Bargain Hunt visits Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire, with David Harper and Catherine Southon. (R)

      13:00
      BBC News at One
      National and international news stories from the BBC News team, followed by weather.

      13:30
      BBC London News
      The latest news, sport and weather from London.

      13:45
      The Link
      Series 2, Episode 39
      39/40 Three teams battle it out to spot the link between a growing number of clues.

      14:30
      Escape to the Country
      Series 16, Herefordshire
      9/20 Ginny Buckley helps a couple with £500,000 find a country home in rural Herefordshire. (R)

      15:30
      Channel Patrol
      Series 1, Episode 5
      5/10 A couple of rookie sailors learn the ropes at Cowes Week. (R)

      16:15
      Flog It!
      Series 9 Reversions, Balbirnie
      24/30 Items include a Moorcroft pin dish and a Troika vase. (R)

      17:15
      Pointless
      Series 13, Episode 43
      43/51 Quiz in which contestants try to score as few points as possible.

      18:00
      BBC News at Six
      National and international news stories from the BBC News team, followed by weather.

      18:30
      BBC London News
      The latest news, sport and weather from London.

      19:00
      The One Show
      Matt and Alex are joined by Eddie Izzard and Lisa Stansfield.

      19:30
      EastEnders
      The residents of Albert Square learn that there is a new suspect in the Lucy Beale case.

      19:57
      BBC News and Regional News
      The latest national and international news stories from the BBC, followed by Weather.

      20:00
      DIY SOS
      Series 26, The Big Build – Loughborough
      The team help build a home for a family struggling for space.

      Celebrity MasterChef
      Series 10, Episode 9
      9/12 The best eight chefs face a mass catering challenge and cook British classics.

      22:00
      BBC News at Ten
      Latest national and international news, with reports from BBC correspondents worldwide.

      22:30

      BBC London News
      16/07/2015
      The latest news, sport and weather from London.
      View Programme information

      22:37
      BBC Weather
      The latest weather forecast.

      22:40
      Motorway Cops
      Series 6, Keeping Up Appearances
      A dangerous pursuit through Bradford ensues when a car suddenly flees from the officers.

      23:40
      This Week
      16/07/2015
      Guests include Alex Salmond, Miranda Green, and comedians George Zach and Rob Beckett.
      Watch from start

      LATE

      00:25
      Weatherview
      Holiday Weatherview
      Detailed weather forecast.

      00:30
      Joins BBC News
      BBC One joins the BBC’s rolling news channel for a night of news.
      View Programme information

      • All tosh, obviously. Not your sort of thing, or mine. Does any of it have happy viewers, though, that’s the only interesting question. If yes, then where’s the problem?

        The BBC Charter says:

        The BBC must display at least one of the following characteristics in all content: high quality, originality, innovation, to be challenging and to be engaging.
        The BBC must demonstrate that it provides public value in all of its major activities.

        Good luck with proving or disproving that.

          • I’m not paying for it, I’m paying for Radio 3 & 4, BBC 4, sometimes BBC 2, Radio 2, MotD and anything else I occasionally dip in to. As I said, Im perfectly happy with that.

            • I am, broadly speaking, a fan of the BBC but consumers have a plethora of ways in which they can access high quality content.

              Technology and the way media is consumed is changing almost by the month. Consumers should be allowed to make those choices not have a mandatory levy imposed on them. That cannot be good for the consumer or the BBC.

              One could make the argument that BBC decreasees plurality and choice since its ever expanding range of products and services have jeopardised the audience and revenue streams of other media, not least, local media.

        • This point gets to the heart of the matter, and it’s why some of us love (genuinely) free markets*. None of the impossibility of proving or disproving the popularity of this or that – simply let people’s preferences decide.

          As a brief scouting of the shelves of WH Smith (soon to be a ‘victim’ of Schumpeter’s Gale methinks) will amply demonstrate, there exists a fiercely loyal market for all kinds of niche pursuits. As long as those pursuits fall within the law of the land, all well and good. It’s just that the market for such views / interests is rather smaller than their amplification by inclusion in the beeb’s ouevre perhaps warrants.

          *not to be confused with crony capitalism, with which CameronOsborne are wholly comfortable.

      • Jeez that’s fucking dismal isn’t it. It’s the news programmes, music and history programmes I like. You can keep the rest. Mind you even Beeb 4 Friday night has lost me now. How many times can we see Elton John doing “Tiny Dancer ” on Whistle Test?

  19. This whole process is being eerily mirrored in Australia, where the ABC is under attack from the Abbott government and the Murdoch press, in a climate of hysteria brought on by a possibly ill-advised invitation to a failed Muslim jihadi and all-round pain in the arse to join the audience and ask an awkward question. Abbott himself has described the programme (equivalent of Question Time) as a ‘lefty lynch mob’ and banned cabinet ministers from going on the programme, to huge sighs of relief from the rest of the population.

    I’m not sure what difference it makes, but the ABC is funded out of direct taxation rather than a licence fee, its independence ensured (in theory) by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act. There is massive public affection for the ABC, and Abbott’s campaign against leftiness and waste comes across, like so many of his ‘initiatives’, as spiteful and inept. Cameron & co would never make the mistake of gunning for the Beeb on grounds of excessive leftiness I suspect, even if that’s what they’re actually doing.

    I have no doubt that the Beeb needs to sharpen up its act – cf fuck-ups passim over the past decade – and if there is an unnecessary layer of overpaid executives hanging around twiddling their thumbs they should be shown the door. I really don’t care how much Alan Botney gets paid – people in TV, as in so many other industries, get paid more than I have ever earned, but so what? I think he’s a bit of a tit, but he’s had his name on an awful lot of good programmes over the years.

    When I was in the UK I hardly ever watched the Beeb, or indeed any of the other channels. The brief period when I had the full Sky package I never watched much of that either. Other people have different tastes and habits, so that’s fine, and I don’t care if the Beeb makes ‘commercial’ programmes that might just as easily be made by commercial broadcasters. I never resented paying the licence fee for what I got out of it: BBC4, Radio 3, Radio 4, occasionally Radio 2, BBC 2 and MotD. I’m paying about the same per year as I do for Netflix, and I’d be hard put to it to claim that I get better value from that. I don’t have any violent objection to a subscription model, but I doubt that would keep its more doctrinaire critics at bay.

    In the end, though, it comes down to emotion: the Beeb has been such a huge part of my life that whenever I contemplate aligning myself with the sort of people and institutions that tend to go gunning for it, I just can’t do it. This isn’t particularly logical, and wouldn’t stand up to the sort of forensic argument that some of its more intelligent critics might deploy, but there it is. I am but a poor bare, forked animal…

  20. Someone up there ^ was saying, roughly “it only costs 40p a day for a TV license and Sky etc. charge much more than that”. They do indeed charge more, but the thing is, most Sky, BT Vision or Virgin subscribers are paying for a TV license as well, so that particular comparison isn’t valid in this context.

    Bad news is in the pipeline for those who claim to never watch live TV, only catch-up, and thus don’t need a license. It is almost certain that the law is going to be amended to oblige them to get a license.

    Apparently a recent survey revealed that the majority of the population would rather fund the BBC via the TV license as opposed to making it subscription-only or going to an advertising-funded model. The retention of TV licensing keeps the BBC beholden to the government of the day so I’m starting to incline towards the subscription model.

    It should be possible for the BBC to successfully move to a subscription model once all broadcasting is digital. While an analogue signal is still available, the license fee is the only way analogue viewers can be made to pay to view BBC programmes.
    Once the plug is finally pulled on analogue broadcasting, it will be relatively simple to impose an automated login requirement, linked to a paid subscription, in order to access the BBC’s signal.
    Then we’ll see if all those people who say “Oh, I never watch any BBC programmes, so why should I pay for things I don’t watch?” really don’t ever tune to the Beeb, or if they were just Freetard fibbers.

  21. *The BBC wastes money and has a management layer in sever need of pruning. It’s totally legit that this should be addressed, and of course it’s not the same as the private sector – if shareholders think tons of managers are fine then that’s their call, it’s their skin in the game.

    * If the BBC doesn’t have a left wing bias then there’s something wrong with it, given that those on the right want to tear it down. I have no problem with a pro-state BBC, there are plenty of alternatives elsewhere, and yes we do all pay for them via the extremely generous tax position rolled out for the likes of Murdoch.

    * Some of the programming is tosh, but lots is ace and we would miss it badly for things like the Olympics. It does serve a purpose.

    * The Tories are fully entitled to attempt to neuter the Beeb/get rid of it. It’s up to those on the other side to nut up and defend it. Given that the people in question are busy converting to euro scepticism and campaigning for Jeremy freaking Corbyn, I don’t hold out much hope.

    * I don’t buy this business about labour deliberately enlarging the state and rounding up immigrants to prop up their vote. When in government, the Labour Party broadly did what it thought was best for the country, just as the Tories are doing now.

  22. It’s very difficult to create a successful brand out of thin air, hence the seemingly endless variations on well-established names.

    The BBC is, by any yardstick, a brand behemoth (Siobhan nails it on behalf of Perfect Curve below) and would certainly prosper in a post-licence fee scenario given the boundless goodwill it receives, no? Bit like the somewhat embarrassing AutoTrader (inc. The Guardian) thing which I’m sure has been cooked up by Murdochian fellow-travellers…

    • My money is on all the arseholes at the top, Yentob and Purnell included, arranging a Management Buy Out of certain areas in the BBC in future which will enrich them immeasurably.
      I then look forward to the low-circulation, tax-avoiding Grauniad screeching its disapproval.

  23. I remember the BBC. I remember England. I remember the NHS. I remember Carnegie libraries, and parish churches. And steam trains. These memories have nothing to do with what’s happening now. I don’t much like what’s happening now. I don’t see how the BBC could be any better in the context of the UK as it is now. Whether you see it as left-leaning or not, it is very much an expression, and reflection, of the wider culture, and not some kind of bastion of quality – it never was. It used to be the expression of a different culture, the product of different minds. Times and minds change. I’d say, not for the better. But you can’t expect the BBC to get all Reithian on our asses again, just as you can’t expect a mirror to show you as as you used to be. From my distance, I’d say the BBC’s output is not a quantum leap in quality over commercial broadcasting, and it was quality that made it a privilege to pay for; so it should operate like other TV companies. If the desire to make and see quality programming is there, it will find a market. There’s no guarantee.

    • I agree that ‘it was quality that made it a privilege to pay for’. Why, then, has it dumbed down to compete with ITV? There is still a significant percentage of the population that would welcome a substantial amount of intelligent programming – well-made series, plays, documentaries that are not narrated by slebs etc.
      I would bet serious money that the senior management of the BBC do not watch the vast majority of their own output. They are themselves contemptuous of the tripe they pump out and, by extension, contemptuous of their audience.

        • You’re suggesting that the BBC doesn’t make any ‘quality’ programmes? None at all? Seriously? Or by ‘quality’ do you mean ‘programmes that I approve of’?

          • I’m saying that any broadcasting organisation that had an annual income of over £5bn, £3.7bn from license-payers, should be able to produce quality programmes in abundance.
            Easy enough to understand?

            • Sky’s income dwarfs that of the BBC, but what do you get for the extra £2.6bn and the more efficient management structure? Michael Gambon being eaten by a fucking polar bear.

              • Not a fair comparison. Sky’s income is from the various packages they sell to willing customers, plus ad income. They’ve vastly increased their customer base over the years.
                What do I get from Sky? An incredible amount of sport -football, cricket, golf, all properly covered (well done for fucking up the last day of the Open, BBC); good choice of various genres of films; Sky Atlantic (many good US programmes), Sky Arts (good in parts) and numerous documentary channels. It’s the sport and films that I pay a great deal of money for and, for someone of my interests, it’s money well spent.

  24. Just wondering…has anybody ever bothered to ask the population at large how they feel about the BBC and the licence fee? We know what Murdoch thinks, we know what the Guardian thinks, we know what the Daily Mail thinks, we know the opinions of those who gibber and squeak under the Mail Online BBC-bashing stories…the media are behaving pretty much the way you’d expect. But it is of course the media who are engendering the sense of crisis in the first place. It would be good to know if the citizenry feel the same way.

    There have been pro-ABC demos in Oz, anything like that in the UK, pro or anti?

    • One aspect that I’m aware of is that their percentage share of the viewing population is steadily falling year by year and that the percentage of 18-24 year olds that watch it is at an all-time low. I’d be interested in the demographics as regards the ABCs.
      Fun fact – over 30% of Daily Mail readers are Labour voters.

  25. I would favour a subscription service. Failing that, if it is deemed to be a good thing that we should all support, I would suggest paying for the BBC out of general taxation. I don’t see any justification for it being funded through a hypothecated, regressive tax.

  26. The BBC would not be able to raise anywhere near enough revenue from subscriptions to do what it did a fortnight ago – switch from covering every stage at Glastonbury to every court at Wimbledon. Sport rights and major outside broadcasts would be the first casualties. This month, the BBC embarks on something similarly unique – the Proms series at the Albert Hall. Truly something for everything.

    Would a subscription or advertising funded broadcaster have employed an iconoclast such as John Peel? Or Jeremy Paxman? Or Adam Curtis?

    Would such a broadcaster have a whole Natural History Unit, presenting live coverage of badger setts? Or wildly expensive documentaries featuring experts such as David Attenborough or Brian Cox?

    Would it bother having in-house choirs and orchestras, such as the BBC National Orchestra Of Wales? Would there be a gap in the market for a national classical radio station, or Radio 4’s documentaries and dramas (archived for ever on the iPlayer). Would you care to compare the quality of BBC children’s TV (no advertising!) with satellite stations such as Nickelodeon (wall-tow all cartoons),

    I’m pleased we’ve got a national radio station which playsThin White Rope John Peel sessions at 8 in the evening; my brother likes to watch Mrs Briwn’s Boys around the same time. This universality is its strength – we all pay the same in and get something different out, yet come together for the big events which the BBC does very well, such as the Olympixs. In this way, it gives the nation much of its sense of self. Once it’s gone, it won’t Come back.

    The fact that the government is now talking about different pay models for the BBC and the NHS shows what a bunch of cultural barbarians they truly are.

  27. I guess Rome was getting bloated, too many levels of overpaid bureaucracy. Thank goodness for the Huns, the Goths, the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths and the Vandals.
    What did the Romans ever do for us?

  28. FWIW I don’t think that at least considering different funding models constitutes cultural barbarism. Funding through general taxation would be fairer than the current model, whereby a rich person over 75 pays nothing and a couple witht each earning £40k pay the same as a couple earning barely a third of that.

  29. The BBC is the only institution with ‘British’ in the title that I would keep. I love my BBC. Despite the awful service from BBC Scotland news, I still defend it.

    Most of us could make a list of 30 people/programmes that the BBC have given us over the years that would not have been made by commercial organisations.

    I’m happy to pay my fee for BBC4 and Radio Scotland alone.

  31. As for the BBC getting public money ITV, Murdoch and the rest have had a tax break ever, have they?

    Plus no one ever just watches Movies and Sport on Sky and nothing else.

  32. When I lived in Luton I had a fair few Eastern European and Asian neighbours who watched satellite t.v. from their countries of origin. They did not watch UK channels, nor did many of the Asian people listen to BBC radio stations ( I don’t know about the Eastern European people).

  33. I was a bright-eyed evangelical defender of the BBC until I went to work there.

    I still want to see it survive but it should be massively reduced and the core of what it does best retained – political programming, news & current affairs, natural history, radio etc. The big commercial hits (Sherlock, Top Gear(?), Downton Abbey, Bake-Off etc) generate substantial revenue and along with a subscription system, a functioning model could be configured.

    These days when there are options of an incredibly high standard (HBO, FX, AMC etc), the idea that people should be forced to finance the making of nine series of “Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps” or go to prison, is ludicrous.

  35. I thinks it’s unlikely that the outcome will be a subscription model. Sky won’t want to go into direct competition with the BBC, and then having to pay to carry BBC output, as well a fight for subscriptions. The same is true with advertising – the commercial channels struggle to get ad revenue as it is, so the last thing they need is more competition.

    Instead, the BBC is likely to have a significant redefinition of what it will be allowed to do, no doubt led by those with most to gain. The narrative is already there – criticism for being too popular, attaining high ratings by entertaining people – what were they thinking? Of course, if the ratings been low, the criticism would had been reversed. Putting the BBC on to a commercial footing robs the government of the ability to meddle and control, and even runs the risk of creating a broadcaster that might not be shackled to a right wing pay master. It’s far more effective to force them to drop anything that others can make money from leaving an emasculated shell.

  36. Being in Ireland, I get the BBC on my Sky service, actually. I can, if i so wish, get the radio stations on Tunein on the phone, but rarely listen to them.

    If my television provider wrote to me and said ‘we’d like a fiver a month more if you want to keep your BBC channels’ I’d comply in a heartbeat. Even though I don’t watch THAT much, I know that what it does well, it does very well.

    Other opinions are available, natch. Just that as one of the people here who has to pay ‘separately’ for the Beeb on top of my domestic (RTE funding) license, I think you’d be, ahem, f*cking idiots to let anything happen to it. I’ve no doubt there’s bloat there, and bucketloads of it, but I suspect the good outweighs the bad.

  39. Just watch whoever it is who own The Daily Mail these days grab (and turn to shite) the cast-offs that their friends in government force the BBC to drop during this parliament.

    Come back and see me in five years time if I’m not right.

  40. I’m on a long drive to the Cotswolds this evening for a wedding tomorrow. Car full of kids.

    We’re listening, in rapt silence, to the BBC recordings of Martin Jarvis reading the William stories.

    These are utterly superb. If we can agree on nothing else about the Beeb, maybe we can all agree on that.

  42. Completely agree about that piece by Stewart Lee.
    It was brilliant.
    Could be the start of the downfall, and it could just be me, but is he increasingly becoming a ‘national treasure’?

    • I rarely if ever comment on potentially contentious threads, but that article made me cringe. And I am someone who genuinely cherishes the BBC.

      He takes a blast at five of the eight experts – presumably the other three are more to his liking. But it’s the tone of what he says which gives the impression that, for all the right-on principles, he doesn’t really care much for the majority of people who pay their licence fee and watch the BBC. You know – people who might look at the derided schedule for last Thursday and think that it’s a pretty good day’s viewing.

      Because it’s their BBC too. And whilst it’s entirely right that there should be expert input from those representing the creative and visionary side of things, to deride those of a more populist perspective as penis-drawing barbarians or peddlers of brain-dead muzak is – to me at least – just playing to the gallery. How many people who listen to Classic FM will just associate ‘O sole mio’ with a Cornetto ad? And, in all honesty – so what if they do?

      A treasure? Maybe within his audience. But a National treasure amongst – y’know, everyone else – I don’t think so.

      What the hell. It’s a dead thread, and no-one will change their view of Lee, the BBC, or anything else because of anything I’ve said.

      “Therefore I stay outside
      Believing this; and they maul to and fro,
      Believing that; and both are satisfied,
      If no one has misjudged himself. Or lied”

  46. Hmmm. The Fall.

    I’m putting this here because I don’t want to get involved in the argybargy but…

    In recent years the BBC has become adept at making very “impressive” expensive-looking dramas that aren’t actually anything like as good as they think they are. They seem to largely consist of very posh young actors with huge lips mumbling in the dark. Stephen Poliakoff in particular must have some senior BBC executive’s kids tied up in his basement – it’s the only explanation.

    And the BAFTAs duly roll in because…. what’s the competition? Midsomer Murders?

  47. Sorry Moose, but I stand by my opinion WRT The fall. I thought it was a gripping series (2 series actually – with a third to follow).

    Very much must see television here at biscuit Manor.

  48. Here’s a few judiciously selected snippets from today’s Private Eye, that well-known right-wing rag –
    ‘The sensible consensus would surely be that the BBC requires reform to its financing.. and to a corporate governance structure that has resulted in multiple scandals of incompetence and profligacy.
    ‘While acknowledging that the Conservative – Mail – Telegraph attacks on the BBC are often impure, the Labour – Guardian – Observer axis should not be seduced into believing the BBC is purely a falsely wronged quarry.’
    ‘Ludicrous structures result in parallel layers of highly-paid executives with nearly identical responsibilities attending separate meetings to discuss the same issues with an even higher-paid tier of management.’
    ‘But the BBC is breaking – and at a risk of going broke – because of the repeated mistakes of its bloated and hopeless management. The institution remains a jewel, but it has huge flaws.’

  49. Hopefully, minus the licence fee and any other charges, self funding through advertising (lets face it, they advertise how wonderful they are all the time regardless of the ever reducing level of quality broadcasting due to the rise of cheap banality), after a cull of the all the free riding greed head bien pensants and with a genuinely non partisan agenda.

  50. As Bake-off is often cited as a low quality prog that the BBC shouldn’t be making it seems that 200 countries watch it with 20 making their own version, The money they must have made from it and gone towards other programmes must be considerable.

    http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/aug/04/great-british-bake-off-recipe-sweet-success-bbc-worldwide

    That must please even the BBC-haters and those who know the cost of everything and the value of nothing on here.

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