Long live the BBC

How about the fact that the license fee is a grossly unfair tax on households regardless of the number of TVs owned and people watching them? How about the relentless pursuit of ratings over quality, resulting in the wasteland of Saturday evenings? How about the determined focus on “a younger audience” which regards anyone over 50 as irrelevant? Yes, there’s much to be said in its favour, but don’t get carried away.

The BBC could be made more accountable to the public, which might lessen the stream of attacks, and the licence fee could be more fairly charged.

Their impartiality should certainly be easy to question, challenge and have reviewed, as it often falls short of the standards we should expect of them.

Whilst abroad for a lengthy period of time the BBC was our lifeline to all things British, we listened to BBC, we read the new site and have to admit our guilty secret of listening to Dad’s Army. Yes that makes us a demographic that is probably irrelevant but when we did a vox pop of our familiy’s recollection of the most memorable programs over the year they were without doubt all BBC. We would have gladly paid a fee to watch BBC content whilst abroad. We’ve been back around 5 months now and I have caught a few programs on the iPlayer, but I do find myself somewhat disappointed at the quality of current programs and now wonder whether BBC journalism is all that it once was. Having said all that, the licence fee is far superior to the constant fund raising campaigns that Public Television has to subject its viewers to in the States.

I agree with Liz.
The BBC is no longer impartial, in marches to a different beat than the society it should serve. The people that work there, great, bad and indifferent, know which side their bread is buttered.

Where is the high quality, educational material.
Even the so called ‘high brow’ entertainment is often spoon fed, agendarised misinformation, often presented in a folksy, ‘i used to be a Blue Peter presenter’ way. I’m 27, and the ‘younger audience’ focus infuriates me. I hate being treated like an idiot, and i despise the politically correct nonsense.

There is an army of untalented robots on BBC television, all sculpted from the same, media school clay!

Thank God fro books and Radio 4!!

It is a real shame people don’t value the BBC in this country, I for one am really proud that we have such a valuable institution. It is also really well respected around the world as a news service. Just google ‘news’, the BBC is always one of the top 2 or 3 hits.

I would say the single most important thing the BBC provides is news and programming which is not influenced by commercial interests. I wish it would not have to focus on ratings so much and produce programmes which were radically different from the commercial stations.

Where do you find programmes such as Question Time, Newsnight, Panorama, Have I got News for You, groundbreaking wildlife programmes? And then there’s the World Service and (for me Radio4 with some excellent programming) all the other great radio stations with different offerings for different groups of people. Ethnic and minority programming which otherwise might not be commercially viable.

As for accusations that the BBC is biased, it seems to me that people on the right and the left are equally annoyed by the BBC and as far as I’m concerned we that means the BBC isn’t doing such a bad job.

Our most critical left(ish) national newspaper The Guardian is not owned by commercial interests but a charitable trust with clear guidelines as to what its public role is. This is a great model if you want to see anything near to good quality (critical) journalism.

That Frank Field doesn’t like the BBC is a good thing, if politicians liked the BBC then that would be the time to really start worrying.

I have to agree with Simon Evill on the point about impartiality. The BBC has always adopted a largely uncritical, unquestioning position on issues of the Royal family. Many of the non-stories about the activities of the junior royals are clearly taken at face value and pulled, it seems, almost verbatim from Buckingham Palace press releases. A recent, particularly sycophantic example is this one:

“Princes reveal brotherly respect” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8107236.stm)

Some of the stories the BBC doesn’t report:

- Recent surveys show that fewer than 25% of Commonwealth citizens want Prince Charles to be the next Commonwealth head;
- Two thirds of Canadians want to ditch the monarchy altogether;
- The Queen has pledged her support for the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans, a breakaway church group opposed to the ordination of gay bishops.

Compare the overtly pro-monarchy line taken by the BBC with the much more sceptical stance taken by Channel 4 news. The screening on the BBC of something similar to the C4 Dispatches documentary of 2007 “The Meddling Prince” (criticising, among other things, Charles’ unconstitutional interference in the UK’s political affairs) would be unthinkable.

No organisation is perfect, and the BBC regularly incurs my wrath for impartial reporting when I want them to be more “our” than “the”. Overall however, I think Auntie is a grand and well loved and respected organisation which gives excellent value .

I’s still sack wossy & few others who are grossly overpaid though!

The BBC (while not perfect) is the single most important and powerful advocates of Britishness to a world audience. Listened to, watched and respected by hundreds of millions for its news and entertainment, the BBC is the best advertising campaign for any country, anywhere, ever. It is impossible to put a price on the BBC’s gentle promotion of decent British values. Certainly its about time people who begrudge paying their TV license woke to the value the BBC adds to the British brand, the British economy and our global standing.

Simon Evill, Radio 4 is part of the BBC…

I think that BBC sometimes forgets that “He who pays the piper calls the tune”; while the News & Comment should be fair, it should never be anti-british. If the BBC (it would need to change it’s name) wishes to adopt a totally world view the it should be funded differently.

Can you imagine the outcry that during World War II if the BBC had commented adversely on aspects such as the bombing of German Cities.

I appreciate that there are fine lines to be drawn within Party Politics but it does appear that the BBC has an inbuilt left wing leaning, which some of the senior staff subscribe to.

A previous posting contrasted it with The Guardian but members of the public are not forced to subscribe to the Guardian.

I suspect that unless the BBC changes it ways it may well not have a long term future

Who on earth out there thinks that the BBC is value for money. Quite simply it ISN’T —- it’s a total rip off.
There are repeats “ad nauseum “. The comedy is way out of touch with the general line of “funny” — most of it doesn’t even raise a smile on my face. The only thing the BBC does well is NEWS. We pay too many people stupidly high salaries eg Jonathon Ross and Graham Norton. The Executives pay themselves high salaries, claim enormous expenses, and to add insult to injury even award themaelves bonuses.
I’ve long thought that we should be on to pay to view. The BBC ‘s output RARELY provides me with anything watchable,so I have no alternative but to switch to free channels .
You can’t possibly justify the exorbitant licence fee when all the money goes to boost over inflated ego’s.
I don’t listen to the radio — it’s not “my thing”
The sports coverage is dreadful —– I hate CRICKET, FOOTBALL, SNOOKER. and then discover what I do like has been modernised out of recognition. I loved the men of steel in ALPINE down hill skiing —- what did the BBC do , They TOTALLY wreckedit.
The do cover Wimbledon and the Olympics well and I used to enjoy athletics BUT unbiased coverage of that would have been greatly appreciated. The Berlin World Champs seemed to be solely about one man —- I don’t think I need toname him and everyone seemed to miss the fact which I saw TWICE was that the Jamcian 4 x 100 squad should have been disqualified — my opinion — as the second change over showed that the incoming runner stepped out of his lane. I do admire the commentary team but go sick of the crowing about one man.
The drama , well I don’t watch any of that anymore. Lets have pay to view or totally free TV. Nothing else will suit me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think impartiality is a real issue, especially with the recent fighting in Gaza. The BBC were completely biased towards Israel. They portrayed Palestinians as terrorists, kept cutting to pictures of insurgent training camps, and refused to criticise the conduct of Israel. I can’t take them seriously when they fall hook line and sinker for media charm offensives like they did so hurrendously with the Gaza crisis.

In principle I think PSB is a good thing, but that principle involves being accountable to the license payers.

They’ll be selling the rights to show the Snooker to SKY next: now that would be awful.

This is hilarious! The idea that the BBC is not a conduit for established mainstream thinking, and provides truly unbiased reporting is ludicrous. From Iraq to Palestine to Afghanistan they have reported at a token level, propagating the myths of freedom and democracy, the concept of Israel defending itself by slaughtering Palestinian civilians in their hundreds while contravening numerous UN resolutions, the promotion of propaganda by nuclear armed powers in relation to the ‘nuclear threat’ posed by Iran, and again in Afghanistan in the faux debates about democracy and whether the British troops are properly equipped for their mission; the purpose of the mission is not discussed. Even on a minor level, there is disgraceful bias evident in putting together the panel for ‘Question Time’, now blatantly composed of Centre-Right and Right-wing personnel. Quite frankly, the BBC has had its day as a news service. That you have only alluded to relative trivia in defining recent events at the BBC perhaps illustrates the farcical level of debate on its value (not values) and true purpose.

Consider the alienated and marginalised young, esp those in vulnerable and at risk situations, and how they need to see you care enough about them not to motivate despair and suicidality.
What can they make of a writer in a democracy campaign, a reformer of caringness in politics, who – endorses Blackadder????

The episode Chains, that gave national TV’s backing to counting school bullying as the victim’s fault, this message to be seen in real schools, that showed a character turned into a conquer-the-world villain by ill-treatment by others for reasons that were not his fault, was the faraway sickest shockingest disgusting immoral bonechilling national hate crime in modern media history.

I was listening to a lady who is one of those high flyers in the BBC on News 24 a couple of weeks ago. It was that programme that takes peoples complaints about the BBC. I think she was in charge of the news programming. When asked by the interviewer how she justied her salary of three times more than the Prime Minister, she said that she was responsible for more than 6000 people.She also said that it was the going rate and a level playing field needed to be maintained.Let’s imagine a world in which the BBC had to fund itself, would it make worse programmes, I don’t think so. The best people would work for nothing.

I quite agree with you Gerard: I was drawing on a quick, specific example – one which particularly pisses me off.

The BBC is a national institution and is revered as such by the whole world. The foundations of its success were laid in the 1920s and its finest hour was during WW2, when it made a very significant contribution to the Allied victory. None of us should forget that.
Since then though, the BBC seems to me to have lost its way somewhat. It appears to be run now by a London-orientated clique of ludicrously highly paid, soft-left leaning, ivory towered individuals, whose paltry degree of accountability to licence fee payers is quite unacceptable. Joe and Jessie public’s views on and sway over the BBC’s management, programming content and budget need to be massively augmented in my opinion – now!
That said, the anti-BBC carpings of politicians is something I myself am pleased to hear because I severely distrust politicians. This leads me to think that the BBC is perhaps getting some things right and that its independence is very much to be cherished despite all its faults. Politicians need to be kicked far harder and more frequently than they are used to and the BBC can be a very effective vehicle for doing this – in the interests of the great ignored. (That is the licence-fee payers and voters.)
So yes, a campaign of support for the BBC is something I would be happy with, however it ought also to be coupled with demands for reform of the BBC towards making it more accountable to the British public as a whole. Rather like Parliament really.

Ted, just to clarify, my comments were not directed at your posting, which wasn’t visible at the time I posted in any case, but at the preceding article “Long Live the BBC”!!! I firmly believe that there are more important issues to be campaigning on!

I read these opinions with interest. For me, the BBC is a great organisation and very good value for money. OK, it is not perfect, but it’s commercial competitors are far, FAR less so. With the BBC, we don’t have ads all through the program. Also, the absurd salaries that some of their acts and presenters are paid is quite ridiculous. These things can easily be changed, no doubt. On the whole, though, the BBC does an excellent job in the circumstances and should definately be supported and protected. As for their reportage on Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq and so forth, I find generally that they do indeed show both sides points of view and leave the decision as to right or wrong up to us, which is as it should be. To take any of the licence fee away will only leave the BBC with not enough money to make high quality programs and news reporting.

I would campaign against anyone who stood up for the BBC. If it was so perfect then why does it not stand on it’s own two feet and adopt ‘pay per view’ instead of imposing under criminal law penalties on anyone who wish’s to watch TV regardless of whether they wish to watch BBC or not….. The fee/tax in Holland is 20 euro’s with concessions to those who can not afford that and for pensioners or disabled… NO CRIMINAL PENALTY.
The pension paid to the female who resigned from the BBC management after the J. Ross incident was given as £150k per year. A frontline soldier who lost the fingers on his right hand in Afghanastan is entitled to the princely sum of £65 per week for life…. Please explain the difference in value placed. I could go on but I am sure you can understand my disgust at any support given to this state sponsored media conglomerate.

This is kind of stupid. No offense intended to all concerned.

I joined 38 degrees to fight for political accountability and bring honesty to the way Britain is run.

I joined 38 degrees to make sure justice was done for people who have nobody to stand up for them.

I joined 38 degrees because I think the saviours of global politics are going to be grass-roots political movements that inform their membership and mobilise them in the name of true dissent and democracy.

I joined 38 degrees because I wanted to pressure my elected leaders into saving the planet for my children.

I did NOT join 38 degrees to campaign for a giant, state-run media corporation because some people said some mean things about them. I love the BBC but this is ridiculous. Let them fight their own battles.

The BBC has a voice. Millions of others do not. How about we concentrate on helping them?

Are you, Liz Harrison (6.8.09), suggesting that in some bizarre way all televisions at all properties should have individual licences? If that’s not the case then I fail to understand your point.

Whilst the BBC has many faults, including – much to my annoyance – a lot of “dumbing down”, we have every reason to be proud of it.

Great drama, comedy, news coverage, accessibilty from all over the world and far more than the average “consumer” realises.

You might also think about how much revenue is generated for our failing economy by selling our products abroad – to very willing purchasers.

The BEEB is the bastion of sanity when most of the other offerings, C5, Murdoch and so much dross from Stateside conspires to make us dummies.

Yes, internal issues need to be addressed, but that applies to all avenues of commerce. Get real, and appreciate what we have – a gem, in the quagmire of so-called entertainment provided by inferior providers.

Well said David Moore in particular the ‘Ivory Towers’ bit and Donald you are also spot on with reference to the payout for a BBC manager comparied to a front lie soldier,who no doubt is younger and no considerably less likey to get a job in future thanks only to his bravery and service!
These people are paid far to much and no longer offer the quality or variety of programing required (with the exception of a few programes on both television and radio) and are outdated.This
leaves them out performed by any number of other channels in any particular field…

The BBC are an amazing company who have always spoken out whether it be in their hardhitting ‘Panorama’ shows or their gritty true to life representations of the darker side of humanity in ‘Eastenders’

The BBC are keeping people informed and allowing us to make our own decisions. If the government attempt to block what it being told to us by the media of television, it opens the doors to allow them to block the other art forms; I understand there are standards, by which we (the BBC/General Public) must conform BUT if we allow the government additional control where will it stop.

People, Governments, Children and all systems are known, in history and psychology, to push the boundaries of control further and further than evermore. Each time they are given power they will need to push harder each time; They will only stop pushing when they hit that great wall.

“BBC News: impartial, comprehensive and restrained. In a typical week the BBC News has 10 to 15 million people viewing each of their major bulletins.”

I think that this is utter drivel. Does the BBC really go after high quality ‘truthful’ journalism than something like Channel Four News, which invariably always tells it how it is and not what it wants to be.

BBC News is full of ‘cosy’ journalism to make people feel better for an hour, and then you get the proper news and angles at 7pm on C4…..

http://www.plenty2say.com

Having just been asked the question, whether I would support 38 Degrees campaigning for the BBC. I look here and find YOUR mind is made up.

This is not democratic.

If any campaign about the BBC was worthwhile, it should be to get rid of the licence fee, break it up, and let the BBC survive on it’s merits commercially.
The executives and useless celebraties are paid far too much, and as Donald says, it is appalling that when they are sacked or leave executives are compensated so highly.
The programs are more to do with social engineering ( such as “sports girls” and trying to represent every country, faith, etc with news readers ) and putting a BBC political bias into the content.
Defend it? never!

The BBC is extraordinary value in itself, especially (but not only) the radio. I do wish it would not shoot itself in the foot (e.g. the Andrew Sachs phone call episode last year; that was dreadful. It might look at how it collects the licence fee, too – its letters can give real offence). But it still offers a huge amount for the money.

It is also an important benchmark. I’m currently in the States – a country I like a lot; but by our standards the TV is terrible, with the commercial content on the major networks around 20 minutes in the hour, rendering even the best programmes unwatchable. If there were no BBC, and no advert-free alternative, Britain’s own commercial broadcasters would join a similar “race to the bottom”, devoting more and more airtime to adverts in order to stay afloat from shrinking pool of revenue.

Last but not least, it is a national system through which there is at least some form of national conversation. With the fragmentation of the media here in the US, no-one need listen to anything they don’t agree with; the result is a polarization and fragmentation that is increasingly reflected in the country’s politics.

Trust me, you would miss the Beeb if it went.

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I would have said strongly agree to backing the Beeb before the ‘Governors’ were booted out after the ‘Gilligen affair’ / dodgy dossier and replaced with ‘Trustees’ including an intelligence agent.

Now the BBC tows the government/shadow government line and is leaning towards the Israeli lobby – Bad news for Britain and the paying public.

So we hang the bankers and celebrate the BBC. Excuse my anglicised Greek, but what the f**k? Not only does the BBC persist in remaining in that sickening cess-pool, London, but pays supposedly ‘entertaining celebrities’ stupid amounts of cash. But we lap it all up and purr because its from the good old BBC. The BBC is an elitist, centralist, monolopising club which needs to be brought down to size. Either the BBC gets smaller to allow more competition, or it starts devolving its power and moving into more regional programming. The BBC is like the Crown: it needs to go.

The BBC although not perfect, needs protecting, and quickly

How on earth can Margaret Golby think the BBC is poor value for money? For £142.50 a year you get six or seven TV channels, a similar number of national radio stations, a string of local radio stations, a huge and marvellous website. That’s UNDER £12 a month. Sky charges at least £17.50 a month, to judge from their website, and up to £57.25, and even at that rate you get far less. And it’s full of adverts!

Some people on this forum seem to be taking the bait of the BBC critics whose only interest is to deastroy it so that they can make bigger profits from an inferior product. OK, the BBC has its faults – how could it not have? – but don’t imagine it had a faultless golden age: prominent as it is, it has always been criticised, but has always managed to provide a 90% good service for 90% of the people. And since 1954 it has been ensuring the commercial providers keep up their standards – and even very occasionally surpass the Beeb. Don’t ever imagine that those commercial standards would be so high wiothout the BBC – ever watched Fox TV in the USA?

let me think

Doctor who, spooks, torchwood, ashes to ashes, life on mars, south pacific, top gear, planet earth, occupation, outnumbered, have i got news for you, mock the week, live at the apollo, hustle, mightyboosh, only fools, dad’s army. The list could go on

The best of the best, comes from the Beeb. I hope, it does not die. Protect it

Whilst I agree with many of the comments about the service which the BBC provides, the quality of programming etc etc, the thing which really irks me and I think most other people is the way in which it is funded.

Commercial channels, be they Sky, Virgin Media et al are funded entirely by the private sector. Adverts and subscriptions pay for those services. The BBC on the other hand is funded by each and every one of us who owns a TV set. We don’t have a choice. If you own a TV, you HAVE to have a license. Whether you watch or listen to the BBC or not, if you own a telly, you HAVE to pay for it. There is no choice, unless you fancy a trip to the magistrates court with a criminal record or worse as a result.

As far as I’m aware (and I’m happy to be corrected if I’m wrong) but the UK is the only country in the free world to have such a system.

Sure, the BBC produces some good entertainment, sure they provide services which maybe other media don’t. But, the main question is, in a modern, 21st century, supposedly free democracy, should we, the people, be FORCED to pay for it?

Being English, I hate the way the Scots are Scottish,the Welsh are Welsh, Irish are Irish but we the English have to be British. Just listen you will see.Also listen to all the voices from the other three countries of the “Union” it`s hard to hear an English voice.
The BBc (and the press) will not give the English a voice.I do realise they are hedging their bets with both Brown and Cameron being Scots.The are not impartual but god help our freedom of speech if that other Scot Murdoch gets his hands on the BBC, he already controls too much of the media.

A few points, some of which build on those already raised here:
The accountability issue is very important. If the users of the BBC aren’t able to have some degree of executive control, the pro-privatisation lobby will always be able to cite consumer choice as an alternative model of popular influence. However, since consumer choice can only ever operate after the fact, it is a poor substitute for representation at the decision making stage.

The BBC recruits from a very narrow section of society, to the extent of being nepotistic. As a result we seem to have an awful lot of programming representing their preoccupations, such as cookery and property development. This is an intellectual poverty which could be counteracted by measures taken to broaden its intake, for instance a sponsorship program for poorer students.

I still see a good deal of news that is influenced by or derived from corporate PR. As a publicly owned body, it could make us more conscious of when news items originate this way.

In addition, as has been already said on this thread, just because a body is publicly owned, it shouldn’t follow that it represents the government’s position. I would like to see a news medium funded by us for our own benefit, providing us with the information we need to operate as effective democratic citizens. I think that the BBC has been rather toothless, especially when reporting on the Iraq and Afghan wars, and especially since the Gilligan affair.

If you want to protect the BBC just do a few little things.
First. Protect it with money from the people who actually watch it.
How many? Viewing figures show about 30% of the public are watching BBC at any particular time.
Second. Stop calling it a national institution. If it serves any purpose today it’s to titillate the public with cheap low grade programmes many of which are centred around “reality” themes or pander to the obsession with “celebs”.
News programmes are dumbed down and narrow. BBC news rarely challenges the establishment. The televising of revelations of MPs expenses was much more incisively handled by channel 4 news. Establishment it may be but The British deserve better value for money.
Finally. Persuade the BBC to protect the rights of UK citizens with regard to TV licensing. I cannot believe that this organisation condones the behaviour of it’s associate company “TV Licensing” towards citzens who do not wish to watch broadcast TV and therefore do not need a TV License. Ownership of a TV DOES NOT REQUIRE A LICENSE. Watching broadcast TV does. Try telling that to “License enforcers” sent round to the houses of people who legally don’t need and therefore don’t have a license. There is a “Right of Privacy” in this country and the BBC ‘s associate company “TV Licensing” repeatedly try to deprive people of this right.

The BBC’s independence and even-handedness is essential to informed and balanced debate not only in the UK, but in Europe, the US and across the world, wherever people access BBC radio or television. It is also one of the most widely recognised emblems of Britain outside of her shores, and a potent piece of soft-diplomacy. We let the likes of Murdoch and Co. take over the world’s airwaves at our peril, as anyone who has ever watched Fox “News” can attest.

For media moguls, the attraction of media is the power it confers – to manipulate public opinion, and therefore control the political climate of the day. It has been said before that if power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. The BBC is (almost) the sole voice of reason in a maelstrom of spin being forced down our throats from every direction. We must protect it from vested interests who would dilute or dismantle it.

The contention you make and the 10 points are almost without exception nonsense.

It is funded on a compulsory tax, I dumped the TV years ago as it was so very bad – why would I wish to pay to have my intelligence, values and morality insulted and trashed in my own home?

Tasteless trash in the main.

Dishonest use of tax payers money to propagandise whilst promoting the obscenity of the corrupt and undemocratic EU whilst funded on conditional soft loans and grants in return for support of the scum in the EU central dictatorship.

By what morality is tax payers money paid for broadcasting stolen and squandered on web services competing with independent press media?

Just what is the merit of The BBC? Self serving, self important and utterly irrelevant.

I obtain my news now from many foreign media which I can balance to get the facts rarther than the nonsense on the BBC – Who could care less about the endless parade of self styled nebishes presenting themselves as ‘celebrities’ – I am proud to say I know almost none of them when I visit friends’ homes.

Why does it not fund itself when it carries almost as much advertising as other channels merely of their own irrelevant programmes their fallacious staff and propaganda dressed as news.

At least adverts for Sudso are what they claim to be and fund free viewing and the independence of the media.

I no longer trust the BBC as they are too self interested.

Regards,
Greg L-W.

The BBC does not impose a license fee – the British government does. It is worth noting that the BBC has a commercial arm, however given the slump in advertising revenues it’s unlikely that anything near the level of quality output could exist if the BBC were self-financing.

As for impartiality and news journalism – the balance is much better than you would get from the Murdoch empire, and as a public service broadcaster there are better grounds to complain, remember that.

The BBC Trust should be democratically accountable, this is something we need to think about raising.

Oh for Gods sake, all those frothing about the BBC are mental. The BBC is the greatest media organisation in the world, bar none. Its not perfect and it could do with being both more accountable and open I agree.

But lets look at the real issues. Were the BBC to dissapear tomorrow would it be replaced by something of equal value? of course not. Murdoch and his henchmen don’t give two hoots about public service or plurality of content. Sky is the home of football and US imports. They barely make any TV themselves and what they do is hardly worth watching. David Attenborough would never have been allowed to make the programmes he did anywhere other than the BBC.

BBC radio is brilliant. Detractors argue that it stifles competition, but what they mean is that these stations cannot compete with Radio 1 and 2. Again the commercial stations are not interested in making a half hour programme on statistics or something like Any Questions. What the commercial radio stations play is pop and ads. When given a choice people don’t want that. Yet Murdoch’s response is not to say the market has spoken here, oh no, instead he wants to remove on choice and force people to listen to something they patently don’t want to.

The fact that news organisations can’t compete with BBC news online is, again, more of an indictment of those organisations than it is of the BBC. The Guardian, for example, is an organisation which took the web very seriously from the off and as a result it has a robust, well constructed and very popular website which more than holds its own against the BBC. It obviously does not match it in terms of traffic but that is because the BBC is more than news, in fact, the BBC website is the best in the world. I pay my license fee and I want to be able to get that news when i want, not have to rely on being able to watch the news at 3pm or 1am to see a story I am interested in. I want to be able to access it when I want.

Almost everyone attacking the BBC has an alternative motive, mostly commercial. What would the world look like without it? Well my cable TV package is a pretty rum vision of the future. Cheap fly on the wall TV, “Cops on Camera” and “Binge Drinkers”, US imports and re-runs of old BBC programmes. How is that a better world?

I believe very strongly in public service broadcasting – non-commercial cultural spaces are disappearing at an alarming rate in this country. However I feel that the BBC has become a shameful model of public service broadcasting – through unfairly levied taxation it marshals its considerable resources to aggressively and unfairly dominate the media landscape thwarting competition and plurality.

It is too all intents and purposes a commercial organization operating under the cloak of public service, in thrall to the government, supine in its news reporting, and responsible for churning out some of the most vapid self-serving spin imaginable.

Much of its programming – its raison d’etre let us not forget – is terrible. Look at the shows listed in the roll of honour above. Most are 20, 30 or 40 years old for crying out loud made at a time when there were only three channels and it was therefore comparatively easy to grow a ‘classic’. Yes the BBC still makes some good shows but then so do other people. Let’s not be blinded by nostalgia.

I’m afraid the BBC has become a model organization for the Quangocracy this country has become.

Finally, please also do bear in mind that the BBC has an annual income of over £3 billion. This is greater that than the GDP of Rwanda. Please God, the last thing the BBC needs is help fighting its own battles, least of all from an organization like 38 Degrees. Tell me this is a joke and you think there are greater injustices in the world than people picking on the BBC.

Agree with Raymond, We are far better with the BBC than anything the Murdoch clan will force upon us

Rather BBC than Fox

What notable programmes have Sky gave us in the last five years? Whereas the BBC continue to deliver groundbreaking radio and television. They won over half of the Baftas last year, so they must be doing something right

I have inside knowledge of how the beebs works. I can tell you that everyone I know who works or has worked for the beeb things the current licence fee funded corporation has 5 to 10 years max to run.

I believe the beeb will and must be moved to a subscription only service. There is no doubt about this and I see no point in trying to argue about it. It’s is simply undemocratic for the State to force by Law and threat of fine or imprisionmet, a free people to pay for something they don’t want.

Don’t think that only a licence fee support Beeb can make quality programs.

Remember who the Boss is here? It is you, me and everyone else. Not the State. The State came be a good servant to us but a very poor Master. I thought that was what 38degress was all about but Judging by the 1 to 10 list, 38degress have already decided which they are with the Master. If I’m right then I’ll not be contributing to any 38 degrees puts forward in the future.

Message to co-contributors….we may be wasting our time.

I suspect 38 Degrees don’t want our opinions unless that is they match with and are useful to their own position.

Otherwise they would have put a question mark at the end of subject heading i.e. Long live the BBC?

But they didn’t. So in fact ‘Long live the BBC’ is a statement of 38 Degrees’ opinion.

If like me, you thought they were posing a question for debate and that your efforts in blogging here were worthwhile, then bad luck. What’s the bet this reply doesn’t get posted or if so gets removed soon after?

Below is my response to the email about this proposed campaign that I received from 38 Degrees yesterday. It goes on a bit. Peter’s comment above (or will it be below?) that the BBC “should never be anti-british” I find scary, although he needn’t worry… Gerard Dennigan, I think you make the points I wanted to much more succinctly.

I do indeed believe that the BBC is “too flawed to stand up for”, and that to do so would be to provide succour to an organisation which “…is part of a system of thought control complicit in the deaths of millions of people abroad, in severe political oppression at home, and in the possible termination of human life on this planet” (Newspeak in the 21st Century, p19 – see http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/newspeak.php)

I will give a few examples, although a much more sustained and comprehensive analysis is available in the book I have cited.

• The BBC cheer led for the illegal Iraq invasion, and completely capitulated to New Labour when Andrew Gilligan had the temerity to allude to (and in fact, understated) the lies that were told to sell it to the public.

• The BBC misrepresented the cause and effect of Kosovar refugees and NATO’s 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia, helpfully serving western agendas (the scenes of Albanian Kosovars being driven over the border were in fact the result of the bombing of Serbia, but, incredibly, were presented as a justification for it). In January 2009 the BBC refused to broadcast the Disasters Emergency Committee’s humanitarian appeal for Gaza on the grounds it might damage the corporation’s alleged reputation for impartiality; in 1999 it had allowed Jill Dando to present a DEC appeal for Kosovo at the height of the NATO bombing.

• In Israel’s ongoing siege of Gaza, the BBC, in its descriptions of ordinary Palestinians as “militants”, in its labelling of the elected Hamas government as “extremists”, in its use of euphemistic language such as “targeting” rather than “bombing”, and in the namelessness and facelessness which the masses of Palestinian dead are consigned to, as distinct from the individuality afforded to the tiny number of Israeli victims, makes it perfectly clear whose agenda is the one that matters. US and Israeli government claims that they are seeking peace in the region are reported at face value, with scant space for dissenting comment: for the BBC, Western leaders are to be portrayed as men and women of peace; the imputation to them of motives that are not benign is unthinkable.

• The BBC has been complicit in promoting Iran as the next potential target for US and UK bombs, for example selectively highlighting Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s records of state executions from an Amnesty report which focussed collectively on China (“the country that accounts for almost 80% of all executions”), Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States, and which had indeed discussed Iran last of all. (Newspeak in the 21st Century, p43).

Really the instances of BBC adherence to the agendas of US/UK government, powerful elites and big business are too many to list.
I strongly suggest you look at “Newspeak in the 21st Century”, and the Media Lens website from which it arose, and recommend both to your members and email contacts.

Media Lens have frequently made the point that the accusations of “Left bias” and “anti-Americanism” which are regularly levelled at the BBC are really no more than knee jerk reactions from government and the corporate media to the smallest divergence from the BBC’s almost total subservience to corporate and state power.

As an example of the absurd sensitivities involved, in the Daily Mail article “Lambasting for the ‘trendy Left-wing bias’ of BBC bosses” (June 18 2007), “understandable revulsion was expressed at the fact that a Christmas edition of the BBC 1 comedy show, The Vicar of Dibley, had featured a minute-long clip of a Make Poverty History video. This hardly advocated communist revolution, but it was bad enough.” (Newspeak in the 21st Century p33)

So when you ask “Have you noticed that politicians and the media are attacking the BBC a lot at the moment?” – No, not any more than usual – it’s standard for the interdependent government and corporate worlds to fly into a rage when what is effectively the broadcasting wing of the state falters, even minutely, in the role that is expected of it.

“Do you think all this criticism’s fair” –“Fair” or “unfair” are the wrong words for these shrill outbursts of fury at the occasional, trivial instances in which the BBC momentarily exhibits a lack of solidarity with the state/corporate world. To give such posturings any credence at all is to swallow a red herring and to remain deceived as to the BBC’s true status as a mouthpiece for powerful elites.

“..or do you think it’s time someone stood up for the BBC?” – No, I think it is time the BBC was seriously taken to task for its almost complete failure to provide what it claims to, namely objective, impartial reporting. For the BBC, “…‘balance’ tends to involve presenting a spectrum of views ranging from those heavily supportive of state policy to those mildly critical. Strongly critical views are dismissed as too ‘extreme’ to be included”. (Newspeak in the 21st Century, p4).

The real issue is that the BBC is a cornerstone of the establishment, which is something that its founder, Lord Reith, knew only too well when he wrote in his diary: “They know they can trust us not to be really impartial” (Newspeak in the 21st Century, p29).

I would support a campaign by 38 Degrees to hold the BBC to account on its claims to be impartial and unbiased, but not one that flatters the corporation by colluding in the myth that it is essentially independent and objective, reporting on events at home and abroad without fear or favour.

For those who say the BBC is not impartial, you may have a point in certain circumstances, but in general you’re not on the right lines at all. I personally know a great many BBC journalists across the corporation. They’re not Oxbridge graduates, they’re not from highly advantaged backgrounds and they care deeply about journalistic standards.

There are all sorts of issues around how the licence fee is collected, how evaders are dealt with, and how the licence fee ought to change in a multichannel, on demand, broadband connected media world.

However, look at what we get from it. It’s bloody good, and nobody else is offering anything anywhere close for any money.

By all means, have a debate about how the BBC works, and get involved in shaping editorial policy; engage with the BBC and challenge what you don’t like.

But please don’t let it be damaged, dismantled and ruined. The alternative currently championed by Murdoch and supported by a well intentioned but struggling and blinkered (perhaps even desparate) commercial sector is for a broadcasting landscape free from the BBC and Ofcom.

If you think that’ll be a good thing, check out American TV.

And Fox News

And American society

Oh, and be under no illusion that Murdoch simply aim to control the media landscape to take as much of your money as possible.

Moneyed media is never, ever impartial.

sorry to oppose manny statements but…

1. Value for money – Radio, TV, Web, all for just £142.50 a year all in compared to the satellite packages that can cost more than twice as much.

im not sure that is good value for money if you think about it £142 a year for what? a degrading service? why should i have to pay the BBC money so i can check my emails?

3. Bagpuss, Grange Hill, Byker Grove – the best children’s TV is all from the BBC.

it is true these WHERE quality programs but look at what crap they are dishing out to the young audences? back then all those programs where made here in the UK but now neally all are imported form the US where the quality of shows are much lower

4. Dr Who: no other channel in the country offers family viewing that can match it and it’s the longest running science-fiction show in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

yes Dr Who may be the longest running sci-fi in the world but these days itts not even worth the hassle as with #3 the quality has degraded beyond belief. this is also the same with the BBCs comedy programing

9. The only TV without commercial advertising, so it only serves the interests of its viewers, not advertisers.

as was stated by several others the BBC is more about making itts employees rich than providing a quality service

10. The iPlayer – a nifty device that showed everyone else how TV On Demand should be done, another example of the BBC’s technical innovations.

technical innovation? the 4OD service was a technical innovation! the BBC just copied an idea made by one of the companies major competitors. in terms of games consoles SEGA where the innovators not Nintendo

sorry about the rant but the BBC deserves bad feedback it can get! “Good riddance to bad rubbish!”

There is a case for reigning back the BBC. It does have too many outlets on too many platforms. However, I do agree that Sky is too big as well.

The BBC’s biggest foul-up recently has been DAB radio which it helped to introduce in a terribly flawed manner, and which has become the biggest white elephant ever witnessed in broadcasting history. I know noone saw internet broadcasting coming, as such, but DAB is such an expensive mistake, and was introduced in the way it was, despite the people who launched it knowing full-well it was inferior, and too expensive.

I do believe though, that the BBC is a very excellent safety net for quality, and does ‘buck-up’ the output of ‘commercial’ broadcasting concerns. If it wasn’t for the BBC, the commercial interests would reign supreme. What a nightmare!

The BBC keeps all other broadcasters honest. It also allows me to listen or watch without being advertised at. I am more than happy to pay the Licence Fee. One look at Fox News in the US tells you all you need to know about vested/commercial interest in broadcasting. The obligation of broadcasters in this country to offer something resembling impartiality (which does not apply to newspapers and magazines) would be lost if James Murdoch’s demand for lighter touch regulation were acceded to. Somethings are more important than maximising profit of which the BBC – along with the NHS – are shining examples.

By the way, it took about 24 hours from writing my post until it went live. That is unacceptable. If you want to get a debate going then you have to publish more than once a day.

Hi Stewart,
Thank you for your feedback.
We’re aware of the issue with delays in people commenting and them appearing on the blog, and we’re working on changing the system so that comments appear immediately and are subsequently moderated according to a published code of conduct for the blog.
Hopefully this will happen soon.
Bear with us and thanks to everyone for getting involved.
Toby and the 38 Degrees team

Toby

Thanks for the response, the prompt response. I hope you do get it sorted or this blog will never take off.

I like the idea of the site and want to see it succeed.

here here trevor. I hope the BBC can survive the next few years, because it is needed for Britain. Without it, we would be worse off.

Collegues of mine in the USA tell me that our BBC is their only source of news that is unbiased. Apparently the USA citizen is only allowed to read, hear or see news that meets with the corporate driven political system, ‘the land of the free’ is not as free as we are led to believe.

The fact that the BBC came under such attack from the likes of Thatcher and more recently this new Conservative (Labour) government when it disclosed the lies by Blair & Co., it makes the BBC our only hope for the truth.

The BBC needs a big clean up but that’s all.

Kevin Elks wrote: “Collegues of mine in the USA tell me that our BBC is their only source of news that is unbiased.”

And Edwin Hubble wrote: “Observations always involve theory”.

Absolutely any time the BBC reports anything, someone at the BBC has to decide that it’s newsworthy. They can report what people want to hear (tabloid), or they can report what people need to hear (information), or they can report what people ought to hear (educational). We can have a separate debate about what each of these should entail, about the appropriate balance between them and whether or not the BBC achieves this balance.

But let’s not fall into the trap of believing that an unbiased treatment of a single story, or even the unbiased treatment of thousands of stories constitutes unbiased reporting. There are countless things going on in the world at any one time from science and academia to sport and music and from global politics to kids playing in the classroom etc. You may be happy with the way BBC selects from the infinite number of events taking place on any one day. But to believe that it’s unbiased is naive.

Trevor Hyett wrote: ” I am more than happy to pay the Licence Fee.”

I am very glad to hear that you are happy to pay the Licence Fee. But I think it’s people like me you really have in mind. Sorry for being cryptic – let me elaborate.

The BBC is, according to you, a “shining example”. Are you seriously telling me that you would stop paying for such a wonderful service were the Licence Fee not compulsory? Of course you wouldn’t. You value the BBC and presumably you appreciate the content that it provides. So I think you can already see that there is no need to a Licence Fee whatsoever.

Except of course that people like me wouldn’t pay for it. Unlike you I don’t value the BBC and do not appreciate its content. Which is where I was going in the first paragraph, when I said that you really have people like me in mind. The fact that you are happy paying the Licence Fee is up there with “I’m happy to pay £9 to watch a movie”. It may be true for me 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. But it is irrelevant to you and I would not dream of getting you to subsidise the content I choose to buy. But for some reason you seem to believe that I should subsidise your content.

From the article: “Many of the BBC’s main accusers are also their main competition or have their own political agendas to push.”

I am an unaffiliated individual with my own personal opinions about politics. Does that mean I have a “political agenda to push”? Quite simply, I don’t see why I should be forced to pay for BBC content when I use Google, Wiki corroborated by countless of other sources, YouTube and the non-BBC channels that I pay for. If you like the BBC, you pay for it. I like Sky Sports, any chance you’ll subsidise that? Didn’t think so.

I would like to echo Richard Beer’s comment made above. I couldn’t have put it better myself. This is not the sort of thing that 38 Degrees should be campaigning on. Do you have any idea how many resources the BBC already puts into this sort of lobbying activity? It will completely dwarf your organisation and campaigning budget. Actually, there are some very good arguments for plurality in news provision that fit very well with the ethos behind 38 Degrees, and I think you would do well to reconsider your stance on the so called ‘top slicing’ (which already has a precedent in funds allocated to digital switchover).

The BBC has many resources to defend itself, so I think 38 degrees should ask a more general question: “is it worthwhile to defend public service broadcasting?”

In reality, the BBC (as a corporation) that takes *private ownership* of media and rations it out to the public. With the arrival of the Internet, I think we should open people’s eyes to the new potential for Free Culture to replace the ‘public broadcasting’ material that is just fed to the sheep.

I have lost some faith in 38 degrees over this. I got the impression you decided in advance to campaign in favour of the BBC, and it’s felt like a top-down one-way conversation.

All that is said in the blog tells me that the BBC is big enough and old enough to earn it’s keep, without the licence fee, which is just an oppressive tax that hurts the poorest people in the UK.

All of the praise for the BBC is well deserved but the cost to the poorest among us is too much.
The licence fee should be dropped.

I have no objection to the BBC being funded out of general taxation so that it is not a burden on the poor.

Great news that the Government has pushed back plans to top-slice the licence fee but I am worried about “Dave’s” plans should he come to power. Their plans will sound the death knell of the BBC and if we do nothing we will all be looking back in 10 years wondering how we let something so uniquely British and so culturally valuable be destroyed.

Also a campaign to end the dangerous influence that the Murdoch family have over British media, I feel, will have a knock on effect of removing the greatest threat to our BBC.