Welcome to our community page. On the left is our blog where we keep you updated about everything to do with 38 Degrees. Below you can see the latest from Facebook and Twitter.
38 Degrees members with the 80,000 strong save the BBC petitions
Today people took to the streets across the UK calling on the BBC not to cut Asian Network, BBC6 Music and the BBC website. Flashmobs took place in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and Glasgow, making sure that BBC bosses know how many people oppose their cuts. We’ve got photos from some of the demos below, when we get more we’ll add them in.
Over 80,000 people signed the “Save the BBC” petitions – which 38 Degrees members presented to the BBC Trust (see the photo above).
The BBC won’t announce it’s plans for another few months but one thing is clear, tens of thousands of us don’t want the BBC to cut the services we love. So what should we do now? If you have any ideas let us know in the comments below.
Over the last few weeks, thousands of us have taken action to tell the BBC Trust not to go ahead with their planned cuts to 6Music, Asian Network and the website.
We’ve now arrived at the critical final stage: next Tuesday, 25th May is the final day of the BBC Trust’s consultation period. On the day, we’re working with the National Union of Journalists and the campaigns to save 6Music and the Asian Network to hold flashmobs outside BBC offices all around the UK. At 1pm we will make as much noise as possible to send our message loud and clear to BBC bosses, so bring a whistle, saxophone, drum or just your voice!
There are events planned in Leeds, London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol already, but if one of those isn’t close enough to you, then you can click here to set up your own on the 38 Degrees website: http://www.38degrees.org.uk/bbc-flashmobs/
Together, we’ve already taken action to make sure the BBC Trust knows we don’t want these cuts. Tens of thousands of people have signed the save the BBC petition. Our billboards, paid for by thousands of people chipping in, went up around the country on 10th May. And we e-mailed hundreds of election candidates and asked them to pledge to protect the BBC and public broadcasting.
The billboard campaign against the BBC cuts went ahead this morning and so far, it’s been a big success. Billboards went up in 7 locations around the UK and a van displaying the posters parked out the BBC Trust offices in central London. 38 Degrees members met up outside the BBC Trust to ‘honk’ to say no to the cuts. We had a great response from passersby, who honked their car horn or rang their bicycle bell when they saw our message to BBC bosses.
Our billboards mean that the first message new MPs are going to get from us is that it is critical that we defend the BBC. Over the last few days we’ve had lots of opportunities to see how important impartial news is. Our billboards send a clear and loud message that it is us, not millionaire media owners, who should have the final say on the BBC.
Please help spread the message further and save the BBC. If you haven’t signed the petition yet you can do so here and if you have, please ask your friends, family and colleagues to sign too.
Today, we got through the final designs for the Stop the BBC Cuts billboards, that we paid for together with thousands of 38 Degrees members chipping in. They’ll be going up near BBC offices in cities all around the UK from 10th May, and we’re hoping people will walk, cycle or drive by and give a ‘honk’ in support of our campaign when they do.
Here’s how the posters will look on the big billboards all around the UK:
Billboards will go up where BBC bosses can't miss them
Hundreds of members helped by making comments about the first design (which we shared on our blog and Facebook a few weeks ago), and the designers have taken their main comments on board, by making sure there was a way for everyone to join in as they want past the billboards and by ensuring that we mentioned the cuts that members were most concerned about: 6Music, Asian Network and the website.
Nobody working for the BBC will be able to miss our message: these huge billboards on the doorsteps of their offices will send a huge signal that thousands of us don’t want them to cut services like 6Music, Asian Network and the BBC website. By bringing together everyone taking action to stop the cuts, we’ll make it clear that we won’t stand by and let millionaire media owners dictate what happens to our BBC.
What do you think? How else can we make sure BBC bosses get our message?
Ever since the BBC bosses proposed making massive cuts to its services, including axing 6 Music and Asian Network and halving the size of its website, tens of thousands of us have expressed our anger and disappointment through signing the petition against the cuts, e-mailing our views to BBC consultation and getting in touch with our local candidates about the plans for cuts.
So far, the number of people who signed up for our petition has hit a groundbreaking 35,735, and more and more people are joining in from all over the country.
The map below shows where the people who have signed the Stop the BBC Cuts petition live. It proves that worries about cuts to the BBC really are a national concern – there are dots all over the map, from the north of Scotland all the way down to Cornwall in the south.
Please help pass on the message and save the BBC. If you haven’t signed 38 Degrees petition yet, you can join in here.
Since the election was announced thousands of us have been emailing our local Parliamentary candidates, asking them to pledge their opposition to cuts to the BBC and their support for public service broadcasting.
We’ve been looking through some of the responses from candidates that have been forwarded on to us. The great news is that many of our candidates have signed the pledge, and just want to let us know how strong their support for the BBC is. Like us, they’re worried about the BBC’s commercial rivals getting the upper hand in the debate over its future.
Some of the other most common responses have been:
It’s not a politician’s place to comment on individual editorial or programming decisions – it’s a matter for the BBC.
Axing 6 Music and Asian Network is the wrong decision, but we shouldn’t be opposing all cuts to the BBC. Some scaling back of its operations is appropriate.
The BBC needs to be offering fewer channels of better quality, so these cuts are appropriate.
What’s the best way to reply? If your candidate(s) wrote back to you with one of these (or any other) responses, please post it below so other 38 Degrees members can have a look, help you reply or just leave a comment.
If you haven’t already emailed your candidates, you can do so here.
Over the last three weeks, a massive 32,851 of us have signed our petition against the BBC cuts, and 17,817 have also emailed the BBC Trust with a formal response to the official consultation. This is a fantastic response, and if we keep up this kind of pressure we’ve got a real chance of forcing the BBC Trust to drop the proposals.
If you haven’t added your name to the petition, or emailed the BBC trustees, please do so now, and ask your family and friends to do the same.
We will be sitting down with the other key players in the campaign next week, such as the National Union of Journalists and other petition sites. Together we’ll need to make sure we have plans to keep the pressure on right up to May 25th, when the consultation ends.
It is important that we work together to think of creative and intelligent ways to keep up momentum over the next ten weeks. Please share your ideas of how we can keep the pressure on.
On Thursday evening Hannah, one of our members of staff, attended the Asian Music Awards. She was there to chat to the stars of Asian music and film and distribute orange bands showing support for the Asian Network and BBC 6Music campaign.
A range of stars, including Jay Sean, the first British Asian musician to reach number 1 in the US charts, and film director Gurinder Chadha, were keen to wear an orange band and speak in support of our campaign.
Today we visited the BBC Trust in central London, to deliver the first batch of our petition – 20 000 names – to the key players in the decision to ’shrink’ the BBC. We wanted to give them a taste of just how big our response to proposed cuts is going to be.
Rob, one of our volunteers, dressed up for the event as a dalek from BBC drama Dr Who. We wanted to show the people at the top of the BBC what a well-loved institution it is, by bringing along a character from one of its most popular TV shows.
After getting some amused looks from passers-by (daleks are a rare sight in central London, apparently) we reached the home of the BBC Trust, where Rob delivered the petition to a member of BBC Trust staff. We told him that tens of thousands of us oppose cuts to the BBC, especially the axing of Asian Network and 6Music. We also made sure he knew that this is only the first of many actions we’ll be taking.
We’ve sent a clear message to the BBC Trust that we won’t stand for cuts. It’s important that we keep this pressure up for the period when the proposed cuts are being considered. We’ve got some great actions planned, but in the meantime please make sure you sign our petition, and that your friends and family do the same.
In the past week, a massive 29,000 of us have signed the 38 Degrees petition to stop cuts to the BBC. It’s clear that we’re not willing to put up with the closure of much-loved services like 6Music and Asian Network.
Tomorrow we’ll be handing in the first batch of our petition to the BBC Trust. We want to show the BBC in person what a huge outcry there has already been about the cuts. But this doesn’t mean that our petition is ending. As more people sign up in coming weeks, we’ll be visiting the Trust again to submit thousands more names to them. And we hope that together we’ll be able to think up many more creative and clever ways of making sure that our message gets through.
We’d love you to join us when we deliver the petition. We’ll be meeting at the Meze Cafe near Great Portland Street station at 1pm tomorrow before heading to the Trust. You can find directions to the Cafe here, or give us a ring on 020 7611 4728 if you’re having trouble finding us.
The billboard campaign against the BBC cuts went ahead this morning and so far, it’s been a big success. Billboards went up in 7 locations around the UK and a van displaying the posters parked out the BBC Trust offices in central London. 38 Degrees members met up outside the BBC Trust to ‘honk’ to say no to the cuts. We had a great response from passersby, who honked their car horn or rang their bicycle bell when they saw our message to BBC bosses.
Since the election was announced thousands of us have been emailing our local Parliamentary candidates, asking them to pledge their opposition to cuts to the BBC and their support for public service broadcasting.
Today we visited the BBC Trust in central London, to deliver the first batch of our petition – 20 000 names – to the key players in the decision to ’shrink’ the BBC. We wanted to give them a taste of just how big our response to proposed cuts is going to be.
