BBC Discussion

[Howard]

@Dave Advertising on the BBC won't produce the revenue that people expect. Going back to one of the original points (made by @Bowden Guy I think), traditional broadcast TV needs to change radically to compete in the fast-changing world of media consumption. On the rare occasions when I watch something on a commercial channel I NEVER see the advertisements. I put on the PVR and then come back 15 minutes later so I can jump through the commercial break.

[Dave]

Most countries have state broadcasting networks of one sort or another, many of them (the best ones) modelled on the BBC.  We would be crazy to scrap the Beeb, for the good reasons given by Howard.  It's a National Treasure.

But I can see Duke's point about the licence fee, and I understand his reference to the poll tax: it's a very blunt instrument,with its flat rate charge for everyone.   The over-75s are exempted, which puzzles me, as many of them could well afford to pay.  Perhaps we should devise simple ways of exempting or reducing the cost for those who can't afford the full licence fee, maybe by linking it to the tax and benefit system.

Switching to a subscription service like Sky Sports is definitely a bad idea - it would decimate the BBCs income.  A better plan, IMO, would be to finance the Beeb at least partly through advertising.   

[Duke Fame]

Because then the corporation will be under the control/influence of its shareholders and would become a mouthpiece and just another media organisation rather than the utterly unique and independent entity it is today. The BBC is one of the few things that makes me proud to be British.

So everyone has to pay for your own indulgence? Personally, I could not care less who owns a telly / radio company, I'll watch what I like and pay accordingly - this is usually a British freedom.

If we must have a state broadcaster then finance it fairly. The greeks (bless them) put a levy on electricity which at lease seems a little fairer, income tax would also be fairer or simply a tax on new tellys.

[Bowden Guy]

Hopefully, not too late to add Point 7, namely the freedom we have established over many years, to practise one's religion or indeed, like me, to (personally) reject all religions?

[Howard]

@tigerman Granted. Let me qualify that...I was thinking more of institutions and organisations. Along with the BBC I might add the NHS, the National Trust, the Open University and the RNLI.

[Bowden Guy]

Howard, here are a few other suggestions.....
1. Britain is a country with free speech (compared to the vast majority of other countries)
2. We still have a fundamentally free press/media (second comment as above)
3. We have made great strides towards real gender equality (as above)
4. We have made great progress towards a state of affairs where individuals are free to pursue their own sexuality (as above)
5. Despite many strains, Britain is one of the most tolerant countries in the world.
6. Because we live in a country that has the right to private property, we experience a material standard of living that is the envy of the world.

Very few people in the world have the enormous benefit of lving in a liberal democracy. We truly have won the lottery of life.

[Howard]

But why shouldn't it be sold off and we can let the public choose if it wants it's product rather than using such an unfair poll tax?

Because then the corporation will be under the control/influence of its shareholders and would become a mouthpiece and just another media organisation rather than the utterly unique and independent entity it is today. The BBC is one of the few things that makes me proud to be British.

[Duke Fame]

My view is that if the government of the day (whichever flavour) is complaining about bias in the BBC then the BBC is doing the job right. It ALWAYS happens that potshots are taken at the BBC whenever an election is coming up.

The BBC is scrutinised like no other media organisation on earth, and rightly do, as they are funded by the public. Can you imagine the howls from Murdoch if Sky News was held to the same standards that we hold the BBC to? Same for the appalling Daily Mail. Both of them are massive critics of the BBC because the BBC takes a (fairly) neutral view of the world unlike those two institutions who pander to the bias of their audience.

But why shouldn't it be sold off and we can let the public choose if it wants it's product rather than using such an unfair poll tax?

[Duke Fame]

How strange, therefore, that it was The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, that singlehandedly exposed the widespread, and longstanding, criminality that was happening in Rotherham. Other news outlets, including the BBC, seemed unable, or unwilling, to investigate it. Facts sometime get in the way of narratives, as I'm sure we all find.

ditto Saville, Rolf, Cricket match fixing, expenses scandal.......

[Bowden Guy]

How strange, therefore, that it was The Times, owned by Rupert Murdoch, that singlehandedly exposed the widespread, and longstanding, criminality that was happening in Rotherham. Other news outlets, including the BBC, seemed unable, or unwilling, to investigate it. Facts sometime get in the way of narratives, as I'm sure we all find.

[Howard]

My view is that if the government of the day (whichever flavour) is complaining about bias in the BBC then the BBC is doing the job right. It ALWAYS happens that potshots are taken at the BBC whenever an election is coming up.

The BBC is scrutinised like no other media organisation on earth, and rightly do, as they are funded by the public. Can you imagine the howls from Murdoch if Sky News was held to the same standards that we hold the BBC to? Same for the appalling Daily Mail. Both of them are massive critics of the BBC because the BBC takes a (fairly) neutral view of the world unlike those two institutions who pander to the bias of their audience.

[Dave]

Yes, I think we can all agree on that.  No-one disputes that in the past the BBC has sometimes shown what some have called a 'liberal bias'.   So in that Guardian article we read that 'Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, said in January that the broadcaster had made a "terrible mistake" by shying away from a proper debate on immigration in the late 1990s and early 2000s.', and 'Last year Helen Boaden, the BBC's former head of news, conceded that the broadcaster had a "deep liberal bias" on the subject when she took up the post in 2004.'

The trouble is, there is a noisy and entrenched anti-BBC attitude among some parts of the press, so that whatever the Beeb does they will be criticised.  If this were a rational discussion, the BBC would get credit for admitting its past mistakes and putting them right.  But it isn't rational - far from it. 

Meanwhile, we're still waiting for Bowden Guy to produce any evidence for these extraordinary allegations:

Re the EU, anyone who openly advocated withdrawal was branded as a crackpot. And, as for immigration, anyone who even talked about the pace, levels and societal effects, of significant (and previously unexperienced) migration to this country, was labelled a 'racist".

Come on, BG - put up or shut up!   

[Bowden Guy]

And here is John Humphreys (reported in the Guardian) saying that the BBC 'shied away" from the immigration debate because it had "bought into the European ideal" But everything is OK now, of course. Bit of a pattern here. Mea culpa for past wrongs but it's all been addressed, look away now......


http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/mar/11/john-humphrys-bbc-immigration-debate-today-programme

[Bowden Guy]

Here is Mark Thompson, ex Director- General, referring to a BBC report from 2007 which described Euroscepticism and Immigration as "off-limits in terms of a liberal- minded comfort zone".....

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/bbc-chief-mark-thompson-admits-leftwing-bias-6509105.html

[Bowden Guy]

Over the past few years there have been a number of reports/investigations from the pBBC which readily admit that, yes, they have been guilty of bias "in the past" but, of course, everything is OK now.