The BBC is one of our great British institutions
and I never want to see it scrapped, however it does need cutting down to size.
In the multi-media platform world we live in, it’s becoming increasingly difficult
to justify the funding, The BBC has become a British Leyland of broadcasting
funded by means of a punitive poll tax which you must pay or face prison.
In effect, the BBC should only be providing
services and programmes that the market can’t or won’t produce. They also have
no right to infest every sector of broadcasting with their soft-leftie over
funded propaganda.
In an age when it is easy to watch the news, be
entertained, follow sport and surf the internet without ever using the state
monopoly’s services, why on earth should we still be forced to pay for this
dinosaur? In an era of austerity the saving of the licence fee, which
essentially is a tax on each household would be wildly popular, but it’s probably
not the answer.
I’m not calling for the BBC to be completely
privatised. I just want the BBC to concentrate on providing a value for money
service to us, its funders. I want them to be dragged, kicking and screaming if
necessary into the real world, and I want it to be forced to both earn and
justify its existence.
A very recent example of this over blown, unnecessary
spending of tax payer’s money was the BBC coverage of the death of Nelson
Mandella. Yes it was an important event, but didn’t need the uprooting of the
entire BBC News team to go on a junket to South Africa for a fortnight then
making it the main news item everyday for that period to justify the trip! Did Question Time really need to broadcast its
edition that week from South Africa? How many important UK news stories can no
longer be investigated as they’ve spent the budget on Mandella?
Of course, the BBC is held in high esteem around
the world and it has obviously produced some brilliant radio and TV over the
years. But unfortunately at home its presence in all media areas is too
dominant. As the state broadcaster it has tremendous privileges and rights, but
it should also have enormous equal responsibilities to us, the very people who
are forced to pay for it.
A particular bug-bear of mine is the left wing
angle you constantly get on certain, so called impartial news programmes. The Today Programme on Radio 4; Newsnight; Question Time, to me, are all very impartial. Indeed a recent Question Time edition came from Boston
in Lincolnshire, a town that has an extremely high population of immigrants, it
also has what’s probably the largest UKIP following of any town. Strange then how
the audience seemed to be made up of immigrant supporting, anti-UKIP people.
On top of all this is the cover up of the whole Jimmy
Savile; Dave Lee Travis; sex abuse issues that lead to Operation Yewtree. Many senior
people in the BBC knew what was going on, yet did nothing about it. Was this to
protect Savile or protect the BBC? The one thing it didn’t protect was the
victims !
Lose BBC3
and/or BBC4?
Let me say I wouldn't miss BBC3 for a moment; it’s
a repeats channel really. BBC4 costs the licence payer a mighty £50m a year;
however it does have some great programmes on. But being a fan of BBC4 and
having no interest in BBC3 is exactly the reason why both are important, but
are they affordable? Maybe a solution would be to merge them into one, taking
the best bits of each.
It also depends on if they were to do anything with
BBC2, though. If the documentaries and arts programmes (and high quality
foreign imports) move there, then that's acceptable. If however BBC2 continues
to show a diet of cooking, gardening, Dad's
Army and talent show spinoffs, then no thanks get rid of BBC2 instead.
Sponsorship
Can anyone give me one good reason why popular BBC
programmes such as EastEnders; Strictly; Casualty
or The One Show can’t be sponsored in
the same way as Coronation Street is
by Compare The Market? I’m not suggesting advertising interrupting the shows,
but surely they could flog credits at the beginning and the end? Again, revenue
brought in this way would free up cash.
BBC Radio
Radio 1 and Radio 2 should be sold off to the
highest bidder. The BBC’s argument that both stations bring on new talent and
champion minority causes can be easily satisfied by opening up sections of the
licence fee for both private companies and the BBC to bid for to put on these
types of shows.
Radio 3 has lost its way as well. It’s nothing more
than an expensive fig-leaf for the whole operation. Lousy programming, lousy
sound, tiny audiences too, for whom they have little but contempt. Yes, the Proms
are fun but they’re hardly a duty of the licence-payer to the tune of millions.
And when it comes to BBC Five Live, I like it, but
should they really be allowed to use our money to bid for Premiership football
rights and effectively outbid commercial stations? They then use the football
to build their brand!
Six Music is a really good station, its programming
is unique amongst the whole radio network and its successful, but only a few
can hear it as it only broadcasts digitally. With a wider audience this station
could fulfil the gap left by Radios 1 and 2 being sold off whilst fulfilling
the BBC’s diversity ethos.
Local Radio
All of this money saved could then be used to fund
BBC core activities that will not be provided by the private sector, such as ‘proper’
local radio which sadly, no longer seems to exist in the UK anymore.
The best, truly local radio station I ever listened
to was Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio. It had everything, popular music;
specialist music; news; debate; investigative shows; sport etc. It had huge
listening figures and created many local personalities that ended up as national
figures such as Chris Evans. Piccadilly disappeared when big corporate business
started buying up local radio in the 80’s, their descendant; KEY103 is a dire,
chart music, playlist station with nondescript, identikit presenters. It
appeals to teenagers and that’s about it. They could be broadcasting anywhere
in the country, the output would still be the same.
BBC Radio Manchester is a fairly good local talk
station with brilliant news and sport coverage, however with a bit of
investment it could be so much more. If the BBC were to take the Piccadilly
Radio model and merge it with what Radio Manchester does they’d have a perfect
offering, listenership would go through the roof.
Put It In
The Manifesto
I don’t think it’s helpful to call for the
abolition of the BBC. I think it’s a reductive, if not nihilistic game whereby
abolition plays into the hands of the likes of Murdoch and a wide variety of
extremists. However something needs to be done.
The BBC is rightly seen as a great symbol of all
that is great in Britain but it has to be cut down to size and made apolitical.
It needs to be made more accountable to the British public if we are to continue
to be forced to pay for it. It also needs to stop being a supporter of
minorities first and foremost and be more supportive of the British way of life
instead. It should reflect our shared values and not be an organ of propaganda for
those who seek to destroy our way of life or change it without even consulting
us.
All the political parties will be drawing their
manifestos shortly ready for the General Election next year. Times are
changing. They should put some serious thought into what the BBC needs to look
like in these modern times. It could be a vote winner !
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