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Another reason to break up and privatise the BBC If this story about Britain’s so-called ‘public service’ state owned broadcasting channel is true, the end of the BBC cannot come to soon.
Amid the deaths and the grim daily struggle bravely borne by Britain’s forces in southern Iraq, one tale of heroism stands out. Private Johnson Beharry’s courage in rescuing an ambushed foot patrol then, in a second act, saving his vehicle’s crew despite his own terrible injuries earned him a Victoria Cross.
For the BBC, however, his story is “too positive” about the conflict. The corporation has cancelled the commission for a 90-minute drama about Britain’s youngest surviving Victoria Cross hero because it feared it would alienate members of the audience opposed to the war in Iraq.
To be honest I find it hard to believe the people who run the BBC could be so overt in imposing their tax funded biases on the channel. If this is true, even I am shocked by the crassness of it.
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Yes, the BBC should be broken up but not privatised.
Privatisation would leave the same networks basically intact only with even more commercial potential which would enable them to continue dominating the high ground of culture.
The BBC must be smashed, its personnel pensioned off or made redundant, its real estate sold, its plant and machinery auctioned off and its copyright scattered to the winds.
It’s the only way.
If there ever is a real conservative party and that party by some miracles wins, privatizing the BBC should be the first item on the agenda.
Americans should not gloat. We have PBS and NPR and I have yet to see a Republican administration or government privatize either. Still I find it particularly offensive to be forced to pay a direct tax for the “privileged”of being able to watch television
Not reporting good news about Iraq is editorial policy at the BBC. During a recent phone-in on Radio Five Live’s Simon Mayo show a serving soldier asked the BBC’s World Affairs editor John Simpson why the BBC didn’t report any of the good things British troops were doing in Iraq. Simpson replied that it’s not the BBC’s role “to identify one group as an enemy and another group as those to be supported” and positive reports about our troops are not “what we would regard the purpose of news reporting to be.”
His reply in full:
Courage might be contagious. Best to quarantine it and make sure it doesn’t spread.
If stories like this soldier’s got around, why, people might start thinking there’s something to this “fighting for what we believe in” business.
Can’t have that, old bean, now can we?
Thaddeus Tremayne ,
You forgot the Holy Water,exorcist,stake through the heart,the silver bullet and grave strewn with garlic.
the BBC at least deserve some credit for standing up to the bullies in new labour over the Iraq debacle. That any mandatory charge imposed by the state for using a television is wrong
To me the obvious answer to what to do about the BBC comes with the digital switch over.
On the day that that happens the licence fee is scrapped and the Beeb has to earn it’s own money.
They can then make BBC1 and BBC2 subscription channels and charge, say, sixty quid each for them and the rest of their numerous channels can finance themselves with ads for insurance and loans like the rest of the dross that fills up the digital airwaves. Add in a few adds on the website and they’re set.
After all, if they believe that the Beeb is worth £120 a year of everyone’s money, then they should be able to attract enough subscribers to match what the taxpayer gives them now.
The only other thing I would do is scrap all the World Service broadcasting. If we’re going to have publicly funded propaganda channels then they should at least be pro British propaganda.
Back in the 1970s Tom Wolfe once referred to PBS as Petroleum’s Britsh Subsidiary. Putting BBC shows on US Public TV was a way for the CEOs of the big oil company’s to feed into the delusion that a bit of artistocratic polish from the BBC would rub off on them.
Today the relationship between the BBC and PBS is a wholly parasitic one. The American’s suck in most British stuff, (Some of us miss Benny Hill, if only for the cute females) They are ideological duplicates the main difference is that even if the GOP has not managed to kill PBS/NPR at least they have kept it on short rations and forced them to beg from the public. This limits the damage.
The BBC is the one unequivocally evil instititution to emerge from the British Empire. Getting rid of it would be a blessing for all humanity.
On the day that that happens the licence fee is scrapped and the Beeb has to earn it’s own money.
The BBC has been selling the argument that the rapidly changing technological environment is more challenging for the BBC than that of the past, and therefore the licence fee needs to be increased to cope with this. This is the opposite of the moderate conservative “There are so many choices in the new technological world that the BBC is no longer necessary” argument, and even further so from the truth, which is that the BBC was necer necessary and its existence has horrendously retarded the development of choice for listeners for the last 80 years. I have written about this before. The real evil of the BBC is not actually what it does and says but the horrendous regulatory environment that has prevented other media options from properly existing in the UK.
However, much of the government and the bureaucracy (and even a fair bit of the non-BBC media) has actually bought the “licence fee must be increased” argument (which is I suppose just like the arguments for increasing other taxes) and this must be fought.
Even more than Thaddeus, what I would like to see is for the BBC to be shut down tomorrow and its employees all told to go and get jobs. However, this is not going to happen. Slightly more realistic are options like the BBC being split up and privatised, the BBC having its licence fee funding slowly reduced and told to fund other sources of income, or the BBC having its licence fees reduced. There is a large middle group of people who support the conservative options here, and these options are vastly better than the status quo or what the BBC actually wants. In this case the worst case scenarios are so bad that I think I favour supporting the middle.
Dare not alienate those people, they’re extremely touchy about any news information that they could be exposed to.
That quote from Simpson is pathetic. If they aren’t in the business of “influencing people to see, perhaps to support some particular line”, but “just want to tell people what is happening”, then they should be reporting the good news as well.
The fact that they don’t – won’t – suggests, following their own argument, that they are trying to influence people to see some particular line. And it looks an awful lot like the enemy’s.
Michael,
I do not think for even a moment that my vision for the BBC will come to pass anytime soon or even within my lifetime. It would take a revolution to see it realised.
Simpson is a deluded twit. Of course the BBC is in the business of influencing people, and it’s patently clear how they wish to influence them.
This part of the quote is a stunner too:
“I think you’ve got to understand what the value of news reporting in a free society actually is.”
Interesting, that, considering the BBC’s reporting is based on the coerced payment of license fees. Simpson wouldn’t know what freedom was if it jumped up and smacked him on the nose. Actually, considering his substantial girth he’d probably try to eat it.
And don’t forget the BBc has a reporter embedded with the Taliban in Arganistan. The one who writes about how well the Taliban is doing its job of killing British soldiers.
Thaddeus… there is also “taking off and nuking it from orbit.” That is said to be the only way to really make sure!
Is it really beyond the British public’s power to declare the BBC licence fee an archaic holdover, and to abolish it?
There seems to be a lot of sighing and acceptance of the inevitable by the commenters above.
As a boy, I remember listening to the World Service on my shortwave radio here in the states, and I believed what I heard. Reception was terrific, too.
Last month, the BBC was displaying a poster in its offices portraying Bush as Hitler. It showed Bush waving to a crowd superimposed over a picture of Hitler delivering the Nazi salute.
The BBC literally can not distinguish between a dictator who had his political opponents thrown into concentration camps or shot out of hand and a U.S. president who allowed his political opponents to gain a majority in Congress. They cannot tell a head of state who was obliged to run for re-election and is bound by a constitutional term limitation, from one who upon taking office was Chancellor for life. They can not even tell a cattle rancher from a vegetarian or an alcoholic from a teetotaler. Since the BBC cannot distinguish between Bush, a reservist who never saw combat, and Hitler, an infantryman who won the Iron Cross, how surprised can we be that they think a report on the winner of the Victoria Cross isn’t worth any air time?
I wonder when the BBC became this impartial? What would the Second World War have been like if the Beeb had been more impartial, and reported the German side of every aspect? Like how construction at Dachau was injecting funds into the local economy? (Might be a good satire for Thaddeus to write!)
I completely agree with Thaddeus, but there are worse things than the BBC you know.
Has anybody else managed to watch more than 10 minutes of Euro News without flying into an apoplectic rage?
The raw effluent of EU propaganda is relentless.
I was on holiday when Brando died and Euro News was the only english speaking channel I could get.
They announced his death thus-
The legendary Hollywood actor, Marlon Brando died today. His had suffered a decline in recent years and died owning several million Euros.
He had probably never seen a Euro let alone owed any.
That’s Dollars you blinkered assholes !! I screamed at the set.
Sunfish, I finally found villianeous NZ role in a movie- Fierce Creatures. The Media boss comes from NZ, and is pure evil- he is only interested in money. And Sam Neill, a NZ actor, played the son of the devil in the Omen movies, if that counts.
“…the BBC at least deserve some credit for standing up to the bullies in new labour over the Iraq debacle.”
Some credit perhaps – but standing up to the government is not what they are there for, according to their own charter. Standing up to the government involves taking a political position – and should public service broadcasting be political, how can state funding for it be justified?
Besides which, news reporting and editorial comment antagonistic to the government does not require the existence of the BBC.
For what it’s worth I think the death of Dr David Kelly was a very shady business indeed and that the government action against the BBC was a disgrace.
But I have a question to those older than myself (27): for how long has the BBC maintained a left-wing bias? Has it been there all along since it was first created, or is it a recent phenomenon? And might this left-wing bias be related to the BBC’s growth over the years?
Short answer. Always. (see Orwell G)
That’s too simplistic, the Beeb has always been Establishment, but that elitist, left-wing end of the Establishment.
It traditionally draws it’s upper-level management from Oxbridge, and the kind of people who don’t want to get involved with the nitty-gritty of industry, economics or politics, and despise those who do, but know exactly how things should be done.
It’s probably not correct to call them left-wing. There’s probably not a failed ideology they haven’t supported in the past, nor a dictator they haven’t fawned over, provided said dictator isn’t classified as right-wing. (Though sometimes it’s difficult to see how they make the distinction. To me it seems the strong man’s relationship with America is the deciding factor.)
Probably the thing that’s changed over the years is the blatancy with which they broadcast their views, and the lack of real push-back from the rest of society. As they have succeeded in defining the terms of debate, those who disagree with them are more and more forced onto the defensive, and as the Gramscian ‘march on the institutions’ has progressed there are fewer and fewer people in position to oppose them effectively. (Oxbridge and the BBC were the first institutions which were marched on.)
Simpson could make that comment at any dinner-party of BBC mandarins at any time in it’s history and get broad agreement. He probably can’t understand how us oiks who have to live in the real world can’t see the obvious, when everyone he knows is in total agreement.
Never underestimate the usefullness of snob appeal. The more left wing the BBC gets the more important it is for it to be seen as the enemy of all that is ‘vulgar’.
This fits in nicely with its anti american bigotries, it even allows for US wannabe snobs to join the church.
One wonders how cowardly the BBC management and staff have become when they spike a story about a true modern day hero..because it might offend a few “antiwar” listeners. I would suggest that the government finally do away with the BBC.
The BBC should not be broken up or privatised. The licence fee should be scrapped and the BBC left to finance itself. Whether it prospered, shrank or ceased to exist as a result would be the concern of the BBC’s employees and those willing to pay for its products. What is the government doing in the broadcasting business anyway?
Pete: if the BBC is left to finance itself and you do not think the government should be in the broadcasting business… surely you are indeed agreeing it should be privatised (i.e. no longer owned by the state)
I hate privatisation as it is currently understood, it sells government owned assets to either clear state debt or allow increased state spending on other projects, without any return to the taxpayer (albeit debt reduction does give future taxpayers some relief). It generally does not result in a lowering of the tax burden, although in Britain TV licensing would disappear (although it wouldn’t surprise me if it remained in a smaller form). Are Britons any better off for private water and power? Where did the money go?
Better to issue all British citizens with nominal shares and let the market work it out. If the BBC is a public corporation, then give it to the public. Allow the public to vote on the board directly or sell their shares as they see fit.
I’ll contradict myself in saying that if two options were available, the status quo versus a sell-off (privatisation), I guess I’d support a sell-off. Anything would be better than having to pay that damn TV license.
Hell yes.
Are Britons any better off for private water and power?
Hell yes.
I guess I meant in terms of the levels of taxation.
I’m for privatisation, but would rather see public assets go to the public through a share issue. Do you have any opinon on the type of privatization? Asset sales reduce government ownership of infrastructure (a good thing), but rarely result in lower taxation, the state finds new uses for the previous subsidises (a bad thing).
Public private partnerships are another half arsed version of privatisation. Turning private companies into rent seeking tax eaters is not real liberalisation either.
I read a column in ‘The Australian’ (page 13, April 11)about how British schools are not teaching the Holocaust because… you guessed it- it might contradict what the muslim students are being taught at home and in the Mosque! Is this true? If so, then the BBC and the whole of the Public Education system should be sold off to the highest bidder, if you could get anyone to buy them!
Nick G,
Yes, sort of. Some have said they do, others have said they don’t. It’s not a uniform policy across all schools.
See the official report page 15.
History at schools has long missed out controversial and unpleasant subjects – it is just that the definitions of what is controversial have shifted.
However, in this case I have to disagree with the idea that to sell them off would solve the problem. Schools that have to compete in the market place tend to teach what the parents want them to – and since these problems are introduced precisely to avoid conflicts with parents, that would only make things worse. It is our pervasive multiculturalism and fear of confrontation you have a problem with, not the official curriculum, which still contains the crusades and holocaust.
Skimming through the report I linked to above, I came across this passage, which I thought would amuse and entertain…
“…Often they have fixed ideas and hardened attitudes, in particular, the idea among some Muslim students that there is one truth does not always sit comfortably with the critical and pluralist perspectives that underpin much school history.” (emphasis added.)
How many are there?
Ever since the shirtlifters, “wimmin” and ethnic minorities took over the BBC it has been a traitorous organization. This first became obvious during the Falklands War when the BBC refused to acknowledge
British Troops as “our” troops.
It is not enough to get rid of the licence tax; the BBC must be abolished and all those involved in the endless stream of lefty/PC propaganda spewing out from Broadcasting House must be arrested and tried for treason.