The BBC is a strong brand for reasons that I dislike. Yet we must recognise that the Corporation straddles a paradoxical position. Some aspects of the Corporation are very good and provide a superior listening or viewing experience to its commercial rivals. Radio channels 3 and 4 may have declined in recent years but the stations still stand above their rivals. The contribution of the BBC to the nation includes a shared cultural and national experience that binds all four nations from Churchill to Blair, until alternatives undermined the cohesive agenda of public-sector broadcasting.
Discussing the parasitical coercion of the BBC’s institutions and its output today in Borough Market with Michael Jennings, the pessimism was palpable. As technology undermines the reasonable expectations of the licence fee, our views diverged. Michael thought that the levy would be converted into a tax, as the Political Class grasped at cultural hegemony. I was more sanguine, viewing the abolition of the licence fee as a cheap populist act for a government facing a public sector borrowing crisis. After all, people no longer ‘need’ the BBC, if they ever did.
This left a quandary. What shall we do with the BBC? And the answer is that the Corporation should be sold to Google. Like all public sector corporations there are strong centres of quirky innovation that could thrive in such a culture. Google has already linked up with the BBC and competes in certain media. Google could derive profit from providing premium services on worldwide subscription. It is a very valuable brand that no private sector owner would wish to dilute. The rush of creative abilties into the private sector from BBC redundancies would stimulate our media industries that are currently stifled by the dominant oligarchies of various publicly funded and regulated channels.
And households would save over one hundred pounds every year. It is a win-win.
Let anyone buy the BBC. Privatize it. It doesn’t matter who buys.
Google is busy with the lunar robot prize.
Too late. Siemens has already bought the bit Google would be interested in (BBCT). I know many people who worked for them – a fine example of the BBC creating something extremely valuable without realising it, and selling it for less than it was worth to a company that didn’t know what to do with it.
Circa 1998, BBC Technology probably had a greater understanding of web technology and its uses than any other company.
The BBC clearly states in its Charter that it is owned by the British people.
Let us have our shares and do what we want with them.
Jacob has it summed up:
I worked at Wood Lane for 3 years learning ‘some’ of my trade before realising that the only way of really learning about film and media was to be there in the thick of it and not in the plush remote world of Aunty Beeb. I don’t agree with any part of the BBC having ‘good aspects’, with maybe the exception of BBC World. Classic FM provides an inifinitely greater classical choice (IMHO) than Radio 3 and I now seriously loathe most of what I hear on Radio 4, Radio 2 can be bearable but Radio 1 is (apart from Jo Whiley and the world’s greatest and nicest DJ – Pete Tong) completely useless. I stand by my constant view that the only way forward for the BBC is total privatisation … let Aunty reap the benefit of alll those properties she owns around London for once.
I have been a shortwave listener from the U.S. for many years. The Beeb isn’t what it used to be.
Bill
James is right. Give us our shares!
Sell it to Murdoch. The sound of all those lefty heads exploding would be music to the ears.
The problem with selling/privatising the BBC is that it doesn’t address one of the most serious concerns that the BBC raises, that of institutional leftism. As long as it exists, in whatever form, an organisation of that size with a long established and deeply rooted culture of its own will be very reluctant to change. The socialist/multicultural/EUphile/antibusiness/etc. mindset is so deeply rooted in the thinking of most employees that a change of ownership will fail to move it.
The only solution is to close the whole thing down, make all of its employees redundant, sell all of its assets and see if anyone whos buys them would like to recreate the whole rotten thing. If no one does, then the BBC has no right to exist. If they do, then good luck to them, just as long as they don’t expect me to pay for it.
Google is the Devil, lunar prizes notwithstanding, so thats hardly an improvement.
Split it up and sell each bit to the highest bidder.
I could comment, but Rob and the last toryboy seem to have covered most everything I would have said.
I might just mention google’s rather disturbing habit of accusing established industries of using the law to prop up outdated business models, while deploying battalions of lawyers to argue “fair use” in defence of their (rather old fashioned) advertising sales business.
Yes, the more that I think about it, I’m not sure that trading one behemoth for another would bring much, if anything, in the way of benefit.
How would Google cope with 30,000 new employees who think they have a right to sell what they want to sell for the price they want to sell it at?
Being the conservative that I am I would rather keep hold of this British institution. Its presentation format is superior to all others (even if all its presenters annoy the pips out of me when they say ‘gonna’ when they mean ‘going to’) and it could yet be a force for good.
The challenge is: how do you remove the leftist cancer and replace it with something that has some appreciation of its role as champion of Britain and its own, Anglo-Saxon/Celtic culture?
Better to work on that than simply jack it all in and end what could again be a world-class institution.
Do not forget the regulations, they are the reason that the news and current affairs coverage of the non state owned broadcasters is not really different to the B.B.C.
For all its flaws Fox News provides some alternative to the leftist line in the United States.
Sky News (also owned by News International) does not provide that alternative in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland – and the regulations are the reason why.
Of course should Mrs Clinton (a much more determined person than her husband) become President, Fox News would no longer take a non leftist line – any resistance to regulations would be snuffed out by a quiet threat of the I.R.S. or “anti trust” (or something else) – Mr M. would make a deal.
Disney would also make a deal (as it already has on the “Path to 9/11”) which would mean that there would be no more antistatism on A.B.C.s “20/20”.
The United States of America would become like this country in terms of broadcasting.
“Being the conservative that I am I would rather keep hold of this British institution. Its presentation format is superior to all others (even if all its presenters annoy the pips out of me when they say ‘gonna’ when they mean ‘going to’) and it could yet be a force for good.
The challenge is: how do you remove the leftist cancer and replace it with something that has some appreciation of its role as champion of Britain and its own, Anglo-Saxon/Celtic culture?”
You can’t have both. The very nature of the BBC is that it attracts people who believe in government control, and always has.
By its nature, the BBC is neither “left” nor “right”. It is about the upper class establishment. 50 years ago, it had presenters with RP accents, and believed in putting on ballet and opera for the plebs. Where once they sneered at game shows, they now sneer at YouTube.
The BBC went towards the left because the Thatcher government was not of the establishment, and sought a defence in Labour. It tore down large sections of the state monopolies, including allowing Sky to operate without much interference and introducing producer choice.
The good news is that the BBC audience figures are falling. Eventually, the TV tax will be indefensible.
Tim Almond makes some good points.
However, the B.B.C. “went to the left” long before Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister.
For example, “That Was The Week That Was” was early 1960’s.
There was no similar comedy show on B.B.C. television attacking leftist policies and attitudes, in this period.
To be fair there have been some efforts to attack, via comedy, leftist attitudes and behaviour, broadcast by the B.B.C. – but the balance is generally greatly to the left (perhaps because of the basic opinions and attitudes of the B.B.C. people themselves – they find it hard to attack their own world view).
Paul,
You may be right. I was thinking about the BBC TV I remembered as a boy in the 70s, which had a leaning towards “the government is good”, but involved things that I would consider more right-wing authoritarian than left-wing authoritarian (I’m thinking about the things that say Blue Peter covered then compared to what it covers now).
Don’t sell it – give it to the staff to run as a commercial enterprise and let’s all have a good laugh as they repeat the mistakes of “The News on Sunday”.
It would make a wonderful “teaching moment” to a whole generation of statists
Actually, as long as it ends with James Naughtie down the dole office I’ll be well satisfied. Wanker.
I’m sorry, but I don’t call chronic misrepresentations and outright lying as “quality” broadcasting. The issue isn’t ‘quality” anyway. The issue is monopolistic airwaves and concentration. The idea that Britons are forced under threat of fine and imprisonment as part of an extortion racket to fund this propagandist, is simply mind blowing. And yet…..you people dutifully do as you’re told. Scary, and embarrassing at the same time.
Ken, I presume you’re commenting from outside the UK, and haven’t fully grasped the situation we are deaing with here.
“you people dutifully do as you’re told. Scary, and embarrassing at the same time.”
We are not dutifully paying a fee to the BBC for the service they provide, we are paying for the right to own a TV. As long as it is capable of receiving a TV signal we have to pay, so if my child wants to play on his playstation, I have to hand over £135.50 ($270 US). WE can’t opt out of the BBC and watch other chanels, It’s just not an option.
Rob,
I’m curious–does anyone sell a TV that does not have the ability to receive a TV signal, so as to avoid the tax? For instance, one that can be hooked up to a cable receiver or playstation, but can’t pick up a broadcast signal? Or have your legislators already themselves a work-around for that kind of thing?
How about NewsCorp? Heh.
Tim Amond you have a good point.
Children’s television on the B.B.C. (not just Blue Peter) has changed greatly since the 1970’s.
Google under CEO Eric Schmidt made “obscene amounts of money” (Jeffrey Toback, US law maker) from promoting child porn, creating a global demand for new material on an industrial scale. Why was Josef Mengele a monster for harming huge numbers of children while schmidt is allowed to parade around like nothing has happened, because of some kind of michael jackson type out of court settlement?
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