The PM has sold out the BBC

[Burnshersmurfs]

AIBU to suspect that the agreed price of certain newspapers dropping the front page stories about partygate is the recent announcement that the licence fee for the BBC is being abolished?

The BBC isn't perfect, but it is a great institution and produces some fantastic output. During Brexit, I read and heard so many comments that the BBC was too pro or too anti Brexit. That tells me they probably get it about right. Some Conservatives are complaining about the party gate coverage, but I didn't see those same MPs complaining about the coverage about Corbyn and the anti semitism. It was disgusting what went on, and was rightly covered, but a lot of hypocrisy there. It is certainly a distraction from party gate and no doubt is being pushed a lot by the conservative loving press, which Boris needs to keep on side. I personally like the BBC and Sky and think they generally give an unbiased political read.

Agreed OP. I’ve posted extensively on the other thread in support of the BBC, but on reflection I think we collectively need to recognise this dead cat strategy for what it is and avoid losing focus on the real story of government hypocrisy and incompetence that Johnson and co are so desperate to distract us from.

multiple studies have shown the coverage is not politically biased.

In fact they have shown it’s bias clearly; a clear and blatant bias in their coverage against the leader of the Labour Party at the last two general elections. I’m not sure what counts as greater bias than that in what is effectively a two party state.

Wokeism is not the same as serous left wing economic/social policy. The BBC is pro woke, but it’s no more left wing in economic terms and and it’s world view than the Daily Mail.

Let's not forget, C4 is publicly owned (albeit commercially funded), and therefore, their news output also should be objective and fair to all political sides. It is decidedly not so

CH4 holds politicians to account, i ve seen them grill labour Green and LD politicians but what the Govt doesn't like is how they have pursued the Grenfell and cladding issues - so sell them off, instead of fix the problems.

But what all media faces is that the Govt will boycott news programs that they don't like, so the Tories didn't appear on GMB for many months, they did the same to Ch4..... which means that probing questioning can't happen for fear of being "boycotted" shameful behavior.

Got BBC news on in the background. They’re reporting that the chairman of the Credit Suisse bank has resigned following allegations that he broke UK quarantine laws. He attended Wimbledon when he should have been in isolation. In his resignation statement he said that he regretted his personal actions had led to difficulties for the bank. Are you watching Boris ?

I’m glad it looks like Johnson is trying to fight on though as he is clearly the worst PM of the last 100 years. So that gives us a real chance of a huge reversal from the last election and a Labour majority government.

@Alexandra2001 I didn't ask if the BBC made the rules. I asked why do you think women are so disproportionately prosecuted?

Or are you suggesting that the BBC has no input into who is prosecuted? I know for a fact they pursue relentlessly even though we disconnected the capacity for live TV. The BBC. Not the government.

@Charley50

BBC doesn't report objectively on the horrendous women's rights abuses which are going on in the UK. It's played a major part in promoting transgender ideology (medication and surgery) to children. It ignores to obvious problems of males in women's sports, prisons, refuges and other women-only spaces. It's become slightly better recently (women's hour and Nolan podcast), but unless it changes it's ways, it's too biased against women right now for me to give a shit.

Absolutely - they are ideologically captured and because of this I question their reporting and positions on everything else.

And it has never been right imo that you can be fined and ultimately imprisoned for not paying the license fee.

They have brought this to themselves.

Well then, as we have Channel 4 News doing a sterling job of holding all parties to account, why do we need to fund BBC news by way of additional, non progressive taxation via the licence fee?

I've never been happy being forced to pay for bbc but even now losing 60% income (thanks covid) and my utility supplier going bust increasing my Bill's by 30% even more do I object to paying for something I don't watch.

So that gives us a real chance of a huge reversal from the last election and a Labour majority government.

Or a Labour minority Government where they stop being pig-headed and find what they have in common with SNP/LibDems/PC and Green party. It's this ghastly rump of what was once the Conservative Party but is now the English Nationalist/Bullingdon Toff Party that we need to get rid of.

The BBC has been robbing the whole country for far too long.

Also the BBC has as many adverts as any other channel it's just they're adverts for their own tv shows.

I'm amazed at what they put on really, it's all cooking or sewing...programs that take every little effort to make.

I pay £50 a year for Discovery+ & it's way better than the BBC.

Oh and surely then, @Alexandra2001, the fact that you give Channel 4 News such a glowing reference shows that a commercially funded news output can be fair, objective and hold truth to power.

@WeWashEverythingExceptLaundry

Germany's got a mandatory public service broadcasting charge. I think we pay 56 euro per quarter. And German TV is, with occasional solitary exceptions, unimaginably dire. Good radio, though, albeit nothing anywhere near the calibre of R4.

I generally concur, i find the standard of most of the programs pretty awful relative to the bbc. I watch Tagesschau for the news, tatort or love island mostly for language practice and occasional sports (usually football) and that's about it. The BBC is actually much better value now I think about it.

The BBC did everything it could to undermine Corbyn. Without the BBC, the next time a “radical” comes along - be they either on the left or the right - there will be no “objective” voice to gently push the direction of media coverage and the electorates views of candidates back towards the “sensible middle ground”.

I am, for the most part, quite an old school left winger, hence I have no time for what the BBC has become - a centre-right promoter of the interests of the British State and global interventionism, with a large dollop of domestic “woke” to appease the self-guilt of the white middle classes.

However, I think anyone who is broadly Centre or slightly to the left/right of Centre in their overall political views is an idiot to want the BBC done away with. The media and political landscape will get chaotic with it gone - which will probably translate into the same for the country soon enough.

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

I may be alone here but I think the BBC licence fee is good value for money. Several TV channels, lots of radio channels, iplayer, Sounds, news website. I like not having advert breaks. It wouldn't break my heart if the BBC was forced to go over to the same model as ITV or Channels 4 and 5, i.e. every programme is broken up every few minutes for the same tedious adverts repeated over and over again, but it would be a change for the worse.

I do agree the BBC has not helped itself in many ways. The objectivity and rigour of its news coverage is not what it was. Nevertheless, there's a lot of good stuff on the BBC. The nature programmes are stunning. David Attenborough's new series is breathtaking.

Totally agree.

BBC Radio and the TV nature programmes alone are worth the license fee.

I don’t pay a TV licence anyway (no live TV in my house), but I am concerned about what they will use to replace it.

‘We are Abolishing the TV Licence’ makes a good headline but I imagine the fine print will be something like everyone has to pay even if they don’t watch TV.

The BBC needs to find other ways to fund itself like every other bloody channel. The amounts they pay some of their people like Gary Lineker - they were paying him 1.75 million at the time - Zoe Ball getting well over a million - but couldn't afford to let pensioners have a free tv license. It's not how I want my license money spent the fuckers.

Oh and the Olympics coverage was shit.

The piece I find so surprising is the trotting out of 'leftist, Liberal, snowflake, woke agenda' commentary when analysis of their political output has been analysed and measured many times to be shown as false

You are in trouble if you need the analysis of other media to form an opinion for yourself.

The BBC need to cut all the nonsense (and fat) and get back to what it used to be.

I enjoy that that Guardian front page headline goes with the BBC story but points out the dead catness of it. 'Boris accused of using BBC to save own skin', well played.

Can you imagine if it was decided everyone has to start paying for Sky TV, whether they watch Sky channels or not?
Or those who have cheaper phone contracts through Samsung have to pay a top up fee to Apple?

It's ridiculous. Use valid BBC services, pay for them. Don't use them, don't pay.

@MsAgnesDiPesto

This can’t happen until 2027, which will be after the next election. The chances of either Boris Johnson or Nadine Dorries still being in their jobs by then is vanishingly small. So even as a staunch supporter of the BBC, I am not very worried just yet.

This has, though, done its job in moving the government’s problems off the front pages, and all of you focussing on this have been properly distracted, so you’re doing the government’s bidding beautifully.

Yes, this

'It's great value for money' from a couple of people - it's not if you never watch it but are forced to pay for it because you want to watch other live TV channels!

I think Netflix is great value for money. That doesn't mean everyone should be made to pay for it whether they watch it or not, with the possibility of jail time if they don't keep up the payments.

It needs to either allow advertising or become an opt-in subscription service. This is very overdue. People who love it and think it's great value for money will presumably be happy to continue paying for it. If they aren't, they can hardly complain about those of us who never watch it objecting to having to pay regardless.