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?

@supermoonrising

All this government has to offer is gutter populism and endless cuts to public services.

There isn’t much more to say than this.

Going to prison for not paying your licence fee is appalling, I agree, but it doesn’t take crippling the BBC to abolish that.

I never agreed with the licence fee however, this has surely been implemented by dark forces! I no longer view this country as a democracy. Soon the media will all be Piers Morgan types.

@BearimyJeremy

I'm conflicted - I do think it's terrific value for money and yes this is all a distraction from the main news and I realise I am now complicit!!

Having worked for the BBC and with them I know there's massive duplication in job roles in many areas - I'd frequently be sitting around a table with four people with only marginally different job titles and e.g. several different local stations would send separate journalists/OB rigs to stand in front of the same breaking news event. It is bloated in parts and it does need reform. Of course much of the content is great, but it bloody well should be given such a colossal guaranteed income.

Incidentally I see the somewhat controversial radio services like Radio 3 as very much the sort of thing they should be doing - yes it has a comparatively small audience but that's sort of the point - it couldn't be commerically viable to make a station playing those non-mainstream classical/world music offerings, but it's something considered culturally valuable.

Unlike Radio 2 whose output is not dissimilar to other commercial stations and in the process taking their listeners away and skewing the market because they can easily afford the biggest names.

I agree with this.

I have worked with the BBC for a long time and have friends who work there. It really is run very badly. If only they could solve this...I would be a supporter. I do want non-biased and trustworthy news sources and good quality programmes for all people, but they are just not doing that right now.

The Tories are willing to trash one of the UK’s globally renowned institutions. But should we be surprised? They’ve already trashed Parliament in the eyes of the world.

@alliscalm

How is ending the licence fee in its current capacity trashing it?

As a subscription model, those who want it will pay for it. It may need to make changes, such as advertising. If it still isn't financially viable then, like any other business, it closes.

@Theluggage15 My apologies. It was unfortunate that your post was directly underneath mine! Sorry.

It's a dead cat and we can expect a plethora of unfortunate moggies over the week. The press would love to kill the BBC so they could run profitable TV themselves. Both the far left and far right hate the BBC so it must be doing well and governments of either left or right hate the scrutiny it provides. Keep it!

@kittensinthekitchen

The Tories are willing to trash one of the UK’s globally renowned institutions. But should we be surprised? They’ve already trashed Parliament in the eyes of the world.

@alliscalm

How is ending the licence fee in its current capacity trashing it?

As a subscription model, those who want it will pay for it. It may need to make changes, such as advertising. If it still isn't financially viable then, like any other business, it closes.

Trashing it means damage or destroy.

I stopped trusting the BBC when I realised that they were throwing women under the bus and gagging presenters who wanted to explore the loss of our sex based rights. I know that they have improved a little more recently, but for me it's too late. If they can cheerfully ignore this huge issue, what else are they sweeping under the carpet? They haven't learned any lessons from the Jimmy Savile era.

Both left and right think the bbc is a puppet of the other side, so it’s probably doing ok. Personally I don’t think it brings the current government to task enough and I like the fact it shows a range of families, lives and ways of living.

I agree. Their education content is really good too. Look at its provision when schools were closed. We used it a lot to supplement the school offering. Kids programming is pretty good, look at the likes of horrible histories and operation ouch.

People who say it’s output is crap don’t understand the sheer breadth of its offering. No other organisation does that. It is respected around the world too.

I can see arguments for and against scrapping the fee, but either way I'm in no doubt that this is politically motivated. If you're willing to accept that because the end result suits your agenda, what else are you willing to tolerate?

This is how the government gets away with so much, throwing scraps for the serfs to fight over, while they do what the hell they want.

I think people are deluded if they think they will be able to save the £150 because there'll be a different fee of some kind that just won't go to the bbc but to the government.

Agree, if the license is abolished the prices of the ad free alternatives will go up and the channels with ads will have longer ad breaks and more of them, as in the US. US channels funded by adverts are almost unwatchable.

Personally I think the license system needs an overhaul, but some of the content is really good, especially Attenborough and radio output. The radio kept me sane over lockdowns. It’s the usual political bull to announce this during party gate.

Radio 3, Radio 4, the World Service and to a great extent BBC 2 and 4 have been hugely admired by visiting friends from around the world who are used to nothing like the content we have here. Family from New Zealand, who lived and worked here in the 90s and early noughties reported that the BBC was the only thing the missed when they went back home. I know people in Europe who went to extraordinary lengths to get access to BBC iplayer.

The NHS, the BBC: they are both, despite their flaws, what the world admires about the UK. The provide a degree of national coherence, even if we cohere around moaning about them.

Personally, I think the fee is too low. I would willingly sell my house and all its contents to help the BBC.

@LilithOfEden

Women - poor women, many young mothers who are struggling to feed their kids - make up 70% of those prosecuted and convicted for non payment of the BBC licence fee.

From the You Gov 2019 Women and the Criminal Justice System:

TV licence evasion was the most common offence for which females were convicted in 2019.

In 2019, 74% of those convicted for TV licence evasion were female. This offence accounted for 30% of all female convictions, compared to 4% of male convictions.

Wow I hadn't heard of this.

Fucking BBC, all that misery and pain because they wanted cash.

So the BBC put women in prison and then helped campaigners lock men inside with them.

I can't stand Boris or the Tories but I am delighted by the announcement that the licence fee will be scrapped as I can't stand the BBC either!

@screwthem

So the BBC put women in prison and then helped campaigners lock men inside with them.

Those statistics are absolutely shocking.

Sheer breadth of offering

Yes like telling 11 year olds there are a hundred genders. Like effing Pokémon.

Educators can do without such rubbish. Besides, anyone who has worked in education knows that the BBC clips are glitchy, often disappear or never work. Make their use in long term planning a nightmare.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9179703/amp/BBC-programme-tells-9-year-olds-100-genders.html

On the subject of prosecution of women, at the very least the BBC should have looked at the clear disproportionate representation of women being targeted and done something to minimise it.

TBH, if given the choice, most would like to keep the BBC but it needs to be urgently de-woked and streamlined as much as possible (who says a 1 million pound presenter is an absolute necessity?)

The spill over of funds to others like Channel 4 has to stop too

Then maybe the licence fee may not even be required and it could be comfortably funded with the (huge amount of) taxes we are already paying

@alliscalm

I know what trashing means 🙄 Just don't see how a political party can be blamed for a company no longer being financially viable.
Either they have a product people think is worth buying, or they don't.

[quote kittensinthekitchen]@alliscalm

I know what trashing means 🙄 Just don't see how a political party can be blamed for a company no longer being financially viable.
Either they have a product people think is worth buying, or they don't.[/quote]
You italicised trashing and I thought you needed clarification. You are making a big leap to say the BBC is a failing business. Do you run a business? The government is politicising the BBC; not the other way round.

The licence fee costs £159.

I watched the 6pm news each day on the BBC. If instead I bought a newspaper, lets say the Daily Mail instead. How much would that cost me? Would the news I was ready be more or less biased as a result?

@Ifailed

Clearly the long standing ant-BBC campaign by the right-wing popular press is gaining traction. They want the BBC out of the way so they can move in with their own, profitable, 'news' services.

Because it's just impossible that people have reached their own conclusions regarding the BBC and are no longer prepared to defend it, isn't it?

Any time anything happens that you don't like in this country, it's because people have been manipulated/don't understand/are gullible etc.

I did like the BBC. I still think it produces great content (such as In Our Time). However, I'm now happy for it to go because I've had enough of it using public funds to conduct left wing, woke culture wars.

@jgw1

The BBC's bias is above all cultural - as has been discussed by figures such as Andrew Marr, Greg Dyke etc. It has been totally captured by a left wing woke mindset. I think it's now irreversible, because the universities have also eschewed diversity of thought and replaced it with a secular-puritanism and intellectual censorship.

I think it is fabulous news that as a result of our freedoms having left the EU our mighty and fearless leader Big Dog has ensured that we won't be under the tyranny of BBC thought any more, that we have a crown on a pint glass and taxes on domestic flights have been cut.

It is good to be alive.