To say if you care about the future of the BBC, then please complete the public consultation survey by midnight tonight!

[CuttingNails]

I personally believe that the BBC is an incredible asset and should be protected at all costs.
I watch, listen and read a huge amount of content across TV, radio, and online services. Content that is often not available anywhere else. I am more than happy to pay my license fee.

If you have a spare 30 mins and want to have a say about the BBCs future, then the public consultation survey closes at midnight tonight (10 Mar).

dcms.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9EOcvcDvkNu8c9E

I remember when the BBC created all that wonderful, educational BBC bitesize content for our children over the covid lockdowns. It really helped us through it all. We certainly didn't see Netflix or Disney+ doing anything like that. That is what sets the BBC apart - we all pay for it and so it is a truly public service.

Done.
it adds so much to the economy (more than we spend) and helps so many into the creative industry

Yes OK, you've got me. Although I'm not sure the Trump example is bias - it's just a couple of idiot producers trying to make a programme more racy. I'll admit there have been a few terrible examples recently of where the BBC have got it badly wrong. But I'm talking more about their general news output as a whole being institutionally biased.

Thanks for the heads up @CuttingNails. Done.

the aired a programme that had edited Trump to look worse than he actually was. This was global news and has massively tarnished their reputation

they paid the child of a Hamas official to narrate a documentary about Gaza. That means licence payer money went to the household of a proscribed terror group

they failed to report on the uprising in Iran for days

a recent internal report found institutional bias against Israel and jews and in favour of pro trans ideology.

im not saying other news sources aren’t biased but that’s the point, they are supposed to be independent and neutral. Because I have seen these issues with my own knowledge I now question the accuracy and impartiality of everything they produce.

I pay for ground news. No media is without bias. I like seeing an overview.

Well taking that approach I haven't had children, and I had private healthcare, so why did I have to pay tax towards those services? The reality is that society benefits from education and health, and I think that free access to news, factual programs and educational channels is good for society as a whole. Those things are also not provided by Netflix, Disney, Prime etc. ITV and Channel 4 provide them, funded by advertising, but I think it's also a good thing not to expose children to too much adverting, and I think that the BBC has a role to play in that.

Also, from a news perspective, I think the BBC has a global role to play as part of the UK Government's projection of soft power, through its journalism and the world service. Albeit the current UK government is burning credibility faster than Trump is burning money through warmongering, and an unaccountable BBC is burning credibility through misleading editing ;)

The BBC is no longer recognised as a trusted news source. Thanks for the heads up about the survey.

Time to scrap the licence fee. Taxpayer funded propaganda is not what the BBC should be serving us and yet it is.

Just read that after 100 years the bbc has lost the right to show the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race. With any hope its a sign of things to come 🙏

What, that they’ll start showing content that’s of actual interest to the majority of the audience? I do hope so, the Oxford vs Cambridge boat race can hardly draw in huge audiences across a wide demographic 🤣

Any company that starts a customer relationship with threats of fines and prison can fuck right off, I will not be sad to see it go.

The BBC are much smarter and more polished than, say, the likes of GB News when it comes to their bias. They won't necessarily display a blatant opinion one way or another on a contentious subject but they will choose what they cover/ignore (and how prominently) based on what fits their own agenda.

Also, rather than urging people to take one opinion on a controversial subject, they will simply state their own approved perspective as established fact, and use loaded words and phrases as though they are universally used and accepted.

The trans issue is just one case in point. Firstly, they will very much over-represent people who identify as trans in many of their programmes - in huge disproportion to the number of trans people actually out there. Secondly, they will unquestionably accept people identifying as the opposite sex or non-binary as a done deal and use their own chosen wrong-sex pronouns and misleading self-descriptions, with not the slightest whiff of an acknowledgement that many people will disagree or find this very dishonest and/or objectionable - and harmful to women's rights.

It's done very subtly, but once you see it, it's blatant. Sometimes it's especially Orwellian, where this is the truth and always has been the truth, so you'd clearly have to be very stupid and uninformed indeed to question it. At least the likes of Katie Hopkins, Piers Morgan, Mike Parry and others - however unpleasant they and their views may frequently be - acknowledge that their own strongly-asserted beliefs will not be shared by everybody, or even by most people.

OP, the page you sent us to says "We encourage respondents to read the Green Paper before completing the survey".

But how do I find the Green Paper? There's no link or further info on the page.

Help, I haven't got much time!

Edited to add: I've found a government document which I presume is the Green Paper, here --
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/britains-story-the-next-chapter-the-bbc-royal-charter-review-green-paper-and-public-consultation/britains-story-the-next-chapter-bbc-royal-charter-review-green-paper-and-public-consultation#introduction

If anyone has a better idea, please let me know.

I completed the form. Even in the form itself, their bias and agenda were very clear - as I assertively stated in the free-text boxes.

It's all going from the arrogant assumption that the licence fee as it is is essential, with no other possible way of funding the BBC for those who want it. Asking "Do you think the TV licence fee should fund a wonderful service for the country, or do you think it shouldn't?" is a ridiculously loaded question.

Even when they do eventually raise the suggestion of a subscription fee, it's in addition to paying the TV licence fee, which is still taken very firmly as a given!!

Phew, I just made it in time. I'm saddened by the decline in the BBC's integrity over the past decade. They've allowed political activists into positions of power where they can force their dogma on the whole institution. It's horrific, and so deeply undermines the BBC's long-held reputation for honesty. It's like the Guardian -- well maybe not quite as bad as the Guardian, but both have lost a lot of respect.

Reading the headline green paper info, if its an essential public service, cost it and tax it.

I'm happy to pay half the current fee for the TV service. I think that's fair as I don't read their news, use their websites, revision or radio services.

As it stands, it's a voluntary cost and they are close to pricing people out of paying. That makes it unaffordable and so they need to cut their cloth like the rest of the country or charge in a more agile way.

I will never pay for the BBC. I think it is wrong to have media that it is compulsory to pay for. Let the BBC and all it's employees compete on the open market, if they are producing programmes that people like, people will be happy to pay for it.

We also need a licence to watch live TV in our caravan, it's old fashioned freeview telly with an aerial, the wifi is generally barely good enough for normal internet use so no good for streaming on a lot of caravan sites.

@AntiqueBabyLoanSmurf

You have it exactly right about how subtle their bias can be overall.

Particularly when they argue that they've given both sides of a story and therefore are "balanced" when they don't explain that one of those two sides is based on, for instance, 2% of scientists believing x when 98% have proved y. They never explain that bit in their "balance".

The same way they explain platforming Farridge on Question Time over the years when his party (whichever it was at the time) had no representation at all in any way, but was on 50+ times for "balance". They contributed to putting him in a place of influence.

Anyone remember the graphic of Jeremy Corbyn making him look like a leader from communist Russia? Putting that image into people's heads was also deliberate.

I particularly dislike the BBC because they use their place as trusted broadcasters to do this and therefore many people don't question it or even realise because it's the BBC and they trust them.

At least with the likes of GB News you know what they are.

Quite. The BBC has used it's (possibly previously deserved) reputation as trustworthy to push the viewpoints of activists within it's power structure. Are they still referring to Caster Semenya (who has publicly stated he has testicles) as 'a woman with naturally high testosterone'? That's not neutrality.

Fiona Bruce hurriedly snapping 'many people would disagree with you' at Professor Sir Robert Winston while he was speaking about biology was a low for me. Giving the same weight to a world expert speaking on his specialism and 'some people ', as if facts are all opinions and everyone's options are equally worthy, isn't neutrality, it's bias.

Ooh, yes, I'd forgotten about the Robert Winston (or should that be Winston Smith?) episode on Question Time.

They're so fervently set on their agenda that they don't even seem to notice it anymore, as it's automatic for them now. Imagine having the nerve to slap down somebody like Lord Winston when stating obvious common sense relating to his own professional area over decades and telling him off for being 'controversial'!

On yesterday's episode of (the quite ironically named) BBC programme Do You Know Your Place?, they had a true or false-style question about a baby being born who weighed the same as two massive truckles of cheese, and one celebrity contestant - a Blue Peter presenter - instantly commented that she had sympathy for the baby's "birthing parent". I wonder where she might have got that way of thinking from, if not being indoctrinated in BBC Newspeak, where you have to deny and insult all mothers out there in order to avoid potentially offending people who could never be mothers in the first place?

Great to see these things discussed , especially local radio.
There's a good Facebook group I use for local radio and the BBC.

It's very hard to find out how many people are listening to their local radio
Also interesting to know since they made cuts in 2023 and axed people's favourite presenters😚 how many listeners have they lost

https://facebook.com/groups/35547593842/

Local Radio Chat gossip and giggles. Link didn't work.

National radio as well! I don't believe the story for a second that there was confusion or some kind of delay in their renewing Ken Bruce's contract, and they fully intended to do so but somehow forgot to communicate their plans to Ken until he'd handed in his notice. This isn't a chaotic little Mom & Pop business; they have everything planned with military precision.

They're obsessed with chasing the youth and ignoring older people - ironically the ones who are much more likely to still pay the licence fee and not view it as an old-fashioned irrelevance, as many younger folk now do.

Ken was extremely popular and at the top of his game - but he (along with his listeners) committed the terrible, unforgivable crime of getting on in years. I wonder how many listeners jumped ship from Radio 2 and moved along with Ken to Greatest Hits Radio, and then just stayed there regardless?

Well done to Ken/his people for keeping ownership of Popmaster, though - another gem as well as Ken himself that the BBC stupidly decided to chuck away.

Absolutely. They try and chase the younger people but they aren't interested.