The BBC

[The Old Man of Storr]

And didn't The Tory bastards just cut Universal Credit by £20 per week ?

That would have paid for a TV Licence and more .


But yeah , they care about Pensioners .

[westham,eggyandchips]

It's strange how some folk will happily part with £100 + per month for Sky TV , Netflix , Amazon Prime , Disney + etc etc but £12.50 a month for the BBC is too much .

Sky, Netflix and the rest are a choice. If I find their content not up to scratch, I have the option to cancel it. With the BBC I'm legally obliged to pay for it, regardless of content.

[smuts]

And didn't The Tory bastards just cut Universal Credit by £20 per week ?

That would have paid for a TV Licence and more .


But yeah , they care about Pensioners .

All that gumph from Dorries about hard working familes and protecting pensioners...pull the other one.

[Samba]

All that gumph from Dorries about hard working familes and protecting pensioners...pull the other one.

Lying in plain sight..

[The Old Man of Storr]

With the BBC I'm legally obliged to pay for it, regardless of content.

You don't have to watch the BBC - you can legally own a TV set without having to buy a TV licence .

[westham,eggyandchips]

You don't have to watch the BBC - you can legally own a TV set without having to buy a TV licence .

Eh?

[Monkeybubbles]

I'd agree that the way the BBC is funded should be reviewed, but doing it as a sop to get the Daily Mail crowd back onside would not be the action of a considerate, rational, clear thinking government. It would be the politics of the playground and an insult to the intelligence of the electorate.

[Danny's Dyer Acting]

True, the disabled benefit system is unfair, damaging and cruel. It did need some reform as too many people found loop holes. And once one benefit was granted it opened the door to many and became a life style choice and created a new class of people. It relied too much on honesty.
The BBC could easily lower wages, cut channels, sell more content, and stop taxing pensioners and survive.
But are they willing to tighten their belts.

How much fraud was happening to justify making hundreds of thousands go through humiliating assessments to access benefits? How much has been saved?

Why did the BBC take away free licences for all over 75s?

Why should a retired civil servant on a final salary pension get a freebie when an 18 year old in their first home doesn't?

[Rays Rock]

I'd agree that the way the BBC is funded should be reviewed, but doing it as a sop to get the Daily Mail crowd back onside would not be the action of a considerate, rational, clear thinking government. It would be the politics of the playground and an insult to the intelligence of the electorate.

This was a big issue before partygate or before pandemic. Yes they’ve trotted it out to create a buffer story between partygate and the public but that doesn’t mean that I or anyone else is only debating it because we’ve been prompted to. The license fee was up for review as scheduled and it’s not a shock that the government is looking at changing the future way of funding the public broadcaster. It was an election pledge long before partygate.

[sendô]

Several pages of drivel on what the BBC does or does not do.

You've got to give it to the government, get Johnson to go into hiding and then attempt to chuck a BBC shaped dead cat into the mix in an attempt to deflect attention.

[Etonhammer]

The funding issue has to be changed as it no longer makes any sense in the modern day, multi-platform world.

There is a lot of talk of the BBC's 'worth' but i find this strange and the fact that you need to pay (with threat of inprisonment if you don't) to watch ANY live TV regardless of the BBC providing it or not is just wrong.

Lets put the BBC (and its great popularity and quality) to the test. If they are so well loved then people will pay to subscribe and even put up with adverts as they do everywhere else.

I think they will fail under a subscription format and if certain programmes are so well loved, other networks will produce them.

As for their Bias, it seems to me that they are biased towords left/labour in general - which probably is down to the people who work there (and are recruited there) but........

There are web sites out there tracking it (the bias) and I think Andrew Mar summed it up....

“a publicly-funded urban organisation with an abnormally large proportion of younger people, of people in ethnic minorities and almost certainly of gay people, compared with the population at large
All this, creates an innate liberal bias inside the BBC”.

And he should know

[Danny's Dyer Acting]

Great point about bias and who works at the BBC.

[Tim] Davie stood as a councillor for the Conservative Party in Hammersmith in 1993 and 1994[9] and was deputy chairman of the Hammersmith and Fulham Conservative party in the 1990s.

[Tenbury]

Hard as it may be for some to understand, but people from BOTH sides of the political spectrum firmly believe that the BBC displays bias against them.
At the risk of repeating myself, if a public service broadcaster is paid for out of general taxation (like most other places) this licence fee nonsense goes out the window.

[Rays Rock]

Hard as it may be for some to understand, but people from BOTH sides of the political spectrum firmly believe that the BBC displays bias against them.
At the risk of repeating myself, if a public service broadcaster is paid for out of general taxation (like most other places) this licence fee nonsense goes out the window.

Forget the political stuff and it’s still poorly run.

[RichieRiv]

Great point about bias and who works at the BBC.

I have no idea the politics of the Director-General has today, but being devil's advocate, it is possible for people to change allegiances. The whole of News International did it in 1997. Peter Hitchens was a socialist then a conservative.

But to your core point, I don't think the BBC is biased, it's more the way they conduct themselves. The agendas they push are very much driven by where they do their recruitment - the Oxbridge gene pool. They have become a facsimile of the Civil Service and Parliament. Let's face it their contemporaries are in 1 of the 3 institutions. I think the BBC has become a political party, albeit with no elected representatives. I honestly think they see themselves as the only credible opposition to the government. Ultimately they are biased - towards themselves.

It needs a root and branch re-org. Why does June Sarpong need to earn £267,000 for a 3 day week? Are there no other candidates for a diversity officer out there? One that could do a 5 day week at half the cost?

[Tenbury]

Forget the political stuff and it’s still poorly run.

No arguement from me on that score, most large organisations are, except that public ones seem to come under more scrutiny.

[Turns to Stone]

The BBC isn't the BBC if you choose to pay a subscription for it. Because if it was it would become just another TV company that puts on what 'everyone' wants to watch.

Right now it can put minority programming because of the way it's funded. As I've said before, this isn't just about those who don't watch it, it's about those who do.

I know very well that my kids will soon become tired of CBEEBIES and will grow out of it. I love that I can put the kids down in front of that channel and know that they're not going to have to watch adverts trying to sell them toys that they don't need and that we can't afford. And sell them a lifestyle that they really don't want. I will happily keep paying just so that the parents of kids who haven't been born yet can do the same.

Just as I will happily pay for those who want to hear the BBC service overseas and abroad, and those who need the BBC far more than I do.

Change it, by all means. But once you turn it into Netflix, then you just have another Netflix on your hands. And we already have plenty of those. As I've said many times, I don't think we will truly see the valure of the BBC until it's gone. Which will be a real shame.

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

^^^ yep agree, all you'll get is Britbox+.

[DaveWHU1964]

Hard as it may be for some to understand, but people from BOTH sides of the political spectrum firmly believe that the BBC displays bias against them.

Spot on Tenners. If those on the right think that the BBC is anti-government Lord only knows what they think of the likes of Sky. Sky give the government multiple times the kick in that the Beeb have given it in recent years.

[Turns to Stone]

Two surveys that I recall (one was in 2018), where roughly 20% of people said that the BBC was too right-wing and 20% said it was too left-wing, and 40% in the middle (20% didn't know). Another one was that in a survey of all the main news providers, around 25% of people said it was biased - which was lower than ITV, Channel 4, Sky etc who were all 30%+

It's not perfect, but it is in my opinion, the best we have. What I would also say is that as someone who has spent much of my life working abroad, it has been a fantastic resource and one that I have come to rely upon.