The British Broadcasting Corporation is almost unique in the developed world. It’s funded by taxation, and is the UK’s pre-eminent television and radio network, as well as the largest domestic source of national and internation news. Despite this, it remains scrupulously neutral politically, and is outside the reach of any politician’s manipulation. With no corporate paymasters, it has no need to generate huge profits, and is free of advertising and hidden agendas.
This famous neutrality and quality-led focus has made the BBC into an international resource. It is the largest broadcast news gathering organisation on the planet, and one of the most popular sources for current information worldwide. It’s website is the 46th most popular in existence. Programs such as Dr. Who, Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Planet Earth have swept the globe. The BBC World Service is widely considered to be the most important radio programme there is.
The BBC, then, is truly unbiased, informative, high-quality, and hugely popular around the world. So it’s no surprise that corporate broadcasters have always hated it. In the modern climate of politicians shamelessly grovelling at the feed of rich vested interests, the BBC has come under attack like never before.
In particular, Rupert and Kevin Murdoch’s News International, the vast media corporation behind Fox News (amonst many, many others) is particularly furious that the BBC exists. Because people can turn to it for good, unbiased news and programming, it cuts into the profits that father and son Murdoch can rake out of all of us. The BBC cannot interfere in politics, but no such restriction binds News International, and the thought of hostile Murdoch newspapers and TV broadcasts has British politicians panicking.
The price for News International’s smiling endorsement is the crippling — or better yet, destruction — of the BBC.
Planet Earth. Doctor Who. Monty Python. BBC News. All blown away, in favour of Glen Beck and Bill O’Reilly. To say that this would be a tragic victory of greed over public interest is a gross understatement.
The battle has already started. Today, cuts were proposed that would slash the BBC’s web presence by 50%, along with removing some of its most independent and important music stations, and cutting into multi-cultural material.
PLEASE. Don’t let this happen. Don’t let the BBC mutilate itself in a doomed attempt to reduce the heat from the sharks circling around it. Wherever you are, please take just a moment to sign the 38 Degrees petition against this crippling blow. Show the BBC’s overseers — and Britain’s politicians — that the BBC is important, and needs to be defended. Don’t turn one of the last bastions of independent, quality, mainstream media into yet another sickly corporate hate-monger. If you can, please spread word of the petition — twitter, blogs, email, whatever.
Please.
Did you cut and paste that?
The BBC may well be a good source of news, and produce some quality tv and radio, but it has also become bloated and has allowed the quality to be diluted in a sea of shit.
I stopped paying the TV Tax years ago. I would pay a small sum to support Radio 4, and some of the quality home produces shows on both TV and Radio, but I do not wish to support the likes of BBC 3 and the overblown salaries of celebs.
The BBC flagship 6 O’clock News has become a Fnord-fest. I have never listened to 6 Music, and long since gave up on Radio 1 daytime.
Maybe a hefty cut back will do the BBC some good. make them focus on what is important and drop the likes of ‘Snog Marry Avoid?”. The BBC has an axe to grind just like every other broadcaster. I would hardly call their reporting of green issues to be unbiased.
Have you actually tried comparing a night of BBC and ITV/C4 schedules recently, Dave? Sure, the BBC isn’t perfect. Nothing is. But if you want to see the schedule filled entirely with Sky-style output, please, be my guest.
Thank you for posting this. I have been trying to express my outrage at what the BBC is apparently doing to itself, and this is it. The BBC has a ‘business model’ that works. Why should it therefore be penalised by other organisations with a different model? There is room for both the corporations and the BBC, with its news gathering and impartiality that set it apart from the corporations.
I don’t watch that much television, but I know that usually end up watching BBC stuff (either on the BBC or on ‘Dave’), and occasionally Channel 4 / E4 (the other ‘public service broadcaster in the UK). Not through snobbery, but because when I channel surf, those are the things that jump out at me as being worth watching.
I am also a Radio 4 junkie. I don;t know how to retune the radios in my house, because I never need to do so.
That said, just because I don’t listen to 6 Music, that doesn’t make it OK to kill it. I am told that it is a valuable launching pad for new music, giving us a more varied musical landscape than the marketing and corporation-led music industry would like us to have. Oh – wait – that’ll be why it’s on Death Row…
I’m off to sign the petition. Thanks for the link!