I’m not sure how much cut through this has had outside of the UK, but the government are currently in serious trouble because of constant leaks about parties in Number 10 Downing Street during the pandemic - including a particularly poorly timed one the day before the Queen was photographed at her husband’s funeral alone.
The leaks are ongoing, so we know that this particular plan is part of “Operation Red Meat”, which might be familiar if you’ve heard “red meat for the base”. That’s what this is. It’s going to cause serious problems for the BBC while this government remains in power, but this isn’t a serious proposal for the future of that organisation. It’s an effort to get furious Conservative supporters back on side and secure Boris Johnson’s position.
Other aspects of Operation Red Meat are reported to be military involvement at the Channel Crossing, and a ban on alcohol in Number 10. There’s another set of plans called Operation Save Big Dog too, which mostly seem to involve firing a bunch of other senior figures.
Only to answer your question about the party scandals - it totally made its way across the Atlantic. The severity of the scandal has been stated but is not obvious (Boris May lose his prime ministership over this?) However, it was drowned out by the ouster of Phillip.
What I don't get is why the conservatives were so draconian over covid. Your partner is dying, you can't see them. Folks couldn't walk around outside. Some guy driving to walk around outside was like national news.
I mean, if you go to this extreme, and then are throwing parties. (Rules for thee, not for me) it would make me furious as well. Let me go sit on the beach with sunshine and fresh air instead of having to cram into a grocery store or whatever.
In the US DeSantis or whatever right wing politico could easily go to a public event, not because its a good idea, but because they haven't banned others from going to activities.
Righto, it was "the medias" fault, not the government running the country for 10+ years.
It is in Tory DNA to be authoritarian, the pandemic was simply an opportunity to act on those impulses. While laughing about it from No. 10 (see Cummings, the parties, et al).
The UK is barely-democratic. All key decisions are controlled by Westminster and number 10. The rights under devolution for Scotland and Wales (such as they are) are "lent" and can be taken back.
Real democracies have regional federated governments with real powers to set taxes etc. The UK is a bureaucratic monolith with almost 70 million people controlled by one office in Westminster.
I think only France has a similar centralization of power.
A strong centralized democracy with very little in terms of local government is not an outlier; it's the norm. Europe and Africa mostly run on central authority, as does Ireland. I think your view is skewed because you're an American (I think?)
Yes there are certainly other centralized democracies. The UK and France have some of the largest populations under such a system however, by a decent amount to my knowledge.
They completely messed up their response to covid, had partial lockdowns that didn't work and thus went on longer, didn't screen people coming into the country, didn't shut schools for ages, and now UK has the highest infection rate of any large country, 22%.
Yet still half of the conservatives are against the meager restrictions we have now, want to get rid of asking people nicely to wear masks.
But you can't have it both ways. If you do lockdown etc, you can't then throw parties.
In the US some right wing folks didn't do the full lockdowns. My point was if they are "caught" out at the beach, regardless of if it is bad health policy, folks won't be as mad.
What makes folks mad is the lockdown, then the party, the beach, the fancy dinner. So yeah, Boris is going to be hurting from this, because its infuriating.
Your comment does't make any sense. You are saying that the Conservative party are making this huge change to distract from their current problems. Are you saying they created the entire plan in a few weeks? Do you have any evidence for your extraordinary claims?
This is not the first occurrence of a scandal from this government; and it's not the first time that they have thrown out as many back-burner ideas as possible in the rush to replace the headlines with something more palatable.
In a notable previous instance, the prime minister's wife announced her pregnancy in the hours following a scandal breaking. Months later, they announced the birth of the child shortly after another scandal broke out.
It's a perfect example of a "dead cat on the table."[1]
Also,
> Are you saying they created the entire plan in a few weeks?
They frequently toss out new "plans" in response to news events, anger in the base, scandals, etc. which have -clearly- been thought up in a hurry as a distraction and will be silently forgotten / dumped when no longer needed as a news-based base-fury-whip.
The thing is though, none of the leaks have been via the BBC, every single one is via an independent paper or channel - even traditionally right wing publications.
The other angle of this is how much Boris and this government are in debt/the pocket of Murdoch and News Corp. Boris and senior government ministers met with Murdoch and News Copt executives 40 times in the first 14 months of Boris’s government. This is as much about raining the BBC in so that Murdoch can have more control of the media landscape in the UK.
Murdoch's been crying about the BBC and the license fee for decades. They are no doubt aware that canceling the BBC would put them even more at his mercy, so in this instance I can see why they might not cave.
> Do you have any evidence for your extraordinary claims?
Anyone who has ever interacted with politicians knows that “The Thick Of It” is a documentary, not a comedy. These are not extraordinary claims at all. Wouldn’t surprise me if Priti wrote the tweet on the toilet with an aide firing suggestions through the door before one stuck.
Boris is finished, he probably won't last the week. It reminds me of the day when Thatcher fell. Leading Conservative MPs will be currently phoning each other trying to determine how much support they will get if they make a move. Someone who has no serious chance will be nominated as a 'stalking horse' to stand up and challenge Boris. Then the other stronger candidates will put themselves forward to 'save the name of the party'. That is how they do it.
>Someone who has no serious chance will be nominated as a 'stalking horse' to stand up and challenge Boris. Then the other stronger candidates will put themselves forward to 'save the name of the party'. That is how they do it.
There doesn't need to be a stalking horse any more. Once 54 letters have been submitted to the 1922 Committee then a Vote of No Confidence is held amongst Tory MPs by secret ballot. If he loses then there's a leadership election.
It used to be the case that a sitting leader had to be formally challenged (which was usually done by a stalking horse), but the rules were changed a long time ago and it's not necessary any more.
it's pretty impressive he survived every single previous controversy and even managed to get brexit through... if he's going to be felled by a badly timed and ill-advised party.
You are giving this Conservative government far to much credit. Their entire track record in government is full of poorly thought out sweeping changes. (See the entire Brexit process)
You need to distinguish between the Conservative government (= Boris Johnson' Lying Circus) and the Conservative Party. The latter are not well pleased with the former.
> •Freeze the BBC licence fee for two years to help the cost of living.
Hilarious. Even a 10% License Fee increase would cost about £8 per adult per year
Meanwhile the tax rise they're implementing next month will cost an average £300 per adult per year, and increase costs on employers by the same amount.
Yes, the current government is in complete shambles, but the arguments against funding the BBC with a TV License have been made for many years. It's not just hot air from Number 10 trying to prevent bad headlines. Netflix has proven that the subscription model is perfectly viable, meaning there's little justification to make someone a criminal for watching late night shopping channels without first having paid the BBC.
One of the great things of the Licence fee was that the Government does not get to control the national TV like it does when the one who pays is it directly.
In places like Spain the national TV(and regional TV too) becomes a propaganda machine for the exclusive service of the Government(s, national and regional).
It is awful to have your taxes redirected for the private interest of the Party in charge.
In fact with the crisis and private TV also being subsidized, the Media is being captured like the Gramma, Pravda, or Global Times, when the government never can go wrong or do mistakes.
> the Government does not get to control the national TV like it does when the one who pays is it directly.
You may want to double check who's in charge of the BBC. The Director-General Tim Davie is a former deputy chairman of a local Conservative party and Conservative councillor candidate. Not that bad, perhaps. But the Chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, was a banker at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, advisor to Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, and has donated more than £400,000 to the Tory party.
The Conservative party does control the BBC, selecting the leadership according to their political aims or whichever donor has thrown them the most money recently. And the BBC budget and license fee are decided by the government, of course the government can cut funding at any time...
None of this is to say that the BBC is as bad as the worst of state controlled media, just that there are obvious elements of government control, and having one model of funding over another doesn't really change that - the government can still squeeze funding whenever it wants to (and they have done this before).
If this is the case, why did the BBC vote 5 to 1 in favour of Remain[1], despite the Conservative party being down the middle on Brexit.
75% of comedians are explicitly left wing [2]
Anecdotally, the sidebar of BBC News UK edition is littered with articles attempting to argue that any inequality between sex or race of people in a unvaried analysis is indicative of system X-ism. Very rarely do people leave the BBC and join right-of-centre media - more often than not they join left wing private organisations.
The first paper[1] comes from authors of News-Watch[2], which from the website seems to have a clear agenda against the BBC. This is at least mildly ironic.
>If this is the case, why did the BBC vote 5 to 1 in favour of Remain[1]
The Express should be considered more of a fiction publication than a reliable newspaper. It's notorious for making stuff up, especially when it comes to Brexit.
The Mash Report is the perfect example: a TV show that was significantly[1] (20%) less popular than shows in that time slot but approved because it sent the correct message
> One of the great things of the Licence fee was that the Government does not get to control the national TV like it does when the one who pays is it directly.
Don't know about that. Here in Germany public state broadcasters have a board elected by parties, churches, unions and other large bodies aiming, on paper, for proportional representation. The results are insufferable, mediocre palliative-care TV shows, corrupt sports (I hear they have that in UK, too ;), and news shows, with the occasional outstanding documentation (public radio stations are better IMO).
Until recently, I regarded their news as ok-ish, but the hysterical focus on CoVid and their tendency to polarize and putting every critique against the party line into the realm of Corona deniers or some such in the last two years has pulled the curtain for me, to show a self-referential political-medial complex bringing up topics irrelevant for large parts of the populace.
Their coverage is well within the range of opinion of every political party except far-right AfD. As such, it represents >90% of the voters in last year‘s election. They are not neutral when it comes to values such as democracy itself, and expecting them to be is silly.
> They are not neutral when it comes to values such as democracy itself, and expecting them to be is silly.
That's exactly the kind of Skinner box reflex conditioned by public news I was talking about.
You know, there are good reasons to defend a civil society threatened by lockdowns, unconstitutional curfews, contact bans, and restricting freedom of assembly. And to criticize our government's over-reaching, yet ineffective counter-measures such as contact tracing and plans for compulsory vaccination in the absence of any facts regarding its long-term consequences (in fact, when all that's known is that its effect lasts about 3 months).
Poland? Poland pales in comparison with Brazil, where there's a R$5.7 billion (about 1 billion US$) 'Electoral Fund' used for political campaings by the thirty something registered political parties. All paid for by the taxpayers. And let's not forget that there's also a 'Political Party Fund'. And I just love the reason for the creation of the 'Electoral Fund', but that's another story.
Are not that funds created so taxpayers are there ones in control of party finances instead of corporations?
The USA seems a good example of what happens when politicians are fully dependent on corporations if they want to be elected, and it's servitude to the interest of the few.
I guess this depends on what the requirements are to access said fund. If accessing said fund requires being on good terms with the establishment then it's the worst of both worlds.
In Bulgaria It's similar to Brazil, parties get a fixed funding from the taxpayer and have a limited amount of funding they can collect from donations, with strict reporting requirements. Just having a party present itself with the minimum required amount of signatures (500 IIRC) for an election is enough to get the official funds, and of course spending is tracked.
It certainly seems a much better way of doing things than the US.
Throwing public money on elections didn't solve the problem it aimed to solve, corps financing candidates for favors. Even before the prohibition most of it was transferred over the counter or in deals where corp X pay for something for Y in the name Z. This is illegal and people got arrested (mainly the intermediaries) but it's a widespread practice. What this achieved is making running a campaign as a grassroots politician more expensive and prohibitive while empowering parties leaders. The 'caciques' have enormous financial power in their hands and act as gatekeepers of who will get elected.
The share of the pie to parties is proportional to the number of votes their congressmen received in the last election. And the voting system is bizarre. Multiparty system in Brazil is a joke, mostly parties doesn't have ideology or political coherence. It's simply power for power. If you vote for candidate A from party X that is a good guy with nice ideas you will probably help instead to elect candidate B from the same party which is a piece of shit. On last election a popular Youtuber and outsider of the political system received a large number of votes but due to how the system work a bunch of trash from his party got elected along. End of day, when he tried to make the right thing he didn't have the support of his own party.
What about the license fee prevent the control by the government? The money goes through the government, and government chooses who pays and how much, so it's pretty close to as if the government was "paying" it directly.
Poland, as mentioned by a sibling, is a counter-example.
It works by setting a license fee by law and making it hard enough / take long enough to change to make it impossible to punish or reward journalists for their work.
This could mean requiring 2/3 majorities for anything but a default adjustment for inflation. Or a 10-year lag for any budget changes, etc.
In Spain both public and private TV channels are at the service of the government. The government always finds an excuse to give money to private channels to make sure they say what they have to say. It's a disgrace.
> both public and private TV channels are at the service of the government
I have a different take. Private channels support parties that align with their interests. But private channels will criticize there government non-stop if they do not like the current ruling party. So, it's way more complex that everybody works for the government, that seems to be true in China, thou.
It used to be like that, every television outlet had their own political views and openly criticized the opposing ones.
However, when the pandemic started the government spent over 15 million euros directly in private televisions [1], and gave over 100 million euros in institutional advertisements to radio outlets, newspapers and the aforementioned private televisions [2], supposedly to avoid their economic collapse. Also some regions did the same with regional or local outlets.
So, it's not like they're at their service... But why should the media in Spain criticize the hand that feeds them?
[0] Note, sources are in Spanish (and both sources got institutional advertisements!):
This is not feasible. In the UK we have Freeview [1], a free-to-access television platform which manages ~all terrestrial output.
The BBC administrates this system along with the other major broadcasters (ITV, C4, ...).
If the BBC did not put out its own output under Freeview, not only would Freeview collapse but the BBC would effectively be wiped off the face of British television.
Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't Freeview just a marketing name for DVB-T (or T2 nowadays), which supported encrypted content since its inception and can mix encrypted & non-encrypted channels in the same multiplex?
Yes, and in fact Freeview started off as a primarily encrypted commercial service called ONdigital which was taken over by the BBC and turned into Freeview when it failed commercially.
This is correct but not every TV will have the slot for a decryption card. The UK has good broadband but far from the level of a universal public service. (That would be communism apparently)
That's a chicken & egg problem though. In fact CI slots used to be more popular but declined as the system was pretty much never used (pay-TV is typically only used for high-end services which then provided their own set-top-box offering extra features such as recording or catch-up TV services over the internet). The problem can also be trivially solved by cheap set-top-boxes (during the migration to digital TV, DVB-T tuner set-top-boxes were already inexpensive and technology has advanced even more since then) for the immediate future to avoid forcing people to upgrade their entire TV sets.
Key distribution is already a solved problem as well, the UK has a large userbase of smartcard-based prepayment systems such as for electric/gas meters or transport cards (Oyster card) and every tobacco/liquor store has a terminal that can sell or reload these cards. Expanding this system to reload TV cards is just a software update.
London has good broadband in parts. In the central postcode of a major city in 2019, I could only get 40Mbit broadband, pathetically low compared to the multiple 1-2Gbit options I have in the US for the same price or lower.
Restricting DAB reception would be pointless unless they also turned off all non-digital am/fm broadcasts, which I think is unlikely.
I believe there was once a separate BBC radio license, but they gave up on that long ago. So now BBC radio is financed from the TV licence fee, but there's no requirement to have a TV licence to listen to radio.
> unless they also turned off all non-digital am/fm broadcasts, which I think is unlikely
Very unlikely at present. Tangential fun fact: the ongoing broadcast of BBC Radio 4 on longwave is (one of?) the means by which British nuclear deterrence submarines ensure Britain hasn't been destroyed.
We have a license fee in Germany, too. The income from that comes out at about twice of that in the UK. (With most of it burned for pensions.) And the public TV stations still appease our government so they (the government) never question the license fee amount.
Italy has a license fee but the parliament nominates part of the board. It's a little less clear cut now but until the 90s the only three channels of RAI at the time were clearly aligned to demochristians (RAI 1, center), socialists (RAI 2, left) and communists (RAI 3, when they were almost what you would think a communist is.) The three major parties of the time.
The BBC is a propaganda mouthpiece of the state just like everywhere else. Even private media outfits in the UK are mouthpieces of the state like Reuters and Bellingcat.
Peak BBC is making a story about the BBC headline news on the BBC news website. As if anyone else cared when they opened their new offices.
I’ve never really understood the rage the licence fee provokes in a certain type of voter and I have little faith that any replacement proposed by this government will be an improvement.
The "rage" was largely amplified by the Murdoch press who have been irked at having competition for decades.
A large contingent of the UK population can be reliably provoked into outrage when the necessity arises. This is largrly how unchecked power is wielded in British politics. Splitting the country down the middle in a fit of fury over Brexit and then sewing it back up was similarly provoked.
In the 70s and 80s there was little entertainment other than real time broadcast TV on the 3 (later 4) channels. The BBC was a cultural institution. 20 million people would tune in to watch absolute crap, because that was really the only option other than go to the pub or play cards.
Places like the BBC Television Centre were engrained in the public zeitgest, and thus newsworthy.
This clearly isn't the case any more, there's far more choice, and the generations that grew up with "Auntie" are getting older and older.
Hence the reason TV would only attract half of the adult population then.
Those still exist and presumably attract similar numbers, but there are far more options in the 'sitting on couch' area, hence TV viewership is massively down, and what remains is split amongst far more options
More likely there is no comment until the UK government makes the announcement public - rather than responding to 'informed sources'.
BBC is caught between a rock and hard place. Its journalists 'need' to report the story or risk being accused of 'censorship' for not reporting on the rumour/leak/background-briefings when other news organisations are reporting those, but at the same time the BBC board [0] (10 non-execs and 4 execs) will presumably have been preparing a measured response to publish once the UK government makes the 'official' announcement.
They edited the story as it developed to later refer to 'sources' within the BBC. Publishing an anonymous leak from themselves given to themselves because they wouldn't comment themselves? It's a farce.
As long as it meets the BBCs "strict impartiality rules". Remember if facts annoy a certain group that supports the governments agenda the truth must be watered down to keep them happy.
Can't have Nadine Dorris* being offended can we?
*The closest thing the UK has to Marjorie Taylor Greene.
> Reporting on yourself is the polar opposite of journalistic integrity.
1. are there any news outlets that abides by this rule?
2. if I get my news from listening to BBC on the radio or whatever, then am I just out of luck?
>Reporting on yourself but not even noting to the reader that you're reporting on yourself is worse yet.
I get how including a disclosure makes sense if the affiliation isn't obvious (eg. washington post reporting on amazon), but do you really need a disclaimer to let the reader know that the BBC in the article is the same BBC that wrote the article?
> are there any news outlets that abides by this rule?
Maybe not - but others are their own business, rather than funded by a tax on the people like the BBC.
And the BBC do seem to be particularly weird and breathless about reporting on themselves. They've edited the article in place and they're now quoting insider knowledge from an anonymous tip-off... that they've given themselves.
It's like that in other areas as well - people working at the BBC once commissioned a sitcom about... people working at the BBC. And when they report on the winner of one of their game shows as news, or when they report that it's a headline that someone said something in an interview from their own interview shows.
> if I get my news from listening to BBC on the radio or whatever, then am I just out of luck?
For getting objective reporting on the BBC then yeah you are, either way. Is that surprising? Obviously they can't objectively report on themselves.
I think they should possibly have a headline on the front page, but it should link to another outlet's reporting. But then choosing the outlet isn't objective either.
I like much of what the BBC do and produce, especially BBC news, but the licence fee has always felt like a relic from the past with a bad strategy of enforcement (With their threatening letters and misguiding terminology as to when a license is required). Their actual broadcast service is lacking in some areas too. On BBC One HD I still get a blank place-holder screen for local news, advising to switch to the non-HD channel, which is just bizarre at this point, 10 years after support for HD viewing.
I hope the BBC continues to survive, just with a more modern funding approach.
I feel the complete opposite way about BBC news.
BBC shows, documentaries and radio programmes are some of the best worldwide. But BBC news is often either notoriously pro-government (especially since 2016, when Cameron dictated that government appoints the BBC board) or with a ridiculous view on impartiality for anything else (the infamous "if we discuss earth's curvature we have to invite a flat earther for balance" approach).
It is insane that this kind of bullshit is tolerated. I don't believe any other company would get away with frequent, regular threats and misrepresentation of their level of authority.
> I hope the BBC continues to survive, just with a more modern funding approach
Difficult. There are not many ways to fund a public TV/radio program, and all of the non-per-household-license free-OTA variants have issues:
- anything tax-based is just asking for trouble aka a populist government extorting the public stations after critical coverage
- ad-funded... well that's just ordinary private TV, with the threat here being mega-corporations buying positive coverage / suppressing negative coverage (just look at the current scandal in Austria with former chancellor Kurz)
- household license but encrypted (to enforce said license), which is often enough brought up by the far-right has the downside that the viewership and with it the funding will collapse, and the government will lose a critical way of disseminating information in a crisis event (e.g. floods, earthquakes, terrorist attacks)
To your last point: isn't it sort-of dangerous to rely on a TV news channel in case of serious events? Power to households may be off; people may not realize that they need to turn on their TV set.
Something like a network of alarm sirens that can also speak would be more resilient. We have such a system in Prague. Every 1st Wednesday of each month at noon, it is shortly tested. If Prague can afford it, most of the UK could surely as well.
The key is multi-modal communication. People may not have a standalone radio in a home any more these days, but they may have a TV set.
Basically, the initial warning via sirens, firefighter trucks or Cell Broadcast tells the people to find one of the four networks (tv, radio, internet on a PC, internet on a smartphone) and inform themselves what to do.
The more avenues the authorities have to distribute both the initial warning and the followup information, the better.
Channel 4 seems to work well. Publicly owned but not publicly funded (taxation, license fee, etc).
The corporation created which runs it has certain conditions placed on it to create programs in the interest of the general public that may not get created by a private corporation looking to only make profits for shareholders.
Of course the current UK government wants to sell it off...
> - anything tax-based is just asking for trouble aka a populist government extorting the public stations after critical coverage
Why a populist government? It seems that it's consistently Tory governments that do this, or even threaten it. If Tory politicians are populist, than the word has no meaning.
Because your usual honorable Conservative government doesn't give a fuck about public mass media, and left-wing governments are usually happy that there is a counter-view to the Conservative-leaning private media.
> If Tory politicians are populist, than the word has no meaning.
Well, the Tories did put up Boris Johnson as Prime Minister. Given that he's routinely called the "British Trump" for both his looks and his behavior, the Tories can indeed be called populist
> I hope the BBC continues to survive, just with a more modern funding approach.
"The Problem" with the ABC in Australia is that it's funded by the government, so the government can cut/freeze (and raise, one could imagine!) funding.
I think a lot of the problem is the aged technology where the regional news is routed via each region. Even just upscaling the local output requires massive changes, and any money for Engineering is rarely invested in old fashioned technology like over the air broadcasting,
There's then the spectrum costs, especially on satellite, to broadcast an extra 13 HD channels.
I'd be happy with upscaling but sure, can understand that may be difficult. I haven't renewed my license in a while but every-time I visit my parents they're watching the non-HD channels due to not getting the local news on HD.
>On BBC One HD I still get a blank place-holder screen for local news, advising to switch to the non-HD channel, which is just bizarre at this point, 10 years after support for HD viewing.
I remember receiving a fair amount of threatening letters about the TV licence as a student, shortly after I moved out of my parents place to attend university.
It was extremely confusing and made me a little anxious.
Not only did I not own a TV or watch TV of any kind, even online, any effort to make this clear fell on deaf ears and the threatening letters continued.
Eventually it became normality and I learned to drone them out of my conscience but it was such a strange concept to me back then.
I'm just thankful I never got anyone knocking on my door demanding to check my room.
I would love for someone to come and visit. I'd take great pleasure in wasting as much of their time as possible and make them believe I'm about to sign up for a license via them (they get commission) just to get these assholes' hopes up.
Unfortunately Capita (the company license management is subcontracted to) must really be unlucky with the "investigators" they employ because according to their letters over a dozen "investigations" have been open against me but I have yet to see anyone. /s
'Wasting much of their time' though would likely result is someone justifying his/her job by going along with it. Much the same with HMRC (UK tax authority) there is no matter too trivial that they are not willing to spend limitless amounts of time and energy investigating - purely because they can.
I believe the goons are underpaid and make the bulk of their money through commissions (which also encourages their shitty - and potentially fraudulent & unlawful behavior), thus wasting a lot of their time without taking out a license in the end will make a loss for them.
One friend at uni had his TV with him, but refused to pay the license fee, completely ignoring the numerous letters we all received. A couple of other friends in our halls hid it whilst he was gone for the holidays and left a fake letter informing him it had been confiscated for non-compliance. Very amusing (for everyone else) when he returned!
I have issues with the BBC - especially its partisan news reporting on the current government and its performance during the Scottish independence referendum, but would still like it to exist
I find BBC drama is consistently of a high quality - and unlike the paid services i can watch 6 episodes and its pretty much ended. Everything on netflix/prime is like 10 seasons of 20 episodes
Sad times - but im sure Rupert Murdoch will be happy
> especially its partisan news reporting on the current government
I just want to say that the BBC has had partisan claims by people from all the aisles. The BBC tends to be more left leaning and progressive with a lot of its coverage, I'm assuming that's mostly because journalists tend to be, however there have been certain "coincidences" when it comes to Conservative coverage.
I don't know whether or not they're partisan, but I feel when both left and right leaning people call the BBC partisan, it feels like they're less likely to be partisan.
You (or whoever is downvoting) might not like that, but the fact is that in the UK context the country is left leaning, but elects the tories because of the split in the left
When papers like the Sun and Mail are the most popular in the UK I think it's hard to agree that Britain overall is left leaning
As for the BBC it's firmly establishment leaning rather than left leaning in my view, and they also carry a lot of the blame for promoting Farage's poltics e.g. more appearances on question time than anyone else
> As for the BBC it's firmly establishment leaning rather than left leaning in my view, and they also carry a lot of the blame for promoting Farage's poltics e.g. more appearances on question time than anyone else
As much as I hate everything that is Farage & co, I think that is rather a symptom of the BBC being less biased than other outlets. If you want to claim to be unbiased, you have to give both sides of any argument a voice in a place like the UK, regardless of how terrible or great one side is.
> When papers like the Sun and Mail are the most popular in the UK I think it's hard to agree that Britain overall is left leaning
"Left leaning" is of course relative. Some claim that Tony Blair is right wing, and Corbyn is the "middle ground". If you claim that then sure Britian is overall right-of-corbyn.
But if you take the standard "Lab/Lib/SNP/Green" is left leaning, and "Tory/UKIP/BNP" is right leaning, then as the left have have a majority every election it's quite reasonable to believe what the facts say.
Take one look at the election results and you can see there is a constant majority that's "left"
A lot of the complaints stems from a perceived view that UKIP were overrepresented on Question Time in the run up to 2015. That's no defence for the claim the BBC is "pro establishment", as Farage and indeed Brexit was quite clearly anti establishment.
ITV also make short drama series which are often better, in my opinion, and manage to do this without threatening to send people to jail for not contributing financially. You can subscribe for £3.99 to have an almost ad-free experience too. I doubt the BBC could compete at this level as a subscription only service in its current state though?
Worth noting also, the prevelance of BBC ads for its own content which have become something of an irritant over the past few years.
BBC and ITV shared coverage of the Euros last year and their streaming offerings couldn’t have been more different.
The BBC were airing matches in 4K HDR and their service ran without a hitch.
ITV, on the other hand, a private company, had a site which crumbled under load. When it did eventually work, it was so poor as to be laughable. It probably wouldn’t even be considered HD and the frame rate couldn’t keep up.
It became a running joke on social media.
As much as I dislike the license fee, I do appreciate the services and content it funds. Non-partisan, non-commercial news is particularly valuable. I’m glad our TV news hasn’t descended into US style garbage yet.
I wouldn't watch a live sports match online, certainly not something like an England match in the world cup / euros (think Superbowl if you're American) - you're talking 30-60 second lag. The neighbours cheer at the goal and you're screwed, not to mention things like twitter.
The difference between DTT and Satelite is just about OK, but not online.
I agree that ITV is far behind technically but maybe this is because they are a commercial entity and have to justify the cost/return ratio whereas the BBC do not?
>> Time now to discuss and debate new ways of funding, supporting and selling great British content.
Perhaps it's time for the BBC to "beg for money" from the government every 4 years and do something in exchange for that(i.e. less critical to gov actions, more propaganda etc).
State TVs don't necessarily represent the current party. I've seen plenty of examples of state TVs siding with the opposition in various countries.
Media and journalists mostly have a left bias and when there is a right government they won't side with the government, unless the government is a de facto dictatorship and you can't go against it for safety concerns (Russia comes to mind).
Not that I justify state TVs at all - I'm against all forms of taxation - but bias is not one of the issues imho.
> unless the government is a de facto dictatorship
This is a highly naïve view that can only be said somebody who has always lived in a country with free press. Look at Poland, not a dictatorship but increasingly hostile to government critical journalists.
> I'm against all forms of taxation
How do you propose to fund schools, streets, police, military, and fire services? Paying for them individually will not work unless you mean insurances which then are basically a tax.
The BBC couldn't have been more blatantly favoring the incumbent party in the last election. Everything from measurably giving critics of the opposition 2x the airtime of supporters to editing footage to cut out their audience booing the prime minister.
They are critical of the government sometimes (e.g. right now) but their editorial line follows what the investor owned press is saying. They havent been independently critical since their independence was curtailed after the David Kelly whitewash, IIRC.
Where they lean "left" it is by placing prominence on issues like women's rights, gay rights, veganism, pronoun politics, etc. and other "leftish" issues nonthreatening to powerful interests (a form of left https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recuperation_(politics) ). They downplay strikes and most protests (including antivaxxers).
Sure, but there's a meaningful difference between "left leaning" and "left biased", is there not?
It seems entirely possible for a person sympathetic to the left to create content which is unbiased, or even biased in the other direction, based on external pressures.
The claim made wasn't that most journalists lean left, which may or may not be true (I think your assessment is probably a decent first approximation); but that "most media and journalists have a left bias", which is so far from being true in the UK that I suspect that GGP may not be arguing with facts in mind.
I read it as their inherent unconscious bias will be left leaning, and they will attempt to adjust for that in their output (certainly I've spoken to journalists based in Israel, and their views over a beer in the American Colony are very different to the considered ones they say on air)
Michael Fabricant, the Conservative MP for Lichfield, has said that the BBC has launched a “coup attempt” against Boris Johnson after hearing a news bulletin which criticised the PM over lockdown parties held at No. 10.
Speaking yesterday, Mr Fabricant said: “BBC Radio 4 Bulletin leads this morning with a manufactured story of what some MPs have said to the BBC. This is not news reporting an event. This relentless news creation is a coup attempt against the prime minister”.
It would be like CNN quoting a democrat senator saying that the democrat president is terrible. Yes, that's news.
That's obviously pissing off the government right now, but honestly it's the least of the problems with their Covid-19 news coverage. They kept on pushing both false and misleading claims about the UK doing worse at stuff than other countries, in at least one case that I know of for a month in an article linked from the BBC news front page after they became aware it was false. (The government made a big deal about reaching 100,000 Covid tests in a day and the BBC wrongly claimed Germany had done this a month earlier. In reality they'd mistaken Germany's stat for their lab capacity to process Covid tests - which was basically irrelevant because everything else, from the ability to swap people to the availiabily of consumables to even just returning test results, was more of a bottleneck there - for actual Covid testing done, and Germany wouldn't hit this until like a month later. Then when people complained they took it down for a day, supposedly discussed the complaints with senior staff, and then decided to reinstate it and kept it for a month whilst using Covid as an excuse to not respond to complaints. They then quietly memory-holed it from the article and used that as an excuse for not publishing a correction. A previous version of the article also did a similar thing by wrongly comparing the UK's daily stat to France's weekly one - that did get a correction, which was quietly memory-holed too after a few days. Obviously this played right into all the usual narratives about our lying Brexit-supporting leaders.)
There's also obviously a lot of decisions during the pandemic where all options had downsides, and the BBC News coverage was very biased towards the downsides of whatever the government did - this became particularly clear when the government changed their mind and suddenly they flipped to going after the thing they were cheerleading before. One that HN is likely familiar with is the NHS contact tracing app using Bluetooth on mobile phones. Initially that didn't use Google and Apple's framework and the BBC coverage pushed the downsides of that heavily, making it sound like there was no good reason to do it and the claim that Google and Apple's framework made results less accurate was just something the government was pushing. Literally the day the new app using that framework launched, they started downplaying the downsides of the old app and found a experts to claim the new app was less accurate and excluded a bunch of people on earlier Android versions - again, these were inherent downsides of choosing that option. Everything was like this, from lockdowns to vaccinations. Even when the government picked some kind of middle ground option, the Beeb ran articles with some groups attacking the government for not doing less, then with others attacking them for not doing more, and both were always set against the government rather than against each others' demands. Often they'd even rewrite an article on their website and flip it from pushing heavily for one to pushing hard for the other after it'd been published, which is just weird.
There was also the incident where one of their high-up reporters retweeted a particularly partisan tweet pushing the idea Boris was literally a criminal murderer who should go to jail over the UK's handling of Covid, which rather hinted at why their coverage was like this.
I think this post says more about your own biases than the BBC.
For example the government made a big deal about "reaching" 100,000 tests in a day by counting kits mailed out to people as completed tests (it would be just easy to criticise the BBC news coverage for parroting the government's claim that they'd hit it in the headlines). The government had set that as a target with a specific date, and when it was clear they were unlikely to hit it, ministers started talking about capacity. A number of media outlets correctly pointed out this wasn't the original target, Germany had that "capacity" for a month and was now actually processing that many tests. But it's not the fault of the BBC or any other media organization that the UK didn't actually carry out 100k tests and so government ministers flipped to talking about capacity and other indicators to fudge the issue in the public's mind.
Similarly there is a school of thought that state broadcasters should only cover the upsides of government decisions (even when the downsides are so clear the government changes tack) and shouldn't give any of the government's critics any publicity, but it's a school of thought mostly associated with authoritarian states. Being criticised from all sides - regardless of what the policy is - is an occupational hazard of being a government where public debate isn't censored or controlled by them.
Agree. While I can't help but feel the timing of this announcement is deeply cynical given the appalling behaviour of number 10 staff and Boris, I also feel the BBC's editorialising has gone too far.
A good place to see this is actually on the Radio, particularly things like the Today programme and Radio 5 live. Brexit was a stark example of the same kind of coverage. Regardless of what you think of Brexit, they gave only lip service to the idea of any kind of reasoned debate (to be clear, I am not commenting either way, although I have lived in Europe for the better part of a decade and speak multiple EU languages fluently). 5 Live's 'debates' often descended into acrimony.
Boris actually banned ministers from appearing on the Today programme of the BBC at one stage, which to use a current favourite term amongst reporters is 'unprecedented'.
Don't get me wrong, the government needs to be held to account and I'm fine with the BBC roasting the government over partygate, but the BBC is a public service broadcaster that is supposed to be impartial as much as is possible. If the journalists prefer to follow an editorial line, they can move to a newspaper outlet aligning with their views. The BBC don't need to stick to the government lines either, but they should present the facts and host civil debates and BBC journalists should hold themselves to strict impartiality rules.
I think they've long annoyed conservative ministers. I'm not sure I think partygate is going too far (unlike say the relentless negativity you mention during the pandemic) but clearly Ministers have now decided to act and I can't say the BBC made a great case for themselves.
>"The source added that 'the days of state-run TV are over' and praised the growth of US-run companies such as Netflix and YouTube."
I have no problem with the first part of the sentence, may be yes, may be no. I am not a supporter of "state-run" TV ( Edit: To US readers - It is publicly funded, not "State Run" ) . But the second parts somehow reeks. I much rather stick with the current BBC model if I am being forced to choose between the two.
Another part of the stat-run question. Has anyone ever floated the idea of BBC becoming a public company?
'Linear TV' (broadcast TV) is dead and the BBC probably have known this for some time. The idea of a TV schedule feels antiquated today amid unprecedented on-demand content. On commercial streaming services, only prestige series (seasons) are released weekly, everything else gets a whole series released in one go. (The BBC already does this on iPlayer for some series.)
It's worth remembering that the BBC is a Public Service Broadcaster (PSB) and does vastly more than YouTube or Netflix.
- News: the world's largest news organisation
- TV: everything from drama to documentaries to kids programmes
- Radio: national radio stations (covering every music genre + speech), 40+ local radio stations, and the World Service.
- Kids TV: ad-free TV kids programmes with strict guidelines on commercial influences and product placement.
- Education: massive educational content for schools (Bitesize) that has no commercial equivalent. (Who else other than BBC would launch the micro:bit project in schools with all the related educational resources to support it?)
- Music: promotes new music artists, funds 5 orchestras, runs the world's largest classical music festival (the Proms). Provides live music festival coverage (Glastonbury, Leeds, Reading etc)
- Accessibility: 100% of recorded programmes subtitled, + a proportion of audio-signed and signed programmes
The list goes on. Even simply browsing the BBC news website is one of the few news websites in the UK that is ad-free (if you are outside the UK browsing the BBC website, you're probably seeing ads).
Not all the above will disappear with a different funding model, but it's likely that the BBC will be slimmed down. (And that is something BBC critics will want to see happen.)
Aside: Nadine Dorries is minister for 'Digital, Culture, Media and Sport' - the BBC falls under the remit of this department. Dorries didn't even know that Channel 4 (another PSB in the UK) does not receive any public funds (it is funded by advertising). When this was pointed out to her when facing other politicians, she babbled incoherently unable to admit her error. Make up you own mind about the calibre of this politician: https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/nadine-dorries-channe...
If, as you say, they're so indispensable and useful, they should have zero worries making their money like everyone else instead of plundering the public by force, including those would don't want to consume what they produce.
This "linear TV is dead" mantra is just not true, and not supported by data. Linear TV is still extraordinarily popular in the UK across all age demographics.
The most viewed shows last year got over 10m viewers. Young people watch Love Island live at huge numbers.
You're not going to get an 80 year old binge watching Countryfile on Netflix. Not everyone wants to switch to that viewing model.
Good points. However, on-demand streaming has changed people expectations around content availability. A weekly show on linear TV makes sense when it's topical (e.g. Countryfile or news-related), if it's a reality contest with a finale (e.g. Love Island, The Apprentice) or a prestigious drama with cliff-hanger ending.
Even the idea of TV channels makes little sense today unless those channels reflect a genre or theme (e.g. The Arts Channel or the Horror channel). I suspect most people in the UK would struggle to describe the purpose or differences between BBC channels. Streaming services (including iPlayer) reflect what probably makes sense to most people - the genre or theme of the programme. BBC linear channels are increasingly irrelevant.
Jobs at the BBC are often seen as having more value than pure pay, because of two related factors:
(1) The BBC is a British institution and supporting it is seen as a worthwhile act. The same effect is what keeps teachers' and nurses' pay artificially low;
(2) Jobs at the BBC have historically been seen as "for life", because of the entity's perceived stability.
I'll be interested to see what happens to both of those factors over the next decade.
What is interesting is that the BBC have been reporting recently on the sitting government's complete disregard for their own rules w.r.t lockdowns.
It began with Matt Hancock breaking COVID distancing rules and cheating on his wife with his aide.
Now it's a slow burn leak of more and more damning evidence that they've held parties- while the police force have openly stated that they "do not prosecute crimes retroactively".
All in all it's a bit of a shit-show and I'm not convinced that this isn't a form of retribution, especially since yesterday a tory backbencher accused the BBC of trying to incite a coup against the conservative government: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/michael-fabri...
This issue has been going on well before C19. The BBC have abused their power and it is absolutely ridiculous that people have to pay license fees to them when media has changed so much.
Britain is following the Australian Government model of reducing funding for the national broadcast commission.
There is no mention in the article, but in Australia at least the funding to the ABC and SBS networks was reduced because of heavy lobbying by the Murdoch Media in order to reduce competition to their Foxtel cable/satellite TV media.
Murdoch is powerful in Britain too. I would not be at all surprised to discover that there has been 'behind the scenes' pressure on the Government from Murdoch to phase out the BBC also.
Roads can't easily bill for usage and a vast majority of people relies on them, thus the easiest & most efficient way is to make everyone pay for them through taxes, though you do pay more if you own a car via extra taxes on car registrations & fuel.
Hospitals can technically be billed per-use but the US is a real life example of why the system doesn't work in practice. You could also argue it's a necessity for life and everyone should have the right to medical treatment.
Armed forces? We're gonna disagree big time on that one but that would be off-topic.
But the BBC? It's something that's not necessary to life, affordable and trivial technical solutions exist to make it paid per-use (pay TV existed for decades and streaming platforms have solved the "online paid subscription TV" problem) instead of threatening people into paying and producing a significant amount of paper waste as a side-effect.
Just about everyone uses roads, hospitals, and enjoys the security provided by armed forces (for example, the OP apparently has a computer or smart phone, which I'm betting traveled on a road for some part of its journey from the factory to him, and which I'm betting relied on the implicit security provided by military forces to prevent it being hijacked on the way).
Broadcast television is at an entirely different level of the Maslow hierarchy. It's quite possible to lead a productive and enjoyable life without consuming broadcast television at all, much less one particular channel of broadcast television.
You make decent points but I'm not entirely sure I buy this line of reasoning.
A significant bulk of BBC funding seems to go into news and education, an educated and informed population is generally better for everyone.
Could we live without entertainment TV such as Eastenders? Probably, though it can often serve a purpose in education such as (poor) representation of schizophrenia and suicide which can point people (and their family&friends) to helplines for getting adequate support.
Entertainment TV maybe also lends credibility to the idea that the BBC isn't just "boring" stuff like PBS might be considered in the USA, and thus people might be more inclined to engage with the content.
I'm speculating, but even when I view the BBC coldly I don't see it as being as black and white as all that, I would say the net contribution to society is so high that you would feel it's effects even if you don't directly engage with it.
At least roads get groceries to the local mart, military keeps the barbarians (and civilized, but irksome french) out, and the hospitals are there, for when you need your jabs to travel to the Isle of Mann.
I know there's lots of conflicting horror stories online but years ago when I moved house and had no TV at all, I submitted a declaration[1] saying I didn't need one and haven't had any hassle since. After a few months I realised I wasn't missing live TV at all and never went back.
The declaration only lasts for a year or so, not to mention that out of principle there is no reason for us to help them save money on not sending their letters/goons especially considering they started the whole thing to begin with. Let them reap what they sowed.
Hello you - sorry I missed your SMS before xmas :') - They've left me alone since 2018, I think I had one follow up declaration and then that was it. Agree regarding we shouldn't have to on principle but I just went along with it for the sake of drawing a line under it.
My dad has a TV licence despite watching 100% via streaming services. No matter what I tell him, he insists he has to have a licence. This is a widely held view with people of a similar age.
Maybe the BBC could do an information campaign to educate them otherwise? I won't hold my breath though.
Netflix, amazon, itv and Now (Sky) mostly. He does use iPlayer but, AFAIK, you only need a licence to watch live broadcast TV. I concede you can watch live (or pretty much nearly live) TV on iplayer but he doesn't do that.
The legislation was changed such that a licence is needed to watch any content on iPlayer.
This was the whole 'iplayer hole' stuff which hit the news a few years ago. The Beeb were hoping to have the various commercial streaming services covered by the licence requirement, but failed - in part as it would break/invalidate the operating model for those commercial services.
I don't need to pay for a license fee because I don't watch TV. I watch Netflix, amazon, apple, disney etc.
I still pay it because I'm listening to radio 2 at the moment, and have the news website in the background. While legally I don't need a license fee for that, it feels wrong to not be contributing.
Unless you're some weird boomer still paying £600 a year for a sky subscription to watch shit TV broken by adverts, I'm not sure why you'd pay a license fee (unless of course you actually watch BBC output)
I'm in the same position as you (don't watch license-requiring content, but appreciate other BBC content such as their website) but I refuse to pay the license out of principle as to not encourage/support their bullshit approach at enforcement.
I disagree with the idea of generating insane amounts of paper waste (and sometimes sending crooks in-person) to threaten less scam-savvy people into paying for a license they don't need, especially when said people might be lower-income that can't afford paying for a license "out of charity" if they aren't required to by law.
I have the exact same position here in France. I don't have to pay the TV license because I don't have a TV, but I still do because I consume so much content made by public media organisations (Franceinfo, Arte, Radio France, etc.).
You don't pay because you watch it. You pay so other people have some access to actual information so that we can have a functioning democracy and society. If you don't want those things, move to a failed state somewhere. If you do, pay up and get over yourself.
If the BBC is the only thing stopping the UK from becoming a failed state then God help us. Or, we could simply carry on without it and not really notice.
We've already had Brexit and Prime Minister Boris. How much more failed would you like the UK to become? We don't have the weather for literally being mad max...
I've been to a fair few places around the world, some experiencing levels of poverty, corruption and violence that should make any human weep. To compare the UK to those, while using the terms "Brexit" and "Prime Minister Boris" is absurd and hyperbolic, if not disrespectful to both the UK and those people in the places I mentioned.
> failed state
> noun
> a state whose political or economic system has become so weak that the government is no longer in control: if we turn our back on the developing world we will see more failed states.
This is not the UK based on Brexit or Boris Johnson or anything that entails from them.
Will the UK still be in the G8 after Boris Johnson is no longer prime minister? Yes.
- Will the UK still be in the G8 long after Boris Johnson is no longer prime minister? Yes.
- Will the UK still be in the G8 after Brexit? Yes, it is.
- Will the UK still be in the G8 long after Brexit? Yes.
I also think you could change those questions to their opposites in an alternate reality, i.e. Jeremy Corbyn and staying in the EU, which is probably why I find your view to be overwrought. There are plenty of states outside of the EU that are in the G8, and though I don't agree with much of what Johnson has done, the likelihood it will transform the UK into a failed state is utterly absurd to me, and clearly, to any majority that counts, whether it is UK voters, those who put money into the UK, and every other nation state.
I don’t like discussing politics on here, but… i am extremely sceptical whether he has the political capital right now to see through such a radical move. This is part of “Operation Red Meat” in which Boris Johnson attempts to hold on to support of his party by giving the right-wing of his party everything it dreams of. In other words “turn a blind eye to the corruption and incompetence, and we’ll prioritise every policy you’ve ever dreamed of”.
It’s been the same strategy from mainstream parties in UK and US for the last few years, particularly well-executed by the right. If it works again, Boris Johnson will be the winner, while the British political system will be the big loser.
The yearly licence always seems like a hefty amount to pay. Whereas other services offer month to month with special deals.
It's still a crying shame watching the BBC be destroyed by the Conservatives, but hopefully the BBC will rise to the challenge. With some funding from government and a decent worldwide subscription model they could be a real content force.
Happy about this. I decided to never pay it again after buying a TV on Amazon (for videogames only) and that action and my address being shared with the BBC so they could harass me to pay it. Insane breach of my rights and privacy from what is essentially a TV Channel.
Still get harassed by them once every two years or so where you have to tell them again that no you are not interested or they’ll “open an investigation”. Of course BBC like to pretend this isn’t them by having a fake organization “TV Licensing” to make it sound like some government arm.
BBC is a shadow of its former self, I’d have been happy to pay in the 90s and 00s but I haven’t seen them produce anything of quality in the last decade.
The leaks are ongoing, so we know that this particular plan is part of “Operation Red Meat”, which might be familiar if you’ve heard “red meat for the base”. That’s what this is. It’s going to cause serious problems for the BBC while this government remains in power, but this isn’t a serious proposal for the future of that organisation. It’s an effort to get furious Conservative supporters back on side and secure Boris Johnson’s position.
Other aspects of Operation Red Meat are reported to be military involvement at the Channel Crossing, and a ban on alcohol in Number 10. There’s another set of plans called Operation Save Big Dog too, which mostly seem to involve firing a bunch of other senior figures.
Some more info: https://www.politics.co.uk/news-in-brief/pm-working-on-serie...