On a recent thread (not sure which one now), one of our regular contributing colleagues was complaining about the licence fee and that he never watches BBC but has to pay the £150 irrespective. That is a fair point and one that I do sympathise with to a degree. However, with what happened last night with the Tories creating a spoof 'factcheck' twitter account, it does throw an argument up which is this. In these days of lies and social media reliance, who can we rely on for an independent and reliably objective viewpoint. With our newspapers bias standpoints and the threat of a Fox and Friends type news channel if we are not careful we could become overwhelmed with, dare I say it, fake news and be largely none the wiser. To that end, the BBC has a potentially vital role is arbitrating fairness on the whole and having a position of treating all parties (not necessary political) with an even-handedness. On that basis, I would argue that £150 is a price worth paying, not just for the TV news but also the multitude of radio stations that support news throughout the UK (and the World!)
Totally agree, they are beset by vested interests and agendas, but are still far better than most other mediums. It has always been wise to not simply accept what you are told even by those supposedly: wiser, more important or even just older. It is hard to seperate truth from lies and getting harder everyday with so many voices now given a platform. Bah!
I will add, that I actually find the BBC to produce a great deal of very good content and have consistently done so over many years. But, should they have this unique funding set up? I'm not sure. I don't know if I would subscibe to a BBC service if it cost as much as the current license fee. Netflix on a basic package is far cheaper. Amazon is not only far cheaper but comes with not only TV, but music and other services. Do these two offer the diversity of the BBC, yes and no but if the BBC were no longer offering it due to funding change, they might pick up the slack. On the other hand if the BBC ring fenced it's content both past and future it might still have a place. My aunt in Canada has a Britbox or similar subscription, it ha value and better content than many. I would watch repeats of Reeves and mortimer over most currently available content on any medium. But only the BBC without all the other free to air channels would likely struggle. Why I can't watch ITV and other free to air channels without a license when they have to fund themselves through advertising I do not know and seems very unfair to ITV and the other broadcasters as well as us consumers. If they didn't get the LF I could see their quality suffer as they chase populist content as all others do. I think they could and would still make popular shows that could sell it. Although how many more years of Attenborough will there be! I think they could be more judicious in how they spend our fee's, Gary Linekar being the most replacable and overpaid example to my mind. If they held or reduced the price but placed a more responsible salary cap then I think people would have less grounds for complaint. Bah!
Not so. Corbyn's new manifesto described as red blooded socialism on the World Service this afternoon. Auntie's penchant for the right has only increased as their millionaire interviewers of millionaire interviewees struggle to raise questions about how the top earners might be taxed.
We've done really well recently avoiding politics, please lets not get into this it'll only harm the forum.
Every show has to have a trans ,differently able person of colour feminist Muslim on it now. The only thing on it worth watching is the exclusive rights to Womens International football which in a few years will be 22 blokes not good enough to play pro football pretending to be trans athletes. I ****ind despair sometimes.
The BBC is liberal illiberalism both institutionalised and personified. Their incessant, day in, day out, campaign aimed at discrediting Trump shows how frightened they are that the minority liberal consensus is under serious threat here as well as in the US.