Slashdot Mirror
British Goverment to Reshape BBC Governance
AtariAmarok writes "The British government recently announced plans to reshape how the BBC is governed.. The changes are said to scrap the system that has been in place for 77 years. Some are worried that the independence of the "Beeb" could be compromised, and Conservative lawmakers are worried that it does not allow for enough oversight (leaves it too independent?)."
Is it because the Beeb has been so "reserved" when Blair engaged his Kingdom's soldiers into Iraq for some yet-to-be-defined reasons ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
What about freedom of expression and speech?
Why do these discussions always come down to these issues? Did it occur to you that the oversight might have something to do with management of the BBC. That has little to do with free speech.
If people want to watch BBC's biased coverage, GOOD! Let them. If there's a demand for something else, another station will fill it.
I'm not speaking for or against goverment regulated media. But something that is not always mentioned in this debate is that a self-regulated media merket seems to produce even more biased reporting than the government regulated ones.
This seems to defeat the whole argument about freedom of speech - let the media market regulate itself.
n.b: please don't mod this as a troll, i just wanted to raise this issue in the discussion.
...they'll introduce arguments like this and try to take the licence fee away from them. The reason this is happening is because the BBC had the temerity to question the Hutton report into the WMD in Iraq issue.
£120 a year is *phenomenal* value for money. 10 digital channels, 2 terestrial channels - all packed full of high-quality, advert-free intelligent programing. 4 FM national radio stations, a load of local radio - all advert-free. Numerous digital radio stations. World-class reporting and news that's unbiased. One of the best all-round websites there is. The BBC is an *amazing* resource for UK citizens and one that's very cheap indeed considering what you get. Contrast with £300 a year for Sky and Murdoch's poison.
The BBC is funded by the license fee. It is a legal requirement to pay this fee if you own a television set or similar device that is able to recieve television broadcast. The governemnt has a duty to ensure that this law is (in its belief) fair and that the BBC is spending the license fee correctly and is fulfilling its remit. This is the end of the governments involvement.
... it just has to ensure that it provides the public service broadcasting that our money is paying for.
This does not make the BBC' under the governments thumb. This is not state controlled television, the BBC has complete journalistic and programming freedom
You can't have organisations just spending public money without oversight, but oversight does not mean editorial censorship, control, or restriction.
You have to remember that American politics is comprised or two parties. One of those is poltically to the right, while the other is to the far right. When your middle ground is somewhere Musolini would have been comfortable you can't blame the poor things for thinking the BBC is "liberal". Of course we also need to remember that in American politics, "liberal" is a word used to mean "scary and not at all in the best interests of my friends on the board of directors" rather the more normal meaning of "progressive".
Clearly you're not trolling - you make a salient point - Funding must come from somewhere (hell it's obvious that the viewers resent paying for anything).
So the money comes from commercial concerns and the next thing you know the channel is covering up reports on dangerous products in order to defend a large commercial interest
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub
An advertising-funded media will always be thinking about where the money is coming from, and won't want to upset its biggest funders. And, if you think the BBC is biased, try looking at some of the 'independent' newspapers in the UK.
A nationally funded broadcaster does not need to worry about large companies taking their funding away. And if you think that they aren't going to broadcast anything critical of the government - well there's always the 'independent' channels that can do that.
/* This sig is disabled. Press CTRL-W to enable. Thankyou */
Ok, I'm about as conservative as they come, but I would really like to see governments keep their damn hands out of censorship or regulating any kind of media. If people want to watch BBC's biased coverage, GOOD! Let them. If there's a demand for something else, another station will fill it. It's the same as the senator guy from Alaska wanting to regulate cable and satellites. I say leave it all alone and let the media market self-regulate.
Let's look at what's wrong with this:
1: The BBC is funded by the British taxpayer.
2: The BBC is (in Britain at least) a public sector organisation that has always been regulated in accordance with a charter agreed between itself and the government.
3: The BBC is required BY BRITITSH LAW to provided UNBIASED political broadcasting.
4: The BBC is not subjected to market pressures. The main bulk of its operation is not funded by advertising or by consumer purchase, but by a tax on owning a TV set in Britain which is paid regardless of whether you actually use the BBC.
5: The BBC is not directly censored by any organisation outside the BBC.
The overt purpose of funding the BBC is to provide unbiased news, politics, public sector broadcasting as well as entertainment and educational programming that might otherwise not be available. The negotiation of the charter with the BBC is to ensure that it fulfils this purpose, and that it regulates itself in accordance with its purpose.
"As a writer / novelist you might want to spellcheck your sig.
Last year's license fee was worthwhile if only for this one documentary series. This is exactly the sort of intelligent programming which the current reforms are purported to encourage.
Basically it was an account of how we arrived at the current climate of fear with our leaders exaggerating the dangers from almost entirely fictitious enemies. Interesting comparisons between the American neo-conservative ideologies and the beliefs held by Bin Laden et al.
If you didn't get to see this because you are American or British but missed it then you should, the torrents are out there, seek and ye shall find.
I'd doubt it will ever get shown in the US.
Don't complain. Here in Australia we pay for our ABC directly via taxes, and their funding has been drastically decreased over the last two decades (from to $41 per person per year in 1985 to around $20 per person per year now). As a result, they can't really afford to finance the production of local programmes, so they currently spend most of their TV budget on buying programmes from the BBC.
Some of the purchases haven't made sense in recent years, either. They have been playing endless repeats of "Dead Ringers", which is bizarre, because most Australians have only a cursory knowledge of British politics, so I can't see the value in imitations of British politicians and newsreaders.
So, a well funded BBC that can produce world-class entertainment is nothing to complain about. Slashing funding would just result in less profits in the long-term, and less local productions. The BBC is something to be proud of, and a couple of pounds per week is a bargain for what you receive.
If the BBC is producing high-quality stuff that appeals to fewer people then Murdoch's press says that it's not giving value for money because no one is watching it.
If the BBC were allowed to work freely then we'd have torrents of their programmes available by now. But that would be "unfair" on poor billionaires who want to charge us every time we watch a program or listen to our music in a different location.
Bottom line is: Murdoch, like all his class, hates competition and wants the BBC closed down as soon as possible. And he has the money to buy the politicians; the hard part is convincing the public, even those that read the crap he spreads over their daily rags.
Fuck the fucking load of fucking fuckers.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The British general public widely like, respect and are proud of the BBC.
The Rupert Murdock owned media has been astroturffing against the BBC for years, when grass roots public opinion is that he is the only real problem with the British media.
Do you get a constant stream of phone calls and red letters from the Television Licensing Authority demanding that you buy a license? Do they keep sending a man round to your house to intimidate you and ask you why you haven't got a license? Do they keep making you sign forms to declare that you haven't got a TV set? Have they put up a huge poster on the nearest billboard to your house declaring that someone in your street hasn't got a TV license?
I chose to live without a TV set for over 6 years. Eventually I gave in and got one because the only broadband Internet access in my area was through a TV set top box.
The best things that the BBC does are BBC2 (TV) and Radio 4, in my opinion. BBC1 is largely drivel, and even the news seems to be aimed at morons on that channel now (to compete with ITV). I gather that Radio 3 is very good if you're into serious music. Radio 1 is pure handbag and trandy crap and Radio 2 ear-candy for the hard-of-thinking. BBC4 TV was OK for a while.
I really resent paying £120 a year (or whatever) to fund make-over shows, soaps (Eastenders, Neighbours etc.) and all the other assorted lame rubbish on TV. I also resent the fact that Radio 1 pays record companies to advertise their wares (manufactured handbag music).
Oh well. Must be getting old or something.
Stick Men
Do you get a constant stream of phone calls and red letters from the Television Licensing Authority demanding that you buy a license? Do they keep sending a man round to your house to intimidate you and ask you why you haven't got a license? Do they keep making you sign forms to declare that you haven't got a TV set? Have they put up a huge poster on the nearest billboard to your house declaring that someone in your street hasn't got a TV license?
After leaving university I was without a TV for a period of about 2 months (i.e. not very long). The TV Licencing Authority took to sending me letters with "YOU ARE BREAKING THE LAW" printed on the _outside_ of the envelope in big red lettering. I had no money at the time so didn't do anything about it but I would be kind of curious what would happen if someone took them to court for libel.
The whole point of funding through the licence fee is to allow the BBC to do things that a commercial channel wouldn't find viable - I resent them spending the licence fee on programs that are very commercially viable (Football, Eastenders, Fame Acadamy, etc). Especially when they go into bidding wars for sporting events against other (particularly free-to-air) channels.
IMHO the BBC should own both non-commercial, licence funded channels and commercial self-funded channels. Minority stuff can be paid for out of the licence fee whilest the really popular stuff can go on the commercial channels (and they could even plough those commercial revenues back into the non-commercial channels). This would also mean that the licence can be used to fund the first series of programs and if they are very successful they can be moved to the commercial channels and the revenues used to fund more new programs.
Something like 10% of the licence goes on licence collecting (including TV detector vans, intimidating people who don't own TVs, etc). Since a large proportion of the licence goes on non-TV related services (radio, web site, etc) it would seem fairer to collect the money through general taxation instead of specifically targetting TV owners. This would also reduce the amount of money that needs to be spent doing the actual collection.
One thing that really bugs me is that IMHO the quality of BBC programming has really gone down - there are a number of good programs still, such as Rough Science and the Ray Mears shows, but I certainly haven't seen any good comedy since Red Dwarf VI finished (please don't talk about The Office - it's not good, it's not funny, it just makes me cringe).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
Remember the BBC Micro? That was an initiative by the BBC to bring computing to schools and the masses. The impact of that initiative was huge and we are still reaping the benefits today, ask any IT professional which machine they cut their teeth on and many will tell you of fond memories of the Model B. Dare I say it but it but I believe it had greater impact than the Sinclair Spectrum, which I always regarded as a programmable games console.
Seriously, if it wasn't for the BBC Micro I probably wouldn't be posting here today.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
Only one known to be false claim is needed to prove the charge of lieing.
But not the key one.
Well, it was the only one which justified war, since it made it pre-emtive self defence, which makes it rather key IMO.
I remember, the final report about WMD came out sometime after the war had finished.
That is rather the point isn't it, they hurried the invasion, at the expense of alienating potential allies. Why?
If they believed in WMDs, there was clearly a really strong case for holding off a few weeks. They could have had a report backing their case to bring the Europeans and perhaps the Russians on-side and at least persuade the Arab states to passively support the invasion. Remember, waiting for that report was the demand the French were explicitly making for support in the security council.
Either there is some even stronger reason they couldn't wait, one they have not shared with us, or they believed the report would actually weaken their case, i.e. they knew there were no WMDs, at least none which could provide a legal basis for war.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named