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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?)."
Not enough oversight?? What about freedom of expression and speech?
Similar reform acts to the british media have been coming for a long time now. The first major whole hearted attempt came in the mid-80s. It is interesting because each time they get closer to actually getting it done but fall through in the end.
I say cheers to the thought of an independent British Broadcasting company. I know the goverments regulation over them as been decreasing in recent years but the changes that are in the pipes have been a long time coming.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
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.
Admitidly the BBC has had a few problems, but nothing that ammounts to more than poking the goverment (hey most people in england happen to think the goverment deserved a good poking for taking us to war on a lie).
:)
It's an asset which few other countries have, to turn it into a goverment properganda machine *shudder*, Gues we'd just have to start watching fox news for an unbiased opinion
The Governors at present are appointed directly by the government -- and the last Labour and Tory administrations have made partly-political appointments; in the future, their replacements will be appointed by a more independent executive.
I'd also just like to say this : as a License Fee payer, I believe firmly that the BBC works, and having travelled a fair amount, I've never seen a media organisation produce comparable amounts of quality output.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
Get your facts right, all the BBC's UK content is paid for by the licence fee which includes all the digital channels they produce, the radio stations, local content and the online content.
I think just over 100 pounds a year is good value compared to the high monthly fees of Sky (100's of channels of which only a couple are any good).
The BBC is in a unique position, we've got a public broadcaster which means we're not bombarded with ads and they have an excellent (also ad free) website.
With Sky you pay per month and are still bombarded with ads.
e.g. when BBC2 used to have the Simpsons it was 20 minutes because they don't have the ads, with Sky it's 30 minutes.
It's also a small price to pay for having an organisation that has no commercial bias and as we've seen they're willing to criticise the government. I'd certainly rather trust the BBC rather than a commercial entity like Sky who is owned by News corp just like Fox.
How much do you pay for sky and still have adverts and biased news? 20 a month? 30 a month? It's still 2-300 per year. ITV is full of adverts. CH4 shows some great programming and can buy the US imports, but the BBC has value not only as an independant but I dont see Sky 1 showing Open University level stuff, or exposes on corruption.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/info/licencefee/
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Each household's colour TV licence cost £9.67 every month in 2003/2004. On average each month, this was how the BBC spent your money:
Average monthly licence fee spend
This chart shows that £9.67 was the average monthly cost of each household's licence fee in 2003/2004. It breaks it down visually into components.
* BBC One £3.37
* BBC Two £1.45
* Digital television channels £0.98
* Transmission and collection costs £0.98
* BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4 and Five Live £0.99
* Digital radio stations £0.08
* Nations & English Regions television £0.90
* Local radio £0.61
* bbc.co.uk £0.31
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Also there is the BBC Imp project which will allow people in the UK (restricted by IP numbers and authorisation) to download a high percentage of BBC TV and radio in >1mmbit DRM'ed wmv for playing on your PC or laptop up to 8 days after broadcast (as allowed by copyright laws)
I had a mate on the trial and it was awesome to be able to watch Top Gear on a laptop over lunch
...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.
The BBC as a public institution is bound by law and common custom to be representative of the people and to support/represent equality of religion/race/lifestyle/sexuality.
The British Tory or Conservative party is roughly analogous to Republicans in the US in that it holds "traditional values", many of which conflict with the modern egalitarian ethic of the BBC.
The British Right-wing, led primarily by tabloid newspapers such as the Daily Mail (politically somewhere to the right of Genghis Kahn..), has been leading an anti-BBC campaign for some time now as they don't want to see a state-run broadcaster "supporting" rights that they wish to abolish or diminish, such as equality of gay and straight relationships before the law, or equal attention in schools for minority faiths.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
£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.
however, when you think about it, its not really bad value to fund a corporation that is internationally valued and respected as a provider of news. personally, i think the beeb is something we should be proud of, no matter how hard they try to strip us of this pride with their never ending stream of crap DIY shows and people moving house...
The BBC is pretty free from the government, if there was any political censorship going on then other channels would be all over it. Watching things like question time, journalists are not known for being polite and letting politicians get away with bullshitting - if a question is asked, a proper answer is expected no matter what part of the political spectrum. There have been plenty of occasions when the BBC has done things that pissed off the government and even other governments (Israel, Vanunu) they are absolutely not afraid to broadcast things that need to be seen, from lists of dead soldiers (censored in the US by some stations) to prisoner abuse (censored in the US for at least 2 weeks before it came out) to just taking the piss out of the establishment - if this was china every employee would have been publicly hanged - which is why i love the BBC.
As for decency standards, I really don't understand why the FCC is so tight assed, the BBC recently came under fire from Christian groups over Jerry Springer the Opera (with about 8000 fuck, shit, cunts etc and a gay Jesus), but the BBC did not cave in because they understood that they had to appeal to everyone but _not_ at the same time, so they showed it, the FCC would have had a heart attack.
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Because it was on their front page yesterday :)
Theres's a few articles/discussion on the subject, here here and here
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.
I think you mean Rupert Murdoch - Mr. Maxwell threw a seven and drowned after falling [allegedly...] off his yacht in the Med.
A long time ago, the BBC was run by programme makers, and it was respected throughout the world for it's high quality programme making.
Then, around the end of the eighties, the accountants took over, and the quality ethics was jettisoned in favour of cost cutting.
Since then the BBC has slowly drifted towards the lower end of the market with programmes like Eastenders being shown 30 times a week, with an omnibus edition lasting all Sunday.
The government charter should be changed in favour of bringing the programme makers back.
Find funky gifts
Others have said it, but so shall I.
£104 to have the BBC in existance is well worth the money. Its reporting is superb, its comedy truly world-class and its drama often ground-breaking. I've lived and worked all around the world and there is no media organisation to compare with it in terms of breadth and honesty in its approach.
The way the BBC holds politics to account in the UK is unrivialed in any country. Tony Blair is AFRAID to go onto the BBC because of the grilling he will get. Many countries claim they have free-speech, and yet none actually challenge their leadership in the same way as the Beeb.
Blackadder, the Office, Little Britian, Newsnight, The Today Programme, Panorama etc etc etc.
Put it this way, in the UK we see the bodies of our soldiers being returned, we see the damage the suicide bombers do, and the damage that allied bombs do. Even Sky News (prop: R Murdoch) has to be unbiased and serious about the news, Fox News (prop: R Murdoch) is considered to be a comedy programme.
£104 to live in a country where Fox is a joke.... bargin.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
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"
A lot of posts here, and so far nobody seems to have mentioned what I thought was the most encouraging part of the announcement, namely that the BBC has been told it is not to chase ratings but focus on quality programming.
Hopefully, this means that the BBC will keep turning out more of the kind of programmes that have made its name into a badge of quality and stop it getting caught up in the race-to-the-bottom-of-the-barrel that Sky and the other commercial channels seem to be in.
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.
What they really should do is to force BBC into releasing everything they have produced themselves that has been aired into a Creative Commons License! The People Payd for It, so the people should be allowed to use and share it! BBC should, by law, be required to let people share their shows on BitTorrent and other p2p networks!
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
With that said, as a "true Brit", the BBC has always been a broadcasting service that I have always been very proud of. It has come in for a lot of criticism recently, perhaps rightfully so, as it's played the "ratings chasing" game of copying other channels and broadcasting far too much reality TV dross in favour of good drama and comedy shows - however, bringing the BBC under some governmental control means that the BBC will hopefully be forced to provide varied programming again, rather than "dumbed down TV" for the masses.
In Britain, we can take great pride in the fact that world recognised shows like Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Red Dwarf, Dr Who, Monty Python's Flying Circus, etc exist because of the BBC - likewise the radio programming, specifically Radio 4 which originally did the HHGTTG radio shows and the adaptations of The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings, as well as numerous dramas and plays.
I'm happy to continue paying my TV license for good quality programming and lack of advertising. All we need now are some more good comedy shows and I'll be happy...
The final issue to mention is the BBC's web site which is of tremendously high quality. They put a lot of work into supporting media formats across multiple OSes (there's even some Linux support there!) and as someone who's trying to learn Spanish at the moment, there's a wealth of educational and language resource there also.
In Britain, we probably don't have too many things to be proud of but the BBC is our best trademark to the world and something we should cherish.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
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
Now most people have a TV. The people who need TV most may be the poorest amongst us - Open University Students, parents, and carers, and so on. You can make a TV by putting a card in your computer. The TV detector vans do not work any longer (if they ever did, which I doubt). The licence costs more to collect then it is worth. The whole TV licence scheme is getting beyond its useful life. Basically, the only thing it has going for it is its long history.
If you can come up with a reliable alternative that can give the BBC a secure income that does not depend on central government or market forces, then we would love to hear about it. But coming up with a general way of making being nice finiancially rewarding would be a bit of a social breakthrough.