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BBC licence fee to be abolished in 2027 and funding frozen...

The Ayesha Hazarika Show was on Times Radio when I just did the ironing.
When I last checked GBN, Peter Tatchell was on.
A bit of lefty balance.
Everything should be alright then.
 
The Conservatives’ relation with the BBC is multifaceted and there will be lots of different motivations and interests in play - short term, long term, ideological, instrumental - and not all of them will be compatible. One of the reasons the BBC has survived 40 years of Thatcherism is that Tories don’t really have a clear idea what to do with it. The current lot are not deep thinkers so you wouldn’t necessarily expect a coherent strategy that suits the long term interests of the party as a whole.

They’ll have a job, IMO, creating an alternative that does such a good job of defending the establishment as such against the left. The BBC does it it instinctively, organically and very convincingly for a large, diverse audience. A Fox News equivalent wouldn’t be nearly as useful in this respect, even if it could be controlled more directly and predictably.

Of course things look different post-Corbyn: there’s no longer any threat to the establishment as such. The Tories only really have to defend themselves against their own B team, and it’s easy to imagine the BBC leaning more towards Starmer’s Labour than Johnson’s Conservatives, even if the empirical evidence is that they tend to favour the Tories over very right wing versions of Labour. So in that sense you can see why some Tories might prefer to have done with it once and for all.
 
^If Corbyn was the worst threat to the establishment, the establishment can probably rest at ease. He managed to lose an election to Theresa May and another to Boris Johnson.

Sample of one: 10 years ago, the BBC website was probably my main source for news about the world. Today, I rarely look at it. Either I have become a raging lefty in my old age (unlikely) or their reporting has become more beholden to the party in power in Westminster. Their reporting on Brexit and other matters that matter to me has been biased, patchy or non-existent. I only started noticing this during the junior doctor protests, where I had other reasonably reliable sources on what the issues were and what was going on in terms of protests.
 
Aethelist said:
Mainly Reuters website here.
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Reuters are excellent (disclosure I used to work for a firm they owned) but their current affairs reporting is very much 'just the facts' with little analysis. I guess you can see that as a good or a bad thing.

For news I find the FT website often has the best reporting.
 
Sad news, BBC / media is one of the few areas where the U.K. is world class, and I’ve always thought the funding model had much to do with this. I’m happy to pay the licence fee even though I barely use it beyond music/sounds and the odd David Attenborough. CBeebies and CBBC is great if you have kids.

But times change, it’s hard to make everyone pay for something they don’t use and attempts to maintain a wide appeal just make for a more dumbed down experience. Most young teenagers I know barely use the BBC except maybe Doctor Who.

Fortunately they don’t need any particular news source to tell them not to vote Tory, it seems to be something that’s obvious to them.
 
paulfromcamden said:
I'm honestly not sure what I find more depressing - the government trashing the BBC or folk here that I respect suggesting they deserve it.
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UK is great at trashing itself…I think the second is sadder.

I hope they use the change to improve the BBC, but given its the Tories in charge…
 
You’ll miss it when it’s gone, it will end up as our version of PBS; some good content paid for by endless funding drives.

At least all the moaners will just be able to stop paying the license fee.
 
PsB said:
^If Corbyn was the worst threat to the establishment, the establishment can probably rest at ease. He managed to lose an election to Theresa May and another to Boris Johnson.

Sample of one: 10 years ago, the BBC website was probably my main source for news about the world. Today, I rarely look at it. Either I have become a raging lefty in my old age (unlikely) or their reporting has become more beholden to the party in power in Westminster. Their reporting on Brexit and other matters that matter to me has been biased, patchy or non-existent. I only started noticing this during the junior doctor protests, where I had other reasonably reliable sources on what the issues were and what was going on in terms of protests.
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Yes I think 2019 proved the left is too weak to effect real change: the establishment did see them off. But anyone interested in an objective assessment would have to say it actually cost them pretty dear: Labour had to go full scorched earth, the BBC burned up a lot of capital (many could forgive the smears on Corbyn but won’t forget e.g. doctoring footage to protect Johnson), the mask slipped with other institutions too. Above all the establishment had to re-align internally, handing more power to the populist right, press barons, the dodgiest of business interests. Boris, hard Brexit, PMs being anointed and removed at the whim of the right wing press: all that was the price the establishment paid to beat Corbyn. It’s really weakened itself very badly from within in its determination to avoid reform without. It’s pretty clear to any outsider now how rotten the whole system is. How it renews itself at this stage I can’t imagine.

I suspect your sample of one is actually pretty representative. You have become a raging lefty - relative to the BBC. The BBC is an establishment institution and the crisis in the establishment (or realignment, to be less dramatic) left the BBC not really knowing who it needs to legitimise. It flailed around quite a lot in the Brexit era, but ultimately fell into line behind Johnson when the chips were down. I think that’s proved too much for a lot of people who would previously have defended it quite vigorously. That’s part of what I mean when I say the BBC has basically done this to themselves: they’ve lost a lot of their natural supporters not just on the left but in the centre too, and a public service broadcaster can’t really afford to do that in a country as aggressively market-driven as the UK.
 
paulfromcamden said:
I'm honestly not sure what I find more depressing - the government trashing the BBC or folk here that I respect suggesting they deserve it.
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It's the naivety that I find most baffling; once the BBC has been sufficiently weakened, Ch 4 will be next in line, followed by any other broadcaster which effectively scrutinises the Government.

On the brighter side, the current licence fee arrangement is there until 2027, so there's still plenty of time to kick the current shower of shite out before they can do any more damage.
 
Joe Hutch said:
It's the naivety that I find most baffling; once the BBC has been sufficiently weakened, Ch 4 will be next in line, followed by any other broadcaster which effectively scrutinises the Government.

On the brighter side, the current licence fee arrangement is there until 2027, so there's still plenty of time to kick the current shower of shite out before they can do any more damage.
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I don’t see anyone here celebrating, or arguing that this is a good thing. It is what it is.

Of course part of what it is is hand waving and distraction: 2027 is quite a long way off, an announcement right now is close to meaningless.
 
Listening to the Folk Show on Radio Shropshire when I found this thread.

Guess I better enjoy it while it still exists.

Jim.
 
JimR said:
Listening to the Folk Show on Radio Shropshire when I found this thread.

Guess I better enjoy it while it still exists.

Jim.
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Nah, it will never happen.

It's just another storm in depiffles whine glass, imho.
 
Joe Hutch said:
It's the naivety that I find most baffling; once the BBC has been sufficiently weakened, Ch 4 will be next in line, followed by any other broadcaster which effectively scrutinises the Government.

On the brighter side, the current licence fee arrangement is there until 2027, so there's still plenty of time to kick the current shower of shite out before they can do any more damage.
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By then Cressidahh (Baroness) Dick will be DG of da B-BC. She’ll be getting attention from Comrade Fox on the red leather.

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