The barbarians appear to be massing at the gates once more. I don’t as a rule read The Daily Telegraph, but I came across this piece recently (love the Abu Ghraib reference, by the way). In the wake of the recent BBC trust report on the Ross/Brand/Sachs affair, this has been followed up by a further piece, which reiterates the intention of a Daily Telegraph journalist to break the law by refusing to renew his TV licence.
I’d like to start by pointing out that this has NOTHING, repeat NOTHING to do with the sodding Ross/Brand/Sachs affair. If you seriously believe that the idiotic behaviour of a couple of presenters (or -to be more accurate – the negligent behaviour of their superiors who let the programme go out) means that we should immediately tear down one of our greatest institutions (for that is effectively what this would mean), then you are seriously missing the point. No, there are more deep-seated ideological issues at stake here. It is all about the long-standing antipathy of a certain section of British society towards the way that the British Broadcasting Corporation is funded.
The BBC is one of the things about this country that makes me most proud to be British, and it is simply inconceivable to me that any of my fellow countrymen could think otherwise. Have these people never considered what life would be like without a publicly-funded BBC? Earlier today I jotted down ten things off the top of my head which were each probably worth the cost of the licence fee alone. Here’s what I came up with:
BBC News (think about it: which other news outlet is so scrupulously impartial that it regularly washes its own dirty linen in public?)
Radio 3 (very rarely listen to it, but I love the idea that it’s there)
The World Service (ditto)
The Today Programme (obviously)
In Our Time (the exception that proves that we ain’t really dumbing down)
Dr Who (of course)
Sounds of the Sixties
John Simpson
David Attenborough
Michael Palin
Go on, make your own list – it’ll probably be even better than mine. And pay your licence fee. OK?
Only one item on my list:
1). Definitive proof that there is an alternative to the sterile dogma of unfettered market competition.
Curious, isn’t it, that the numpties pushing this campaign are the very same numpties who cheer-led the uncritical deregulation of the finance industry. That ended well.
Having the BBC is like watching people going to church on a Sunday: a venerable tradition that must be preserved for the sense of comfort it induces in all right-minded people.
We don’t need ten reasons to justify paying the licence fee; we only need one: Radio 4
Loved this comment though:
‘Like investment banks until the crash, they grossly overpaid and overindulged their stars because they thought there was a “new paradigm” of ever-better results to be made from junk. There wasn’t. The BBC is now experiencing its own credit crunch.’
Ties in nicely with your point, doesn’t it Ian?!
The whole Ross/Brand prank calls thing was unforgivable and tasteless. Ross has, in effect, been fined £1.5 million – far in excess of any fine he would have had imposed if Mr Sachs had decided to pursue the pair for the criminal offence of making malicious or offensive phone calls (I wish he had – seeing Woss in court and facing a magistrate would have been worth the licence fee on its own). Brand paid with his job – losing out on a £200,000 per year contract.
I despise what they did, but the penalties they have received are wholly appropriate, far in excess of anything else any court would impose, and I see no reason for anyone to ask for public floggings or ritual slaughter at the steps of Broadcasting House. I see even less reason for anyone to use the whole escapade as a reason to withdraw the licence fee – there may be many other valid reasons for so doing, but this is not it.
REASONS TO GET RID OF THE LICENCE FEE -
Steve Wright in the Afternoon
Steve Wright
Woss on Saturday Mornings
Did I mention Steve Wright?
REASONS TO KEEP IT
Where would satellite TV be without the BBC cast-offs?
8 reasons to get rid of licence fee:
The Today Programme
BBC News’s obsession with the credit crunch
BBC News’s obsession with America
BBC News’s obsession with the BBC
BBC News’s obsession with vox pops
Robert Peston
Danny Baker on Saturday mornings
Half hour Panoramas
8 reasons to keep paying:
iPlayer
Terry Wogan
Eurovision
Andrew Davies costume dramas
Doctor Who
Life on Mars
Ashes to Ashes
Fags, Mags and Bags
Hmmm.
Danny Baker – and it seriously grieves me to say this of a Millwall fan – is one of the finest radio broadcasters we have, with a deep and rich understanding of what radio is and what it isn’t and it is criminal that he has not been put to better use. The old GLR, with Chris Evans before he fell in love with himself, followed by Baker was the best Saturday morning line-up ever.
BBC New’s obsession is with the news – your top three comprise the two most important stories of the time and one that has placed the future of the BBC under direct attack (see JP’s original post). Total agree about vox pops though. I don’t give a toss what Joan from Hinkley thinks.
Robert Peston: a man heading for a fall.
Wogan and Eurovision in the “keep” list? Puh-lease (even though Wogan, occasionally, forgets his infatuation with himself and reminds us what a fine broadcaster he can be, he is way past his sell-by date).
Now, can we have proper science programming back as well please?
Reasons to scrap the licence fee (and also TV generally): Humiliation television.
(And no, Jenny, despite aberrations, the quote is bunk. And not in a space travel way. Self-serving claptrap from an organ with a massive vested-interest in doing down the BBC)
“can we have proper science programming back as well please?”
What: the occasional Horizon not good enough for you?
You are being ironic, aren’t you, Kevin? Please?
Ian, careful you don’t fall into the trap of answering an ideological argument with another one. To my mind, it’s not a political issue at all, and any attempts to make it one should be resisted.
Jenny, agree with you on Radio 4 – I’ve a particular fondness for those weird one-off documentaries that wouldn’t find a home anywhere else on the planet.
Kevin, ach, I used to like Ross on Saturdays, although I agree that – before all this happened – he was beginning to get a bit stale.
Kate, agree with Ian on Danny Baker (I think) – anyone who can start his first Saturday show with an extended word-for-word quotation from Sir Henry at Rawlinson End gets my vote. Ashes for Ashes – I saw the first episode of it on a plane last week and thought it was awful. And never forget that the same team gave birth to Bonekickers. But I’ll definitely watch out for Fags, Mags and Bags. And if we’re talking about comedy, I’d like to mention Down the Line, Bleak Expectations and Ed Reardon’s Week.
Horizon is not good enough for me. It has been handed to arts graduates too busy reading deconstructionist wibble to think clearly.
My point is that the Telegraph (and even more so the Murdoch stable) has a vested interest in undermining the BBC. a massively vested interest, AND they do believe the ideology of the free market. The sterile dogma of the free market has given the utterly crap local news services we now have (owned by large multi-nationals, especially Newsquest) and when the Beeb move to fill the great yawning chasm in coverage it comes under immediate assault.
Now I don’t subscribe to the “BBC TV is the best in the world” nonsense (we have produced nothing like The West Wing, The Wire, The Simpsons or, gawd bless her, Buffy). But not having to keep half an eye on what advertisers want, while having a funding system that means the government has to work amazingly hard (and appoint a very compliant whitewasher) to exert control, does open possibilities that would not otherwise be there. It can take a punt on off-the-wall stuff and stick with it in a way that commercial broadcasters don’t (Only Fools and Horses took couple of series to find its feet).
I thought the closing scene of the first Ashes to Ashes (Keeley Hawes with the wine glass) was wonderful.
“You are being ironic, aren’t you, Kevin? Please?”
If I had a middle name, what would it be … ?
That’s a relief. Silly me – you had me worried there for a moment.