The gradual destruction and right-wing bias of the BBC

First topic message reminder :

The BBC is to be made to suffer due to the failures of private funded commercial television, in a series of government policies aimed at smashing the BBC and forcing the quality down, the latest announcements have gone almost unoticed.

A new kind of TV station is coming soon to the UK, "City TV" will be a a very localized kind of TV station which will have coverage areas similar to local radio stations, often covering just one city like Manchester, Liverpool or Glasgow, though some will cover two or three neighbouring towns, like Newcastle + Sunderland or Leeds + Bradford for example.

Part of the start up costs and initial funding of these new commercial TV stations will come from the BBC, which actualy makes me extremely angry because many of us who live in more rural areas will never recieve one of these new stations, yet we will be paying towards them - WHY ?

Why is public money been used to help a private commercial concern to become viable ?

THE PREASSURE WHICH THE BBC SUDENLY FINDS ITSELF IN

The licence fee has been frozen for six years - resulting in a massive real terms cut

The BBC is been forced to take over all the funding of the World Service

The BBC is been made to fund the whole of "Monitoring Services" which was partly funded by the government

The BBC must contribute to the running costs of Channel S4C, the Welsh language channel

The BBC must contribute to the setting up of and initial running costs of the new City TV stations

Everyone keeps saying how much money this will save, not least the chancellor George Osborne, but no one seems to mention how quality and output will deterioate and worsen, the fact that we are going to sacrifice the quality of the BBC in the name of savings has never been mentioned.

Allready it has been announced only this week that many BBC local stations will merge output, effectively losing the local element to local radio, so whats the point of local radio if its NOT local. ?

Naturaly this will give the commercial stations an advantage, that is if you dont mind listening to a choir singing about a local drain cleaning company, or some DJ telling you that now is the time to buy your Christmas gifts - on the 1st November.

Soon the BBC will stop making programmes for daytime viewers, as a result of the financial preassure forced on the BBC by this government, day time viewing will in future consist mostly of repeats.

I suspect that the government is attempting to drive the BBC down to levels associated with SKY, a tv network which makes no tv programmes and where public service means nothing, or possibly they wish to make the BBC like ITV - a network so strapped for cash that they no longer make childrens programmes and can barely afford to carry on providing local news.

BBC receives almost 1,200 complaints over UKIP election coverage
 
Corporation accused of bias towards Nigel Farage's party and giving it too much airtime.
 
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/may/30/bbc-complaints-ukip-election-coverage-bias

The BBC follows the news - and UKIP is sufficiently oddball to encourage coverage. In a different way the Pistorious trial (eg)was / is over-covered in the view of some.

My antennae tend to be alert for the subtle differences in commentary between the parties' fortunes - the choice of 'disaster' on the one hand for, say, ' difficulty' on the other. Or 'slump' versus ' temporary downturn' etc. etc. 

I have been known to complain to the Beeb about perceived bias in some programmes and was, in essence, ever-so-politely told to get stuffed...

Phil. I was discussing the futility or otherwise of complaining to the BBC with some people on Twitter this week. We all noted how the first response you get is that polite version of “get stuffed”, but apparently if you write a second time your complaint is forwarded to the producer, and you then get a more detailed reply.
 
I think this thread has provided plenty of evidence that the BBC has become right-wing, and here’s some more. The writer Phil Harrison says: “Claiming that the BBC swings to the left is the oldest trick in the right-wing media playbook”, adding “since Cameron became Prime Minister in 2010, the general ambience surrounding the BBC has subtly changed.”
 
Harrison continues: “Andrew Neil (a confirmed admirer of Thatcher and a former employee of the Conservative Party) and David Dimbleby (a former member of the Bullingdon Club) remain two of the corporation's biggest current affairs beasts. Then there's political editor Nick Robinson (a former President of the Oxford University Conservative Association) and ‘Today’ presenter Sarah Montague (a former stockbroker and bond trader who has crossed two NUJ-sanctioned picket lines since her arrival at the BBC). Plenty of the programming, too, has reflected an increased willingness to cheerlead for the government agenda. John Humphrys, for example, offered up 'The Future State of Welfare' in 2011; the documentary seemed to enthusiastically underwrite a 'skivers versus strivers' narrative and was duly endorsed as 'thoughtful and intelligent' by Iain Duncan Smith. The programme was later criticised by the BBC Trust for breaking impartiality guidelines.”
 
http://thequietus.com/articles/14695-bbc-political-bias

What I find baffling is why the BBC, when it has behaved like a Tory poodle for the past four years, has gone out of its way to promote UKIP (and Farage in particular) of late. Are the Tories who want a pact with UKIP pulling the strings? Has someone decided that the Tories can’t win the next election outright and they need another right-wing party to rise to prominence so they can do deals with it? Or is it just a way to make Cameron’s ideologically-driven government appear ‘moderate’ alongside Farage, Nuttall, Helmer and their fellow fruitcakes?   

Robert Peston: BBC follows The Daily Mail’s lead too much
 
The Corporation’s editors have a ‘safety-first’ attitude and are completely obsessed with newspapers’ agendas, says economics editor Robert Peston: "BBC News follows the lead of 'The Daily Mail’ and ‘The Daily Telegraph’ too much."
 
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jun/06/bbc-obsessed-agenda-daily-mail-robert-peston-charles-wheeler

Worldwide, the majority of broadcasters rely upon advertisers for their income.  This is true of the UK, with a notable exception.  The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is financed by a compulsory Licence fee.  Most foreigners assume that the BBC is an instrument of Government.

All governments have always complained about the BBC being biased against the ruling Party.  This became official when the Hutton Enquiry forced the resignation of its Director-General, Greg Dyke and the Beeb is currently threatened by a Tory government with modifications to the Licence Fee.

Who  pays the piper calls the tune - so current policy is to play whatever tune is being demanded by the Tory government.

But you can always subscribe £70 a month to SKY if you prefer.

"My enemy's enemy is my friend."

Aunty Beeb is facing the same threats from a conservative administration that we all do.

The Beeb is well-accustomed to being accused of reflecting "The government line", and indeed many overseas countries assume that it is indeed a British government department.  The current BBC Trust are well aware that although its financing is independent, there is a preoccupation about a government changing the rules anytime it wants to.

Nobody who watched tonight's Panorama programme about "hard-working families" in work who nevertheless rely upon benefit payments to put food in the kitchen, could for a moment believe that the Tory administration approved its presentation.

Censorship!

Over a thousand people were in London last night as part of the 'Million Mask March'. Westminster Bridge was blocked for a while and there were clashes with police.

I didn't hear any mention of this on the BBC Radio 4's 'Today' programme this morning and only found out about it via Twitter and Euronews:-

http://www.euronews.com/2014/11/06/arrests-during-anti-capitalist-march-in-london/

Why the censorship? Is the BBC trying to give the impression that all is well, everyone is happy and Cameron and his corrupt cronies really have fixed 'broken Britain'?

Kept checking the BBC website last night - no 'breaking news' on there

It does feel like censorship of the news

Everywhere else in the world, Television is financed by advertising.
Directly or indirectly it is capitalist companies who pay for the service, so the service would be mad to offend its principal source of profit.

Only in Britain is there a universal broadcasting service financed independently from public contribution.

As in all things financial, the income of the BBC can be varied up or down by the Government of the day, so everything it broadcasts has to be filtered through a necessity to maintain its ability to function.

I don't believe everything I read in the newspapers, nor am I dumbly accepting of every offering on Broadcast media.  Also the internet provides a thousand-and-one variant opinions on any given topic.

I read/watch/listen with interest, consider, inwardly digest, then choose what I can find myself in agreement with.  A lot of people might disagree with my choices, but that's a problem for them, not for me.

OW my old friend on the other forum use to say exactly the same thing, and that just reminded me of him, no you are not wrong at all as I believe that is the way it should be done.

I expect it has got worse since then Ivan?

You have to pay close attention to broadcast programmes with political content these days. It starts with the BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme in which interviewers spend most of their time interrupting the interviewee who is trying to answer the interviewer's last question.

"Panel" discussions mainly consist of opposing politicians trying to shout each other down, with the result that none of them actually make their point.

In the HofC itself, the Speaker is barely able to stop the constant underlying murmurs of discontent, or the concerted attempts to drown out the other side's speech. Most schoolchildren are better behaved than The Honourable Gentlemen.

Murmurs OW? MORE LIKE SHOUTING, it comes across as and the Honourable Gentleman should be doing far more to shut them up.

John Humphrys had the audacity to question George Osborne about his dubious policies yesterday morning. Ever since there has been a concerted attack on the BBC by Tories, no doubt trying to intimidate it in advance of the general election and absurdly accusing it of left-wing bias, as the following two articles (and many of the reader comments beneath them) show:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/autumn-statement/11272781/George-Osborne-accuses-BBC-of-hyperbolic-coverage-of-Autumn-Statement.html

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/dec/05/george-osborne--bbc-attack-branded-seriously-unaccaptable

Recalling Thatcher's eloquent "Is he one of us?", the incumbent Tory Party takes the view Anyone who is not with us is against us so the dirt will be dished out liberally from now until next May against the slightest criticism from whatever source.

Certainly right there gentlemen.

Could the BBC be any more left-wing? First they employ loads of Tories, and then they're caught chillaxing in Cameron's kitchen

From an article by Mark Steel:-

The BBC news started with a 10-minute film of the PM pottering round his kitchen with his family, while answering searching questions such as: “Aren’t you marvellous?” This is why the BBC is accused of a left-wing bias. It should have lasted an hour, and included film of him wrestling a bear. Instead it took place while he was preparing food and taking his kids to football, proving he’s an ordinary bloke, no different to any other multimillionaire whose mother-in-law owns thousands of acres of land in Scotland, juggling everyday tasks like ironing school uniforms and stalking deer like all of us.

Cameron said Labour had tried to make his background an issue, but it was “out-of-date” to suggest it makes a difference. That's why it costs £34,000 a year to send a boy to Eton, because the school is determined that none of its pupils should have any advantages in life. And if you’re an ex-pupil of Eton it must be infuriating to put up with out-of-date ideas, when you’ve been brought up with only modern values involving top hats and all-male dining clubs that hold banquets which turn into food fights.

Look at the lefty domination of political programmes. It’s true Nick Robinson was a Young Conservative, Andrew Neil was a fan of Thatcher, the recent chair of the BBC Trust was in a Tory cabinet, and Michael Portillo was a Tory minister who presents programmes about trains and politics and everything. It’s also true that Jeremy Paxman described himself as a ‘one-nation Tory’, but that only proves the point. There are hundreds of nations, and he’s only a Tory in one of them, the bloody Communist.

For the whole article:-
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/could-the-bbc-be-any-more-leftwing-first-they-employ-loads-of-tories-and-then-theyre-caught-chillaxing-in-camerons-kitchen-10137059.html

I thought that was very funny, and clever too, though we still need a large sign alongside saying "Irony", or there may be some very puzzled readers.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CEltkQMWEAEHdui.jpg

There's a massive demonstration against the Tories taking place in London tonight. ITN has reported it, but so far there's been a news blackout by the BBC - just as there was over the passage of the NHS Act and protests by disabled people in London and outside several Tory Party conferences. Is the BBC completely in the grip of the Tories now?


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CElbgOHXIAEkesm.jpg

Certainly seems that way
Have been watching this on Twitter - seems we don't have a very popular government.

Newspaper coverage so far seems to be just the Mirror and the Evening Standard

Within a very short space of time - perhaps less than a week, Prime Minister Cameron will have named a Minister with responsibility for bringing the BBC more under the control of the government of the day. Probably commencing with the TV licence fee, which should help those currently subscribing £75 a month or more to SKY or Virgin voluntarily.

John Whittingdale appointed Culture Secretary ahead of BBC charter debates.

http://www.birminghampost.co.uk/business/creative/john-whittingdale-appointed-culture-secretary-9231137

Not content with having the most money (mainly from hedge fund donors) and 85% of the press on their side, the Tories never cease to attack the BBC, partly because as a ‘public’ service broadcaster it doesn’t fit in with their free market ideology, and partly because they don’t consider it sufficiently biased in their favour. Tom Baldwin, who was one of Ed Miliband’s senior advisers during the election campaign, has claimed that senior BBC executives and journalists faced repeated threats about “what would happen afterwards” if they didn’t change their coverage. He said: “It is a disturbing suggestion that a democratically elected government would seek to stamp on and silence dissent from an independent broadcaster”.

Now John Whittingdale, an old Thatcherite and long-standing critic of the licence fee system, has been made culture secretary, an appointment that has led some newspapers to claim the government is going to war with the BBC.

Baldwin writes:-

“The BBC was too easily swayed by newspapers that support the Tories and are heavily invested in Labour’s defeat. Our biggest dispute with the BBC was over the prominence it gave to the idea of a deal between Labour and the SNP that was never on the cards. After the first 237 incarnations on news bulletins, I struggled to see how this theme could be developed further, yet the BBC continued to lead with speculation about bizarre consequences of a Labour-SNP government for the economy, tax, and even road schemes.

The Tories are, apparently, complaining about the way the BBC handled debate negotiations. But it was at their insistence that the format was expanded to include the Greens, the SNP and Plaid Cymru. And it was at the Tories’ pleading that, rather than upset the PM by empty-chairing him, the BBC withdrew any such threat. I am genuinely puzzled about what exactly did Cameron find not to like? Downing Street’s criticism of the BBC is akin to a football manager railing against the referee after a 3-0 win with a disputed penalty.

Perhaps this is all part of modern politics, this application of pressure with the media. But the Tories have better reason than most to understand where the pressure points lie. Cameron, George Osborne and Boris Johnson have all hired their chief spin doctors from the ranks of BBC journalists. So, far from being part of a leftist conspiracy, it is a rich recruiting ground for Conservatives.”

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/may/13/tory-officials-threatened-bbc-miliband-tom-baldwin-licence-fee

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/13/bbc-labour-election

Ever since 1922, the government of the day has resented BBC independence. In most parts of the World of course, the national broadcaster is a government department.

We'll notice the difference when that applies in the UK too.

Another "Non-story" from the Torygraph, but one designed to keep the rebellious Beeb at heel:

http://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/other/david-cameron-threatened-to-close-down-bbc-nick-robinson-claims/ar-AAbTQdd

On the same day, Rod Liddle comments acidly in his Sunday Times column about the continuing BBC turmoil allegedly surrounding the Top Gear programme's future. Yes, that is the Mr. Liddle who was sacked by the BBC a few years ago.

Not only the Beeb, of course. Privatisations 'r' us.

From the Tory administration which likes to say there is too much unnecessary government involvement in things best left to "the market", a pronouncement from Minister for Murdoch, John Whittingdale, queries the timing of the BBC 10 O'clock news.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34272545

Extracts from an article by Paul Myerscough:-

The causes of the BBC’s institutional bias aren’t just a matter of the backgrounds and educations of the people who work there, or the politics of the journalists involved: the fact that Andrew Neil, the presenter of ‘Daily Politics’ and ‘This Week’, was the editor of ‘The Sunday Times’ in the Thatcher period; or that Evan Davis, the presenter of ‘Newsnight’, was part of the team at the Institute of Fiscal Studies that devised the poll tax; or that the policy editor of ‘Newsnight’, Chris Cook, used to be an adviser to David Willetts; or that Nick Robinson, now a presenter on ‘Today’, was once president of the Oxford University Conservative Association.

Because its notion of political balance between left and right is defined by the Labour and Conservative parties, the BBC’s spectrum of opinion has narrowed and its fulcrum drifted to the right in concert with New Labour. Corbyn has reopened the gap, but the BBC has not adjusted. So far as it is concerned, with his election the Labour leadership has put itself beyond the pale. Its norm remains a ‘balance’ between the Tories and the Labour right. By defining himself against the establishment, Corbyn becomes an outsider, an insurgent, who can be discussed ‘fairly’ by the BBC only in the way that, say, Radio 5 Live can ‘fairly’ cover England’s opponents at the World Cup, or the way the 'Today' programme talks ‘fairly’ about Syrian refugees. When the BBC wants to discuss Corbyn, its instinct is to call in Kenneth Clarke and John McTernan.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n20/paul-myerscough/corbyn-in-the-media

Andy Murray named BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Well THAT was a surprise! Bet you didn't see that coming. I was surprised, but I don't suppose Mr Fury was all that surprised.

Andy Murray and the word 'personality' in the same sentence is most unusual. The racket-smashing brat has about as much charisma - and an even more boring voice - than the late Sir Geoffrey Howe, and that is quite an achievement! As Murray once told us how he supported any team that was playing England, I always root for anyone who is playing him, especially if it's the rather more mature Roger Federer or Novak Djokovic.

It seems that a lot more people are beginning to notice the blatant bias of the BBC.......


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CW3KG5BXIAAJRD3.jpg

Listener feedback from the Radio 4 'Today' Facebook page........


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CXTpZsVWsAE5WG5.jpg

"Who pays the piper calls the tune!"

Of course the BBC have to flatter a government which is happy to follow the instructions of a commercial competitor.

Whatever anyone might think about the TV Licence Fee, the alternative is five minutes of advertising at regular intervals during a programme.

For an example of how the tentacles of Sky reach into our lives:
http://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/championship/leeds-united-reluctantly-allow-sky-sports-cameras-into-elland-road-to-cover-derby-game-following-ban-threat/ar-BBo1IgE?li=AA572I

Of course the BBC have to flatter a government which is happy to follow the instructions of a commercial competitor.

I remember the BBC being criticised for showing an episode of ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ which promoted the ‘Make Poverty History’ campaign. Is that bias? Surely only sociopaths like Iain Duncan Smith would disagree with, or take exception to the publicising of, such a worthy cause?

By flattering this odious government – and it becomes more blatantly obvious that it does so as the months and years go by – the BBC is breaching its legal requirement to be impartial.

In 2007, the BBC issued new principles for its staff, and one was that "impartiality involves breadth of view and can be breached by omission". I haven't noticed the BBC reminding us that Labour increased spending on flood defences by 57%, while the Tories have cut it by 20%. There was certainly omission during the passage of the Health and Social Care Act 2012, the controversy surrounding which was only occasionally mentioned. And there has been a failure to mention, or at best to under report, many of the demonstrations which have taken place against the Tories and their policies.

All of those principles can be read here:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6764279.stm

Yes, I think the BBC and the current government do think we're all stupid - let's hope we're not