Pete1950, you are so predictable with your comments. How can you believe that the BBC isn't biased? They are in general an institution full of Guardian reading left wingers. As biased though in the opposite direction as Murdoch's media Empire, although the Sun newspaper's editorial did one time exhort their readers to vote for New Labour. Whether you believe it or not Tories are not welcome on the staff of the BBC. The political arena is in the main dominated by left wing Scots.
And I forgot to mention paying obscene amounts of money to talent-less idiots... Jonathon Woss, for example...
Bootsam I feel sure you would be welcomed with open arms at the BBC. You would feel very much at home too.
I must keep posting and who knows one day my forum status could be elevated to "Senior Member" like Fig and El T. Now that's a thought.
you have just totally wiped your own argument out in one fell swoop. exactly the point - they'd be on another channel where they fund themselves without need for a licence fee / tv tax and the sad fact is you have zero say in what the bbc screen . they decide entirely like F1 and Moto Gp. a few years ago they threw 600million away on a failed premier league football outing. how many licence fee payers wanted to see that and pay for that at the outset. I dont know and you dont know but that doesnt matter, they see fit how they burn money because more money is always forthcoming with their guaranteed income stream. the fact is you havent got a choice in the matter. now product placement rules have been relaxed, a form of advertising and revenue for the bbc. they want it all ways
Phil, you never really had an argument to begin with. Ariel, it doesnt take much mate. I only registered last week and somehow my status is senior. You just have to keep posting rubbish like me and from what Ive read so far, you are well on your way. Left v Right are arguments no-one can win on a forum anyway. We are all intransigent in our views and the best we can hope for is that we slag each other off in a reasonable and banterish kind of way with no malicious intention. After all a persons political view, in my opinion, is no barrier to friendship. Unless its rabid xenophobia or extremist. I don't tolerate racism. This should be the norm in a mature democracy. However I reserve the right to take the piss.
"New Labour as they now call themselves" - when you say 'now', you seem to be referring to 1995. The Labour Party did indeed increase its appeal to the middle ground in the 90s, which result in two landslide election victories on an unprecedented scale and the highest popularity ratings ever seen. You refer to this as a "pathetic attempt to remain in power". Huh? "Repeats" - in case you haven't noticed, with hundreds of channels on 24/7 nowadays all channels have quite a lot of repeats. The BBC actually has more new programming in all categories than any other service. Do you really think they could have all new programming, never to be repeated? And you imagine this is a criticism of the BBC? The BBC (or for that matter ITV or Sky) have to spend quite a lot on technical infrastructure; this is in the nature of operating in a fast-developing technical medium. So you are suggesting the BBC should spend money only on programming, not on infrastructure, are you?
Is this supposed to be a criticism of the BBC as a public institution? So what about other public services? How much "say" or "choice" do members of the public have over expenditure choices in the NHS, the police, pensions and benefits, the armed forces, foreign affairs, or anything else? A little say perhaps, indirectly, via the political process. What about privately controlled services like water, electricity, gas, airlines, newspapers ...? Even less "say" or "choice". If you really think individual members of the public should have more say via enhancements to the democratic structure, I agree with you entirely. So is that what you meant, or something else?
so wat was the program trying to suggest, rarely comment on race issues as p.c. gets in the way of any or most discussions.
in many of those examples others are elected to do those things by a public voting system for what we want as a nation which provide the footing for a civilised society or in the case of airlines. you choose another airline. you dont like the sun - read the guardian....but you dont have to still pay the sun to do so... you dont like your electricity company choose another you dont like the bbc - watch another channel - but you STILL have to pay the bbc to do so. its just archaic
It is certainly noticeable that the BBC gives employers a lot more coverage than Trade Unionists, gives religious leaders a lot more coverage than secular/humanists, gives UKIP disproportionate coverage compared to their support, gives coverage of demonstrations and strikes only in terms of their inconvenient consequences not their underlying issues, gives disproportionate coverage to opponents of social reform issues like marriage equality not to reformers, etc etc. So yes the BBC does show some bias of a sort, but it is in terms of tradition, the establishment and the status quo - which is only to be expected of a public institution funded out of taxation and led by a Tory. I can live with that.
"a public voting system for what we want as a nation which provide the footing for a civilised society" - indeed, and a public broadcasting service is precisely one of the things we want as a nation, and the BBC does indeed provide part of the footing for a civilised society. You've almost got it, just a little further now. How lucky we are in UK to have a public service broadcaster which is not directly controlled by the government, not controlled by billionaire owners, not controlled by advertisers, and which is available to everyone free at point of use. And best of all, is financed by a modest tax on TVs hypothecated to broadcasting, so not directly controlled by the Treasury either. This is as close to independent as anything in the real world gets. As by far the best broadcasting system in the world, the BBC is the envy of other countries and immensely popular with nearly everybody (except Rupert Murdoch obviously - he is desperate to destroy it - and his stooges). Among the truly vast range of its output, often the BBC produces programmes somebody doesn't like or disapproves of. There are plenty I don't like. Is that any reason for destroying what we have so miraculously preserved, and dragging Britain down to the level of broadcasting elsewhere? If you imagine the concept of everybody paying taxes to finance public services available to everybody is "archaic", you could try living alone on Robinson Crusoe's island where contributing to civil society would not be a problem.
obviously 2 trains of thought on this. they are no better or worse than any other tv channel I feel they should fund themselves.. you feel they should have a never ending pot of cash but the 'free at point of use ' comment.... huh !!
Life on Earth and all thos eothe ground breaking programmes would never have been made by a commercial channel. The channels that do try have nowhere near the depth these programmes achieve. Phill, your a freeloader. remind me never to lend you my lawnmower.
