BBC bias

[strichener]

1 hour ago, Carnoustie Young Guvnor said:

Who cares? Is that a reason every citizen in the country should be forced to pay for his propaganda to be broadcast into their homes?  He just spent twenty years lying to us while being paid handsomely out of the public purse. At least we will have a choice whether to fund his new channel or not.

Well that is just hyperbole.  You have literaly contradicted your ealier posts stating not only do people not have to pay but that they can stop paying and still use the services.  The very opposite of "every citizen" being "forced to pay"

[Guest TheJTS98]

2 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

You could keep it as a public body. Just one that doesn't rely on funding controlled by the government and is therefore under less pressure to conform to whatever the government of the day wants.

Part of the damage of the BBC is the bias hiding under this veneer of impartiality.

So it becomes a body reliant on the good will of rich sponsors and advertisers. What could go wrong?

[Gordon EF]

1 minute ago, TheJTS98 said:

So it becomes a body reliant on the good will of rich sponsors and advertisers. What could go wrong?

Why hasn't Channel 4 news become Fox News? Why hasn't ITV?

Say what you like about the BBC but I imagine 99% of the people involved find stuff like Fox abhorrent. 

Where is the logic in imagining it's precisely removing the license fee that gives Fox news the vacuum in British public life to fill?

Edited January 21, 2021 by Gordon EF

[coprolite]

Just now, Gordon EF said:

Why hasn't Channel 4 news become Fox News? Why hasn't ITV?

I'd honestly forgotten itv did news. 

Good points though. 

[Guest TheJTS98]

4 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Why hasn't Channel 4 news become Fox News? Why hasn't ITV?

1) Because they can't dominate. Because they have ads.

You'd be completely changing the culture of British broadcasting.

Effectively you're saying just create another ITV. There would be no government-funded media body, so the whole landscape would change. If that's the aim, why not just do away with it altogether, since ITV and Channel 4 already exist? What happens then?

You'd be pressing re-set on the whole system in the UK and opening it up to the highest bidder. You're taking the most historic and the go-to player out of the market.

Edited January 21, 2021 by TheJTS98

[Gordon EF]

1 minute ago, coprolite said:

I'd honestly forgotten itv did news. 

Good points though. 

That'll be a side effect of having a triple-digit IQ.

[welshbairn]

2 minutes ago, Gordon EF said:

Why hasn't Channel 4 news become Fox News? Why hasn't ITV?

Offcom, along with specific rules for Channel 4. It's not surprising that Offcom is the next target for those on the right trying to destroy public broadcasting.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

9 minutes ago, strichener said:

Well that is just hyperbole.  You have literaly contradicted your ealier posts stating not only do people not have to pay but that they can stop paying and still use the services.  The very opposite of "every citizen" being "forced to pay"

[Gordon EF]

1 minute ago, TheJTS98 said:

You'd be completely changing the culture of British broadcasting.

Effectively you're saying just create another ITV. There would be no government-funded media body, so the whole landscape would change. If that's the aim, why not just do away with it altogether, since ITV and Channel 4 already exist? What happens then?

You'd be pressing re-set on the whole system in the UK and opening it up to the highest bidder. You're taking the most historic and the go-to player out of the market.

That's a lot to respond to in a short post.

I actually don't think it would change the culture that dramatically, certainly in the short term. And I've yet to hear a decent argument of why it would.

How are BBC practically not just another ITV in terms of their actual TV content. Personally I'd say that their content tends to be on average higher quality but I still find the vats majority of it to be poor.

I've already said, I'm not saying we should forcibly tear the BBC to the ground and sell it for scrap. A 'well why don't you go x steps further and then this happens and then where would we be???!!!" is a little unfair.

[Guest TheJTS98]

1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:

That's a lot to respond to in a short post.

I actually don't think it would change the culture that dramatically, certainly in the short term. And I've yet to hear a decent argument of why it would.

How are BBC practically not just another ITV in terms of their actual TV content. Personally I'd say that their content tends to be on average higher quality but I still find the vats majority of it to be poor.

I've already said, I'm not saying we should forcibly tear the BBC to the ground and sell it for scrap. A 'well why don't you go x steps further and then this happens and then where would we be???!!!" is a little unfair.

I think where we disagree is that you think it will stop at that stage. I don't see that.

This would be a huge win for the right in the battle for media rights. They'd have killed off the one obstacle they've wanted rid of for years and everything else would be up for grabs. Reform is not going to tighten things up after that. You end up with more deregulation and before we know where we are, we have American-style tv.

Also, people like the BBC. People don't like ads. World Cup Final viewing figures show us this routinely. BBC's coverage wins by a huge landslide every time. Do we all just love Alan Shearer?

[Gordon EF]

On side note does anyone have a list of European countries without a user-funded state TV channel whose news content has been devoured by Rupert Murdoch%?

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

 

[coprolite]

1 minute ago, Gordon EF said:

On side note does anyone have a list of European countries without a user-funded state TV channel whose news content has been devoured by Rupert Murdoch%?

Murdoch would probably shift Italian telly upmarket. I don't know what their news is like specifically though. 

[Gordon EF]

Just now, TheJTS98 said:

I think where we disagree is that you think it will stop at that stage. I don't see that.

This would be a huge win for the right in the battle for media rights. They'd have killed off the one obstacle they've wanted rid of for years and everything else would be up for grabs. Reform is not going to tighten things up after that. You end up with more deregulation and before we know where we are, we have American-style tv.

Also, people like the BBC. People don't like ads. World Cup Final viewing figures show us this routinely. BBC's coverage wins by a huge landslide every time. Do we all just love Alan Shearer?

Yeah. Agree on your characterisation of where we're disagreeing. I feel like it's a little bit like I'm saying "Let's ditch this duff manager" and you're saying "But who else would we get in?". I'm kind of arguing for the principle of step 1. 

ITV's sports coverage is shite though. 

Coverage of major football tournaments and Line of Duty are the only things I'd think twice about missing.

[NotThePars]

54 minutes ago, coprolite said:

I can't see any private sector provider replicating In Our Time

54 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Theres literally like dozens of excellent astronomy channels on youtube, totally free, cover way more things than the sky at night.

There's hundreds, if not thousands, of free podcasts that give you, imo, greater insight into anything covered by In Our Time. And you don't even have to run the gauntlet of encountering a c**t like Tristram Hunt commenting on Engels.

 

 

[Erih Shtrep]

3 hours ago, MixuFruit said:

Netflix, Amazon and Disney are all significantly cheaper than a TV license. Netflix's "Our Planet" series is every bit as good as any BBC Attenborough documentary you care to mention.

I suppose it's also worth saying the BBC are not going to be able to use Attenborough as an anchor name for much longer.

Why, is he moving to Netflix?  

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, NotThePars said:

There's hundreds, if not thousands, of free podcasts that give you, imo, greater insight into anything covered by In Our Time. And you don't even have to run the gauntlet of encountering a c**t like Tristram Hunt commenting on Engels.

 

 

Maybe so, but you don't have to spend eons filtering out all the shite. You get a few perspectives on the subject and Melvyn's bias is usually clear from the outset, leaving you with a path to follow up if you want. Funniest one for me was him having a total heads gone by being told by a female economic historian that the industrial revolution was caused by plentiful supplies of coal and iron, and not cloth capped eccentrics tinkering in their sheds in Barnsley.

[NotThePars]

Just now, welshbairn said:

Maybe so, but you don't have to spend eons filtering out all the shite. You get a few perspectives on the subject and Melvyn's bias is usually clear from the outset, leaving you with a path to follow up if you want. Funniest one for me was him having a total heads gone by being told by a female economic historian that the industrial revolution was caused by plentiful supplies of coal and iron, and not cloth capped eccentrics tinkering in their sheds in Barnsley.

Aye I'll give you that it took me a bit of time and listening to find good podcasts but it's left me in a position where I keep IOT in my subscription list more out of some bizarre loyalty than because of the quality of the show. I appreciate that they get plenty of academics on rotation in to the show but it reminds me of how pompous and bland a ton of them are. 

I think he took exception to the historian because she suggested that the brand of British exceptionalism surrounding the Industrial Revolution was racist and he went off. Was funny though.

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

 

[Carnoustie Young Guvnor]

https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit-news/peter-oborne-on-media-calling-out-boris-johnson-lies-62018

"senior BBC executives [...] tell me they personally think it's wrong to expose lies told by a British prime minister because it undermines trust in British politics."