'we're Mad As Hell And We're Not Taking It Any More'

[punter]

I know its a bit OT but he goes into general themes about how Britain is run and I think it's a good read...

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10...-DONT-more.html

Even if the BBC attempts to rehabilitate Jonathan Ross by forcing him to present Songs Of Praise, accompanied by Four Happily Married Men and a Piano, it's already too late.

As it is, he's been suspended for three months without pay - no great financial hardship in the scheme of things - and Radio 2 controller Lesley Douglas has resigned.

But my guess is that the BBC still doesn't begin to understand what's been going on this past week.

This was always about much, much more than the fate of a couple of presenters and the 'systemic' failures that allowed them to bully and ridicule an old man and his granddaughter in the name of 'entertainment'.

Lesley Douglas, a decent woman, has done the decent thing. But it's not important how many heads rolled - though it's worth noting that when Andrew Gilligan told the truth about Alastair Campbell, the Director-General himself had to walk the plank.

If they think this 'draws a line' under this whole sordid affair, time to 'move on', chuck a couple of bodies over the side and it's everybody back on the coach, then they're horribly mistaken.

Whatever has happened since that suicidally ill-advised broadcast, this incident and the response to it has encapsulated perfectly the institutionalised hubris at the BBC. Now it's nemesis time.

If the Tories could but see it, there's a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity here. The BBC is an ideal example of a nationalised industry which has grown bloated and lost sight of its remit.

Here is the scope for Call Me Dave and Boy George to demonstrate exactly how they can cut taxes without cutting public services.

I was going to say that the BBC epitomises the big state in microcosm, except that microcosm isn't the best way to describe such a behemoth.

This year, the Corporation will receive £3.2billion from the licence fee - a poll-tax of £139.50 a year on every household in the land.

Even in these extraordinary times, where billions are bandied around like petty cash, that's a hell of a chunk of change.

Put it another way. For £3.2 billion, you could buy Iceland and Hungary and still have enough left for a fish supper on the way home.

The Tories could explain how that tax could be slashed dramatically, or even abolished altogether, without viewers and listeners suffering.

I'd give the BBC enough money to run Radio 4 and maybe two television channels. I'd also allow them to set up subscription channels for say, sport, and the arts.

If Setanta and Sky can do it, why not the Beeb?

What is it that BBC1 does that the independent sector can't do just as well?

Do I hear Little Dorrit and the Blue Planet? Well, if the Beeb wasn't there to distort the market, I'm sure a privatised Channel 4 in partnership with Discovery or Disney would be happy to pick up the ball.

HBO manages to produce some of the best television drama in the world without a penny in public subsidy.

No one would be disadvantaged if Radios 1 and 2 were sold off. Radio 3 could seek corporate sponsorship or go to the wall.

Those who want to listen to classical music all day can tune in to Classic FM or buy a CD.

And if people must have the kind of peurile trash provided by the likes of Russell Brand, they can pay for that themselves. It's not the job of public service broadcasting to supply it.

As for all those digital radio and TV channels, they seem to exist merely to stifle the competition.

Why, for instance, is the BBC running an Asian service when enterprising businessmen are queuing up to launch dedicated Asian TV and radio stations, funded by advertising?

There would be many more of these niche channels, too, if the playing field didn't resemble the north face of the Eiger.

Where it all started to go wrong was when the BBC decided to launch breakfast television in an attempt to stymie the start-up of TV mayhem.

Since then, they've worked on the basis that anything the private sector does, they have to do, too, only without the risk of going bankrupt.

Talk radio would be a goldmine had not the Beeb poured millions into Radio 5 to try to kill Britain's first national commercial talk station at birth.

Now, an expansion into local news threatens to sound the death knell for regional weekly and evening newspapers, already struggling to maintain circulation and classified advertising in the digital age.

I could go on to include the BBC's hugely-expensive internet operation. Who voted for that?

The fact that the BBC thought it could get away with giving Jonathan Ross a contract worth £6 million a year is indicative of how it has lost touch not just with economic reality, but with the people who pay its wages.

If the commercial television sector thought he was worth that kind of money, they'd be queuing up to give it to him. And I'd be the first to say: good luck to him. Believe me, they don't. And they're not.

What Ross and Brand did to Andrew Sachs would have been just as appalling if they'd both been earning £20,000 a year.

Ross's astronomical salary shouldn't be a factor, but it has rightly become the factor as the week has worn on.

This isn't about envy, or resentment. People don't begrudge stars vast salaries if they earn them on the open market.

What we have seen this week is a visceral scream from Middle England - G. K. Chesterton's 'secret people' - against the way in which their money is taken on pain of imprisonment and spent without any further reference to them.

If, when people were asked for their £139.50 licence money, they were told that part of it was going to be used to finance an £18million contract for a chat-show host cum disc jockey, they'd never have signed the cheque.

That's where the opportunity for the Tories comes in. The BBC is run like Britain is governed. They think our job is to pay, theirs is to spend - no questions asked or tolerated.

They work on the basis that we give them the money and then we get what we're given, whether we like it or not.

If the Conservatives can demonstrate where the BBC can be cut back, without cutting services, then why not those other ravenous monsters such as the NHS, local government and Whitehall?

Better still, let's channel the outrage towards the BBC and Jonathan Ross into a full-scale revolt against the tens of billions wasted by Government departments and Town Halls, the bloated salaries paid to 'chief executive officers' and the standing army of meddlesome Guardianistas; and the fortunes wasted on 'services' we neither ask for nor want.

For instance, if it can be proven that the BBC could be effectively privatised, why not refuse collection? It would be much cheaper and there'd be none of this 'alternative weekly collections' nonsense.

If all those people who have complained to the BBC this week did the same to their local MP, to their Town Hall, to Gordon Brown, we might just be in with a fighting chance of changing something.

Why - to take just one example from this week's news - should we pay taxes to fund the wages of 'experts' who visit schools trying to force children to stand on chairs and pledge not to be nasty to 'travellers'?

Why should we finance a vast elf 'n' safety industry dedicated to interfering in every nook and cranny of our lives, to finding out what we like to do and then devising ways to stop us?

Why should we pay six-figure salaries to po-faced puritans who spend their lives dreaming up new ways to fine and punish us for trivial and invented 'crimes'?

Why should we put up with being charged billions for a National Health Service run entirely for the benefit of the people who work in it, while the rest of us can wait weeks for a doctor's appointment and have to pay again, privately, to see a dentist?

Why should we pay for a police 'service' which spends most of its time playing politics and persecuting motorists, while failing to protect our property or patrol the streets?

Let this revulsion at the excesses of the BBC be the start of a popular revolution against an arrogant and largely unaccountable elite and their contempt for the paying public.

It's taken a seemingly minor incident to focus our attention on the way not just the BBC, but the whole of Britain is run.

This was the week decent people stood up and cried, like Peter Finch in the movie Network: 'We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more.'

We don't have to take it lying down. This has been a stunning victory for common decency over the self-appointed, self-obsessed, metropolitan narcissists who control so much of our public life.

At last, the secret people of England have spoken.

The BBC suits still don't get it. They're already retreating behind the usual cosy platitudes about lessons learned, processes reviewed, blah, blah, blah.

Though he's avoided the guillotine, I suspect Jonathan Ross does finally get it. Never glad, confident Saturday morning again.

The game's up.

[impatient_mug]

What a surprise - an anti-BBC rant from someone on the Murdoch payroll. Given most of the content on Freeview was initially made for the BBC, taking them out would finally force everyone to pay a Sky subscription. This would lead to:

1) People currently on free TV paying considerably more in subs - even the basic Sky package is considerably more expensive than the license fee.

2) Anyone living in flats or in conservation areas not being able to watch telly at all.

3) Everyone else having to buy expensive receivers and dishes, and lock themselves in to Sky's software/programme guide etc.

I'm not always a fan of the BBC, but it's far cheaper than the alternatives, and widely available.

[barrabus]

The BBC is taxation without representation

[Objective Developer]

Stop reading the Daily Mail. That paper is a pile of ****-wipe.

[JohnnyB]

Actually, Littlejohn works for the Daily Mail now. He's still a big, fat, useless *****.

[Guest DissipatedYouthIsValuable]

I find Littlejohn far more offensive than Russell Brand.

Please can someone suspend him (paid if necessary) for life and take away any writing implements he has.

[ruggedtoast]

I saw all this plastered over the rag of the commuter sitting opposite me this morning and concluded that she could only be reading the Mail.

If you think things are bad now try living in a country mandated by Murdoch and his thought control media empire.

[Moo]

Call me a pervert, but I'm actually quite happy to pay the license fee if only because it allows me to listen to radio without having to suffer from the "adverts, occasionally interrupted by content" crap that is 100% of commercial radio.

[yellerkat]

I saw all this plastered over the rag of the commuter sitting opposite me this morning and concluded that she could only be reading the Mail.

If you think things are bad now try living in a country mandated by Murdoch and his thought control media empire.

Mail /= Murdoch.

(It's even worse.)

[punter]

I saw all this plastered over the rag of the commuter sitting opposite me this morning and concluded that she could only be reading the Mail.

If you think things are bad now try living in a country mandated by Murdoch and his thought control media empire.

at least you have a choice rather than being taxed to fund bloated institutions

[lulu]

What a surprise - an anti-BBC rant from someone on the Murdoch payroll. Given most of the content on Freeview was initially made for the BBC, taking them out would finally force everyone to pay a Sky subscription. This would lead to:

1) People currently on free TV paying considerably more in subs - even the basic Sky package is considerably more expensive than the license fee.

2) Anyone living in flats or in conservation areas not being able to watch telly at all.

3) Everyone else having to buy expensive receivers and dishes, and lock themselves in to Sky's software/programme guide etc.

I'm not always a fan of the BBC, but it's far cheaper than the alternatives, and widely available.

I happily pay for the BBC purely for the lack of adverts.

We have Freeview and I swear that one could spend hours watching these channels and see nothing but adverts if you get the flicking correct. All these extra channels are most filled with sh*te that I sometimes wonder who watches.

That said, some of the salaries seem excessive but presumably they reflect the going rate for some of these performers. Like it or not people like Johnathan Ross, Graham Norton, Chris Moyles and some of the Eastenders cast and the like are very popular and if we are in a situation where the BBC needs to attract viewers to justify itself then I dont see what option they have.

[punter]

What a surprise - an anti-BBC rant from someone on the Murdoch payroll. Given most of the content on Freeview was initially made for the BBC, taking them out would finally force everyone to pay a Sky subscription. This would lead to:

1) People currently on free TV paying considerably more in subs - even the basic Sky package is considerably more expensive than the license fee.

2) Anyone living in flats or in conservation areas not being able to watch telly at all.

3) Everyone else having to buy expensive receivers and dishes, and lock themselves in to Sky's software/programme guide etc.

I'm not always a fan of the BBC, but it's far cheaper than the alternatives, and widely available.

that's a load of nonsense because there's other terristrial channels and the BBC channels or its terrestrial space wouldnt disappear, they would just have ads on them like the 3 others

[ruggedtoast]

at least you have a choice rather than being taxed to fund bloated institutions

The entire country is a bloated institution. And unless you relish the idea of having to pay 200 quid a pop to visit a GP or having the police kick your front door in at 2 in the morning to drag you away for political re-educaton I'd be bloody thankful you dont live under Prime Minister Littlejohn.

[punter]

I happily pay for the BBC purely for the lack of adverts.

We have Freeview and I swear that one could spend hours watching these channels and see nothing but adverts if you get the flicking correct. All these extra channels are most filled with sh*te that I sometimes wonder who watches.

That said, some of the salaries seem excessive but presumably they reflect the going rate for some of these performers. Like it or not people like Johnathan Ross, Graham Norton, Chris Moyles and some of the Eastenders cast and the like are very popular and if we are in a situation where the BBC needs to attract viewers to justify itself then I dont see what option they have.

I wonder what the 'going rate' would be to pay for TV without ads

if you and say the 100,000 other people who want BBC 1 and 2 without ads then you would be paying a lot more than the £140 a year

it's also not beyond the realms of man and technology to provide this to you, if you want to pay several hundred pounds for it to make it viable without asking those who don't to subsidise it

[punter]

The entire country is a bloated institution. And unless you relish the idea of having to pay 200 quid a pop to visit a GP or having the police kick your front door in at 2 in the morning to drag you away for political re-educaton I'd be bloody thankful you dont live under Prime Minister Littlejohn.

yeah because it costs £200 to visit the doctor in every other european country and around the world who have much better health services doesn't it ?

the entire country isnt a bloated institution, the government, local government, BBC, NHS etc. are the bloated institutions with armies of unwated administrators and services to justify massive budgets

[punter]

Call me a pervert, but I'm actually quite happy to pay the license fee if only because it allows me to listen to radio without having to suffer from the "adverts, occasionally interrupted by content" crap that is 100% of commercial radio.

you could buy a subscription to satellite radio or something then if you like that without stealing from others.

the true cost of you wanting radio without ads is far more than your paying, what about the millions who dont listen to the BBC's radio at all which I find to be a load of state propaganda ?

[ruggedtoast]

yeah because it costs £200 to visit the doctor in every other european country and around the world who have much better health services doesn't it ?

the entire country isnt a bloated institution, the government, local government, BBC, NHS etc. are the bloated institutions with armies of unwated administrators and services to justify massive budgets

Blimey. I knew that shouldnt have wired Hull up for broadband.

[JohnnyB]

I happily pay for the BBC purely for the lack of adverts.

We have Freeview and I swear that one could spend hours watching these channels and see nothing but adverts if you get the flicking correct. All these extra channels are most filled with sh*te that I sometimes wonder who watches.

That said, some of the salaries seem excessive but presumably they reflect the going rate for some of these performers. Like it or not people like Johnathan Ross, Graham Norton, Chris Moyles and some of the Eastenders cast and the like are very popular and if we are in a situation where the BBC needs to attract viewers to justify itself then I dont see what option they have.

I'm not sure some of those personalities (particularly Ross) could get as much elsewhere, remember, C4 and ITV are having a tough time right now.

However, the lack of adverts is a good thing, and the BBC does still make great programmes (Life in Cold Blood anyone?) but it has become watered down somewhat because of demands to produce digital TV content and also the fact it always seems to need to justify itself through ratings.

I'm not too keen on their news since the Dr David Kelly thing. I don't think it desperately covers up economic problems or the HPC like some on here do, but it can be tame when it comes to goings on in Westminister.

I don't object to the licence fee, as I get to watch and listen to a lot of good programmes for just £140 a year and with no annoying adverts.

[steve99]

What a surprise - an anti-BBC rant from someone on the Murdoch payroll. Given most of the content on Freeview was initially made for the BBC, taking them out would finally force everyone to pay a Sky subscription. This would lead to:

1) People currently on free TV paying considerably more in subs - even the basic Sky package is considerably more expensive than the license fee.

2) Anyone living in flats or in conservation areas not being able to watch telly at all.

3) Everyone else having to buy expensive receivers and dishes, and lock themselves in to Sky's software/programme guide etc.

I'm not always a fan of the BBC, but it's far cheaper than the alternatives, and widely available.

Call me a pervert, but I'm actually quite happy to pay the license fee if only because it allows me to listen to radio without having to suffer from the "adverts, occasionally interrupted by content" crap that is 100% of commercial radio.

And much better than the cr*p you get served up in other countires. When Im in Australia, its almost impossible to watch their TV (they have ABC which is a bit like the old BBC2) The rest is the trashiest rubbish with 3x the adds that we get in the UK and if you take out whatever British content you have, there is absolutly nothing worth watching at all. Even their pay for Cable TV is crap. Same with the Radio, 1 Add free ABC and the rest that sound like non stop chicken clucking in an exagerated Aussie accent where you cant tell the difference between teh never ending adds and the content.

On that basis, the licence is cheap.

[VacantPossession]

The idea that privatising the BBC (which it creepingly is anyway) will lead to better programming is nonsense. It is true there are noble exceptions to the rule that commerical TV is nearly always rubbish, but the key fact in the BBC's decline is that it has spread itself far too thinly. There are too many BBC radio and TV channels, and too little thought about where to focus the cash. Why does each tiny region need a separate radio channel, most of which just pump out identical pop music all day, just like the others? This is a waste of broadcasting budget. Half the programmes on BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4 are recycled around each other. Another waste. If you examine the quality of the non premium channels there is a disproportionate output of really tacky, cheap television which though cheap to make is not something a tax payer would expect from a supposedly high quality broadcaster.

We really do not need four different police chase programmes across the network. Nor do we need 25 property porn programmes. The constant harping on about attracting "young" audiences and pandering to them is really not about youth at all. It is about taste. An intelligent 16 year old is probably as bored and turned off by bad "yoof" television as a 50 year old is. The BBC makes the constant mistake of trying to "aim" and "target" programmes towards ever more niche age and interest groups, forgetting that a well made programme has a universal appeal.

The complaints about particularly Jonathan Ross is probably more to do with a disapproval that has built up over a long time, and the excruciatingly bad taste Sachs affair has just given people an opportunity to express an already established frustration with tasteless TV and radio.

VP

[punter]

And much better than the cr*p you get served up in other countires. When Im in Australia, its almost impossible to watch their TV (they have ABC which is a bit like the old BBC2) The rest is the trashiest rubbish with 3x the adds that we get in the UK and if you take out whatever British content you have, there is absolutly nothing worth watching at all. Even their pay for Cable TV is crap. Same with the Radio, 1 Add free ABC and the rest that sound like non stop chicken clucking in an exagerated Aussie accent where you cant tell the difference between teh never ending adds and the content.

On that basis, the licence is cheap.

I would argue the same thing about BBC1

[ruggedtoast]

Much as I find the BBC dumbed down and largely uninteresting, it does provide a benchmark for the other channels. Without the beeb ITN would be using Fox as their common denominator and C4 News probably wouldnt exist at all.

Everythings relative.

[Lone_Twin]

that's a load of nonsense because there's other terristrial channels and the BBC channels or its terrestrial space wouldnt disappear, they would just have ads on them like the 3 others

Do you think this would:

a: Create new magical advertising revenue.

b: Split the current budgets of exsiting advertisers and push the price of ad airtime down leading to lower investment across all channels.

.

ST

[VacantPossession]

Much as I find the BBC dumbed down and largely uninteresting, it does provide a benchmark for the other channels. Without the beeb ITN would be using Fox as their common denominator and C4 News probably wouldnt exist at all.

Everythings relative.

Agreed, but that just indicates how poor the benchmark is.

VP

[punter]

The idea that privatising the BBC (which it creepingly is anyway) will lead to better programming is nonsense. It is true there are noble exceptions to the rule that commerical TV is nearly always rubbish, but the key fact in the BBC's decline is that it has spread itself far too thinly. There are too many BBC radio and TV channels, and too little thought about where to focus the cash. Why does each tiny region need a separate radio channel, most of which just pump out identical pop music all day, just like the others? This is a waste of broadcasting budget. Half the programmes on BBC2, BBC3 and BBC4 are recycled around each other. Another waste. If you examine the quality of the non premium channels there is a disproportionate output of really tacky, cheap television which though cheap to make is not something a tax payer would expect from a supposedly high quality broadcaster.

We really do not need four different police chase programmes across the network. Nor do we need 25 property porn programmes. The constant harping on about attracting "young" audiences and pandering to them is really not about youth at all. It is about taste. An intelligent 16 year old is probably as bored and turned off by bad "yoof" television as a 50 year old is. The BBC makes the constant mistake of trying to "aim" and "target" programmes towards ever more niche age and interest groups, forgetting that a well made programme has a universal appeal.

The complaints about particularly Jonathan Ross is probably more to do with a disapproval that has built up over a long time, and the excruciatingly bad taste Sachs affair has just given people an opportunity to express an already established frustration with tasteless TV and radio.

VP

if it was truly about public service broadcasting the BBC can run on a tenth of its budget, why does it need a vast internet site, numerous radio channels etc and thousands of journalists? there's just no point, they're doing it because they justify their budgets and they steal from the rest of us via enforced taxation

it's those who are on marginal incomes that are hurt the most but the BBC supporters never seem to like the fact that TVL persecute tens of thousands of poor people a year through the courts for not paying for their scam