BBC - Why would they bother?

We don't believe the BBC is always right. We don't even think its usually right. But we are fond of it - BBC Four News, The Archers, Today, John Peel, Coupling, 6Music... we think we get our monies worth. But we do wonder why anyone bothers doing what they do when it sometimes seems everyone in the country has got a beef with them.

For a start, there's the licence fee. Now, we've never been happy with the way TV Licensing has been handled in the UK; and now that Capita, a poorly-run private sector company have taken over, we'd imagine things are going to get worse. But the BBC don't collect the licence fee, they don't bring prosecutions against people who don't - that's done by the TV Licensing Authority, and they don't - as David Cox, in his repeated one-note bleats in the New Statesman keeps claiming - put single mothers in prison for not having a TV Licence. It's possible to deplore the way magistrates impose fines on people who can't afford to buy a TV Licence in the first place; then, when they unsurprisingly can't afford to pay the fine, either, imprison the person while still recognising that this isn't actually Greg Dyke's fault. For what its worth, we think that funding the BBC through ring-fenced, fixed taxation makes the best sense of all - fair, cheaper to adminster, and by casting a figure in stone - say .002p in the pound or something - the BBC will be able to be freed from the political panic caused by having to have its income level decided by government every year. People with no income will no longer have to pay, people earning Terry Wogan level cash sums will pay a fairer slice. Of course, people who claim to not have a TV (or radio or computer) will still complain about having to contribute - even though we don't believe for a moment anyone uses no BBC services at all - but they presumably don't all use other state services either, and they still have to pay for them. But as it stands, a couple of quid a week for what the BBC does is fair enough.

See, we wouldn't mind if we really believed The Campaign To Abolish The Licence Fee or BBC Resistance actually cared at all about human rights or the blind or anyof their other concerns expressed on their sites. But really, we've yet to see a single campaign that doesn't just smack of cheapskates who want other people to fund their entertainment for them. The endless list of "facts" they bring to people's attention borders on the obsessive - why, for example, should the BBC not complain to the advertising standards authority? BBC Resistance seems to think that they shouldn't be able to because they're not a commercial organisation, which would mean presumably that churches, youth clubs and charities would also be barred. CAL, on the other hand, think that its disgraceful that disabled people have to pay for TV Licences, which is offensive on so many levels it's not true. Then there's the case of the so-called Liverpool Six and Jonathon Miller who are trying to claim that the TV Licence is an infringement of their human rights to receive information. Okay, you need to have a licence to watch TV News. But you also need to have a TV, so surely Dixons are infringing our human rights by not giving away receivers? It's clearly a nonesense. Besides, it's not as if TV is the only conduit of information in the world. In fact, Jonathon, if you really can't afford the cost of a frothy coffee a week, tune in to Radio 4 or visit news.bbc.co.uk - I'm happy to carry on paying my licence fee so that those services will still be there for you. CAL's solution is to reduce the licence fee to "just £20, which would be enough for BBC2, Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio 4" - presumably then we can guess which stations they like. Apparently the rest of the BBC services will be run on a commercial basis - although quite where services like Radio One sessions, local radio speech programming, nationwide Asian music shows and a 24 Hour radio news service with a network of reporters worldwide are being provided commercially isn't made clear.

Which brings us to Rupert Murdoch. He actually seems to believe that the BBC is replicating what he's already done in the multi-channel TV environment. Now, there's nothing in the Sky Family approaching BBC Four - it would be impossible for this channel to work on a commercial basis. Murdoch labours under a sweet impression that News 24 is in someway a clone of Sky News - now, News 24 might be a bit dim, but it's nowhere near as poorly put together as Sky News is. The BBC haven't hit at the things BSkyB do incredibly well - there's no movie channels or sports channels; indeed, they've been overly generous in leaving Murdoch's money spinning areas well alone. Anyway, if Murdoch wants to pay tax on the money he's making in this country to the UK Exchequer, we'll give a damn about his opinion on what the government does. Deal, Rupe?

Then the BBC have to deal with the Campaign for Logo Free TV. Again, these are people who have a fairly good point - sometimes on-screen branding can be overdone and intrusive. But, again, the extreme to which the campaign is taken is makes them seem like flask-and-mittens. It becomes a home for anyone with an axe to grind - Is C Beebies really having topless women presenting? - and times when they could be making a strong argument they get bogged down in petty little point scoring. Take, for example, 24 Week. Now, you'd have to be an idiot to pretend that the big yellow splodge was anything other than a design howler. But LFTV can't let it lie, can they? What makes it worse it that they're either wrong (a lot of the time) or scarily strident (some of the time):
The use of on-screen "channel identifiers" is "a cause of concern for some viewers". Again the BBC admits it is choosing to upset, annoy, alienate, and offend segments of the British public, and in Andrew Whyte's statement of 27/03/2002, this figure was 29% of BBC CHOICE viewers. C'mon, guys - more than two thirds of the viewers don't give a fuck, and were the 29% who did say they had some concerns really "alienated and offended"? Viewers to BBC Choice? Offended?
The BBC admits that someone, if not the BBC, does receive revenue from Interactive "return" path services. Well, duh. You remember when we used to send postcards to Blue Peter suggesting names for the blind kittens they'd bought with bits of foil? The postoffice used to receive revenue from the interactive return path service. Likewise, when we used to ring up Noel to ask Gary Kemp if he could ever forsee a time when he'd stand like a leaden chump in an ITV ident? BT, the bastards, wouldn't carry those calls for free.
No one is watching BBC FOUR. On the week ending 29/09/2002, its best programme had just 30,000 viewers. When did thirty thousand people actually become nobody. What you mean is "I am not watching BBC Four; nor are either of my friends."
"This cost (10p), and importance of asking the person who pays the bill for permission, figure prominently in the way the feature is presented". NO. The BBC gets the child to vote and then tells the viewers to ask for permission AFTER starting the process. I have the screen shots proving this. It's the bolting of the stable door once the horse has bolted that I featured prominently in my complaint, actually. Um, you're wrong. Your own page shows the process - you can muck about with the interactive features, but before you spend the ten pence, it clearly says "Ask Permission." Before your famous horse has bolted. Anyway, so it goes on - the campaign for Logo TV is now soliciting support for the anti-TV Licence people as well, and they're probably the same people. It wouldn't surprise me if Jonathon Miller's big beef is that someone slapped a "BBC FOUR" over his hairline when they showed That Was The Week, That Was again a few weeks back.

And then, of course, there's BBC bias watchers. The funny thing about people who make it their life's duty to ensure that the Corporation is as even-handed as an elephant is that they only ever seem to notice when bias is leaning in one direction. Now, as with all those who obsess a little too much over the BBC, there's some point to what they say. Sometimes the BBC can exhibit signs of bias, although any adult with a modicum of intelligence needs no protection from, say, Andrew Neil - we know he's a Tory. And, despite what the right may think, there's no reason why every single thing on the BBC has to be balanced immedeatly - so long as all points of view are given equal access and consideration, that's fine. Otherwise the news would just be a sequence of statement and counter statement. And the voices that generally do get missed out by broadcasters don't seem to be the ones they're bothered about - when has biased bbc ever pointed out that, say, a Today debate on the Welfare State has almost no input from people who rely on the dole. We actually really like B-BBCer Natalie Solent and her own blog, although we have to smile indulgently through parts where she pretends that anyone cares what Peter Lilley thinks about anything at all, but a lot of what they perceive as sickening left-wing bias is usually just limited understanding, or sometimes the equally unacceptable but less conspiratoral problem of sloppy or cliched reporting. Other times, it's down to what is a fact: "On 5 November 2002, President Bush wins a substantial victory, keeping control of the House and with his party gaining the Senate. How does Newsnight report it the next day? By snidely referring back in the very first sentence to an election that occurred two years ago and the left-wing conspiracy theory that Bush shouldn't be in the job at all. "In the unlikely event that George Bush has spent the past two years worrying about the legitimacy of his Presidency, he would have heaved a sight of relief this morning ..." How do you approach something like this? Pointing out that the victory was in no way substantial - a couple of his supporters fall down rabbit holes, and it's back to gridlock. And in what way is it snide to introduce the report in that way? A lot of people (not merely a "left-wing conspiracy") have questioned the legitimacy of the Bush Presidency - indeed, the Supreme Court seemed to have a bit of difficulty making up its mind, if I remember correctly. Isn't it possible that maybe - from time to time - Bush does fret that people think that? The thing with bias is, wherever you look for it, you can find it.

Ten Things That Make The Licence Fee Worth It

Gideon Coe's show on 6Music, Mon to Fri, 10 - 1: You know this man used to write the Top 40 obsessively down in a notebook
Today - Now with Sarah Montague stuck into the empty slot on their website. Not as good as it was under our boy Liddle, mind
Alan Partridge - here, interviewed by Clive Anderson
BBCi Music - inventive use of portalage adds value to extensive online music stuff
Coupling - the random quote generator
Archers Archived - a week's worth available online
Weather - let's face it, no matter what ITV do with the sponsorship, the Beeb owns the weather. Their symbol for rain is rain.
The World Service - we may have given the world football hooliganism, Benny Hill and the concentration camp, but at least this is one export we can be proud of
Top of the Pops - sure, there are cooler music shows. There are even less cringe-making ones. But only one show has an archive which functions as an oral and visual history of the nation's taste
BBC News Online - however much commercial dot com people might like to moan about the BBC investing in a web presence, there's no denying that there was no way an advertising supported service could have produced this. It's not the best written web news (that'd be the Guardian) and its not the place for specialist coverage, but its inarguably the most comprehensive.

Behind the Butler

We're not entirely sure why a gay indiscretion would "bring down the Monarchy" any more than the well-worn and well-known heterosexual ones - personally, we'd rather picture Prince Andrew, say, glistening with the sweat of joy creeping from the bed of a fine young rating than doing it with Fergie. Anyway, we're now convinced that false allegations are being seeded by the various Palaces in the hope that the more outlandish ones will discredit everybody, true and false. But we were concerned to see the Metropoliatan Police suggesting that the valet at the heart of the rape crisis had made "false claims of rape" before. Firstly, it's surely not the Police's job to issue press releases about what people may or may not have told them - especially not to help the Royals out of a sticky situation. Secondly, isn't it up to the Courts to decide on the truth or otherwise of allegations of crime? Or has the Criminal Justice System now become so destroyed by the Queen's sudden memory retrieval that anybody can do what the hell they like?

We can't help wondering if the whole Burrell trial hasn't been used as a massive sideshow to drag attention away from the scandal of the David Shayler case. Whenever Public Interest Immunity certificates are waved about, there's always going to be something sus about the whole process; that their use in this case meant Shayler wasn't able to air his defence in public court seems just a mite too convenient (Shayler claims that the British State attempted to pay Al-Qaeda to assasinate Gaddaffi - this was after the first attack on the World Trade Centre) and that the whole thing disappeared into the oblivion of Diana's Box can't have caused too much upset over at the Foreign Office, can it?

Fighting fire with fire

Living on Merseyside, we're used to fire disputes. Which is why we're especially puzzled as to how it is only Green Goddesses are being used in the current strike - as last time troops took over when there was a walkout in Liverpool, as well as the Goddesses, there were more up-to-date military equipment being used - we saw RAF tenders whisking up Upper Parliament Street one morning with our own eyes. Now, since we don't imagine that they'd be using crappy old machines to try and make some sort of point, why aren't these newer vehicles on the roads at the moment?

On the waterfront

Talking of Merseyside, we're watching the death throes of Brookside with horror. Once written on a considered, human scale, events on the close blended into each other and held together to make a coherent and pleasing whole. As if for metaphor's sake alone, Liverpool City Council now seem intent on recreating Brookside's error in building form. The car dealership on the waterfront which stands next to the 'three graces' (the Liver, Cunard and Port buildings) have decided to move out, freeing up a new site onto which the ambitions of the city are being poured. And rather than trying to build something that fits with the three world famous buildings, they've gone for four plans which are out of scale with the surroundings, and out of keeping with the needs and look of the city. You can see what they're choosing between on the fourthgrace site.

The Guggenheim in Bilbao is often quoted as what they're trying to create, but this is a limp comparison - firstly, the Guggenheim has a bold, inspired, unique design. The four competitors for the Grace site are all derivative and lack inspiration. More importantly, the Guggenheim was built with a clear idea of what it was for - the shape was defined by the function and space. There's very little idea about what's going to go into G4 - some talk of an ill-defined celebration of urban living (so, nothing like the Urbis Museum in Manchester) and, um, shops, possibly. And offices. But the biggest problem is the size. The guggenheim commands your respect with its shape and lines - every one of the Grace wannabes just shouts loudly. And it's far from clear if there's any need for all that extra office space in the city centre - there's two options; either it'll suck all the tenants from other buildings in the city, severely disabling the whole of the inner city; or, it'll find new takers. Now, while that will give stiffies to all the inward investment junkies in the Municipal Buildings, nobody seems to have stopped to notice that bringing thousands of extra workers into the city on a daily basis is going to be tricky when the transport infrastructure at rush hour is already fucked beyond use.

So, despoiling the waterfront, building an ugly edifice and clogging up the buses and roads even more. On the whole, we think we're better off with the car dealership.

The Colour Supplement is a beta-test version of stuff that may have made No Rock And Roll Fun, but was off-topic.


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