Biased BBC?

Cornucopia

thor wrote: »

Last I heard we still live in a free country. Nobody is forcing you to own a television. This ain't mother Russia or North Korea. It's your choice.

fella's definition of what requires a Licence is wrong, anyway. A Licence is required for watching or recording TV broadcasts. A Licence is not required for watching DVDs, Video-on-Demand, Catch-up, Online Video Clips, CCTV, Video Games, etc. etc.

On the issue of BBC Bias, there are a number of concerns that are expressed by the BBC with varying degrees of subtlety.

- Cultural Bias. The BBC is very much the product of people living in North London, who have generally metropolitan, left-liberal views. This culture pervades everything the BBC does. (See also W1A - it's funny because it's true).

- Cultural Aspirations. The BBC often portrays an idealised model of modern Britain which is "progressive" in a left-liberal interpretation. This is appealing to some members of the public and not others.

- UK Political Coverage. I actually think the BBC does quite well to present generally balanced political coverage on UK party politics. (Though its coverage of UKIP has been poor, on occasion). Occasionally there are lapses in tone of voice and choice of words. Very occasionally whole segments or programmes are poorly thought through with regards to balance, for example: Panorama - What Britain Wants.

- Knocking them All. The BBC's policy of being equally unkind to all Parties doesn't really work. At the limit, unless the BBC has conducted polling to test the issues concerned, it cannot possibly know whether all of its jibes will be equally damaging.

- Disdain for Politicians. With the exit of Paxman, this is possibly less apparent. However, the BBC has persistently leaked the aroma of an organisation that smugly regards itself as permanent and politicians as transient. This is not helpful in developing a suitable culture of balance and respect.

- Coverage of Issues of Public Interest. There are a number of quasi-political issues in which the BBC's agenda is much more transparent than it should be. Such issues are: the EU, US Politics, Global Warming, Multiculturalism and reporting of the BBC itself.

- BBC Scotland and Scottish Labour. Links here are way too close.



Disclaimer: I am involved in lobbying against the draconian enforcement of the Licence Fee by the BBC. The views expressed above are my own.

princeofpounds

That was a good post cornucopia.

TheBlueHorse

pretty much everyone that works for the BBC (bar Clarkson, and he doesn't anymore) is a liberal Guardian reading elitist.

Of course they are biased in that favour. The BBC needs to sort out their hiring policy.

All media people are lefty. That is the way it is.

michaels

When Salmond quipped that he knew what was in the first labour budget, because he was writing it there was deafening silence from the BBC, didn't even make it onto HIGNFY. I would thave thought it would have been both directly relevant to the voters and also of considerabel amusement. Surpressing it would appear to be helpful only to Labour?

princeofpounds

I guess it becomes as much a self-selection bias as any other closed industry - when the BBC spent almost 90% of its recruitment budget on the Guardian (something I think Pickles cracked down on) it basically became a trade paper.

Cornucopia

Personally, I don't think the BBC necessarily needs to change its own political leanings (in fact, I'm not sure it can).

What it needs to do is to assess how its culture makes it into programming, and address that. That would seem to me to be "Balance 101", but I'm not a media-type.

Alongside that, there are some key principles that need to be worked into the BBC's structure (whether that is done voluntarily or is forced upon the BBC by Government is up for debate).

For me, those issues are:-

- Accountability to the Public (including issues of undue secrecy)
- How the BBC is managed, governed and regulated
- Commitment to balance and fairness (and a wider range of cultural themes)
- Taming the existing cultural biases
- Rationalising and modernising the Licence Fee (including compliance with the Human Rights Act and PACE)
- Waste/Value for Money

princeofpounds

Seeing as you seem to know a bit about it, can you explain why the proliferation of channels, especially in radio?


I mean, I can see why a bbc2 might be worthwhile, but why 3, 4, beebies, etc.?


And in Radio, do they really need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6xtra, Asian etc etc. in addition to dozens of regional stations?


I appreciate that the commercial world was proliferating, but surely the raison d'etre of the BBC was never to dominate all market share?

Cornucopia

The BBC is in a catch-22 situation with regards to it popular entertainment and ratings. On the one side, it has to justify itself to critics and to Government by saying that it, alone, is qualified to make certain types of content. On the other hand, it has to justify itself to Licence Fee payers by providing most of them with some kind of interest, and therefore value for money. I think that explains why there are these regular Saturday night skirmishes between BBC1 & ITV1 for ratings.

The proliferation of channels, I think, is a poor strategy by the BBC. Its logic is/was that because it needs to serve everyone, it needs a channel (in effect) for everyone. But it hasn't really understood the divergence of the media (and some of its channels are not liked by the target audience e.g. BBC3). Even then, as the market fragments more and more (because the technology is allowing for expansion of services) the BBC is still left with services that are much broader than the market arguably wants. Commercial TV was already separating Arts, Science and History 10 years ago, but the BBC still mixes and matches.

Like all public services it wants to compete with, and ultimately out-compete commercial rivals. Indeed, it sees this as key to its survival. I think this is wrong-headed - indeed it's failed to see that if/when commercial rivals are ever seriously endangered, it is the BBC that loses out. Its future needs to be more narrowly constrained, IMHO. It needs to concentrate on what is missing from commercial media (which is very little these days). On that basis, it should be building its service around the essentials of News and Current Affairs, and working on novel ways to bring Arts and Factual programming to the masses (something that C4 - and Radio 4 - have had relative success with). Alongside that, I would give it sufficient budget for a few, key events and series each year of genuine national importance. However, the idea of filling the schedules with hours of expensive, critically un-acclaimed soapy drama seems somewhat pointless, especially when ITV already does that.

That would be my offer to them, and if they refused, I would probably break up the organisation into more easily managed units, working on a federal/network basis to fill the schedules of a more limited number of channels.

I hear what people say about independence, but again, that misses the point. News needs to be independent, but Strictly? - not so much.

N1AK

caronoel wrote: »

Russia Today, Fox news, CCTV..... The list goes on and on

Which just about sums up the anti-BBC right wing fanatic perspective: The BBC doesn't fawn over the same things that they do constantly so it must be completely biased.

N1AK

princeofpounds wrote: »

I mean, I can see why a bbc2 might be worthwhile...

And in Radio, do they really need 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6xtra, Asian etc etc. in addition to dozens of regional stations?

I'd suggest Radio 4 is more worthwhile than BBC 2 which tonight is showing a collection of quiz shows and antique programmes with a touch of gardening.

Though this rather highlights the naivety of thinking one individuals opinion (including your own) is of any value in this matter.

It's a shame that the BBC, which has done such a great job of providing comparatively trustworthy programming and analysis for years will invariably be ruined by politically motivated meddling; leaving the world with propaganda organisations like Fox/RT to fill the gap.