What is happening with BBC?!

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Some strange things no longer surprise me but the BBC managed to do so three times in the space of 48 hours.

1. They are scrapping the food recipes section on their website. It is actually one of the better things they have and are mostly very useful when trying out something new in the kitchen. I could only hope somebody somehow could make a copy of it...

2. This. http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/67...-Johnson-anti-Semitic-spoof-European-Union-EU They fall for a childish not-very-funny-joke of portraying Hitler as a president of European Commission (by the way it is an organisation I don't particularly like just for the record) in the Newsnight programme. What does that tell you about BBC standards of journalism

3. They won't hire a white person any longer http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-white-people-ethnic-equality-staff-job-internship

and so on... remember Top Gear - their once most profitable show? I have lately disagreed with their narrative and political bias but that takes it to the new levels.

Yet they still expect to be funded from license fee. I think they no longer represent the values of the national broadcaster and should go as a private subscription only service and leave the rest of TV alone from hefty fees. I'd rather spend an evening travelling and enjoying nature rather than be programmed (it is called programming for a reason).
 
What's happening is a lot of positioning and hyperbole from two factions: those who want to retain the BBC (e.g. publicise threats to well-loved services such as BBC R6 Music (last year) threatened with scrapping due to lack of money, make it known that CBBC is under threat, remove recipes that people like etc - straw man positions that encourage viewers and listeners to make an outcry to retain those services) and those that want to kill it (Tories, lobbyists from private media, the Express etc who leak disinformation to negatively affect it)

The end result the Tories want is the public thinks as you stated "Yet they still expect to be funded from license fee. I think they no longer represent the values of the national broadcaster and should go as a private subscription only service and leave the rest of TV alone from hefty fees" and it gets privatised and becomes another corporation funded by advertising and only doing what makes money - no longer a public service broadcaster and we lose anything that isn't commercially successful.

Personally I think the licence fee is fantastic value for money. When I think how much bloody sky want off me to watch F1 on virgin media (about 35 quid a month EXTRA!) then the licence fee looks great value - all the BBC programming, radio, BBC news, BBC Bitesize education, CBBC etc.
I don't want british TV to entirely follow the US model thanks...
 
They're keeping the BBC Good Food website though, which is much better than the recipes section on the BBC site anyway.

Not had a licence in years though, I don't want to see Celebrity Ice Skating Strictly In The Jungle or whatever rubbish they peddle these days,
 
The BBC is still the best value broadcaster in the world in my opinion, plenty of other countries pay TV licenses higher than ours and receive ad funded programming in return!

The Express, however, do have a massive agenda given Richard Desmond is a funder of UKIP.
 
Big Andy said:
If people would pay their money for the BBC instead of giving it to that nasty piece of work Murdoch
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Well, you still have to pay BBC to watch Murdoch. Isn't it a bit strange?

Stu Meech said:
The BBC is still the best value broadcaster in the world in my opinion, plenty of other countries pay TV licenses higher than ours and receive ad funded programming in return!
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I would say they used to be. Long ago they ran great shows like Fawlty Towers, Blackadder and so on. Then it all disappeared in the name of PC. The Attenborough nature series were excellent but we now see less and less. The one and true Top Gear is gone. I couldn't name any new content I care about. The news coverage is a little too biased but more on that below. In my eyes they really need to return to making great shows like all of these to justify themselves.

Stu Meech said:
The Express, however, do have a massive agenda given Richard Desmond is a funder of UKIP.
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Sure they are. They are private so they have a slightly better excuse for it. You have to use a long list of sources to have any chance of seeing through the smokescreen of private interests and political agenda. I typically check out AP, Express, Guardian, RT, BBC, CNN, Breitbart, Drudge report to really get a chance to see opposing opinions. Perhaps it is a wishful thinking BBC would do it all for you. I only hope everyone could one day see through that.
 
It is the newspapers, who have conservative politicians by the balls, who are driving this attack on the BBC, they claim the BBC are so good they're anti-competitive although there has never actually been any evidence of this.

Naturally the papers themselves have a vested interest in stoking the fire but with any luck it will backfire and rags like the Express and the Murdoch trash will fall into the fiery depths of hell never to be seen again.
 
Nawty said:
It is the newspapers, who have conservative politicians by the balls, who are driving this attack on the BBC, they claim the BBC are so good they're anti-competitive although there has never actually been any evidence of this.

Naturally the papers themselves have a vested interest in stoking the fire but with any luck it will backfire and rags like the Express and the Murdoch trash will fall into the fiery depths of hell never to be seen again.
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Hold on for a moment. I could have quoted any source, and it would still not make any difference to the facts. The BBC did all of those things... I think it is great somebody else is exposing this. It doesn't so much matter who is telling the truth, but the truth itself. The BBC has the opportunity to pragmatically take on the criticism and improve and change for the better. It is called freedom of speech and opinion.

If there are specific politicians and private interests that are causing BBC to become biased and lose good content then that must be exposed. Well actually for a start, the BBC is given public funding to be truly independent and stand to the highest standards of truly impartial journalism and by definition should be 100% free from political interference. It appears that is not the case now. Alternatively this is to be admitted and they go private right away.
 
No ones pointed out yet that Desmond also has TV interests

So 2 newspaper moguls who also own TV's companies really don't like the BBC. That's a proper dog bites man story.

The worry for me is how much the BBC is now finding itself under attack from the left. We're a long way from the Beeb of Trotskyites that the Sun wants us to believe, but it seems they're now so far into the pockets of the Tory party that they literally have no allies.
 
Big Andy said:
If people would pay their money for the BBC instead of giving it to that nasty piece of work Murdoch we would all still be watching top quality sport etc. for a lot less. And that includes pensioners and other on a low income. Personally I would rather chuck the TV in the skip than give the Aussie git any of my cash.
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Sport on Sky is miles better than it is/was on BBC or ITV. Of course they do it to make money, but at least they show lots of content including lower league football and loads of other sports.
 
cambsno said:
Sport on Sky is miles better than it is/was on BBC or ITV. Of course they do it to make money, but at least they show lots of content including lower league football and loads of other sports.
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This...
Big Andy said:
With three times the budget plus advertising I'm not surprised.
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Not to mention Sky's long history of bait and switch, constantly moving popular content to pay per view.
 
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Phil V said:
This...


Not to mention Sky's long history of bait and switch, constantly moving popular content to pay per view.
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Of course they have better budgets, but the sport on terrestrial TV pre Sky was pants. If you are a sports fan Sky are brilliant and you cant get that without paying for it. What did we have pre Sky for football? 1 game per week at most? As a sports fan I would rather pay for great coverage and lots of it than not a lot for not a lot!

All sport since I have had Sky (15 years) has been included, the only PPV has been boxing IIRC.
 
cambsno said:
Of course they have better budgets, but the sport on terrestrial TV pre Sky was pants. If you are a sports fan Sky are brilliant and you cant get that without paying for it. What did we have pre Sky for football? 1 game per week at most? As a sports fan I would rather pay for great coverage and lots of it than not a lot for not a lot!

All sport since I have had Sky (15 years) has been included, the only PPV has been boxing IIRC.
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WWE? (not sure that qualifies as sport though) :LOL:
 
Fifteen years ago BBC had two channels to show all programs on and had to keep all customers happy. Let them have the same budget and they could have 50+ channels and we wouldn't have to put up with brain numbing adverts every 15 mins.
 
Big Andy said:
Fifteen years ago BBC had two channels to show all programs on and had to keep all customers happy. Let them have the same budget and they could have 50+ channels and we wouldn't have to put up with brain numbing adverts every 15 mins.
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So how would that work? The license fee would need to be much bigger or they would need advertising too. Then people would be moaning that the license fee is too high and why should they pay for sport they don't watch. Sorry, but you cant get things for free and if you want something you pay for it.
 
cambsno said:
Of course they have better budgets, but the sport on terrestrial TV pre Sky was pants. If you are a sports fan Sky are brilliant and you cant get that without paying for it. What did we have pre Sky for football? 1 game per week at most? As a sports fan I would rather pay for great coverage and lots of it than not a lot for not a lot!

All sport since I have had Sky (15 years) has been included, the only PPV has been boxing IIRC.
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Then you have a selective memory.

Live football wasn't that common, but we used to get European games and internationals. And MOTD covered several games every week (not live but perfectly watchable and still popular) with occasional live games for important fixtures.

And PPV and bait and switch? A sky subscription originally included all their programming, but they soon realised they could charge for additional content, firstly one off (boxing and the like), then the movies, then sports, then they moved their popular drama to Sky Atlantic, this isn't historical, Sky Atlantic wasn't born that long ago.

If something else suffers a spike in popularity, it'll become an additional charged for channel.

Not to mention the fact that the wonderful Mrs T actually signed up to the BBC paying Sky to carry their content. You know just like how all other to is distributed o_O.
So some of our hated licence fee was going straight into the pockets of the Australian megalomaniac b*****d.
 
It's TV.
Pay for it, don't pay for it.
I'd be willing to pay a much higher licence fee if they'd just lose the soaps, the "reality", the dancing, the "talent" shows etc.
 
cambsno said:
Of course they have better budgets, but the sport on terrestrial TV pre Sky was pants. If you are a sports fan Sky are brilliant and you cant get that without paying for it. What did we have pre Sky for football? 1 game per week at most? As a sports fan I would rather pay for great coverage and lots of it than not a lot for not a lot!

All sport since I have had Sky (15 years) has been included, the only PPV has been boxing IIRC.
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What about F1 Digital+?
 
I would happily pay a lot more for my license fee if all the money went to the beeb for programing.

@viv1969 I can only agree about the cheap rubbish like soaps and reality, but with all the extra budget they could have enough channels so it wouldn't be the only option.
 
Phil V said:
No ones pointed out yet that Desmond also has TV interests
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I know his owned channel 5 but he's sold that. What else does he have? Also think he's sold television x or wherever the adult channels were he had.
 
Stu Meech said:
I know his owned channel 5 but he's sold that. What else does he have? Also think he's sold television x or wherever the adult channels were he had.
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I wasn't aware he'd sold that. But it does mean he has a business 'interest'. He would make sure he profited from the beeb's downfall.
 
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The 'non-whites only' thing is, as usual, the express misrepresenting the issue.

Creative Access is a charitable organisation that *only* deal with helping minorities find jobs in fields that are notoriously difficult for minorities to gain access to.

a) They are NOT the only way to get a BBC job

b) The 'non-whites only' rule applies to *all* positions they assist with, as it is their goal to help minorities, the BBC is just one partner of theirs.

c) Apart from agreeing to partner with CA, the BBC did not specify the rule of no non-whites at all.

So once again, the express is advancing their racist agenda, and should never be trusted on such issues.
 
NikkiA said:
So once again, the express is advancing their racist agenda, and should never be trusted on such issues.
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If that's true then a pox on them but a pox too on all discrimination and I see positive discrimination as equally sickening and indefensible as just pain old discrimination and in fact lets drop the positive, it's all negative unless in the 0.00001% of jobs that some form of discrimination is actually required. But that's just me.
 
It should be noted that Northern & Shell are about the only UK media company that has NOT partnered with Creative Access to provide internships for non-white minorities, even the bastions of racism the Daily Mail have non-white only internships via them.

Edit: OTOH, Channel 5 *DO* have a partnership with them, so that's a bit hypocritical of N&S/Desmond isn't it...
 
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woof woof said:
If that's true then a pox on them but a pox too on all discrimination and I see positive discrimination as equally sickening and indefensible as just pain old discrimination and in fact lets drop the positive, it's all negative unless in the 0.00001% of jobs that some form of discrimination is actually required. But that's just me.
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Offering opportunities to under represented minorities isn't 'positive discrimination' it's trying to settle the balance.

Unfortunately human beings aren't perfect, and we tend to favour 'people like us' which means that an organisation full of white middle class males is likely to continue to favour white middle class males. It'd be great if that wasn't true, but it is.

Being a white working class middle aged bloke, I was once discussing promotion boards with a senior manager who had lots of experience of such things, his wise words 'you'll get promoted when you're sat across the table from someone like you!'. And whether I like that or not, there's more than a grain of truth in it.

Equality isn't simply about letting anyone apply, sometimes balance needs to be adjusted in order to create it.
 
People should get to where they are on merit and not through positive discrimination or being under represented. The best person should win. I couldn't give a monkeys if every newsreader/binman/banker/bus driver is black or white. Giving someone a position because they fit some minority group is as bad as not giving them the job of the same reason. Both are equally bad and wrong. When I interview my only goal is to recruit the person I think will do best in the role. If my team is made up purely of men I don't care, if women I don't care... Trying to make up under-represented numbers just because of sex/colour is wrong plain and simple.

I do agree with Phil that we tend to favour people like ourselves. That is human nature and happens all the time, most is probably on a subconscious level, my last recruit got the job as I thought he was good, but what helped was he was a big football fan and during the interview we chatted quite a bit and it helped me warm to him. Sometimes I just don't take to people, its subjective, but as I interview sales people I guess that if they cant warm me then they will struggle in the role. There is an old saying that people buy from people, and often we will get on better with people in our own social class/interests.
 
cambsno said:
People should get to where they are on merit and not through positive discrimination or being under represented. The best person should win. I couldn't give a monkeys if every newsreader/binman/banker/bus driver is black or white. Giving someone a position because they fit some minority group is as bad as not giving them the job of the same reason. Both are equally bad and wrong. When I interview my only goal is to recruit the person I think will do best in the role. If my team is made up purely of men I don't care, if women I don't care... Trying to make up under-represented numbers just because of sex/colour is wrong plain and simple.

I do agree with Phil that we tend to favour people like ourselves. That is human nature and happens all the time, most is probably on a subconscious level, my last recruit got the job as I thought he was good, but what helped was he was a big football fan and during the interview we chatted quite a bit and it helped me warm to him. Sometimes I just don't take to people, its subjective, but as I interview sales people I guess that if they cant warm me then they will struggle in the role. There is an old saying that people buy from people, and often we will get on better with people in our own social class/interests.
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Which is wonderful if that's what happened in real life. But like I said, human beings don't actually behave like that.

It's simply ignoring science to pretend otherwise.

Unless you believe that white middle aged blokes are actually the best equipped people to run almost every single company?
 
Phil V said:
Offering opportunities to under represented minorities isn't 'positive discrimination' it's trying to settle the balance..
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b****x.

Dress it up however you want but it's discrimination and racism. See everyone as equal and see race as irrelevant and then you have equality but place one race above another simply because of their race and you perpetuate racism and discrimination and breed resentment and you're on a countdown to trouble.

Discrimination on the grounds of race alone can never be right, or at least it's right in so few cases it shouldn't be used as a model and should always questioned and fought against.
 
woof woof said:
b****x.

Dress it up however you want but it's discrimination and racism. See everyone as equal and see race as irrelevant and then you have equality but place one race above another simply because of their race and you perpetuate racism and discrimination and breed resentment and you're on a countdown to trouble.

Discrimination on the grounds of race alone can never be right, or at least it's right in so few cases it shouldn't be used as a model and should always questioned and fought against.
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youre clearly wrong, and too stuck in your ways to understand why. You chose not to read my explanation but just picked the headline. No loss to me, I tried.
 
Phil V said:
youre clearly wrong, and too stuck in your ways to understand why. You chose not to read my explanation but just picked the headline. No loss to me, I tried.
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er..., There's just so much wrong here but I'll try and be brief but not so brief as to just give you a throwaway line.

Phil, I read your posts. All of them. You wrote them and you chose your words in this thread in multiple posts. I read them and I get what you're saying so don't try hide behind a cheap line. That's a bankrupt refuge. It just so happens that you are wrong, IMO of course and on that point see my closing remark in this post.

And by the way, I'm so wrong people paid me to write policy and implement this stuff and I saw that there was no discrimination or racism. Not on my watch. Ever. I've met with people and organisations pushing discriminatory policies and not once did their argument prevail. Look at it from a Christian or humanitarian standpoint (I'm both...) whatever, it's simply wrong to judge or give advantage or disadvantage based on skin colour, nationality or religion (to name a few categories,) It's (usually) indefensible.

Show me an example when discrimination is warranted and I'll look at it but until then I'll tell you that instances of discrimination based on skin colour, nationality or religion are justified in only a tiny percentage of positions and they hardly crop up in the UK in our western liberal present.

As I said dress this up however you want but to make appointments based on skin colour, place of birth or religion is wrong and it's discrimination and racist to someone, somewhere at sometime. Defend that if you like but if you do it's only a matter of time until you are the discriminator and you are the racist and all you do with this line is feed distrust, envy, hatred, extremism and all of the things you purport to be against. You can't be against discrimination and racism by propagating and promoting it. All you are doing is feeding it.

There is a view held by some especially in the west who see themselves as liberal that racism and discrimination can be a good thing. Well, wake up, it can't except in a very few and extreme circumstances and reading the news or working at the Beeb in any capacity is in no way one of those extreme cases and in no way warrants discrimination or racism against any group.

All IMO of course, but then at least this was in part how I earned for a living, I wasn't just an armchair warrior. Well actually that's not true as I didn't need the money, I did it because I thought I was doing the right thing and making a difference as a humanitarian and a Christian. And people paid me :D

Sorry to end on a lighter note but on a serious one I will fight against racism and discrimination wherever I see it. Some start out with a little discrimination here and there and all with good intentions of course but what was that about the road to Hell?
 
woof woof said:
Sorry to end on a lighter note but on a serious one I will fight against racism and discrimination wherever I see it. Some start out with a little discrimination here and there and all with good intentions of course but what was that about the road to Hell?
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Do you have a suit and an underground lair? :D
 
cambsno said:
People should get to where they are on merit and not through positive discrimination or being under represented. The best person should win. I couldn't give a monkeys if every newsreader/binman/banker/bus driver is black or white..
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Well said. Everything else amounts to cynical racism and discrimination.
 
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