The Future of the BBC

[kernelbogey]

More seriously, I am shocked by the posts here forecasting the demise, break up, privatisation etc of the BBC.

I don't think the country will have it, and I hope that the 1000+ members here would be at the forefront of any campaign to prevent any of these events.

Of course both Newsnight scandals are serious, must be investigated, and appropriate actions taken. Let's hope Patten and the Trust members keep cool heads and deploy safe hands.

But I suggest that all this is a storm in a large teapot. The media village has gone bonkers because their mates, rivals, heroes and villains are embroiled in one of the most serious examples of journalistic malpractice - albeit most likely honestly undertaken - that we have seen in recent years. And in an organisation which, unlike (say) the Murdochs' media empire, is held in reverence by many people.

I agree with whoever it was said above that this will blow over, when appropriate actions have been taken. But we know - do we not? - that the right wing press is allied to commercial forces who would love to see the BBC's demise, and would be waiting to descend on British broadcasting like the poet's wolf on the fold. And we should all gird our loins and start putting some thorn hedges around the fold and be lighting bonfires at night to warm those guarding it round the clock.

Think of the extraordinary breadth and variety of the BBC. Consider those magnificent television series which have been the envy of the world - and the world's broadcasters have bought them enthusiastically because they're the best.

Think of those news reports and other programmes that have affected the world - the famine in north-east Africa, Live Aid, and any number of regional conflicts.

Listen to an hour of the World Service and consider the deep and lasting influence it has had on individuals and indeed regimes around the world. I value it more highly than Trident.

This deserves a thread of its own as there is a danger that these passing, albeit considerable, issues about Savile and Newsnight will preoccupy us here at the expense of the greater moral question which is the future of the greatest broadcasting oransisation in the world.

[kernelbogey]

The Future of the BBC

This deserves a thread of its own as there is a danger that these passing, albeit considerable, issues about Savile and Newsnight will preoccupy us here at the expense of the greater moral question which is the future of the greatest broadcasting oransisation in the world.

I thought I'd put my post where my mouth is.

[french frank]

I agree 100% with kb on this. The forum and its members are distinct from FoR3 and may make such judgements as they wish - or believe in.

FoR3 (for what it was worth!) posted its support for the Beeb at the time of Hutton, and I think our support for the BBC is part of the reason why we exist. I can't think what the Trust is doing by appointing as Acting D-G someone whose chances of making the right decision over Newsnight would have been worse - out of his depth over the Ross-Brand affair. But perhaps they're hoping he'll be able to take up his new appointment as CEO of BBC Worldwide on 1 December as Entwistle planned. A newbie as Chairman, and another newbie as D-G - neither with broadcasting or journalistic experience isn't the ideal pairing.

[Nick Armstrong]

I thought I'd put my post where my mouth is.

Big mouth!

Seriously - great post and totally agreed!!

[An_Inspector_Calls]

Has anyone here forecast the demise of the BBC/break up/privatisation?

I've seen posts calling for its journalism to be sorted out. Given the circumstances, what's wrong with that requirement?

[teamsaint]

Has anyone here forecast the demise of the BBC/break up/privatisation?

I've seen posts calling for its journalism to be sorted out. Given the circumstances, what's wrong with that requirement?

There would be plenty of(powerful) people happy enough to see it broken up, dismantled, privatised,or whatever. One of those outcomes is well within the bounds of possibilities in the foreseeable future, I would think.

[aeolium]

Has anyone here forecast the demise of the BBC/break up/privatisation?

I'm sure there are quite a few of the more right-wing Tories who would not mind seeing that. And such calls fairly regularly come up in the Tory press, for instance here, from James Delingpole, who says at the end "The BBC is like the NHS. Everyone knows in their head that it's crap and should have been buried long ago." If I bothered to read the Murdoch press, the online parts of which are now behind a paywall, I wouldn't be surprised to see the same kind of stuff there.

[Mandryka]

More seriously, I am shocked by the posts here forecasting the demise, break up, privatisation etc of the BBC.

I don't think the country will have it, and I hope that the 1000+ members here would be at the forefront of any campaign to prevent any of these events.

Of course both Newsnight scandals are serious, must be investigated, and appropriate actions taken. Let's hope Patten and the Trust members keep cool heads and deploy safe hands.

But I suggest that all this is a storm in a large teapot. The media village has gone bonkers because their mates, rivals, heroes and villains are embroiled in one of the most serious examples of journalistic malpractice - albeit most likely honestly undertaken - that we have seen in recent years. And in an organisation which, unlike (say) the Murdochs' media empire, is held in reverence by many people.

I agree with whoever it was said above that this will blow over, when appropriate actions have been taken. But we know - do we not? - that the right wing press is allied to commercial forces who would love to see the BBC's demise, and would be waiting to descend on British broadcasting like the poet's wolf on the fold. And we should all gird our loins and start putting some thorn hedges around the fold and be lighting bonfires at night to warm those guarding it round the clock.

Think of the extraordinary breadth and variety of the BBC. Consider those magnificent television series which have been the envy of the world - and the world's broadcasters have bought them enthusiastically because they're the best.

Think of those news reports and other programmes that have affected the world - the famine in north-east Africa, Live Aid, and any number of regional conflicts.

Listen to an hour of the World Service and consider the deep and lasting influence it has had on individuals and indeed regimes around the world. I value it more highly than Trident.

This deserves a thread of its own as there is a danger that these passing, albeit considerable, issues about Savile and Newsnight will preoccupy us here at the expense of the greater moral question which is the future of the greatest broadcasting oransisation in the world.

Yep, totally agree and well said.

This is a storm in a tea-cup: much worse has been said and done by the commercial media in the past. The news managers/journalists responsible for this report should be fired and a line drawn under this whole affair. That is all that need be done.

[kernelbogey]

Big mouth!

More given, here, to brief mutterings out of it side....

Seriously - great post and totally agreed!!

Merci, Monsieur Rumpole.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

This is a storm in a tea-cup: much worse has been said and done by the commercial media in the past. The news managers/journalists responsible for this report should be fired and a line drawn under this whole affair. That is all that need be done.

I hope you are right. This particular sub-episode of the Savile affair should be a storm in a tea-cup, but I fear it will take more than a few (justified) sackings. As we know, the commercial media can get away with stuff that the BBC would be immediately pilloried for, and they don't have the right-wingers and the pro-Murdoch faction gunning for them.

Patten needs to appoint an Editor in Chief below the next D-G. The latter remit is evidently too great to combine with another.

[french frank]

This is a storm in a tea-cup: much worse has been said and done by the commercial media in the past. The news managers/journalists responsible for this report should be fired and a line drawn under this whole affair. That is all that need be done.

I don't think that's quite the point.

I agree that the Schofield incident was inept - and stupid - but the latest Newsnight incident came right in the middle of the investigation on the previous programme (dropping of) and the whole Savile business. [And the coincidental departure of Mark Thompson.] That's why the hostile press can make so much of it, and how they can whip up public opinion against the BBC.

Following Hutton, the whole 'compliancy' straitjacket has hindered BBC producers, to the satisfaction of many politicians. If the BBC has lost its leadership and, more importantly, its confidence, that's something you can't draw a line under and carry on as if nothing has happened. And I mean that from the BBC's point of view. They need someone very capable to guide them out of this one - and looking at the last field of contenders for the job, that person doesn't seem to have emerged yet. Let's hope they do soon.

[Frances_iom]

I certainly don't wish to see the demise of the BBC (tho some pruning might to good) - however by its commercial success in areas that others (eg the Murdochs) had assumed were their own money making empires it has made enemies with enough financial clout to 'convince' right wing politicians that, it like all the other 'socialist' constructs invented by a welfare state, should be turned over to the market - in some places eg Italy this has resulted in farce, in the USA where PBS has little or no role this has led to the ghettoization of news sources, in the UK thanks to the avarice of the undemocratic sports bodies Murdoch could buy his own megaphone - all these + the future difficulties in a licence fee mechanism in the age of broadband make the BBC's position increasingly difficult - to concede 2 own goals within such a short period just encourages the rightwing to push for a smaller licence fee and then like the NHS death by a thousand privitisations.

[french frank]

Patten needs to appoint an Editor in Chief below the next D-G. The latter remit is evidently too great to combine with another.

That really is the irony. The last Deputy D-G, Mark Byford (think what you like about him), was a news man. And he was there to step up when Dyke resigned. It was a cost-cutting measure to abolish the position of Deputy D-G (cutting back on an over heavy management) - and now it appears as if that is exactly what they needed now.

[anotherbob]

I wonder if any of these troubles, which all seem to involve defective management, can be traced back to "the BIRT years" when DG John Birt was said to have put in place a veritable layer-cake of obviously unnecessary management at the expense of programme makers.

[Russ]

I think Helen Boaden, and her deputy Steve Mitchell, will go, as will Adrian Van Klaveren, drafted in to oversee Newsnight after Peter Rippon was moved aside. The BIJ managing editor, Iain Overton, and Angus Stickler, its reporter who did the 'McAlpine' Newsnight story are toast.

Russ