The BBC's Director-General's article
Leave our licence fee
alone (Times, February 24) sounds
like special pleading,
not only for the BBC, but also for the entire
broadcasting industry,
He suggests that all broadcasters are in
danger of being
nationalised, which is clearly preposterous.
Lord Hall's supplication will
be viewed with a sense of irony by
the BBC's commercial competitors. The
Corporation's existence
relies not on creative output, but on
legally-enforced licence-fee
payers' contributions. A significant
proportion of the £3.6bn
budget is channeled into the corporation's generous pension
fund. Some 200 people are currently imprisoned for
non-payment of the licence fee.
Lord Hall makes the absurd assertion that top-slicing means
less funding for content we know and love. This
does not
reflect the reality of endless old repeats, quiz
shows and the
admitted political bias of an institution that has clearly lost its way.
The BBC should return to its core values of its founder, Lord
Reith, as a disinterested, public-service broadcaster,
informing and
educating, rather than chasing meaningless
ratings in competing with its commercial rivals.
This calls for a fundamental
restructuring of the Corporation,
reducing the global reach of
its output, shrinking its
bureaucracy and putting more of its
licence fee into
delivering balanced, high-quality news and
documentary
programmes.
.
No comments:
Post a Comment