DOES the shamelessness of the BBC know no bounds? The corporation gobbled up a whopping £3.8billion in licence fees last year. But was that enough for the fat cats at the top? No.
From April, you, your neighbour and even your ancient granny will each have to cough up an extra £3 a year for the honour of accessing the state broadcaster.
I assume it’s the honour you’re paying for anyway. Because very often it sure as hell ain’t the product.
Last Saturday, the most read piece on the BBC news homepage was a clickbait “story” — taken from Twitter — about how Kim Kardashian eats chicken nuggets.
Yes, you read that right. With £3.8billion of your money to its name, one of the most popular “stories” on the BBC’s news website was an item which didn’t cost a penny to make, wasn’t news and stretched the definition of “public service” far beyond breaking point. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
James Purnell — a particularly puffed-up BBC exec — announced 18 months ago that he and his Radio & Education team would be expanding into podcasts. He stayed horribly true to his word.
In 2020, Auntie produces podcasts on everything from football and Love Island to what Towie star Gemma Collins’ latest musings are, which — thanks to the big names at the helm — are raking in listeners.
For Purnell, this is something to be celebrated. Successful podcasts presumably mean more money in his already overstuffed pockets.
But for the hundreds of private podcast makers out there, it spells the beginning of the end. Competing with a company which uses public funds to net the likes of Peter Crouch is nigh-on impossible.
How, I ask you, can a state broadcaster justify putting hard-working private firms out of business?
Yes, Ollie Williams discussing his shock exit from the Love Island villa (the latest episode of the BBC’s Reality Tea) might be entertaining, but what “service” is it providing the public?
Can the BBC — which doesn’t make Love Island — really do a better job of a Love Island podcast than ITV, which does?
You’d think the BBC top dogs, who are desperate to cling on to the Royal Charter, would be asking these vital questions too.
But in their desperate quest for “yoof” audiences, they’ve chucked their critical faculties out of the window.
How can a state broadcaster justify putting hard-working private firms out of business?
And it’s all for nothing. Because the quest is a wild goose chase. According to the latest Ofcom report, most kids don’t watch ANY linear TV.
So the BBC is defending a dying, analogue means of communication. But no one in the corporation can bear to face this unwelcome reality.
So instead of cutting their own whopping salaries, they scrap well-known and well- respected current affairs programmes such as the Victoria Derbyshire show.
Why? Because the more visible the cut, the easier it is for luvvies to pretend that the BBC is the blameless victim of evil Tory austerity.
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. In fact, if anything, it is the Tories and their tens of millions of voters who are victims of the BBC.
The repeated Horrible Histories “comedy” — which mockingly undermined the existence of “British things” — and the ludicrously PC recent East-Enders storyline, in which a deranged killer embraces Islam and becomes a hero, are the latest in a long line of ultra- liberal BBC content seemingly designed to rub ordinary, patriotic Brits up the wrong way.
Things can’t go on like this. If the state broadcaster is to survive, there must be an urgent and fundamental rethink.
First, the BBC’s parasitical website must be shut down. The stories it features are mostly dross, or else adapted from newspaper reports.
To list just one example, when Brits want to know what’s happening with Megxit, they can buy The Sun — which was responsible for the scoop in the first place.
If the BBC wants a web presence (and I don’t quite see why they should) they can use it to broadcast News 24. Next, the salaries of fat cat managers and C-list celebs must be slashed.
Then the corporation must think hard about its media offering. BBC4 and its often extremely niche arts offering should be folded into BBC2.
Radio 1 and 2, with content already well covered by commercial markets, must be shut down. As must every programme across BBC channels which is designed to damage ITV’s ratings.
And of course Brits should not be punished for refusing to pay a licence fee for a service they may not use.
Decriminalising it — as Boris Johnson is understood to be seriously considering — is the right thing to do.
If Auntie can swallow a big slice of humble pie, accept her glory days are over and slim right down to size, she may have a future. If not, she’ll become a footnote to the history of British media.
