Monday, August 18, 2008

BBC a waste of money

53% say BBC is not good value for money in new poll that threatens future of licence fee

How long can the ridiculous practice of forcing every TV or computer owning household in the UK to pay £140 ($280 US) for this bloated service?

Cut the BBC right back: one TV station and some radio stations.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I doubt a poll in the Mail will trouble the BBC very much. There is an abiding animosity between the two. But there is a larger point that with so many channel now being available a licence fee is becoming increasingly indefensible. In fact the argument for a licence fee became weak once there was more than one channel. I could no say with certainty that the BBC is any more biased than the other mainstream media. I don't think a media dominated by the Mail would be preferable to what we have now.

Anonymous said...

"I doubt a poll in the Mail will trouble the BBC very much."

It was an Ipsos MORI poll, and theres nothing to suggest it was of Daily Mail readers. Its more likely that it was sampling the public at large.

"I don't think a media dominated by the Mail would be preferable to what we have now."

No one is suggesting it would. The difference is that every household is not being forced to pay £140 a year to the BBC, which is supposed to be *impartial*, whereas its understood that newspapers are allowed to take particular political standpoints.

Anonymous said...

Incidentally, for those interested:

http://www.biased-bbc.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

Yes but polls are 10 a penny. Just about ever interest group commissions a poll and they all claim to be independently conducted. Since I don't want to be biased I can either believe them all or none of them. I choose to believe none of them. All they signify is that someone gave a particular answer to a question at a particular time. But this question might have been on a topic the person had never given a second thought to previously and may never give the matter any further thought again. So what really does the result signify? Should I really care?

As it happens I do think the BBC is fairly rotten - in fact rotten to the point of corruption. But I don't see how it could be otherwise. It probably less rotten than CNN and FOX. It is also depends on viewpoint as what is considered to be bias. This morning I heard the BBC criticized for sexism for appoint a male to present a gardening programme. So the BBC is charged with being pro-male. Whichever group seizes control of the Media will implement their version of fair mindedness. When I was just a bit younger than you the BBC was call 'Aunty' and was regularly criticized for being pro Tory. It is now criticized for being left wing. Both are probably correct.

I think it helps being a misanthrope.

Anonymous said...

The point is not whether polls are scientific or not (I agree they mostly aren't), but whether they affect public opinion - which I would say they do. This is why companies use some of their PR budgets on surveys, to help shape public opinion.

This poll was actually commissioned by the Guardian, a paper at the opposite end of the political spectrum to the Daily Mail. It was also reported by Sky news.

Given that the future of the BBC is very much up for debate, a poll finding like this, being publicised in several prominent media outlets will certainly be troubling people within the BBC.