History

The BBC was formed in 1922 & five years later it received its Royal Charter. At that time, it was decided to fund the cost of radio & later television programmes by a compulsory licence fee i.e. a tax. At that time, there was of course no such thing as advertising revenues & corporate sponsorship. Therefore, the cost of broadcasting had to be borne by taxation. It also ensured editorial independence & quality programming; also well spoken news presenters reading the news in black tie – ah, halcyon days - but like so much in Great Britain, they are now sadly long gone.

Current Funding

Notwithstanding that the rest of the World and even UK commercial channels fund themselves from revenues, the BBC insists that TV Tax is necessary. In board terms it raises £116 per annum from approx 21.5 million households. Give or take a few Government subsidies, that equates to the small matter of some £3 billion per annum in additional taxation. Rich or poor, you have to pay, there’s no means testing. If you don’t and get caught, you are up in front of the Beak quicker than you can say £400 fine & a criminal record.

Quality of Programmes

We have been systematically patronised by successive BBC Director General’s repeating the time honoured mantra that this TV Tax is the only way of ensuring high quality programmes. Yes of course it is, like the endless soap operas filling the schedules – how many hours of Eastenders does the BBC show each week?

In mean what ever happen to BBC Sport – we do seem to get rather a lot of snooker these days. Now snooker is a popular bar game, one thing it certainly isn’t, is sport. Have you noticed that the BBC can’t even play highlights of England’s win in the Rugby World Cup – much more important thing to spend our tax money on………like endless sit com re-runs.

One of the interesting things that that Mrs. Free Market & I noticed during our recent week in New England was the TV. Even 5 years ago, across the board, UK TV was streets ahead of US output – now it is just as bad. Not surprisingly, our favourite station was The Outdoors Channel. Each evening, steaks & beer; back to our hotel for a couple of hours of the Killing Things Channel – don’t say I don’t know how to show a girl a good time!

The Political Agenda

I used to think it was just me that saw the heavy hand of the liberal left on the BBC but doing a bit of reading, I’m not alone in this. This political bias is I am sad to say, is unconscious but institutionalised. If you are an aspiring capitalist with fat cat tendencies – its likely that your career goals are going to be in the range of running a FTSE100 company – maybe in petrochemicals or arms, better still, both. If however you are a whimpy bearded eco-worrying save the gay whales type of pansy, the chances are that you will go & read ‘media studies’ at some painfully trendy third division university & from there, join the BBC – and it is there that the institutional political bias of the BBC comes from.

It is interesting to note however that the Chairman of the Board of Governors, Gavin Davis, is a noted Labour Party contributor as is Director General, Greg Dyke. Nothing in that, is there?

Political Correctness

Listening to the Corporations output, it all goes through the political correctness filter to check that is has the right amount of ‘relevance’ (whatever that is?) & multiculturalism. Relevance – I read this week that BBC new presenters are to shed their suits & don causal clothing to make them more ‘accessible’ – please!!!!

As for ethnic minorities, the Black Broadcasting Corporation is strenuous in its efforts to be ‘embrace’ whatever is currently deemed to be multicultural. The Government statistics on the area that is home to Free Market Towers is that 99.9% of the population of the County (i.e. State) are white. In a footnote to this, the number crunchers note that the 0.1% are a probably a statistical error. Please don’t be deceived, Free Market Towers isn’t in some KKK fantasy - its just that 93.1% of the population of the UK are Caucasian. Outside the major conurbations, there are very few non-white people. You wouldn’t believe that by watching the BBC

The Iraq War Experience

It was however, the coverage of the Iraq War that finally did it for me. Night after night, the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation reported the Iraqi take on life as fact, whereas anything released by Coalition commanders, was treated as though it had been released by Lord Haw Haw himself. The best example was John Simpson who in one sequence added, to each statement made by the Coalition, the suffix,
“…..or so they say.” He repeated this many times

I suspect that the blue-on-blue incident that he was involved in was not accidental. Allied forces have long targeted enemy propagandists. It is just a shame that a stray Tomahawk missile can’t hit Broadcasting House & do us all a favour - plus save us some taxes.

My glass & cigar are now both just about finished, as is this post. While typing, slumped in my armchair, I have had BBC1 on & feel vindicated in everything I have been saying. The programme they are showing is a 50 min assassination piece on Bush because of his Christian beliefs. They are entitled to their opinions, as I am to mine; the difference is that they are not force to pay for mine.

P.S. For more comprehensive, better researched & argued case on this subject, take a look at the Biased BBC blog