:bbc: The BBC

Are you sure you didn’t record my wedding speech?

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My relationship with the BBC has changed a lot over the years. I was the sort of geeky sod that’d happily listen to Radio 4 LW on my old Grundig radio. The stuff I managed to watch seemed gloriously anarchic at times. This is the corporation that along with Channel 4, popularised alternative comedy. BBC2 was so good at one point that I actually considered it inconceivable that anything funny could be born elsewhere, although Father Ted went a long way to robbing me of that notion. The Young Ones, Red Dwarf, Blackadder and Hitchhikers are just a few examples.

Most people go through points in their life in which everything changes, and things never seem quite the same again. Kids, deaths, that sort of thing. We all go through it. I used to argue that the most significant change in the BBC’s life was the David Kelly affair. Before that, the corporation seemed to be closer to the true guardian of democracy we’d all like it to be. It was certainly more balanced in its coverage of global affairs, and didn’t seem to have any taboos.

Problem is, the Savile revelations make it very difficult to look at a point in the Corporation’s recent history and see it as entirely altruistic. It clearly has no problem covering problems up, even having the gall to run things like child protection campaigns while other parts of the organisation were running cover for Savile (or at the very least, not looking into the “green room gossip” too closely).

The most charitable assessment I can give of the organisation is that like many big organisations, one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing, information is compartmentalised or doled out on a limited basis, but there are still good people trying to do the right thing. Even after David Kelly, we’ve seen examples of the BBC still taking on the establishment. The recent Newsnight attempt to out a high profile paedophile shows that there are people that still care.

The problem is, those people are easily railroaded. In the case of Newsnight, Messham’s astonishing mistaken identity retraction was all it took to turn an earth-shattering story into a potential source of litigation, allowing the named individual to escape any further scrutiny.

Realistically, while there have always been good people at the BBC, there has always been too much establishment control. I’d love to imagine some halycon age, but the reality is that the place has been riven with scandal, for one reason or another, from the day I was born.

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The worst thing this government has done is cut funding to the BBC.

Family Guy is now going to be on ITV2. Livid.

Love the Beeb but some of the rubbish it puts out now is saddening. Mrs Browns Boys on BBC, WTF? But when it is good it is very, very good. Long may it continue.

Agree with these sentiments. I am shocked to learn that they are putting on a ‘reality’ show about phone salespeople on BBC2! WTF is that all about?

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I love a lot of the BBC2 and BBC4 output but I’m finding the anti-Corbyn agenda within the political dept rather depressing.

I’m no lover of Corbyn but it’s like the Guardian luvies and their mates at the beeb are determined to press their “New Labour” bolloxs at all costs.

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Anyone with kids, or who has Sister called Helen who has Got Kids, knows that cbeebies is single-handedly raising the nation’s toddler community.

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Originally posted by @pap there has always been too much establishment control. I’d love to imagine some halycon age, but the reality is that the place has been riven with scandal, for one reason or another, from the day I was born.

Ideas of Reference

:wink:

Originally posted by @Sussexsaint

Originally posted by @pap there has always been too much establishment control. I’d love to imagine some halycon age, but the reality is that the place has been riven with scandal, for one reason or another, from the day I was born.

Ideas of Reference

:wink:

I study history beyond 1975, y’know. All the way back to my conception in June 1974 :lou_sunglasses:

Test Match Special. I rest my case.

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To add to all the above, they still put out some very decent dramas. The Fall, The Missing, Luther (not the most recent episodes though), Peaky Blinders, Doctor Foster, Wolf Hall, Dickensian. There are plenty of others and the average quality is consistently higher than other channels IMO

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Agree with most of the above. It produces a better quality overall (bar Mrs brown and some of the documentary stuff by Stacey Dooley). We were looking at the ITV app on our TV and it had Jeremy Kyle as main pic. I rest my case for the BBC. Channel 4 are a close second ( their news is pretty good) but their more and more voyeuristic look at benefit claimants, the goggle box shit and their overuse of Jimmy Carr on panel shows is getting tiring.

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Originally posted by @Flahute

I’m no lover of Corbyn but it’s like the Guardian luvies and their mates at the beeb are determined to press their “New Labour” bolloxs at all costs.

You can have any politicians you like, as long as they are neo-liberal.

While the Independent has arguably been fairer than the rest, even it has had its fair share of New Labour acolytes predicting infinite crisis at the edge of doom. Taking a look at the comments’ sections, not scientific I know, it’s almost like looking at a media version of the Labour Party. The membership, as manifested by the punters, seem broadly in favour of Corbyn (with notable exceptions). The paper seems to be pushing the New Labour line.

I have never had the expectation that the BBC is going to cover all the shit I’m interested in, but I have been surprised to see it become so “partisan” in such a short space of time. The incident with the staged shadow cabinet minister resignation last week was ridiculous, and indicative of a desire to make the news instead of report it.

For various reasons, I reckon the mask has slipped big time on Blairites, and by extension, the BBC and the Guardian. You’ve got the ridiculous spectacle of reasonably clever people on the other place expending all their energy on telling everyone what a disaster Corbyn, while the Tories are there to be attacked on pretty muich all fronts. Who knows what the fuck the Guardian is anymore. Having spent years dangling left wing opinion pieces in front of its left-leaning readers, it turns the cannons on the first leftie with a chance of doing anything.

I honestly couldn’t tell you about the BBC’s Corbyn coverage. I watch BBC Parliament and Question Time, but don’t watch their news. They’ve repeatedly failed in their brief of impartiality and I simply don’t trust them to interpret events on my behalf.

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Question Time is Jeremy Kyle for folks that have degrees. Stage managed as fuck. Utterly pointless.

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All corps have an agenda, remember the sun switching sides back in the mids 90’s? I have always said and will always maintain everyone has an agenda and thats what drives up, whether its transparent is the key, most people are not with theirs.

I was told by a wise man if you want the news buy the Guardian and the Telegraph (equally good papers at opposite ends) and form an opinion in the middle of both papers.

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Originally posted by @TheCholulaKid

Test Match Special. I rest my case.

Perfect in fact.

More than 100 people at the BBC knew what Savile was up to, according to a leaked report that Exaro News managed to get hold of.

If that’s true it’s un-fukin-believeable. If that had happened anywhere else he’s have been locked up years ago…or I’d like to think so.

I think this is quite clearly evidence that rich white folk are incompatible with Western society. Send 'em all back.

In all seriousness, that is fucking disgusting, though sadly not at all surprising.