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The Culture Secretary has suggested - no more than suggested - that the BBC licence fee might be cut as part of the government’s plans to reduce public spending. In a newspaper article, he accused the BBC of ‘extraordinary and outrageous’ waste in recent years.
The majority of the population would agree with what has been said but many might, perhaps, ask why we have to have a licence fee at all. Why cannot the BBC fund itself like the other channels in this day and age?
Not that many years ago, one BBC television programme would follow the other without interruption just as day follows night. Now every programme is separated from the next by an ‘advert’ either giving advance notice of another programme or, alternatively, some pointless graphics with music. If every programme has to be followed by two minutes of self-advertisement, then the Corporation may just as well go the whole hog and take on paid advertising.
The BBC is a monolith. Sections of it appear to believe it is an arm of the civil service. This person for one believes it is now time to do away with the licence fee altogether and let the BBC do what it has to do as an independent programme producer.
Perhaps, just perhaps, if the BBC had to function on its own resources, then we would see an end to many so-called stars being paid the sort of outrageous fees we hear about from time to time. Maybe also we would see an end to the type of expensive and pointless programmes such as Top Gear that must surely encourage fast and reckless driving.
The Culture Secretary has also said he intends to send in the big boys, the National Audit Office, to examine the BBC's accounts. That report will make interesting reading just in time before the next licence fee is scheduled to be reassessed in 2012.
That’ll be something to look forward to!
.
The Culture Secretary has suggested - no more than suggested - that the BBC licence fee might be cut as part of the government’s plans to reduce public spending. In a newspaper article, he accused the BBC of ‘extraordinary and outrageous’ waste in recent years.
The majority of the population would agree with what has been said but many might, perhaps, ask why we have to have a licence fee at all. Why cannot the BBC fund itself like the other channels in this day and age?
Not that many years ago, one BBC television programme would follow the other without interruption just as day follows night. Now every programme is separated from the next by an ‘advert’ either giving advance notice of another programme or, alternatively, some pointless graphics with music. If every programme has to be followed by two minutes of self-advertisement, then the Corporation may just as well go the whole hog and take on paid advertising.
The BBC is a monolith. Sections of it appear to believe it is an arm of the civil service. This person for one believes it is now time to do away with the licence fee altogether and let the BBC do what it has to do as an independent programme producer.
Perhaps, just perhaps, if the BBC had to function on its own resources, then we would see an end to many so-called stars being paid the sort of outrageous fees we hear about from time to time. Maybe also we would see an end to the type of expensive and pointless programmes such as Top Gear that must surely encourage fast and reckless driving.
The Culture Secretary has also said he intends to send in the big boys, the National Audit Office, to examine the BBC's accounts. That report will make interesting reading just in time before the next licence fee is scheduled to be reassessed in 2012.
That’ll be something to look forward to!
.
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