You raise some very fair points Jeffrey. The content sell off will be tricky though as from what I remember of the enormous ‘digital content rights’ debate in the early 2000’s - assigning ownership of that content is quite torturous - which is why so much old content doesn’t make it onto the I-player or sounds platforms.
For all the reservations I shared with the late Dennis Potter about John Birt - Birt did at least establish a culture of external program making which should make the ownership rights (& content valuation discussion) somewhat less tricky?
On the issue of programming governance - I am with you on hiring - especially the external bit. Institutions like the BBC & the NHS waste millions a year externally advertising job opportunities for ‘external candidates’ when the ‘talent’ pool internally has already been shortlisted. As an external hopeful you’d have a better chance of hooking up with Lord Lucan for a beer than landing a role in these organisations as an outsider!
On the actual programming itself, corporate culture makes money for shareholders - rather than ‘road testing’ young and/or “off the wall” talent. It’s why Hollywood likes plots based on Shakespeare & endless remakes - which probably explains why I hardly ever get excited about many films coming from California any longer. People are even complaining about ‘nothing worth watching’ on Netflix - which might be trimming a whisker or two off their 13k headcount soon unless they get a bit better creative talent on board? Imagine suggesting to Netflix commissioning management a ‘Fred Dibnah’? That came from the regional broadcast unit attached to BBC North - so a similar system needs to be found? Ditto John Peel launching a whole fleet of obscure bands the corporate record labels wouldn’t touch.
The BBC hiding undesirable abuses of power I’m completely with you on though. Sonia was excellent for joining the dots on that aspect of the corporation’s history.
I’m really interested in this subject - and will be engaging with everyone enthusiastically on it.
Michael Prescott - author of the dossier into the BBC - himself doctored Trump quotes in the report, making his evidence seem more damning. The New World's political editor James Ball joins James O'Brien to discuss the 'devastating' revelation that calls into question Prescott’s journalistic judgement.
—«They include evidence that BBC Panorama “doctored” a speech by Donald Trump to make it wrongly appear as though he directly called for violence on the day that his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Mr Prescott, who until June 2025 was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, also highlights serious problems with BBC Arabic’s reporting on Gaza, in which it apparently gives extensive space to the views of Hamas.
Elsewhere, he raises concerns that a unit of rogue LGBT+ reporters is censoring coverage of the trans debate, and highlights how the BBC’s own flagship fact-checking service, Verify, produced a “thoroughly wrong” report suggesting car insurers were racist.»
I'm probably not untypical of a Boomer generation in our early 70's who has just fed up with the BBC, and we pay the licence fee because it's just like a tax, but we don't really use it very much. I do use their website. I watch the occasional catch-up programme, but really I'm not very interested in them. However, the problem is what we replace them with? Do you trust, for example, Murdoch and his news media or The Telegraph? Who do you trust out there for the main news stories? Well, I think the answer is you have to spread your eye around a little bit and try and catch news from different sources including places like Al Jazeera and certainly Substack to make sure that you're not missing anything important. But at the same time we're probably a bit obsessed with news. In a sense news expands to fill the amount of time you have to read it available, doesn't it? We probably just watch too much of it.
You raise some very fair points Jeffrey. The content sell off will be tricky though as from what I remember of the enormous ‘digital content rights’ debate in the early 2000’s - assigning ownership of that content is quite torturous - which is why so much old content doesn’t make it onto the I-player or sounds platforms.
For all the reservations I shared with the late Dennis Potter about John Birt - Birt did at least establish a culture of external program making which should make the ownership rights (& content valuation discussion) somewhat less tricky?
On the issue of programming governance - I am with you on hiring - especially the external bit. Institutions like the BBC & the NHS waste millions a year externally advertising job opportunities for ‘external candidates’ when the ‘talent’ pool internally has already been shortlisted. As an external hopeful you’d have a better chance of hooking up with Lord Lucan for a beer than landing a role in these organisations as an outsider!
On the actual programming itself, corporate culture makes money for shareholders - rather than ‘road testing’ young and/or “off the wall” talent. It’s why Hollywood likes plots based on Shakespeare & endless remakes - which probably explains why I hardly ever get excited about many films coming from California any longer. People are even complaining about ‘nothing worth watching’ on Netflix - which might be trimming a whisker or two off their 13k headcount soon unless they get a bit better creative talent on board? Imagine suggesting to Netflix commissioning management a ‘Fred Dibnah’? That came from the regional broadcast unit attached to BBC North - so a similar system needs to be found? Ditto John Peel launching a whole fleet of obscure bands the corporate record labels wouldn’t touch.
The BBC hiding undesirable abuses of power I’m completely with you on though. Sonia was excellent for joining the dots on that aspect of the corporation’s history.
I’m really interested in this subject - and will be engaging with everyone enthusiastically on it.
Michael Prescott - author of the dossier into the BBC - himself doctored Trump quotes in the report, making his evidence seem more damning. The New World's political editor James Ball joins James O'Brien to discuss the 'devastating' revelation that calls into question Prescott’s journalistic judgement.
https://youtu.be/RYPRQj0NtIU
Great article! Henry VIII's disestablishment of the monasteries comes to mind.
#FanaticalLiberalism => 𝙄𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙍𝙪𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚, 𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝘽𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙡𝙤𝙣𝙜! (𝙰𝚕𝚘𝚗𝚐 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 #𝙵𝚊𝚞𝚌𝚒𝚜𝚝𝙱𝚘𝚘𝚔 & 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚒𝚛 𝚒𝚕𝚔.)
—«They include evidence that BBC Panorama “doctored” a speech by Donald Trump to make it wrongly appear as though he directly called for violence on the day that his supporters stormed the US Capitol.
Mr Prescott, who until June 2025 was an independent adviser to the BBC’s Editorial Guidelines and Standards Board, also highlights serious problems with BBC Arabic’s reporting on Gaza, in which it apparently gives extensive space to the views of Hamas.
Elsewhere, he raises concerns that a unit of rogue LGBT+ reporters is censoring coverage of the trans debate, and highlights how the BBC’s own flagship fact-checking service, Verify, produced a “thoroughly wrong” report suggesting car insurers were racist.»
—Don Surber (11 Nov 2025) Trump may squeeze the boobs at the Beeb: He plans a billion-dollar lawsuit against the liars at the BBC who interfered with OUR election. https://open.substack.com/pub/donsurber/p/trump-to-squeeze-the-boobs-at-the
I'm probably not untypical of a Boomer generation in our early 70's who has just fed up with the BBC, and we pay the licence fee because it's just like a tax, but we don't really use it very much. I do use their website. I watch the occasional catch-up programme, but really I'm not very interested in them. However, the problem is what we replace them with? Do you trust, for example, Murdoch and his news media or The Telegraph? Who do you trust out there for the main news stories? Well, I think the answer is you have to spread your eye around a little bit and try and catch news from different sources including places like Al Jazeera and certainly Substack to make sure that you're not missing anything important. But at the same time we're probably a bit obsessed with news. In a sense news expands to fill the amount of time you have to read it available, doesn't it? We probably just watch too much of it.
I'd agree Rob. News is just PR for the establishment. We'd be better off with much less. And it shouldn't be up to the state to provide it.