Post by Teddy Bear on Jul 6, 2008 20:19:01 GMT
Coming from an ex-BBC editor, this view has added impact.
The BBC should scrap everything apart from BBC1 and Radio 4
By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
The BBC should scrap all its channels apart from BBC1 and Radio 4, according to Sir Antony Jay, one of the country's most distinguished broadcasters.
All the other stations are a waste of taxpayers' money because the shows they produce are "indistinguishable" from what commercial stations such as Channel 4 and ITV already provide, says the co-author of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, the BBC's satirical comedies about life at the heart of government.
In an attack on the corporation, Sir Antony, a former BBC editor, also signals the end of the licence fee, saying that the BBC would soon no longer be able to justify charging viewers more than £3 billion a year for programmes "they do not want or can obtain free elsewhere".
The BBC's spends £3.3 billion a year on licence-fee funded activities, including programming across its nine TV channels and countless radio stations.
On top of that it spends another £1 billion on areas such as the World Service, which is funded by the Government.
Sir Antony, 78, claims there is "a strong case for dismantling" the BBC, scrapping its digital channels and axeing the "endless space-filler programmes" on cookery, gardening and DIY.
He calls for the BBC to be stripped down and replaced by a much smaller organisation made up of only BBC1 and Radio 4.
Such an organisation would concentrate on producing the kind of high-quality programmes that commercial channels would never risk making.
"The BBC spends over £4 billion every year, most of it on undistinguished programmes are indistinguishable from what is available on competitive unsubsidised channels," he writes in an essay called How to Save the BBC, which is published on Friday by the think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies.
"It also uses this subsidy to compete unfairly with commercial companies in areas like publishing and the internet. Many people also see it as a propaganda vehicle for the liberal elite whose views and values are at odds with those of most of its audience."
Sir Antony said that the BBC should not be entering bidding wars with commercial rivals for the rights to screen Hollywood movies, American television series and national or international sporting events.
"If the audience is going to see them on television anyway, why spend their licence money just to enable them to see them on a different channel?" he writes.
"And then there are the endless space-filler programmes: cookery, gardening, DIY and so on - if the BBC's were significantly better than anyone else's, they could be justified. But if (as is so often the case) they are just there to fill space and save money, and are virtually indistinguishable from competitors, why bother?"
Sir Antony said that a smaller BBC would save the corporation millions of pounds every year.
According to last year's annual report, BBC1 and Radio 4 cost £1.5 billion a year out of the total BBC budget of £4.2 billion.
With millions of pounds to spend on fewer programmes, Sir Antony said that "a golden era" of BBC television would return.
He also predicted that the BBC would in the future be able to finance itself by better exploiting its "huge library of programmes"
By Nicole Martin, Digital and Media Correspondent
The BBC should scrap all its channels apart from BBC1 and Radio 4, according to Sir Antony Jay, one of the country's most distinguished broadcasters.
All the other stations are a waste of taxpayers' money because the shows they produce are "indistinguishable" from what commercial stations such as Channel 4 and ITV already provide, says the co-author of Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, the BBC's satirical comedies about life at the heart of government.
In an attack on the corporation, Sir Antony, a former BBC editor, also signals the end of the licence fee, saying that the BBC would soon no longer be able to justify charging viewers more than £3 billion a year for programmes "they do not want or can obtain free elsewhere".
The BBC's spends £3.3 billion a year on licence-fee funded activities, including programming across its nine TV channels and countless radio stations.
On top of that it spends another £1 billion on areas such as the World Service, which is funded by the Government.
Sir Antony, 78, claims there is "a strong case for dismantling" the BBC, scrapping its digital channels and axeing the "endless space-filler programmes" on cookery, gardening and DIY.
He calls for the BBC to be stripped down and replaced by a much smaller organisation made up of only BBC1 and Radio 4.
Such an organisation would concentrate on producing the kind of high-quality programmes that commercial channels would never risk making.
"The BBC spends over £4 billion every year, most of it on undistinguished programmes are indistinguishable from what is available on competitive unsubsidised channels," he writes in an essay called How to Save the BBC, which is published on Friday by the think-tank the Centre for Policy Studies.
"It also uses this subsidy to compete unfairly with commercial companies in areas like publishing and the internet. Many people also see it as a propaganda vehicle for the liberal elite whose views and values are at odds with those of most of its audience."
Sir Antony said that the BBC should not be entering bidding wars with commercial rivals for the rights to screen Hollywood movies, American television series and national or international sporting events.
"If the audience is going to see them on television anyway, why spend their licence money just to enable them to see them on a different channel?" he writes.
"And then there are the endless space-filler programmes: cookery, gardening, DIY and so on - if the BBC's were significantly better than anyone else's, they could be justified. But if (as is so often the case) they are just there to fill space and save money, and are virtually indistinguishable from competitors, why bother?"
Sir Antony said that a smaller BBC would save the corporation millions of pounds every year.
According to last year's annual report, BBC1 and Radio 4 cost £1.5 billion a year out of the total BBC budget of £4.2 billion.
With millions of pounds to spend on fewer programmes, Sir Antony said that "a golden era" of BBC television would return.
He also predicted that the BBC would in the future be able to finance itself by better exploiting its "huge library of programmes"