Post by Teddy Bear on Nov 19, 2013 23:21:16 GMT
Maybe it's his age which has made him realise that achieving the power of propaganda, which the BBC clearly has, doesn't do you much good as you approach death.
Whatever, it's certainly something that I never expected Dimbleby to do.
Whatever, it's certainly something that I never expected Dimbleby to do.
BBC has become too powerful for its own good, says Dimbleby: It's squeezing life out of local newspapers and should share licence fee with rivals insists veteran presenter
By Aladair Glennie
The BBC is too powerful for its own good and should be dramatically slimmed down, one of its top stars argued today.
David Dimbleby – who has been at the Corporation for more than 50 years – called on the director-general to hand out the licence fee to its commercial rivals to create ‘more variety’ in TV and radio output.
He said the BBC should ‘cut out some of the gardening and the cookery’ on TV, merge BBC4 with BBC2, and reduce its online presence to prevent it ‘crushing’ local newspapers.
The 75-year-old, who has anchored every general election since 1979, also criticised the BBC’s ‘terrible’ coverage of last year’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant, saying he was ‘rueful’ he hadn’t been asked to front it.
Mr Dimbleby’s intervention will add to mounting pressure on director-general Tony Hall to accept dramatic cuts to his budget when the licence fee is renegotiated.
Earlier this month, former head of TV news Roger Mosey admitted the BBC was too big and too left wing, and also suggested the licence fee should be shared with rivals and the number of TV channels reduced.
Speaking to Richard Bacon on 5Live today, Mr Dimbleby said: ‘The public pay for the BBC is £3.5billion, more or less. It’s a very, very powerful, big organisation, so it’s right that it should be held to book, and of course when it gets something wrong... it’s a spectacular fall, as with the River Pageant.’
The Question Time host said the BBC needed to redefine its role when the Royal Charter is renewed in 2016. In the past month, senior Government figures have warned the BBC may face severe cuts unless it improves its coverage and addresses accusations of bias.
Mr Dimbleby said: ‘[The management need] to answer questions about whether the BBC has got too big. Whether it is too powerful for its own good. Whether it’s crushing newspapers, local newspapers particularly. I think there is some truth in that. I’m not sure how you address it but I do think the BBC needs to pull back a bit from some of the things it does, maybe cut back a bit on some of its television channels.
‘I think that BBC4 for instance which has some very good high quality programming done on a shoe string, really on a shoe string... merge that with BBC2, cut out some of the gardening and the cookery and all that on BBC2 and focus on the quality stuff that it was meant to be. Then you have two big channels, One and Two.’
Mr Dimbleby admitted he may be ‘taken to the cleaners’ by his bosses for criticising the BBC so openly.
But he added: ‘If you have one organisation that controls so much of the airwaves, is that in the end democratic?’
He continued: ‘I would use some of the licence fee to set up or to subsidise other independent radio and broadcast stations, so that you’ve got variety.’
Last week, Home Secretary Theresa May accused the BBC of undermining democracy by encroaching unfairly on local newspapers with its news websites.
Mr Dimbleby – who sold his family’s local newspaper business for £12million in 2001 – agreed with her assessment and suggested BBC websites should be slimmed down.
He said: ‘I think the question has to be addressed about the scale of the BBC, and people need to ask themselves, however well run it is, however careful it is, however much it attempts to be objective, in the end, is democracy well served by that?
‘Should we have more voices on the air, both on television and on radio, and should we pull back a bit on the thing [former director-general] John Birt set up so brilliantly at its time, which is the internet, to allow space for local papers and indeed the national press which at the moment are being steamrollered by what we do with public money that comes in from the licence fee, for which you go to prison if you fail to pay up.’
Asked for his opinion of the BBC’s much-criticised coverage of the River Pageant, Mr Dimbleby said: ‘I thought it was terrible. I don’t know what they thought they were doing frankly, but they thought that the pageant itself, the boats on the river, wouldn’t really work and it would be technically difficult.
‘So they thought they’d have lots of side shows and the presenters wouldn’t have to know about the boats, and they’d have some expert who knew about the boats. Then everything collapsed and the expert couldn’t be got on air.’
- Dimbleby called on BBC to 'cut out some of the gardening and cookery'
- Question Time presenter also criticised 'terrible' coverage of River Pageant
- Intervention adds to pressure of director-general Tony Hall to accept cuts
By Aladair Glennie
The BBC is too powerful for its own good and should be dramatically slimmed down, one of its top stars argued today.
David Dimbleby – who has been at the Corporation for more than 50 years – called on the director-general to hand out the licence fee to its commercial rivals to create ‘more variety’ in TV and radio output.
He said the BBC should ‘cut out some of the gardening and the cookery’ on TV, merge BBC4 with BBC2, and reduce its online presence to prevent it ‘crushing’ local newspapers.
The 75-year-old, who has anchored every general election since 1979, also criticised the BBC’s ‘terrible’ coverage of last year’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant, saying he was ‘rueful’ he hadn’t been asked to front it.
Mr Dimbleby’s intervention will add to mounting pressure on director-general Tony Hall to accept dramatic cuts to his budget when the licence fee is renegotiated.
Earlier this month, former head of TV news Roger Mosey admitted the BBC was too big and too left wing, and also suggested the licence fee should be shared with rivals and the number of TV channels reduced.
Speaking to Richard Bacon on 5Live today, Mr Dimbleby said: ‘The public pay for the BBC is £3.5billion, more or less. It’s a very, very powerful, big organisation, so it’s right that it should be held to book, and of course when it gets something wrong... it’s a spectacular fall, as with the River Pageant.’
The Question Time host said the BBC needed to redefine its role when the Royal Charter is renewed in 2016. In the past month, senior Government figures have warned the BBC may face severe cuts unless it improves its coverage and addresses accusations of bias.
Mr Dimbleby said: ‘[The management need] to answer questions about whether the BBC has got too big. Whether it is too powerful for its own good. Whether it’s crushing newspapers, local newspapers particularly. I think there is some truth in that. I’m not sure how you address it but I do think the BBC needs to pull back a bit from some of the things it does, maybe cut back a bit on some of its television channels.
‘I think that BBC4 for instance which has some very good high quality programming done on a shoe string, really on a shoe string... merge that with BBC2, cut out some of the gardening and the cookery and all that on BBC2 and focus on the quality stuff that it was meant to be. Then you have two big channels, One and Two.’
Mr Dimbleby admitted he may be ‘taken to the cleaners’ by his bosses for criticising the BBC so openly.
But he added: ‘If you have one organisation that controls so much of the airwaves, is that in the end democratic?’
He continued: ‘I would use some of the licence fee to set up or to subsidise other independent radio and broadcast stations, so that you’ve got variety.’
Last week, Home Secretary Theresa May accused the BBC of undermining democracy by encroaching unfairly on local newspapers with its news websites.
Mr Dimbleby – who sold his family’s local newspaper business for £12million in 2001 – agreed with her assessment and suggested BBC websites should be slimmed down.
He said: ‘I think the question has to be addressed about the scale of the BBC, and people need to ask themselves, however well run it is, however careful it is, however much it attempts to be objective, in the end, is democracy well served by that?
‘Should we have more voices on the air, both on television and on radio, and should we pull back a bit on the thing [former director-general] John Birt set up so brilliantly at its time, which is the internet, to allow space for local papers and indeed the national press which at the moment are being steamrollered by what we do with public money that comes in from the licence fee, for which you go to prison if you fail to pay up.’
Asked for his opinion of the BBC’s much-criticised coverage of the River Pageant, Mr Dimbleby said: ‘I thought it was terrible. I don’t know what they thought they were doing frankly, but they thought that the pageant itself, the boats on the river, wouldn’t really work and it would be technically difficult.
‘So they thought they’d have lots of side shows and the presenters wouldn’t have to know about the boats, and they’d have some expert who knew about the boats. Then everything collapsed and the expert couldn’t be got on air.’