Post by Teddy Bear on Nov 30, 2013 0:07:18 GMT
Richard Littlejohn with a humorous look at a few of the examples of waste we have been subjected to by the BBC.
LITTLEJOHN: And over on BBC... another £1bn wasted
By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN
The BBC’s new director-general Tony Hall says the Corporation should be more aggressive and ‘less British’ in promoting itself and justifying the licence fee: ‘We need to make use of our own airwaves to make the point that what we have to offer only costs 40p a day. I’ve got a team working on that.’ Here’s how the schedules could look next year . . .
BBC1
6am Breakfast. Tony Hall and his top executives enjoy a working champagne breakfast at the five-star Langham Hotel, opposite the £1 billion New Broadcasting House, to discuss ways of persuading the public that the licence fee is good value for money.
10.00 Homes Under The Hammer. The BBC agrees to pay 30 per cent above the market price to buy the homes of staff forced to move to the £1 billion new regional headquarters in Salford.
11.00 Operation Canteen Food With James Martin. A Michelin-trained chef completely revamps the subsidised menus in the canteens at the BBC’s two new £1 billion centres in London and Salford.
He demonstrates how BBC staffers can a revel in a gourmet dining experience for just 40p a day.
12.15pm Bargain Hunt. Tony Hall explains why paying £24 million in relocation costs to reluctant employees moving to Salford was cheap as chips. Some lucky winners have received up to £150,000 each.
1.00 News and Regional News. Includes a special report on how the BBC has invested £1 billion in bringing regional news to Salford.
1.45 Doctors. Intriguing fly-on-the-wall documentary about the BBC’s superb private medical care programme, which costs just 40p a day. Today’s episode follows a top presenter as she heads to Harley Street for cosmetic surgery.
3.10 Flog It! The BBC sells Television Centre at a loss to property developers after moving all operations to the £1 billion New Broadcasting House. It has also sold the Blue Peter garden, which is being converted into a shanty town for Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants evicted from nearby Hendon football ground.
4.00 Pointless. An investigation into the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, which never worked and had to be abandoned after £100 million had been spent on useless computer technology.
6.00 News. Robert Peston reports on how Britain’s net contribution to the EU budget is great value at just 40p a day, equivalent to a full 24 hours of BBC programmes. Special guests: Peter Mandelson and Roland Rat.
6.30 Look North. A report on how hundreds of BBC employees and their families are thrilled with their move from London to an exciting new £1 billion regional centre in Salford. (Repeated on BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and Radio 5 Live.)
7.00 The One Show. Live from Salford. Matt Baker and that dopey Welsh bird interview director-general Tony Hall, via satellite from London, on why the BBC’s move to Salford was great value for £1 billion.
7.30 WestEnders. All the drama as BBC staff and executives settle into their luxurious new £1 billion headquarters in walking distance of the fine restaurants, shops and theatres of London’s West End.
8.00 MasterChef: The Professionals. Michel Roux and Mary Berry cook a five-course lobster dinner, costing just 40p a head, for BBC board members in their recently refurbished £1 million dining room in New Broadcasting House.
8.30 Panorama. A special report into how Newsnight had to pay £185,000 plus costs after falsely accusing Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile. Presented by the late Jimmy Savile.
9.00 Rip-Off Street. Third-rate, intelligence-insulting but ludicrously expensive BBC rip-off of Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood, filmed in Dublin, aimed squarely at overseas sales in an attempt to recoup some of the £2 billion frittered away on new headquarters in London and Salford.
10.00 News. BBC executives appear before a Commons select committee to explain why the millions of pounds in pay-outs to departing executives, including £687,333 to BBC Worldwide’s Jana Bennett and £949,000 to deputy DG Mark Byford, was good value for money, equal to just 40p a day.
10.30 Match Of The Day. Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen analyse the reasons why Gary Lineker has to spend £15,000 on taxis travelling to Salford to present a show which could perfectly well be broadcast from London.
11.30 The Graham Norton Show. Tonight, Graham interviews himself about the fabulous £2.6 million pay packet he has just received from the BBC.
BBC2
10am Cash In The Attic. Before selling off TV Centre, Tony Hall goes into the attic and finds £1 billion of licence-payers’ money that the BBC had completely forgotten about.
11.00 Are You Being Served? Tony Hall explains why the BBC is launching an expensive portfolio of local websites in 205 different languages, many of them scribble, plus two new radio stations aimed at Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants.
12.00pm Film: New York, New York. A BBC executive escapes to America to avoid having to justify his role in authorising millions of pounds in executive pay-offs and the £100 million Digital Media fiasco, and explain what he knew about the Jimmy Savile affair. Starring Mark Thompson as himself.
2.00 Formula 1. Coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix, live from the Prince Albert Suite in the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, where DG Tony Hall is commanding a modest outside broadcast team of 400. Introduced by Evan Davis.
6.00 Songs Of Praise. Live from St Ketamine’s Parish Church, Bradford. Tonight’s sermon is delivered by the Rev Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-op Bank: ‘Blessed are the rent boys.’
6.30 Great British Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo joins hundreds of BBC staff and guests at Euston as they prepare to make the daily trek to Salford, on expenses.
7.00 Top Gear. The boys investigate some of the top gear available to staff at the BBC’s centres in London and Salford. Tonight’s Stars In A Reasonably Priced Coma are Nigella Lawson and Trinny Woodall.
8.00 The National Lottery. With the BBC’s annual budget set to rise to £4.5 billion by 2016, executives have to decide what to do with all the extra money. One proposal involves closing the £1 billion New Broadcasting House and moving it to Salford. Another would close the £1 billion Salford Media City and move it back to London.
9.00 Imagine. Licence-payers try to imagine what Alan Yentob does with the two salaries he receives from the BBC, one for £183,000; the other worth £150,000, in addition to his £2.8 million pension pot. Imagine!
10.00 Have I Got A Bit More News For You. Ian and Paul wonder why the BBC needs to employ 8,000 journalists, more than every national newspaper combined. Guest host: Stuart Hall.
10.30 Newsnight. As part of the programme’s new look under former Guardian executive Ian Katz, Kirsty Wark reprises her popular Halloween zombie dance while reading out the contents of tomorrow’s Guardian. Russell Brand interviews Jeremy Paxman and Polly Toynbee explains to George Monbiot why the BBC is such great value at just 40p a day.
11.15 This Week. Andrew Neil asks Tony Hall why, if the BBC is so keen on advertising itself, it doesn’t just scrap the licence fee and take adverts?
By RICHARD LITTLEJOHN
The BBC’s new director-general Tony Hall says the Corporation should be more aggressive and ‘less British’ in promoting itself and justifying the licence fee: ‘We need to make use of our own airwaves to make the point that what we have to offer only costs 40p a day. I’ve got a team working on that.’ Here’s how the schedules could look next year . . .
BBC1
6am Breakfast. Tony Hall and his top executives enjoy a working champagne breakfast at the five-star Langham Hotel, opposite the £1 billion New Broadcasting House, to discuss ways of persuading the public that the licence fee is good value for money.
10.00 Homes Under The Hammer. The BBC agrees to pay 30 per cent above the market price to buy the homes of staff forced to move to the £1 billion new regional headquarters in Salford.
11.00 Operation Canteen Food With James Martin. A Michelin-trained chef completely revamps the subsidised menus in the canteens at the BBC’s two new £1 billion centres in London and Salford.
He demonstrates how BBC staffers can a revel in a gourmet dining experience for just 40p a day.
12.15pm Bargain Hunt. Tony Hall explains why paying £24 million in relocation costs to reluctant employees moving to Salford was cheap as chips. Some lucky winners have received up to £150,000 each.
1.00 News and Regional News. Includes a special report on how the BBC has invested £1 billion in bringing regional news to Salford.
1.45 Doctors. Intriguing fly-on-the-wall documentary about the BBC’s superb private medical care programme, which costs just 40p a day. Today’s episode follows a top presenter as she heads to Harley Street for cosmetic surgery.
3.10 Flog It! The BBC sells Television Centre at a loss to property developers after moving all operations to the £1 billion New Broadcasting House. It has also sold the Blue Peter garden, which is being converted into a shanty town for Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants evicted from nearby Hendon football ground.
4.00 Pointless. An investigation into the BBC’s Digital Media Initiative, which never worked and had to be abandoned after £100 million had been spent on useless computer technology.
6.00 News. Robert Peston reports on how Britain’s net contribution to the EU budget is great value at just 40p a day, equivalent to a full 24 hours of BBC programmes. Special guests: Peter Mandelson and Roland Rat.
6.30 Look North. A report on how hundreds of BBC employees and their families are thrilled with their move from London to an exciting new £1 billion regional centre in Salford. (Repeated on BBC2, BBC3, BBC4 and Radio 5 Live.)
7.00 The One Show. Live from Salford. Matt Baker and that dopey Welsh bird interview director-general Tony Hall, via satellite from London, on why the BBC’s move to Salford was great value for £1 billion.
7.30 WestEnders. All the drama as BBC staff and executives settle into their luxurious new £1 billion headquarters in walking distance of the fine restaurants, shops and theatres of London’s West End.
8.00 MasterChef: The Professionals. Michel Roux and Mary Berry cook a five-course lobster dinner, costing just 40p a head, for BBC board members in their recently refurbished £1 million dining room in New Broadcasting House.
8.30 Panorama. A special report into how Newsnight had to pay £185,000 plus costs after falsely accusing Lord McAlpine of being a paedophile. Presented by the late Jimmy Savile.
9.00 Rip-Off Street. Third-rate, intelligence-insulting but ludicrously expensive BBC rip-off of Boardwalk Empire and Deadwood, filmed in Dublin, aimed squarely at overseas sales in an attempt to recoup some of the £2 billion frittered away on new headquarters in London and Salford.
10.00 News. BBC executives appear before a Commons select committee to explain why the millions of pounds in pay-outs to departing executives, including £687,333 to BBC Worldwide’s Jana Bennett and £949,000 to deputy DG Mark Byford, was good value for money, equal to just 40p a day.
10.30 Match Of The Day. Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen analyse the reasons why Gary Lineker has to spend £15,000 on taxis travelling to Salford to present a show which could perfectly well be broadcast from London.
11.30 The Graham Norton Show. Tonight, Graham interviews himself about the fabulous £2.6 million pay packet he has just received from the BBC.
BBC2
10am Cash In The Attic. Before selling off TV Centre, Tony Hall goes into the attic and finds £1 billion of licence-payers’ money that the BBC had completely forgotten about.
11.00 Are You Being Served? Tony Hall explains why the BBC is launching an expensive portfolio of local websites in 205 different languages, many of them scribble, plus two new radio stations aimed at Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants.
12.00pm Film: New York, New York. A BBC executive escapes to America to avoid having to justify his role in authorising millions of pounds in executive pay-offs and the £100 million Digital Media fiasco, and explain what he knew about the Jimmy Savile affair. Starring Mark Thompson as himself.
2.00 Formula 1. Coverage of the Monaco Grand Prix, live from the Prince Albert Suite in the Hotel de Paris, Monte Carlo, where DG Tony Hall is commanding a modest outside broadcast team of 400. Introduced by Evan Davis.
6.00 Songs Of Praise. Live from St Ketamine’s Parish Church, Bradford. Tonight’s sermon is delivered by the Rev Paul Flowers, former chairman of the Co-op Bank: ‘Blessed are the rent boys.’
6.30 Great British Railway Journeys. Michael Portillo joins hundreds of BBC staff and guests at Euston as they prepare to make the daily trek to Salford, on expenses.
7.00 Top Gear. The boys investigate some of the top gear available to staff at the BBC’s centres in London and Salford. Tonight’s Stars In A Reasonably Priced Coma are Nigella Lawson and Trinny Woodall.
8.00 The National Lottery. With the BBC’s annual budget set to rise to £4.5 billion by 2016, executives have to decide what to do with all the extra money. One proposal involves closing the £1 billion New Broadcasting House and moving it to Salford. Another would close the £1 billion Salford Media City and move it back to London.
9.00 Imagine. Licence-payers try to imagine what Alan Yentob does with the two salaries he receives from the BBC, one for £183,000; the other worth £150,000, in addition to his £2.8 million pension pot. Imagine!
10.00 Have I Got A Bit More News For You. Ian and Paul wonder why the BBC needs to employ 8,000 journalists, more than every national newspaper combined. Guest host: Stuart Hall.
10.30 Newsnight. As part of the programme’s new look under former Guardian executive Ian Katz, Kirsty Wark reprises her popular Halloween zombie dance while reading out the contents of tomorrow’s Guardian. Russell Brand interviews Jeremy Paxman and Polly Toynbee explains to George Monbiot why the BBC is such great value at just 40p a day.
11.15 This Week. Andrew Neil asks Tony Hall why, if the BBC is so keen on advertising itself, it doesn’t just scrap the licence fee and take adverts?