BBC Trust Asks Public: What Should We Do Now? - THEN IGNORES

[Teddy Bear]

It's obvious from the options given by this questionnaire that the BBC want to avoid the one that most might choose - Subscription ONLY.
Yet when it suits them they are quick to tell us just how valuable they are to the licence fee payer, and also according to them the majority want to keep paying the licence fee.
We know it's a lie when they say it, and from the options they give - so do they.

They're dead scared of having to be pushed into the real world, and for good reason.

BBC Trust asks the public: what should we do now?
Public consultation asking people to give their views on future of Corporation is launched

By Anita Singh, Arts and Entertainment Editor

The BBC Trust has launched an online questionnaire asking the public to suggest how the corporation should be funded and what programmes it should stop making.
Viewers and listeners are offered a series of questions including “what one thing would you like to see the BBC do less of?” and “how important is it that the BBC operates independently from Government?”

They are also asked to rate three methods of funding the BBC: retaining the current licence fee system, bringing in a universal household levy or making some services subscription-only.

The questionnaire has been devised by the BBC Trust. At the same time, the Trust has issued a response to the government’s Green Paper on the future of the corporation, saying it is wholly opposed to the subscription model and believes the BBC should “remain a universal and independent broadcaster which aims to provide something for everyone”.

The Government has suggested that the BBC stop chasing ratings with copycat shows such as The Voice.

The questionnaire refers to this in the question: “On a scale of 1-10, where do you think the BBC should strike the balance between continuing to deliver everything it currently does and providing something for everyone who pays the licence fee, as opposed to adopting a new approach and narrowly focusing on programmes and services which are not provided by other broadcasters and online content providers?”

Results of the online survey will be presented to the Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale.

According to a Trust spokesman, the questions are written “in language that means something to people”.
The Trust has also set up a new Twitter account @tomorrowsbbc for people to share their views.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the BBC Trust, said: “Charter Review will ultimately decide what kind of programmes and services audiences get for the BBC they pay for, so the most important voice in the debate is that of the public and we will ensure it is heard.”

[Teddy Bear]

Consider the final sentence in the article above:
Rona Fairhead, chairman of the BBC Trust, said: “Charter Review will ultimately decide what kind of programmes and services audiences get for the BBC they pay for, so the most important voice in the debate is that of the public and we will ensure it is heard.”

Well, true to form, Fairhead made sure these voices weren't heard.

BBC 'ignored public's views on its future and instead used paid-for-study to represent the views of the population'

• Around 40,000 people responded to questionnaire from the BBC Trust
• Thought that governing body would pass their views onto Government
• Trust decided not to include survey results in official report on BBC future
• Those who took part said they were 'outraged' to have their views ignored

By Katherine Rushton Media And Technology Editor For The Daily Mail

The BBC Trust side-lined the views of the public from its official report on the future of the Corporation - despite lecturing everyone else that the public’s voice should be ‘heard loud and clear’.

It also skewed the results of a survey, even after telling MPs that any decisions about the future of the broadcaster should be based on ‘evidence’ rather than any preconceptions.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the Trust, spent the summer arguing that the BBC’s future should not be dictated by ‘prejudice’.

Instead, she argued, it should be decided by the public who pay for the broadcaster, and based on firm ‘evidence’.

‘This should all happen through a proper debate in which the public’s voice is heard loud and clear. The BBC’s future is simply too important to be settled behind closed doors.’

However, it would seem that the Trust failed to listen to its own advice.

Around 40,000 people then responded to the Trust’s questionnaire about the BBC, in the belief that the governing body would then pass their views on to the Government.

But the Trust decided not to include the survey results in its official report on the future of the BBC, and relied on a much smaller, paid-for study to represent the views of the public instead.

Its official response to the Government’s green paper repeatedly refers to the survey of 40,000 people, and the findings of ‘a nationally representative’ survey. But instead of the 40,000 members of the

public who filled in the questionnaire, the results are from a sample of around 2,900 people chosen by polling agency ICM.

Last night, people who filled in the survey were outraged that they took the time and effort to set down their views, only to have them dismissed in the Trust’s official report.

Caroline Levesque Bartlett, who runs a campaign to ban the licence fee, said: ‘I find it really irritating...we are allowed to share our view only once every ten years, and the BBC Trust rigs. What a sham.’ A BBC Trust source admitted that the results of the public questionnaire were not properly included in the official document, and hinted that it may have run out of time to do the analysis it wanted.

She added that some of the broad findings were ‘reflected’ in the report, and that the full analysis would be published at a later date – after the deadline for submissions to the Government’s Green Paper on the future of the BBC has already passed.

A spokesman added: ‘We have taken full account of the views of the 40,000 people who contributed to our consultation. Our submission to the Government fully reflects the emerging themes from this and from our other research. All of the consultation results will be published in full, along with the other research and analysis we carried out.’ Meanwhile, members of the public also accused the Trust of ‘misrepresenting’ ICM’s findings.

One of the questions asked viewers: ‘Thinking about the range of services and programmes paid for by the licence fee, in your opinion, do you think that the BBC should provide [far more, a little more, a little less, far less or it is about right]?’ Critics of the BBC might well have demanded more, amid concerns that it does not currently provide enough value for money.

However, the BBC Trust gave the question a very different spin in its results, suggesting that the vast majority of viewers simply want the BBC to expand or remain the same size.

‘Our nationally representative survey found that 93 per cent of people either want more BBC services and programmes, or they felt that what the BBC currently provides is about right,’ it said.

A BBC Trust spokesman denied that the report skewed the results. ‘We don’t agree that the way we have presented this data misrepresents the question that participants in the research were asked, though we are happy to clarify: people were asked about the range of services they get from the BBC and the vast majority either said the BBC should provide more, or what it currently provides is about right. It was not a question about value for money of the licence fee,’ the spokesman said.

She added that the licence fee was mentioned simply ‘as a statement of fact’, rather than to suggest that people should consider the value for money the BBC offers.