Post by Teddy Bear on Jun 22, 2008 21:53:52 GMT
An excellent comment in the Telegraph a few weeks ago about how the BBC is trying to prevent any slicing of the license fee to other media companies. I especially like how it describes how seedy the BBC has become with these observations:
On Blue Peter when I was a child, Valerie Singleton hid all references to brand names on the ever-present cereal boxes under the sticky-back plastic. These days, they cheat over the name of the cat.
Three decades (and a bit) after Valerie was showing us one she'd made earlier, during yet another interminable TV sports awards ceremony, the logo of the sponsor was visible in every single shot. Tim Henman, who stars in the commercials for the same soft drink company, was presenting the prizes. This was a BBC programme. Just how shameless is that?
Remember this the next time somebody tells you how invaluable the BBC is. Their corruption and immorality, instead of the virtues they are meant to represent, are seeds that merely increase the negativity of our society.
Stephen Fry's BBC oration is 'tosh'
By Andrew Pierce
Stephen Fry, the playwright, poet, and polymath, is by all accounts a nice man and a fine actor. But, like so many luvvies, he is guilty of occasionally hamming his lines.
Fry was enlisted by the BBC this week to deliver a lecture on the future of public service broadcasting. Conjuring the rhetoric of Shakespeare's Henry V, he declared that it would be a "tragedy" if the BBC was emasculated by Tory proposals to slice £250 million from the licence fee to give to other broadcasters.
A tragedy? Really? I thought that was what was unfolding in Burma at about the same time that Fry was orating.
Fry, following the great Sir David Attenborough who articulated similar views in this newspaper last week, said: "It should be as closely scrutinised as possible of course… but to reduce its economies of scale, its artistic, social and national reach for misbegotten reasons of ideology or thrift would be a tragedy."
Don't they talk tosh, albeit in the most erudite way, some of these giants of stage and screen? Fry is stuck in a Reithian time warp, back in the days when the BBC, like the Royal Family, studiously turned up its nose at commercial inducements.
On Blue Peter when I was a child, Valerie Singleton hid all references to brand names on the ever-present cereal boxes under the sticky-back plastic. These days, they cheat over the name of the cat.
Three decades (and a bit) after Valerie was showing us one she'd made earlier, during yet another interminable TV sports awards ceremony, the logo of the sponsor was visible in every single shot. Tim Henman, who stars in the commercials for the same soft drink company, was presenting the prizes. This was a BBC programme. Just how shameless is that?
Last year, BBC Worldwide, which has an ambitious plan to increase its portfolio of international channels and websites, acquired Lonely Planet travel guides. The profits of Worldwide are projected to double to £250 million within five years, which in no time will cover any top slicing of the licence.
The Beeb, which is greedily buying up commercial production companies, has temporarily withdrawn its controversial website, bbceventsponsorship.com, after a flurry of protests. It was a brand manager's dream, showcasing a string of sponsorship opportunities for BBC properties from Planet Earth to Children in Need.
John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Commons Culture Select Committee, said only last month: "There need to be very clear rules at what point sponsorship is moving into mainstream broadcasting."
Meanwhile, the BBC is busily promoting its new Match of the Day magazine, which has a commercial competitor, on the footie show of the same name. The Beeb's increasingly aggressive commercial arm, together with the ratings-driven channels such as BBC3, which Sir David Attenborough admits he never watches, have blurred the lines between public and private.
It's why politicians are now rightly questioning whether the time has come to rethink the wisdom of allowing the BBC to keep the entire licence fee from every British television-watching household. Tragic? No, Mr Fry. Just inevitable unless the Beeb changes course.
By Andrew Pierce
Stephen Fry, the playwright, poet, and polymath, is by all accounts a nice man and a fine actor. But, like so many luvvies, he is guilty of occasionally hamming his lines.
Fry was enlisted by the BBC this week to deliver a lecture on the future of public service broadcasting. Conjuring the rhetoric of Shakespeare's Henry V, he declared that it would be a "tragedy" if the BBC was emasculated by Tory proposals to slice £250 million from the licence fee to give to other broadcasters.
A tragedy? Really? I thought that was what was unfolding in Burma at about the same time that Fry was orating.
Fry, following the great Sir David Attenborough who articulated similar views in this newspaper last week, said: "It should be as closely scrutinised as possible of course… but to reduce its economies of scale, its artistic, social and national reach for misbegotten reasons of ideology or thrift would be a tragedy."
Don't they talk tosh, albeit in the most erudite way, some of these giants of stage and screen? Fry is stuck in a Reithian time warp, back in the days when the BBC, like the Royal Family, studiously turned up its nose at commercial inducements.
On Blue Peter when I was a child, Valerie Singleton hid all references to brand names on the ever-present cereal boxes under the sticky-back plastic. These days, they cheat over the name of the cat.
Three decades (and a bit) after Valerie was showing us one she'd made earlier, during yet another interminable TV sports awards ceremony, the logo of the sponsor was visible in every single shot. Tim Henman, who stars in the commercials for the same soft drink company, was presenting the prizes. This was a BBC programme. Just how shameless is that?
Last year, BBC Worldwide, which has an ambitious plan to increase its portfolio of international channels and websites, acquired Lonely Planet travel guides. The profits of Worldwide are projected to double to £250 million within five years, which in no time will cover any top slicing of the licence.
The Beeb, which is greedily buying up commercial production companies, has temporarily withdrawn its controversial website, bbceventsponsorship.com, after a flurry of protests. It was a brand manager's dream, showcasing a string of sponsorship opportunities for BBC properties from Planet Earth to Children in Need.
John Whittingdale, the chairman of the Commons Culture Select Committee, said only last month: "There need to be very clear rules at what point sponsorship is moving into mainstream broadcasting."
Meanwhile, the BBC is busily promoting its new Match of the Day magazine, which has a commercial competitor, on the footie show of the same name. The Beeb's increasingly aggressive commercial arm, together with the ratings-driven channels such as BBC3, which Sir David Attenborough admits he never watches, have blurred the lines between public and private.
It's why politicians are now rightly questioning whether the time has come to rethink the wisdom of allowing the BBC to keep the entire licence fee from every British television-watching household. Tragic? No, Mr Fry. Just inevitable unless the Beeb changes course.