BBC monopoly

I never watch BBC, i care not for their biased political coverage and all told i don't want to pay the licence fee to them.
But their monopoly means that even though i only watch (very few) other channels the BBC get my money anyway or i end up in court. Human rights? Where do they come in here? Choice? Where does the much thrown around right to choice fit in? I thought the powers that be looked into unfair monopoly situations and here is one.
I don't watch BBC yet must pay them. So should i pay for movies even though i never watch them?
Anyone else think the tv licence fee is best got rid of and we let them sink or swim whatever other way they choose?

Meh, I pay for Foxtel and only watch about 6 of the 60-odd channels. Lifestyle, reality and cooking shows just don't do it for me.

I say increase the licence fee to fund more live sport rights available to all without a subscription!

The alternative is probably funding it from general taxes, but that would make it even more of a political football.

I don't watch BBC yet must pay them. So should i pay for movies even though i never watch them?

I feel the same away about my tax dollars going to help out South Australians.

You're on fire lately, MrK.

I feel that way about my taxes going to anybody that isn't me.

beamer wrote:I say increase the licence fee to fund more live sport rights available to all without a subscription!

The alternative is probably funding it from general taxes, but that would make it even more of a political football.

Boom,,,,,,,, tish!

I say let them fund themselves via adverts, begging or whatever they want. The bias is incredible and Gary Linker for example, getting £55,000 for each and every match of the day is crazy.

Everybody says the BBC is biased. Therefor it's more than likely that enough points of view across the spectrum are broadcast.

For a state run broadcaster I don't think you could ever find a more professional, neutral and innovative company.

Yeah, it still has national treasure status, despite its faults (overpaying certain stars etc.) If it was privatised it would be replaced by a true government-run propaganda national broadcaster at the top of the programme guide...

I know, there’s a lot to answer for historically with Savile et al, which is one reason why some want to keep giving it a kicking or kill it by a thousand cuts. But that has to be unfair on those who are involved in it nowadays.

It's left wing bias is clear to see which is why i stopped watching it. You have stupidly overpaid people within the British Bullshit Corporation and i repeat that i should not need to pay them when i never watch them. It's a total monopoly situation and way out of date. Their news is as bad as CNN for bias.

One example. Instead of saying leaving they keep saying crashing out. Pure bias.

whitburn wrote:One example. Instead of saying leaving they keep saying crashing out. Pure bias.

They’re not the same thing. “Crashing out” means leaving without a deal, leading to food and medicine shortages, riots, massive job losses and who knows what else.

Bracing to see the BBC accused of "left-wing bias" at a time of much news compliance with Brexit.

Even Mogg and his "ERG" cronies don't usually go as far as attacking one of their favourite demagogic whipping boys, the BBC, on grounds of "left-wing" bias. In public, that is.

And when you consider there's little such ultra-libertarian, me-first reprobates would stop at ...

beamer's right on his point about "crashing out" being a specific, different kettle of (very fishy) fish than any general concept such as "leave". Apart from all else, whitburn, you're confusing simplistic media taggery for deliberate political jiggery-pokery.

If you think the BBC is left wing biased, then steer clear of the Guardian... there’s some good stuff on there (sport and TV-related particularly), but in the news and political sections the left-wing sensationalism at times matches the right-wing sensationalism of some of the more notorious UK papers.

I wouldn't equate the two "sides" there, at all. A false equivalence, I think.

Accusations against the Guardian used to be based (apart from typographical inexactitudes - "Grauniad") on a charge of "trendy leftiness".

A bit vague, if specific evidence was not brought, if a convenient broader brush was preferred. Convenient, in that - as ever - a lack of specific evidence tends to serve an easy when not also cheap purpose. By the same token, "Guardian reader", as a slur, a term of abuse. (As if those who read - amongst their other reading - articles in that newspaper should carry an exclusively defining, somehow disqualifying tag.)

But hey, whatever your political perspective, as long as it's openly admitted, and of reasonably good will and faith.


The charge of leftist/leftish sensationalism is a relatively new one.

The newspaper that took on the liar Aitken when no one else dared - with all his threats, influence and money - revealed illegal torture and "rendition", has regularly exposed corporate tax avoidance, attacked mass surveillance (not only by the NSA - see Snowden - winning the Pulitzer Prize in 2014, by the way, but also abuses of surveillance and "Big Brother" activities in the UK, and consistently, the now flourishing use and abuse of "bots" and (not only far-right) fake-news fabrications), has exposed also toxic duping, exposed some notorious phone hacking scandals and championed Leveson when much of the rest of the press has (successfully, in the end) conspired to quash it .... I think all that justifies bearing in mind, for a start.

The sensationalism ...

has been recent. In the Opinion column, especially, the Guardian has featured some rum views, by some rum viewers. Some shocking, you might say. (I would.) That's the OPINION column. Opinion column. A sounding board for opinions. Not exactly editorials.

We are living in a decade where truth is frequently frowned on, or regarded as simplistic.

The problem - not only for the Guardian - is mass news proliferation, and finance.

Clickbait. Every news publication does it. The Guardian is certainly not the worst of it. It's not just a commitment to a broad spectrum of views (see even the disreputable "Will of the People"), a commitment which is still not common in "the press". It's also a need to stir up opinions, emotions, debate even ... and look for responses, "clicks", and even some subscriptions if the publication is lucky.

To repeat: The Guardian to me seems far from the worst of that. I could give examples, from the Mail to the Express (Stokeup Central!) to the (otherwise still valuable) Independent, to the Telegraph and Times, to (of course) The Canary, Breitbart, Skwalkbox, SpikedOnline! and any number of other Alt-Media operations.

I don't agree with all of what the Guardian puts out. See above.

I think the equivalence of the Guardian with far less scrupulous organs, some of which just named, a fallacious one, perhaps either trying to hard to be fair on all sides, or just not looking closely enough.

But there you go.

Peter, as you well know I tend towards the right on the majority of issues, and we've had more than the odd disagreement over the years. That said, I have to agree with your post here.

I read the Guardian, but am as far removed from what many people sneeringly call a "Guardianista" as you can get.

I don't always agree with their stance on some of the big stories - but at least they don't shove the "proper news" below the Strictly line-up, Big Brother housemates, or stories about some Z-list celebrity knobbing another non-entity about whom I don't give a flying fook.

As a general rule, I often find that if I look at the Guardian take on a story, then the Mail take on the same issue and ignore the respective left/right interpretations ... the truth is *usually* somewhere in between them.

In my opinion, of course.

You only had to listen to the BBC interviewer constantly babbling on about ''crashing''out and being ''all at sea'' if we get Brexit to know where their priorities lie. Leaving is what it is not crashing out and as i said elsewhere it's what i voted for. 17.5 million of us did. All dopes who didn't understand according to the BBC, (plus the remoaners and new wave libtards).
The BBC should sink or swim on their own, finance like everyone else does and it's a violation of human rights to charge me for a service i never ever use.
Totally outdated law, rules. Someone calling in to another radio show suggested a £50 licence fee fixed for 10 years and let the BBC modernise round that and get funding from advertising. I might go with that. £50 then inflation only from 2029.

Leaving is not “crashing out”, but “crashing out” is leaving with no workable customs arrangement, no flights, no easy ability to travel abroad, the breakdown of supply chains and the loss of millions of jobs. That’s what the cliff edge option is, and the country may never recover if that happens.

Regarding the BBC, there will always be a state broadcaster, so if it was privatised then it would no doubt be replaced by a propaganda machine. I’d triple the licence fee just to spite those who resent it... they need to spend it on sports rights, events of national interest and quality drama though, not trashy entertainment to compete with ITV.

whitburn wrote:It's left wing bias is clear to see which is why i stopped watching it. You have stupidly overpaid people within the British Bullshit Corporation and i repeat that i should not need to pay them when i never watch them. It's a total monopoly situation and way out of date. Their news is as bad as CNN for bias.

The BBC' s left wing bias is plain for all to see due to their continued employment of Andrew Neil. 

Oh, and the BBC is not a monopoly and hasn't been since 1955.