Time for Auntie to shuffle off

I've not yet had the chance to fisk Polly Toynbee, but this piece in today's Grauniad by Jonathan Freedland deserves a liberal (!) helping of scorn:

BBC support shows we still love Auntie
The Guardian/ICM poll shows the BBC is admired and trusted, although there is work to be done on the licence fee question

Jonathan begins his apologia thus:

The BBC top brass will probably be relieved by the findings of the latest Guardian/ICM poll. True, there'll be disappointment that they couldn't muster a clear majority in favour of the licence fee, even if this poll shows that the licence fee remains the most popular method of funding for the corporation, ranked ahead of both advertising and subscriptions. And there will – and should – be alarm that as many as 58% reject the notion that the BBC is more likely to tell the truth than the likes of ITV or Sky. It's surely central to the BBC's raison d'etre that it will always be more reliable in providing
truthful news than those broadcasters who serve a corporate owner.

Hmmm. I'd also argue that "it's surely central to the BBC's raison d'etre" that they get their licence fee money every year, otherwise they might actually have to compete for funding in a market (how vulgar and frighful). And 58% of responses suggest that they're no better that ITV or (whisper the name of the evil empire quietly!) Sky.

Well, where to start? The rigged gameshows (admittedly, they were not the only offenders), the £200k of licence monies spent to suppress a report that suggested an anti-Israeli bias in their news coverage, the over-indulgence of crude Leftist "comics" (and again here), their "spend" on "talent" (where the BBC thinks we silly little people are too stupid to comment on how they spend our money), etc, etc etc...

Oh, and let's not forget this talentless non-entity:

Jonathan Ross: a voice for silent cinema if ever there was one

But back to other Jonathan now:

Otherwise, the poll confirms what the BBC's advocates have always said is true.
As I argued earlier this week, the BBC remains admired and trusted.

So, basically, it confirms your own prejudices. And you've written an article about it to prove the point.

In an age of deep scepticism, when deference is dead and trust in institutions is eroding fast...

Yeah, largely because baby-boomer liberals like the folks at the Grauniad (and the BBC) are forever attacking institutions they see as conservative (the House of Lords, the monarchy, etc).

...these are strikingly high figures [he mentioned above that 77% regard the
BBC as "a national institution we should be proud of", while 69% declare it
trustworthy]. Those who attack the BBC – whether political parties or rival
media organisations – should ask themselves whether an opinion poll about them
would bring numbers anywhere near as good.

Well, let's have a few more polls then. This one was a Guardian/ICM poll - so it will more than likely produce the answer the Grauniad want it to. How you phrase the questions impacts upon the result you get.

Don't believe me? Watch this (from the BBC's heyday - it's been a while since they showed programmes of this calibre!):

Still, the BBC should rest on the laurels of these results for about as long as it takes to read them. It has some work to do, especially it seems on the licence fee, backed by just 43%.

That many? Blimey!

Here's one suggestion. One reader emailed me this week to say, "I am convinced that there are many people who view their Sky subscription of, say, £45 a month as good value, but their licence fee of £142.50 a year as poor value." I suspect he's right. But what if Sky had to advertise their subscription as an annual sum, the same way the licence fee is always expressed? For plenty of customers, it would come out at £540. Wouldn't sound quite so attractive then, would it?

Don't you get it, you clown? Do you really not get it? Yes, £540 pa is a bigger number than £142.50. But people with Sky CHOOSE to have it. Anyone who watches the TV is FORCED to pay the licence fee, regardless of whether they want to watch the state broadcaster's output or otherwise.

If you only want to watch repeats of Heartbeat on ITV 3 and Countdown on C4, the you still have to pay the telly tax. If you have no use for Sky's film channels and sports coverage, then you don't have to pay for it. There's a choice, see?

Suppose the next Conservative government decided to put out an "unbiased" newspaper every day. Let's call it The Britisher. And they fund it through a 'newspaper licence', so you need to pay for this before you can buy ANY newspaper. So if you want your Indy or Freedland's Grauniad, or the Telegraph, or the Mail, you have to pay for your newspaper licence. But what's to complain about? You get The Britisher every day as well. And it's "unbiased". It doesn't have to make a profit. It's superior to all those other newspapers. I don't think the Lefties would be too happy with that somehow.

He concludes:

But this works two ways. If I were the BBC, I'd never let the £142.50 annual figure pass my lips. It should say the BBC costs each of us £11.88 a month. Not bad for five TV channels, five national radio stations, several more digital ones, a local radio station in every corner of the land, one of the planet's largest newsgathering operations and a world-class website. Now see if Sky can match that.

Well done - you can divide by 12. But again - we have no choice in the matter but to pay our £11.88 per month. The local radio stations he mentions crowd out independent ones, and the website may be "world class", but comes at a price. If it's hard to justify the telly tax to fund the TV channels, it's positively outrageous that we're paying this money to fund a news website, when they are crowding out the market for UK news on the internet.

The BBC is a lynchpin of the liberal elite that run this country, the licence fee an outdated anachronism that belongs in the 1950s along with rationing and the Light Programme. Let's axe them both.

Might even get the traffic up on the Guardian's website. Where else would the Lefties get their news?