Many of you lovely readers sent me New Year wishes and said 'You will still rant won't you?'. Well, yes of course I will and here is the first one of 2019. And it is the BBC - again.
For years I have been a fervent supporter of the Beeb. The programmes they produced, the wonderful literary dramatisations, superb David Attenborough presentations, the Proms, Wimbledon etc etc. But no more. They have become a bloated, biased behemoth with an arrogance and a sense of entitlement that never fails to amaze me,
The latest Take my Breath away moment came when I read this week's edition of the Radio Times. I have taken this for years and continue to do so as it not only gives you all the programmes set out clearly and concisely, both TV and radio, but there are excellent articles from reviewers and writers and I always look forward to its arrival. I used to sit down with a biro and go through marking up all the programmes I wanted to watch/listen to and each page was well marked. A tad anal I agree but I wanted to make sure I did not miss anything.
This week there is an article by Raymond Snoddy who is described as a 'journalist and media writer' in which he posits that the free TV licence for the over -75s should be scrapped. This was introduced by Gordon Brown's government in 2000. Cameron then tried to get the BBC to take over the immediate responsibility for this in 2015. The Government backed down after a huge row but only until 2020 when the current administration says it 'wants and expects the BBC to continue this important concession"
This is not going down well with Auntie. They say the bill will cost them £745million and they cannot afford it. They say they would have to close services that the public value.
Well I am sorry and apologise for my language. These figures may well be true, I do not know, but my immediate reaction was Bollocks. The BBC is funded by US, yes US people, the plebs who are ignored by the BBC and treated as if we were morons. It is a payment through the licence fee that we cannot avoid. It is, in effect, a tax, a levy and you have no choice in the matter. If you do not pay your licence fee you are likely to have a visit from men carrying violin cases and dressed in black on your door step.
The BBC do not have to worry about funding, advertisers or ratings. They just sit back and the money rolls in and now they are complaining about having to fund the free licence fee for their mature viewers who, over the years, have probably paid them millions. Yes, I agree there are rich pensioners around who do not need this bonus, just as there are those who do not need the Heating Allowance each winter that is paid out by the Government, but for many the licence fee is a tax they cannot afford and which can never be avoided. When I reached the age of 60 I stopped paying National Insurance and my pay packet (I continued working for a few years) increased in a delightful way. But this tax never ends.
I have written to the BBC on a few occasions when I have been really annoyed about something. You cannot do it on a regular basis else you will be filed under Persistant Pains in the Arse and your letters will be ignored. I wrote what I thought was a cogent reasoned letter to Tony Hall, the Director General of the BBC, about the over voices and continuity announcers that bounce in at the end of every programme before you have even had time to catch your breath, no matter how poignant the subject matter might have been. On BBC4 double episodes of a Scandi or European serial are shown and at the end of the first one somebody will carol cheerfully DON'T GO AWAY the second episode is coming up. Well, I bloody know that thank you very much and I am watching it so I AM NOT GOING AWAY YOU STUPID PERSON (I do not say stupid person but worse but leave that to your imaginaiton).
So as Tony hall was a former head of the Royal Opera House I wrote a letter regarding this and, in order to appeal to his operatic sensibilities, suggested that he might find it annoying if, at the end of Aida when the lovers are being entombed and Amneris is singing and it all ends quietly and the curtain falls, a voice suddenly boomed out DON'T FORGET NEXT WEEK IT IS LA TRAVIATA.
Back came a reply from a minion. He never saw the letter and the response received stated that 'my complaint was not considered of sufficient interest to take further'. Yep. True. Not making it up.
Now I don't bother.
But here is the rub. I get the Radio Times and go through it and you know what I watch each week on the BBC. One hour, Yes one hour. That is on a Monday evening when I watch Only Connect and University Challenge. When the Proms start I will watch the ones they deign to broadcast. I simply cannot understand why more of these concerts are now shown. They are a BBC institution after all. But we cannot have too much Posh stuff on the TV. Those plebs don not watch rubbish like that and the ratings would go down.
So what do I watch? Sky mostly and now Eurosport. I love tennis. Wimbledon is the only tennis the BBC show with the odd bits and pieces throughout the year. They say it is one of their Crown Jewels and they will never let it go to a commercial channel. They said that about cricket as well which vanished off Free to Air just after we had won the Ashes in a stunning series which had the nation riveted and since then cricket has rapidly declined in popularity. I pay a sub every month to Sky for their basic package, movies and sports and extra for Eurosport. Yes it is expensive but the point here is that I choose to do so. If I don't want to pay it, I don't and I give up access to what I want to watch.
I could go on and on about bias in reporting, the profligate spending of the management, the high salaries to people I think are overpaid (though I admit this is a personal viewpoint. If you like Gary Linekar well fine, I forgive you). The move up to Salford some years back was eye wateringly expensive and now the latest - read below
A BBC project to rebuild the set of EastEnders is expected to cost £27 million more than planned, sparking concerns over licence fee payers' value for money.
Reconstruction of the soap’s set is part of wider improvement works at BBC Elstree which are set to cost the public broadcaster £86 million in total.
The completion date is now two and a half years late.
I am not saying another word....
