Shame on the BBC and its contempt for the over-75s
OVER-75s must continue to receive free TV licences, a select committee of MPs announced this week. The Government and the BBC must work together, it said, to ensure free-to-view services for older people, who increasingly depend on TV for company. The message could hardly have been clearer.
A new rule that only those claiming pension credit will get free licences is “an absurd situation”, the Commons group said.
A government spokesman agreed, saying, “Taxpayers want to see the BBC using its substantial licence fee income in an appropriate way to ensure it delivers for UK audiences.”
The BBC likes to see itself as a public service, yet when it comes to serving 3.7 million older citizens it steps to one side, wanting taxpayers to cough up yet more money to fund their licence fees.
The corporation currently receives more than £3billion a year from licence fee-payers who fork out £154.50 a year for a service many don’t watch nearly as much as they used to.
Much of that money pays the bloated wages and pensions of senior TV executives and overpaid talent like Match Of The Day host Gary Lineker, paid £1.7million a year to banter with his soccer mates.
He has volunteered to take a large pay cut when his contract is renewed. But, to be honest, he could probably do the job for nothing – as his high profile means he can earn large sums elsewhere.
IN A digital, multi-channel age the BBC licence fee is out of date and should be dropped, allowing older people to watch TV for nothing.
For many people living alone, television is their only comfort and the thought of being threatened with a fine and a criminal conviction if they don’t pay is appalling. It’s a betrayal of their contribution to our society.
The BBC must clip its wings, stop spending money chasing a younger audience that’s not interested and stop behaving so high and mighty. Its successful programme making should compete on a level playing field with commercial providers.
The broadcaster’s bureaucracy is top heavy and past scandals have included wasting £100million on a failed IT initiative, and a billion-pound new London headquarters that went £107million over budget. That’s the sort of financial mismanagement you get when you hand taxpayers’ funds to civil servants who are far less protective of other people’s hard-earned cash.
If that’s not bad enough, the BBC loves to lavish money on programmes that are supposedly good for us but few watch.
Recent drama Years And Years portrayed a dystopian future overseen by a populist dictator. That’s what we’ll get for voting Brexit or someone like Trump it preached. Its audience plunged after the first episode and even the show’s creator, liberal screenwriter Russell T Davies had to admit, “Let’s be honest, the viewing figures aren’t that good anyway.”
Any TV company is going to produce a mix of hits and failures but should the BBC really be speculating with taxpayers’ money to push a centre-Left middle-class bias out of step with many viewers?
If the BBC is so sure of its editorial touch it should shift to a subscription service and let the audience decide whether they want to watch its pro-EU, pro-mass migration, proclimate change emergency news content and thinly disguised propaganda.
I’ve always felt being forced to pay for BBC UK news is like being threatened with prison if I don’t buy The Guardian newspaper.
If the BBC wants to remain the nation’s favourite broadcaster it needs to introduce a lot more diversity, not of gender or race, but of political opinion.
The true public interest dimension of the BBC, such as the World Service and educational programming, should be paid for out of direct taxation.
THE BBC is a great British brand respected globally and it should focus more on promoting our country. Its best-loved dramas and nature documentaries are marketed profitably around the world by BBC Studios, which also provides the 24-hour English language BBC World News – a welcome presence in any hotel abroad.
The BBC has a great future if it recognises the reality of 21stcentury broadcasting. It should make the most of its considerable strengths, accept it must generate most of its own income, and get real about what it can and should not do.
It should stop spending our money preaching the values of the liberal elite and try to understand its audience more.
Above all, it should not be hounding over-75s who deserve to sit in front of their televisions without the threat of a TV tax or fine hanging over them.
Shame on the BBC for even considering that.
‘In a digital, multi-channel age, the licence fee is out of date’