BBC’s ‘ridiculous’ bias has put licence fee under threat, says Mr Downton
DOWNTON ABBEY creator Julian Fellowes has accused the BBC of putting the TV licence fee at risk by displaying ‘ridiculous’ bias that alienates viewers.
In an apparent attack on the BBC’s political stance and Brexit coverage, the Oscar-winning dramatist told The Mail on Sunday: ‘I think it’s very difficult to justify tax expenditure being used by a corporation that does not show a broad spectrum of beliefs and philosophies.
‘I think if you are going to do it on public money then you do have a responsibility.’
The 70-year-old Tory peer added: ‘When you think the side they are not representing is essentially the majority, then the situation becomes even more ridiculous.’
Fellowes, whose new ITV drama Belgravia begins next Sunday, stopped short of calling for the licence fee to be scrapped, but said Channel 4 – Britain’s other public service operator – should have more freedom because it is funded by advertising revenue.
‘If you have got a channel like Channel 4 , which is s upport e d by advertising, then they can do what they like and if people don’t want to advertise on it, then OK.
‘ But I don’t think you can really take public money and have no obligation to more than half the population at all.’
The comments from Brexit supporter Fellowes come as a row between the Tories and the BBC continues to simmer. Downing Street has limited the number of interviews given by Ministers to the Corporation’s flagship news programmes. The Government is also considering plans to decriminalise non- payment of the licence fee. The BBC has warned that such a move may cost it £200 million a year.
Fellowes’s new six-part drama, starring Tamsin Greig and Philip Glenister, may be set in an affluent London district in the 1840s, but the dramatist has welcomed plans by Boris Johnson to regenerate towns and cities in the North and the Midlands. He said: ‘There was very little expenditure or help coming into these towns where there used to be coal or steel or lace or hats or boots. Now it’s all charity shops and photographs in the windows of hairdressers that have gone a funny colour because of the sun.
‘That was all the high street had to show. Of course, they were fed up, of course they want more help, and of course the Government is right to give it.’ Fellowes, who was given a peerage by David Cameron in 2011, said he had resisted the temptation to include nudity in his depiction of a hedonistic elite in the mid-19th Century.
‘I like the fact that the dramas I write can usually be watched by a whole family together, including the children and the grandparents, and everyone will enjoy them,’ he said.
A spokesman for the BBC said: ‘The licence fee continues to ensure the BBC is an independent, universal broadcaster, committed to serving everyone.’