News rivals will force BBC to raise standards
Your report last week about how there are serious plans afoot to launch rival TV news channels to the BBC will hopefully concentrate the minds of senior management there to return it to the standards of its original mission statement – to provide impartial reporting.
And, maybe this time next year, we will not again have a threat that Rule Britannia and Land Of Hope And Glory will not be sung at Last Night Of The Proms – if a new TV channel has not put the BBC out of business by then.
Mike Barrow, Bristol
What great headlines to wake up to last week – that we’re getting two new news channels to break the monopoly of the unrelenting, liberal-Left, anti-British, anti-Brexit, anti-Government, anti-Trump rhetoric of the BBC, ITV, and channels 4, 5 and Sky.
Roy Daniels, Luton, Bedfordshire
The BBC is the most respected British institution in the world. Whatever its faults, anything that reduces its capability is to our nation’s disadvantage at home and overseas. Last week’s story shows there are those who will put their personal and financial interests ahead of the national interest. Sir Bob Russell, former MP for Colchester
To me, the BBC’s biggest failing of late hasn’t been over the singing of patriotic songs at the Proms, but that it has constantly spread panic about the impact of Covid-19. Giving the daily number of new infections keeps people unnecessarily worried about the dangers at a time when deaths and hospital admissions are a mere fraction of their peak levels.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby
I’m not against paying for a TV licence, provided BBC news reporting and programmes are balanced. Yet Auntie belittles Brexiteers, refuses to question climate change, portrays thousands of Channel-crossing economic migrants as martyrs or heroes, and is afraid to televise people singing Rule Britannia in case it upsets minorities. Once the most respected broadcaster in the world, the Beeb is now more Leftwing than Karl Marx. It positively discriminates against white applicants and takes every opportunity to rubbish the British Empire. It’s time the sneering, patronising Bubble Broadcasting Corporation was forced to survive in the real world – rely on advertising or pay-on-demand.
Alan Aitchison, Wakefield
To be fair, the BBC produces some great drama and nature shows, but in reality Auntie is a worldwide propaganda machine and its content is supported by our political classes, which is why it’s mandatory to subscribe to the BBC, like it or not. Gerald Gannaway, Bristol
More TV news channels? Oh, no! I will stick with the radio. Philip Brannon, London