There has been a very-much-trailed announcement this morning that the BBC (known fondly on these shores as Auntie Beeb) will be cutting about 1/3 of its website and two radio stations:
Radio6Music and
BBC AsianNetwork.
Now these are two radio stations to which I never listen. 6 Music is quite popular with the musicerati, I gather; Jarvis Cocker is one of the presenters of 6 Music and he said during an interview on The World at One that all his friends listen to 6 Music. There is currently an interview with the Director General, Mark Thompson, in which he is trying to defend his choices of services to cut.
Now I listen to Radio 4 (news and talk) every day I'm within earshot of it. I rarely listen to any other British radio station and even more rarely watch TV, BBC or not BBC. I think Radio 4 is great and I'd be happy to support it by a subscription. However, much of the TV output of the BBC is crap, spread over 4 TV stations. Their salaries, for executives as well as presenters, are bloated. Graham Norton, an entertainer who (in my opinion) is past his best work and just recycling the old stuff, is paid around £2 million (around US$2.9 million). Jonathan Ross (@wossy on Twitter, taken from his slight speech impediment) was paid around £6 million (close to US$9 million) to call Andrew Sachs (along with Russell Brand) and tell him that Russell had fucked his granddaughter. You may recall Andrew Sachs: he was the Spanish waiter Manuel in
Fawlty Towers. He is now an elderly pensioner, and news of that sort isn't exactly what he is longing to hear. Wossy was suspended from the BBC and Russell Brand was terminated. Wossy is now back, but has announced that he is leaving to pursue other activities. The fact that the BBC is reducing what it pays its talent had nothing to do with Wossy's decision, oh no!
And, of course, we can't forget the renovation and enlargement of Broadcasting House, in the heart of London. It's quite a bit over budget, I'm told. It has to be ready for the exodus of the World Service from Bush House on the Strand.
Do remember (if you are not British or not an Anglophile) that each household with a TV in the United Kingdom pays a license fee to watch that TV, currently around £125 a year (US$185 or so). All this money goes to fund the BBC. It is what is called a
hypothecated tax, and evading it is a criminal offense. Even if you never watch BBC TV or listen to BBC Radio, you must pay for it.
The BBC, in its own news broadcasts, is pointing at all the protests against these cuts and implying that the whole country is behind the BBC and doesn't want this kind of cut. Bushwah! I believe they're trying to build a groundswell of protest that will force the BBC executives ("force" being a relative word here) to re-evaluate what to cut.
Start with your own salaries, guys and gals. Then cut BBC3 and BBC4 TV, which would save £150 million a year and inconvenience about 5 people nationwide. At the end of the process, we should have BBC1 BBC2, Radio 4, Radios 1, 2 and 3 (if you must; I find them either too boring or too young), and the World Service and the website, especially the news pages. That would cut my license fee to about £50 a year (I may be exaggerating). And if you need any more encouragement, remember this: the largest proportion of women in prison at any one time are there because they have evaded the license fee.
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