"No-One Forces You To Watch It"

Arguments used in defence of the BBC often seem quite cogent and reassuring at first, but on closer scrutiny, many of these arguments are revealed to be ridiculous and do not stand up to scrutiny.

One of our favourites is the one where we’re told that no-one is forced to watch the BBC, people can just switch-over to another channel or not watch TV at all, and on this basis the BBC’s continued existence should be tolerable to us. 

The obvious flaws in the argument are that:

(i). anybody who wants to watch TV at all must have a TV licence and therefore must fund the BBC, whether they want to watch it or not; and,

(ii). the BBC is also part-funded out of general taxation, and also indirectly subsidised by the taxpayer in a number of ways, meaning we all fund the BBC anyway, including those of us who don’t even own a TV or watch the stupid rubbish (which is most of us in this campaign group, by the way).

But those flaws don’t get to the root of it.  What the BBC defenders will say in response is that even though we must all fund the BBC, we still don’t have to watch it, so in that sense nobody is forcing the BBC on us.  So does the argument hold water?

Actually, this argument isn’t even true in any practical sense.  The BBC is not just a few TV and radio channels that you can switch off and ignore, it is a massive state-owned and state-controlled multi-media conglomerate with interests in TV, radio, journalism, publishing, the arts and creative industries, teaching and learning.  The BBC plays a key role in news gathering across the country, locally, regionally and nationally, and often internationally – to the extent that the BBC could be regarded as a major news agency in its own right - and chances are that any story you may read or hear about has the BBC’s fingerprints on it somewhere.  The BBC is also part of the governing elite of the country – the Establishment – and is regularly the subject of news reports itself.  As well as being highly influential on its own account, the BBC has close connections with the influential and powerful right up to the Prime Minister.  The BBC furthermore has a strong relationship with the security and intelligence services, and a number of its journalists have formerly served in MI5 or MI6.  We could go on and on with the points, but that will do for now.

Against all this, protests such as ‘No-one forces you to watch it” seem laughable.  Yes, no-one forces anybody to literally sit in front of a TV or radio and watch or listen to the BBC, but we are all influenced by the Corporation’s output whether we like it or not.