Our Mission and Objective

We are the Campaign To Abolish The BBC.  

Our objective:

WE DEMAND THE ABOLITION OF THE BBC.

Most anti-BBC campaigners concentrate on the TV licence.  While we completely understand this approach and we agree that the TV licence system is outrageous, we believe that reforming the BBC's funding will ultimately not be enough. The BBC itself must be abolished.

Why Should The BBC Be Abolished?

The reasons are both political and operational. The BBC is a malignancy in our national life. It is a hotbed of Leftism, and anti-patriotic thought and sentiment, and is openly subversive.  Quite apart from this, there is no longer any need for a state-owned 'public service broadcaster' in Britain (even on a commercial basis).  We now live in the digital age, where there is choice and innovation and even ordinary people can set up their own digital channels on the web and attract thousands of viewers and subscribers. The BBC will reply that, in a pluralistic Information Society where there is a multiplicity of different media, it should remain as a guardian of impartiality, but the BBC is hopelessly biased. The guardian should be the free market that already exists and that can thrive without the BBC monolith.  Parliament should revoke the Charter, dissolve the Corporation, then sell-off its assets to the private sector. Its staff should be expected to seek employment in the commercial world.

Why Anti-TV Licence Campaigns Are Strategically-Flawed

To be clear, we are not suggesting people should continue to pay the TV licence.  Quite the opposite: we endorse civil resistance and we openly support and agree with anybody who refuses to pay it.  Anti-TV licence campaigners, whether avoiders or evaders, have our sympathy and support.  They are persuing an effective tactic that could, if it gains ground, put considerable financial pressure on the BBC.

Our point, however, is that there is a need for an overarching strategy.  We think that without this, campaigns to end the TV licence alone, while perfectly understandable and satisfying in their own way, may ultimately prove to be counter-productive - and may even strengthen the BBC's position in the end.  Those who rest on proposals to end the TV licence system tend to think that commercialising the BBC through advertising or subscription viewing, or a combination of these, will either reform its internal culture or, if not that, then will at least mean that the general public are not forced to fund its output.  They tend to assume that the BBC can, in effect, become another Channel Four: a commercially-operated, nominally-public broadcasting body.  

With due respect, our view is that this is the wrong approach in strategic terms for the following reasons:

1. The BBC needs to be looked upon as an enemy bureaucracy.  It is a base of employment, cultural struggle and moral and financial support, etc., for the Left in Britain, and perhaps always has been.  For that reason alone, it is important that the BBC as an organisation in and of itself is attacked, brought down and destroyed for good, not just reformed.

2. Strategically focusing on the TV licence system is the wrong approach because simply demanding that the BBC reform itself financially puts the initiative with the political and media elites, who can then come up with a new funding model that satisfies those who object to the TV licence system.  The result will most likely be a continuation of the BBC in its present form, possibly even funded out of general taxation.  If that happens, it will be a complete humiliation and defeat for anti-TV licence campaigners as we will all be in a worse position than before; but even if an entirely commercial funding model is found and agreed, the BBC's future will then be assured and all the problems it causes will continue.

3. The example of Channel Four proves that the model of notional public ownership combined with commercial operation will not work. Channel Four is a left-liberal backwater, its output mostly fringe, but it still has some effect on the national culture.  Likewise, the BBC's dangerous tendencies will only continue, even if commercialised.  It is also worth noting that the BBC is already part-commercialised, but that seems to have had no effect on its poisonous culture and ethos.  If the BBC is fully-commercialised and marketised, it will retain its place at the centre of British civic life and as part of the Establishment, and will continue to damage the country and public debate.

4. The vision of a 'commercial BBC' is inherently paradoxical.  A broad-spectrum public service broadcaster cannot also be a commercial broadcaster, as advertising and viewership pressures will ultimately take priority in broadcasting decisions, to the detriment of its putative public mission.  Channel Four only succeeds because it is allowed to cater to a niche audience.  No doubt a Commercial BBC would re-structure and adjust itself to audience capture, which would then raise questions about how it will also fulfill its manifest public mission.  You may ask: Why should this be a problem?  Whatever else they may be, the BBC Board and its executives are politically-adept and will find ways to reconcile the conflicted mission of a 'commercialised' public service broadcaster.  Consequently, a Commercial BBC will potentially be even more powerful and abusive than it is today.  The BBC Board and executives will be able to defend their funding model as entirely commercial, and therefore unassailable, while also using their public status to subvert British life still further. Not that we're suggesting the BBC fulfills its public mission as it is, and it must also be acknowledged that the BBC has pandered to viewer whims for a very long time (the Points of View programme was/is an example of this), but that only reinforces our point that a Commercial BBC posing as a public service broadcaster - with all the dignity and credibility this implies - would be harmful to British public life.