Country Bumpkins Newsflash

One thing that we’ve been missing in our lives is the experience of being condescended-to by supercilious Germans:

The BBC is not a state broadcaster. It is neither state owned (it's the British Broadcasting _Corporation_), nor state controlled, much to the annoyance of most, if not all, British governments. And the British government doesn't fund the BBC. So why would you want to abolish it? https://t.co/75edbciAw5

— Ayden Férdeline (@ferdeline) August 22, 2018

He's assuming that we're thick ignoramuses who don't understand or are not aware of the relevant concepts and lingo.  He is wrong on that count and in his understanding of how the BBC works in reality.  The belief that the BBC is not a state broadcaster but in fact a 'public service broadcaster' is a weasel formulation and does not reflect what really goes on.

We repeat here some brief facts we have previously posted about the BBC, its origins and history, and the way it operates today:

(i). The BBC (as the then-British Broadcasting Company) was established in the early 1920s as popular radio broadcasting technology began to emerge.  The first BBC was a conglomerate of various interests in the radio and communications industry - so originally, the BBC (or its immediate precursor) was a private enterprise. However the government intervened early on and started meddling in the running of things to allow for ‘remote state control’ of broadcasting (a phrase used at the time).

(ii). The BBC was soon turned into a statutory Corporation by Act of Parliament, and re-named the British Broadcasting Corporation - operating under Royal Charter, and run by government appointees. 

(iii). State editorial control of the BBC has happened recurrently.  The obvious example is during the Second World War.  The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1948 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was based on the BBC.  A more recent example is the BBC’s policy on coverage of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The BBC’s senior management wanted to adopt a critical editorial line, and the BBC’s defenders often use this affair as an example of the BBC’s independence – often mentioning the Gilligan Affair - but this was soon put a stop to and in the event, the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq War was bland and conformist.  The truth is that the BBC folded like wet cardboard.

(iv). The BBC has failed to cover other wars in a critical way on numerous occasions.  Another example would be Britain’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, in which the BBC’s coverage was mostly bland and supine.  These examples illustrate the dangers of having a broadcaster under state influence and control.

(v). Today, the senior managerial and executive tiers of the BBC are thoroughly politicised, much like the Senior Civil Service.  The BBC is formally accountable to government ministers for its operations and ministers decide the terms and parameters for the operation of the BBC.  The government awards parts of the BBC grant-aid out of general taxation and even settles the TV licence fee each year.  This political control will inevitably have a broad influence on the BBC's editorial direction, its institutional culture and values, and its editorial narratives concerning key issues and controversies.

(vi). Five members of the BBC Board - its governing body - are appointed by the state, including the chairman and one non-executive member for each of the Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).  Members of that Board are analogous to shareholders in a limited company, thus state appointees strategically direct the BBC.  It is the case that a majority of the Board are appointed by the BBC itself through its nominations committee, but it would be naive to assume that there is no government influence in these appointments.

(vii). Furthermore, all senior management appointments at the BBC must be approved by government ministers.

(viii). It can be added that the TV licence fee is officially regarded as a tax, and payment is ultimately enforced by the state with the assistance of the police (albeit the police only assist passively), the courts and prisons.

Then there's this information, from a former BBC journalist [click on the image to read it]:

It's clear that the BBC is a state broadcaster and is under a degree of state control.  The German is the ignorant one.  He should stick to commenting on his own country.

The Problem of Apathy

A YouTuber called ChilliJonCarni argues in the below video that the TV licence will never be scrapped.

Our comments on the video:

1. First, while we completely oppose the TV licence and agree that non-payment is the right tactic, we believe political campaigning should be focused on the BBC itself.  We argue for abolition rather than reform.  It is our view that reform, including ending the TV licence, will only make matters worse.

2. Petitioning is not an automatic law-making process.  You don't collect 125,000 or however many signatures and then simply secure the desired change in the law.  Parliament is sovereign and can do what it likes.  Petitions are just a method of campaigning and Parliament is free to accept or reject the case made in a petition.  We explain more about petitions here.

3. The issue with the BBC as a state broadcaster isn't that it can take over the airwaves and dictate editorial content in times of national emergency.  In fact, even in an entirely private sector broadcasting environment, we would expect there to be provisos in place that reserve state control of the various media outlets for the purposes of emergency broadcasting, as part of the usual civil contingencies.  The real issue with state broadcasting is the influence that it has on society under normal, everyday circumstances.  State broadcasting is offensive in concept and indubitably leads to political influence on the broadcaster and its content.  That is the problem, not the extreme, fictitious scenario referred to in the above video.

4. The issue with bias - to the extent that exists - is not that the government-of-the-day is dictating to the BBC what it should broadcast.  Nobody with a proper understanding of the matter would suggest that the government does that in most ordinary circumstances.  While we do call the BBC a state broadcaster, we acknowledge that there is editorial and operational autonomy.  What we do say, however, is that the BBC is a state broadcaster because the government can and does set the tone and institutional culture of the BBC, influences key appointments and uses its own appointees to determine the BBC's strategic direction.  Furthermore, in extraordinary and unusual circumstances, it is open to the government to intervene more closely in the BBC's editorial policies - usually this happens in times of war (most recently, that we know of, it happened during the Iraq War of 2003).

5. It is perfectly true that the BBC, as a massive bureaucracy and state media conglomerate, is a source of lucrative employment for the political elite and the broader Left, and we make that point ourselves as part of our case for abolition.  But again, the issue there isn't specifically that the relevant people are paid a lot - they could be paid a lot elsewhere, the Left have bases in the private sector too - it is more fundamentally that the BBC is a base of support and secure employment, contracts and prestigious titular roles for the Left, and acts as a pivot for the Left's cultural war against the rest of the country.  The line of 'Look at how much they pay Gary Lineker or some ex-government minister' is a good populist talking point, but at the same time, we can't really begrudge the BBC for paying people their market worth. (Note: How 'market worth' is defined and determined is quite another matter - some of it may well be pay-offs and bribes, and some of it certainly is subtle influence-buying).

6. This man, ChilliJonCarni, has sadly slipped into being negative and defeatist.  We hope we are not being too harsh in saying so, and we hope he recovers his enthusiasm, but he is basically telling anti-TV licence campaigners (and us, by extension) to give up any active campaigning and instead just rely on not paying.  We disagree.  If anything, we think the time is ripe to step up the campaign of non-payment and resistance.  Our only point is that the political direction should be explicitly towards abolition and a campaign with that goal is needed, with a street movement, petitions, posters, events, legal activism and policy work.  The aim will be to persuade a major political party to adopt abolition of the BBC as policy, and thereby head-off the BBC and influence the strategic direction of the debate once it becomes clear that the TV licence system is no longer sustainable.

7. It is true that the political and parliamentary system is rigged and there are very strong vested interests among the political class in keeping the TV licence system and the BBC itself.  The outrageous 2017 parliamentary debate - mentioned in the video and also mentioned several times on this blog - demonstrates this, but that is not a reason to give up.

There will have been a time during the mid-19th. century when anti-slavery campaigners in the United States were convinced that they would never succeed.  They will have been told that slavery is natural and that there are too many vested interests in the American South against abolition and so emancipation will never happen, but it did and the slaves were legally freed.  Likewise, campaigners for women's suffrage at the turn-of-the-century will have been told that female participation in public affairs is unnatural and wrong and that there are too many vested interests ranged against it, but they didn't give up, they carried on - and eventually won.

We were once told that Britain's withdrawal from the European Union would never happen, that too many people favour the EU, that business is vested in our membership and that anybody who proposes withdrawal is a fruitcake.  Yet here we are in a national conversation about how to withdraw from the European Union - not whether to, but how to.

We must fight on.  One day we will win.

Weasel Words of the BBC's defenders

The Left have gone through seventy-three years (and counting) of selective pressures that have brought them to the top of Britain's Establishment.  That means they are clever.  Many of them have high verbal intelligence especially.

Among the weasel formulations they use to give the BBC sentimental and emotional pull with the public are the following, all of which have been put to us:

"The BBC is the national broadcaster"

The BBC is a state broadcaster.  The difference is crucial.  The BBC is not this fluffy, harmless broadcasting organisation loved by the nation.  The BBC is owned by the state.  Furthermore, many of its directing Board are government appointees, its senior management appointments are approved by government ministers, the government sets its terms and the government settles the TV licence fee and awards it grant aid out of general taxation.  It is conceded that the BBC operates largely autonomously and has editorial independence, but political control of the BBC is undeniable and ineluctably leads to the government setting the political tone at the BBC and influencing its institutional culture and values.  Furthermore, there is a long and disreputable record of editorial interference and meddling from governments at key moments in history.

The BBC is a state body that is imposed on us and those who resist are bullied.  The funding of the BBC is ultimately enforced by the state - with the threat of court summonses and prison as the final sanctions.  No other broadcaster imposes itself on the public in this way.  If we decide we don't like Sky, we simply don't watch it, settle up our bill and we need have nothing further to do with that broadcaster.  If we decide we don't like the BBC, we must still fund it anyway, or ultimately face imprisonment.  That is outrageous.

"The BBC has nothing to do with the state.  It's a public service broadcaster"

This is the weasel formulation used by the BBC themselves.  Notice the fluffy, nice-sounding phrase, 'public service broadcaster'.  It's intended to trick you into not examining the true reality of the BBC, which we have already outlined.  These dishonest people want you to think that the state's ownership and control of the BBC are only notional, when the reality is a little bit more complex.  It is also intended to deter you from thinking any further about the matter.  For instance, you may wish to consider exactly what this phrase 'public service broadcasting' really means.

As we have explained elsewhere, if public service broadcasting means being impartial, balanced, diverse and upholding the highest production standards, etc., we have seen nothing to tell us that only the BBC can do those things, if it can do them at all, or that any decent commercial broadcaster cannot uphold such values to the extent that they are practicable.  In short, public service broadcasting is not the exclusive province of the public sector and the BBC is hardly doing a good job in what is supposedly its own specialist field.

The truth is that the BBC is flawed.  We think it should be abolished.

State Broadcaster or Public Sector Broadcaster?

Our critics and opponents – the defenders and stooges of the BBC – have various tricks up their sleeves.  One of them is pedantic word-play in which they draw us into arguments over distinctions which, while of some importance in certain contexts, are of little relevance in the overall scheme of things.  One such distinction is between state media and public sector media.

The BBC’s defenders argue that since the BBC is operationally autonomous (a bit like an English local council or, let’s say, the Bank of England) and not under the direct editorial control of any arm of the state, this means it is not a ‘state broadcaster’, but a public sector broadcaster – or, to use the BBC’s own self-flattering jargon, a ‘public service broadcaster’. 

The reason this point is so important to the BBC and its defenders is because it allows them to claim that the BBC somehow serves the public interest and so abolishing it would leave us without an important public institution and amenity.  A subsidiary reason it matters to them is that it allows them to set up ‘Gotcha!’ moments in debates over the BBC.  Most normal, plain-speaking people are not very well informed about these little distinctions and differences, which means that the BBC and its stooges can easily make critics look ignorant.  It’s still just word-play and settles nothing in terms of the actual questions facing the BBC, but the perception is that the critic doesn’t know the subject and this helps the BBC avoid justified criticism.

The way to combat word-play like this is to look at the reality of the situation. 

We must be clear that the distinction between state broadcasting and public sector broadcasting isn’t terribly important from our point-of-view – we oppose both in Britain and we just call the BBC a state broadcaster, because that is what it is in plain-speaking terms.  But it is a distinction that the BBC’s apologists and defenders like to emphasise, so let’s look into this a bit more closely and see if there’s any substance to it.

Some facts about the BBC’s origins and history and how it operates today:

(i). The BBC (as the then-British Broadcasting Company) was established in the early 1920s as popular radio broadcasting technology began to emerge.  The first BBC was a conglomerate of various interests in the radio and communications industry - so originally, the BBC (or its immediate precursor) was a private enterprise. However the government intervened early on and started meddling in the running of things to allow for ‘remote state control’ of broadcasting (a phrase used at the time).

(ii). The BBC was soon turned into a statutory Corporation by Act of Parliament, and re-named the British Broadcasting Corporation - operating under Royal Charter, and run by government appointees. 

(iii). State editorial control of the BBC has happened recurrently.  The obvious example is during the Second World War.  The Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s 1948 novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, was based on the BBC.  A more recent example is the BBC’s policy on coverage of the Invasion of Iraq in 2003.  The BBC’s senior management wanted to adopt a critical editorial line, and the BBC’s defenders often use this affair as an example of the BBC’s independence – often mentioning the Gilligan Affair - but this was soon put a stop to and in the event, the BBC’s coverage of the Iraq War was bland and conformist.  The truth is that the BBC folded like wet cardboard.

(iv). The BBC has failed to cover other wars in a critical way on numerous occasions.  Another example would be Britain’s military intervention in Libya in 2011, in which the BBC’s coverage was mostly bland and supine.  These examples illustrate the dangers of having a broadcaster under state influence and control.

(v). Today, the senior managerial and executive tiers of the BBC are thoroughly politicised, much like the Senior Civil Service.  The BBC is formally accountable to government ministers for its operations and ministers decide the terms and parameters for the operation of the BBC.  The government awards parts of the BBC grant-aid out of general taxation and even settles the TV licence fee each year.  This political control will inevitably have a broad influence on the BBC's editorial direction, its institutional culture and values, and its editorial narratives concerning key issues and controversies.

(vi). Five members of the BBC Board - its governing body - are appointed by the state, including the chairman and one non-executive member for each of the Nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland).  Members of that Board are analogous to shareholders in a limited company, thus state appointees strategically direct the BBC.  It is the case that a majority of the Board are appointed by the BBC itself through its nominations committee, but it would be naive to assume that there is no government influence in these appointments.

(vii). Furthermore, all senior management appointments at the BBC must be approved by government ministers.

(viii). It can be added that the TV licence fee is officially regarded as a tax, and payment is ultimately enforced by the state with the assistance of the police (albeit the police only assist passively), the courts and prisons.

Taking all of the above points together, our position is that the BBC is state-owned and, in its essentials, a state broadcaster.  We’re cutting out the flowery rationalisations and distinctions that are there to trick you and take you round in circles and we’re saying that ultimately it is the state that runs the show.

We furthermore reject assertions that the BBC is either impartial or independent, whether of the government itself or of the wider Establishment.  It is manifestly neither.  While we do not suggest that any arm of the state exercises detailed editorial or other operational control over the BBC, we do assert that public service broadcasting, as defined by the BBC, is largely a fig-leaf concept in Britain and in reality is pretty much non-existent.