Oh come on Mark Thompson have an honest lady of the BBC Rod Liddle
Rod Liddle & , : {}
If Mark Thompson, the director-general of the BBC, is at a loss to know what the BBC should mount for, he ought to take a see at a video of his coming on Newsnight last week:
it was all there, all thats great about the corporation, precipitated in to 6 minutes.
There was severe and innovative drama, as a shaken whiskered man was eviscerated by one of his high-born employees, the sort of prolongation you competence have got if Terence Rattigan had ever collaborated with Quentin Tarantino. There was classical humerous celebration as Jeremy Paxman review out to his interviewee the evenings report for the fabulously purposeless BBC4, that consisted of 4 repeats of a documentary about a illusory kangaroo.
The humerous celebration sloping in to surreal, early Monty Python domain at times, and one half approaching Paxo to gaunt brazen and pound Thompson about the head, saying: For Gods effect stop snivelling, you stupid small man! And there was that thing the BBC likes to think it does most appropriate headlines as the DG announced, sort of, the axing of 6 Music, unless they dont mattock it, that is fine, you know, we have to attend to what people contend etc etc. Terrific celebration all that was missing, really, was a point. And thats Mark Thompsons problem.
It seems to be determined in the open mind that the arch error of Thompsons proclamation that the BBC would be ludicrous income in to peculiarity and squeezing the subtract a little, was cheese-paring and tactical. A incorporate to the critics who disagree that Auntie has grown as well big, and to the likes of opposition outfits, such as this one, that be insulted the enormous, free online presence. But the bigger design was missed, that is that Thompson still hasnt grasped the prerequisite that the house has focused for as well prolonged on ratings at the responsibility of open use broadcasting. It is usually the latter that will save the BBC.
Have you listened Radio 1 recently? Have you had the tip of your head sawn off and polystyrene foam pumped in to the cavity? An unconstrained fugue of determined mid-market prosaic cocktail song interspersed with horribly proud or dumb frivolous chatter. But thats not the point either;
the point is that this foolish combustion is the tack of about 500 alternative air wave channels opposite the nation, inhabitant and local. Almost all else you listen to on the air wave is Radio 1 underneath an additional name, since 6 Music is roughly the clarification of open use broadcasting:
a channel that encourages creation in an area of significance both culturally and commercially, and that would not be promote elsewhere if the BBC didnt do it.
So what does Thompson do? Axes 6, and keeps 1. Because, of course, 6 gets a small assembly and 1 gets a large-ish audience. No argument.
The BBC management team would contend that it would be same to slicing their own throats to get absolved of the renouned things that they do well. But they are being strangled anyway, solemnly and painfully. Because the idea that the BBC contingency do ultra-populist things so that it reaches the total republic no longer plays; the marketplace has changed. Just see at Radio 1 Tony Blackburn and the similar to were removing audiences of some-more than 20m in the late 1970s; the tip Radio 1 show currently gets usually 8m or so and hold me, Chris Moyles is no some-more nonsensical than was Blackburn.
Will the DG still be observant we have to reach out to the republic when the Radio 1 assembly is down to 5m, maybe in five years time? Simply since the BBC does something well Strictly Come Dancing, Radio 5 Live, Radio 1 doesnt meant it should be you do it. If we are to go on profitable this community taxation of 142.50 per year, we need to feel that it is required to do so, not simply on the margins of desirability.
Sir Richard Eyre, a former BBC Trust member, got it right when he pronounced that the BBC had for as well prolonged been handling as a blurb organisation. If it thinks that it is a blurb organisation, afterwards it should take the chances with alternative blurb organisations, but a looseness fee.
+ Some German politicians, with that informed Teutonic common sense that we all admire so much, have demanded that Greece sell off a small of the islands in sequence to wand off failure and use the debt. There is, of course, seizure around the Acropolis as a consequence. Still, at slightest the usually a idea from the Germans this time around in 1941 they took a rather some-more supreme proceed and assigned Lesbos, Limnos and Crete, murdered any one who resisted and bankrupted the country.
This competence give the Greeks a decent get-out clause: the Germans, with that informed Teutonic common sense etc, additionally done the Greeks compensate for this function and on tip of that stung them for a fight loan that was, of course, never repaid. I dont know how most that amounted to I indicate yes or no amateurish is using the Greek Treasury has a rummage by a small old writings but with seductiveness it contingency by right away be a neat sum.
So, heres the deal: the Germans compensate that volume behind to Greece, and Greece pays off the debts. Yes, Hansi, ve are all frendz now; but a small tools of Europe have prolonged memories: 300,000 Greeks died of starvation in the war. I goal they remind Mrs Merkel of this.
Carol, reduction any credibility
The former Countdown chick and Tory celeb Carol Vorderman longed for a pretence on BBC1s Question Time last week. Asked about supervision spending cuts, she unsuccessful to indicate that the nation could clear away itself from debt by receiving out a cumulative combined loan with the Firstplus group, for whom she did a array of remunerative adverts.
Some do-gooders have complained that such combined loans harm bad people. But Carol should certainly have the bravery of her convictions, no? On alternative issues, Carol wearing eyeglasses to have her see egghead gave opening to a tide of liquefied Daily Mail personality columns. Horrible.
Forget Islamists: the hazard is blond
At last, the Dutch statesman Geert Wilders has been authorised in to Britain to show his frightful movie about how Muslims are waiting, similar to berobed Daleks, to take over the world. Wilderss movie is probably some-more fun than The Hurt Locker and should do great business. There is additionally the possibility that the Dutch competence be amply spaced out on pot to elect him budding apportion utterly soon; his Freedom Whether You Want It Or Not celebration has done estimable gains recently.
If elected, Wilders has pronounced he will order an legislative addition guaranteeing leisure of speech. This eminent view sits a small awkwardly with his alternative settled intention, that is to anathema the Koran. Maybe he should have combined a premonition along the lines of unless theyre darkies, or something.
But only think, if David Cameron loses the subsequent choosing here, we competence have Boris Johnson heading the Tories. And Wilders in assign of Holland. Is it unequivocally Muslims watchful to take over the world, or oddball blond rightwingers?
+ Bad headlines from Bournemouth, where the legislature outlayed 3m construction an synthetic embankment off one of the beaches to emanate sparkling waves and to illustrate capture surfers to the town. There have been no waves. There have been no surfers.
Bournemouth desperately longed for to strew the picture as a sort of hulk uncovered hospice, but these rebranding exercises frequency ever work. Blackpool was rebranded last year as a sort of Le Touquet with pies. Will abounding Parisian playboys group there this year? If so, will they get their heads kicked in by really dipsomaniac Glaswegians? Wait and see.
