Friday
Feb112011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Practising what you preach
Commenter Mike Post has enquired about whether the BBC buys carbon offsets when buying airline tickets for its journalists. Here is the response:
The BBC does not buy carbon offsets for its journalists' airline tickets because - "in considering such questions, the BBC must balance our environmental policies against our responsibility to our licence fee payers, and we do not believe buying offsets represents good use of licence fee income."
Reader Comments (67)
Shub writes:
"The BBC has now said that 'climate change deniers' are like pedophiles."
Well, you have to factor in the paranoid hysteria. They also say that traffic police are like the Gestapo, that postal workers are like spies, that sanitation workers spread disease, and that their viewers are like an angry crowd.
"(...) the BBC must balance our environmental policies against our responsibility to our licence fee payers, and we do not believe buying offsets represents good use of licence fee income."
Them's their exact words - and Doug's retort: "If it's not good value for them, why would it be for anyone?" has to be completely justified.
What have you got to say ZED?
Ooops, should have been - what have you got to say to that ZED? - We know only too well what you've got to say in general
JiF
ZDB = nitpicking through armwaiving ...
(not a very effective method IMO)
JiF
ZDB = nitpicking through armwaiving ...
(not a very effective method IMO)
BBC sends team of 25 to cover Chilean mine rescue
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/2/11/practising-what-you-preach.html?currentPage=2#comments
BBC sends 407 staff to Glastonbury
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/glastonbury/5675329/BBC-sends-407-staff-to-Glastonbury-but-does-not-broadcast-full-sets.html
BBC unveils slimmed-down (!) World cup squad of 295
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/12/bbc-staff-world-cup
A certain number of alarmist doublethinkers have wheedled themselves into positions of power in the BBC, and it is they who are giving it a bad name and reinforcing the "Auntie" image that has long been there. However I for one would be very sad if say, Radio Four ceased to exist as a public service or had to bow to market pressures. Nothing like it exists in France (France Inter comes closest), but generally we have a choice between the usual junk music squit or pretentious intellectualism (France Musique or worse, France Culture). We would go mad if we didn't have Radio Four to fall back on - or live in radio silence (probably not such a bad thing). I don't see what improvement privatisation is likely to bring.
Re Anigel @ Don Pablo's comments, in France we already pay for the television licence that gets put up automatically on our tax returns whether you have a set connected to an aerial or only watch DVDs. That's our case but its nigh-on impossible to get it removed from the tax return if you are connected the internet. They've not cottoned onto that one in Britain yet, but they will...
I don't know anyone who wants the BBC to dissappear or be dumped entirely into the private sector. There is a role for public service broadcasting and the BBC output is very, very good (in places).
However, the BBC has no effective cost drivers in place to moderate its excesses, as Sleepalot points out 295 staff to cover the football world cup and 407 to cover Glasto are excessive I suspect that these numbers could be halved (and probably much more) without any compromise of breadth of coverage or quality.
Arthur Dent
I don't know anyone who wants the BBC to dissappear or be dumped entirely into the private sector.
Try it, you might like life without the BBC. The private sector works just fine in the US.
Yes, I've seen US television and US radio has nothing to match Radio 3 or 4
Arthur Dent, I agree with your premise about cost drivers but as to not knowing anyone wanting the BBC to disappear, I think even a cursory glance at Google might change your viewpoint.
The BBC needs its metaphorical neck tightly squeezed and snapped and its propagandising carcass tossed onto the bonfire of the free market where the rising stench of progressive liberalism can finally be purged for good.
With people like Peter Dunscombe, both the head of BBC Pensions and chairman of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, it is a shadow of the halcyon image that some people still today hold dear.
It’s a taxpayer funded vehicle for distortion and propaganda and personally my life is better for not wasting my time listening to or watching its one way broadcasts.
It will go, just a matter of when.
Arthur Dent
Yes, I've seen US television and US radio has nothing to match Radio 3 or 4
I believe you have missed the shows on the PBS TV network, as well as the radio shows on the NPR radio network. Both used to be completely supported by the Federal government and they were little more than an American version of BEEB --- big, fat, pompous, wasteful and very left wing. Then about 20 years ago that was stopped, although they do get some funding still from CPB, most of both networks get their funding (about 50%) from VOLUNTARY contributions, which includes a yearly $25 from myself. The rest of their funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- a US government funded company, and from --- OH MY GOD! -- adverts.
Since the change, both PBS and NPR have become much leaner, much more competitive and actually quite good. As you clearly know, I am no fan of BBC or RTE, but I do write a check to PBS. I like their shows, such as Nova, and although they do make reference to "Global Warming", it is only now and then and usually much more balanced than the BBC America channel, which I do get.
So repeat after me: "I believe that there can be good tele without the tele tax! The Americans did it, why not us?"
@Arthur Dent: "Yes, I've seen US television and US radio has nothing to match Radio 3 or 4."
So have I; "And now a word from our sponsor" (Announced in a thundering bass voice from beyond the tomb) ...Aargh! - No thanks.
Mike Post
"However, just as the BBC does not buy offsets, does it not see that the panicky decarbonisation of our economy too is a grotesque and unacceptable mis-allocation of UK taxpayers’ capital and taxes?"
ZBD,
"Glad you're a Beeb fan, as am I. However, your last sentence is an extreme minority view unsupported by experts. You have the right to have that opinion, but to expect the BBC to echo it is always going to be in vain"
You're correct to state that the BBC will not echo this veiw but an extreme minority veiw unsupported by experts? Where have you been hiding recently?
Arthur Dent: "I don't know anyone who wants the BBC to disappear or be dumped entirely into the private sector."
I guess we haven't met.
John in France
So have I; "And now a word from our sponsor" (Announced in a thundering bass voice from beyond the tomb) ...Aargh! - No thanks.
You get PBS in France? On what satellite service? I really need to know. Is it SKY? I should also get it in ROI.
Or, if you have no experience with PBS, I suggest you try it. They depend on making their viewer WANTING to contribute as I do. No bully boys come bashing my door down in the US demanding 150 quid to fund PBS as they do in ROI and UK.