Bishop Hill The unique way the BBC is funded
Aug 18, 2015 BBC ;)
Back in 2011, we had fun at BH with the remarkable story that the BBC's commercial arm was accepting readymade programming from green groups and PR agencies, either for free or for negligible cost (see here, here, and here). This story has now reemerged after Ofcom received a complaint about the practice of illicit sponsorship of current affairs programmes.
According to the Ofcom report, over a two-year period between 2009 and 2011, BBC World News accepted no fewer than 186 different programmes at low or no cost without telling the audience.
Each of the programmes was approximately 30 minutes in duration. All were funded by not-for-profit organisations operating largely in the areas of developing world issues and environmental concerns.
Worse still, some of the programmes were taken from FactBased Communications (FBC), a PR agency working for the Malaysian government.
Ofcom now tells us that canned propaganda was a way of life at other broadcasters too, with CNN and CNBC also involved. Amazingly, CNBC seems to have been paid to broadcast the programmes.
The BBC is disclaiming all knowledge of the funding of FBC by the Malaysians, saying that they thought that FBC planned to make up the deficit by subsequent syndication of the content. And, as all good regulators do, Ofcom has taken them at their word, concluding thus:
In Ofcom’s view, the evidence did show that money had been paid by Malaysian interests to FBC. However it did not demonstrate that the money had been used to fund programme production, as opposed to non-television public relations and lobbying activity.
So that's all right then.
Reader Comments (57)
OFCOM = OFfice of Complete Obstruction and Mendacity
Not fit for purpose just like its mates- the Biased Broadcasting Cartel.
More corrupt practices from the BBC. Who can be surprised.
I haven't studied this in total but the emphasis seems to be the matter of who paid for it, not whether it was actually biased or not. The BBC thought thought they were ok accepting free stuff from charities and not for profit organisations. They just put up thanks to those organisations by way of acknowledgement. So in theory, they can still accept free content so long as they say it's been given for free. Alternatively they can pay for it.
Neither of these options deals with the issue that the BBC works happily with groups with clear agendas, so long as those agendas agree with the BBC view of the World. They can continue to transmit biased crap, they just have to pay for it.
The BBC is the voice of the British establishment. Currently the City of London.
Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade
Market could be worth $3tn a year.. The carbon market could become double the size of the vast oil market, according to the new breed of City players who trade greenhouse gas emissions through the EU's emissions trading scheme.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/29/carbon-trading-market-copenhagen-summit
If a commercial broadcaster wants to show programmes that it didn't have to pay for, I think this is quite legitamate, though it would be good practice to say so. For the BBC to say on the one hand that it wants to keep the current funding arrangements and not to allow advertising, and on the other to show puff pieces paid for by outside parties, is gross hypocrisy.
Might there, even at the BBC, a media organisation, be a lot of naivete? If the programmes has come from a not-for-profit, and its relevant to whatever the BBC line is, why not run with it....could they really think like that? Does it not occur to them that practically every pressure group is a front for some other interests/entities? Do they - journalists, for Heavens sake, think the world is exactly as it appears? Perhaps they do, which is worrying....The thing is once your mind is surrounded by the barbed wire of political correctness, scepticism is kept at bay. You could well end up thinking, 'given that the good guys have given me this stuff, it must be good'.
"The BBC is the voice of the British establishment. Currently the City of London." esmiff.
I don't know what you've been listening to but it's not the BBC. They're about as anti establishment as it's possible to be without regularly torching parliament and the financial district. Of course they see themselves as THE establishment and everyone else just dirty plebs. In politics they are always the party of opposition... unless the issue under discussion is something they approve of, in which case they whine that those in power aren't doing enough. 'Too little, too late' is their phrase of choice.
The BBC are the British establishment. London is the centre of the global finance / insurance industries. The ones that would have massively benefited from global warming had it not been for the inconvenient pause.
That's why the BBC supports it by employing useful idiots like Harrabin and Black.
What a good idea for the NGO's! Commission a piece that is effectively half an hours free advertising on the 'most respected' TV platform in the world for whatever issue is being covered. I dare say they can turn out a professional program for far less than the cost of 30 minutes advertising rates, while the BBC gets content for free. No wonder they're all in bed together.
The chap in charge of the BBC World Service at the time was Peter Horrocks who was previously in charge of Newsnight. He jumped ship this year to be Vice Chancellor of the Open University - God help them.
On a slightly unrelated note... This morning's BBC Today programme featured a segment on the overprescription of antibiotics by GPs. The RCGP spokesman put up to defend the profession chucked in a completely arbitrary non sequitur about how the emergence of methicillin-resistant bacteria was on a par with the health risks associated with climate change.
You have to wonder where they got off on this stuff. Since there is no evidence whatever that there are any realistic "health risks" associated with climate change, why did that pop into his head -- as opposed to the substantial public health risks from, for example, the reemergence of tuberculosis worldwide?
It is frightening how deeply the global warming trope has inserted itself into the heads of people who, by training and professional background, should know better.
BTW @Boyd The OU was a cofunder on about 5 of today's 20 criticised programmes.
But normally the OU cofunds dozens of BBC progs and that's fine & legal as they obey the rules
1. Properly labelled at start and end #2. NOT current affairs
@Braqueish The on-alarmist message continued at 9am (21:30rpt) with The Stephen Fry "Language of Weather/Climate" prog
Indeed he got extra LuvvyBrownie points by shoehorning 2 digs at UKIP within the first 15 minutes.
They had an alarmist on saying "an unseasonably warm day in 2015= (climate) omen "
SF said of CC "We find it hard to realise the idea of 'future generations' as yet unborn."
- Tomasz Schafernaker extra clip
Braqueish
Of course they know better, but they have been told (ordered) to insert climate change into every possible scenario. Mortgage payments come before truth.
Is there a list of what these shows were about?
Mailman
I think some contexts are in order
#1. It's not the normal everyday MAINSTREAM bias that Ofcom tackling they seem to have a free pass from their hippy mates to be the GreenLeft Religious Mega-Network
NO rather Ofcom today only tackles 20 weekend filler progs from 2009-2011 on the rather minor BBC World Service TV channel (half of which seemed to be UNEP adverts).
- The 20 were subsidised PR progs masquerading as current affairs coverage. After 3 TV execs came up with the idea of FBC (FactBased Communications ) a profitable TV content provider by combining fact content with paid PR.
- Basically Ofcom found the BBC guilty of breaking 2 rules
#9.1 Progs which mentioned current affairs are NOT allowed to be sponsored.
#9.19 Sponsored progs must be clearly labelled at start/end ..not just a minor "with thanks to " credit.
- Most broke both rules, but sometimes Ofcom let the BBC off on the grounds the prog was not current affairs as it did not cover stuff currently in the news. However in those cases the BBC should have labelled the progs as sponsored.
@Mailman (see Tomos list on Unthreaded or look at the Ofcom PDF ). I can see that about 8 of the 20 include some climate/green incidents.
1. Taking the Credit : about Carbon trading centred on a carbon sequestration project in Mozambique
"(BBCWN) accepted that this programme was current affairs.. timed to air in the run up to the Copenhagen climate change summit, which took place in December 2009"
2. Earth Report – Burning Bush "funded by the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing
Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries"
Likewise timed to air in the run up to the Copenhagen
Here the discussion centres around the BBC arguing "that's not current affairs" cos that's Ofcom's clear rule Current Affairs cannot be sponsored
3 There was a 2nd prog the same
- 10. Nature Inc – ‘Conservation from Chaos’, 9 April 2011
This was another advert for UNEPs REDD programme, but this time ofcom decided that although it should have been marked as sponsored ..it was not illegal as it was not current affairs
- 11. Nature Inc – Hard Rain 1, 16 April 2011
funder (UNDP). Kiribati and its vulnerability to sea level rise.
- 12 second edition of Nature Inc. also looked at Vietnam and the Philippines. particularly vulnerable to the increased extreme weather events
13. Earth Reporters – Beating Plague, 21 May 2011
funded by various bodies including OU and UNEP ie it was another UNEP policiy advert
14. Nature Inc – 21 Gigatonne Timebomb, 4 June 2011
funded by UNEP + OzonAction a UN CFC initiative
This programme examined the role of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in global warming.
"The IPCC was used as a source for statistics in the programme."
ah I get Ofcom is saying you can't just use a funders own stats in a prog you should use independent ones.
( seems harsh as IPCC are accepted by most even tho we here know that in many aspects they are maybe flawed.)
Talking about taxes:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3201595/How-English-jailed-licence-fee-Scots-aren-t.html
Don't think I'd drive round Glasgow looking for TV licence evaders either? Edinburgh's ok, they were queuing outside Monktons house some while ago.
also - 8. Earth Reporters – Deep Blue, 5 March 2011
A UN prog about ARGO ocean temp monitoring
I make that as 8 about climate out of about 14 OFCAM assessed I think I got the count of 20 from the Independent Article
The BBC was found to have breached Ofcom’s code on sponsorship 20 times on its World News channel, where it featured programmes underwritten by funders ranging from the Aga Khan Foundation to the International Diabetes Foundation and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. BBC World News, the broadcaster’s 24-hour global news channel, handed Ofcom details of 186 programmes supplied to it for no cost or a nominal sum (typically £1).
The BBC luvvies will simply not understand what the fuss is about. They live the same bubble as the people who made and commissioned the programs, who share views which they hold to be self evident. It cannot therefore be wrong to broadcast programmes which repeat such self evident truth.
Same as 28gate - why bother to ask for input from misguided people whose views they regard as simply wrong?
I wonder if the BBC would blithely accept a free climate change documentary prepared by the GWPF . . .
esmiff on Aug 18, 2015 at 11:59 AM
"Carbon trading could be worth twice that of oil in next decade"
It's what the voters voted for, even if they didn't know it!. They have voted in governments that have created laws and culture so that Global Warming can be conquered. Didn't you know that it is the most dangerous threat to mankind that we currently have? It cannot be ignored!
I am phoned, quite often, to be offered solar systems that will make me financially better off. The callers are only doing what the government wants them to do. There are more productive activities, but while we have the 2008 Climate Change Act, with supporting subsidies and grants, they won't be better rewarded, so they continue phoning me and I sow a few seeds of doubt!
The same is true for the City of London: there are plenty of more productive activities, but until circumstances change, they won't be as rewarding.
The BBC is the voice of the Green Blob: it might even be part of the Green Blob.
This just shows how much they all believe in the "settled science" of global warming, a.k.a. "climate change", and how much they believe in "the ends justify the means". There is danger to everyone of not seeing the forest for the trees, the "trees" being the means the believers resort to (sic semper tyrannis), and the "forest" being the horrific fact that their mainstream and politically correct (i.e., society-wide and society-dominating) belief is in nothing but lies piled on top of scientific incompetence, delusion, and dogmatic denial of the observable truth, that the globe is NOT warming and its "climate" NOT changing (climate changes from the tropics to the poles, and with the local topography, winds, plants, and water -- regionally, not globally at all). The leaders in the western world are devoted to lies, in this; they want to base the future on those lies. The questions are, what has led the free world to this, and how can it reacquire a devotion to the truth? The answers are, an ascendance of long-nurtured dogmas over good, honest reasoning, and a hard self-appraisal by all concerned, especially non-climate scientists who have let climate scientists pervert the really settled physics, and will reap the wild wind if they don't drop the hammer on it -- all of it ("There is no valid climate science, and no competent climate scientists" -- my trademark judgment).
Of course there has been no comment yet from the BBC about the Ofcom report , as they are of course waiting for Greenpeace to explain it to them.
Something mega on page 57 ?
Now normally the BBC looks at progs in 2 ways re impartiality :
News : has to be impartial balanced and fair.
Other content : However at an individual level be partial and have opinions eg. a comedian telling a joke about Nerds doesn't have to balanced by another comedian telling a pro-Nerd joke.
On page 57 the BBC tries to argue it always thought what made the a prog "news/current affairs" was decided by whether it called the prog current affairs itself. Whereas Ofcom apply a more sensible rule ie current affairs is any prog that deals largely with any ongoing news issue. And that can be a magazine prog/factual prog etc.
Yet by the end of the page the BBC changed it mind ..Surely meaning it should be applying impartiality rules to it's all GLOBAL WARMING progs.- See the para beginning "However, following receipt of Ofcom’s Preliminary View"
Braqueish mentioned the alarming extent to which global warming has become an unquestioned "trope" of our time. I remember a passage in the detective novel The Underground Man (by the great Ross MacDonald) that compared the damaged 1960s generation of American youth to the raptors similarly damaged by DDT! Swift was right: "Falsehood flies, and Truth comes limping after it." The new lies come thick and fast, and the old ones have still not been cleared away; indeed, they are culturally embedded now, and would have to be painfully uprooted.
It's simply a case of non-joined-up thinking. "These non-profit organisations are GOOD people. Otherwise they would be making a profit. How could there possibly be anything wrong with trusting them and broadcasting their stuff sight unseen? And of course it's free..."
Amazing, but I really do think there are a lot of people in positions of power who really do think like this.
"The BBC is disclaiming all knowledge of the funding of FBC by the Malaysians, saying that they thought that FBC planned to make up the deficit by subsequent syndication.."
That investigative stuff is so hard, isn't it, when your News department has a mere 2000 journalists?
Robert Christopher
Carbon trading drove government policy, not the reverse. Carbon trading drove Jeremy Grantham to buy Nicky Stern and little Bobsy Ward, not from love of the planet. Despite governments handing out trillions of dollars in free carbon credits, the carbon trading market never happened on the intended global scale because
1. It didn't get warmer
2. The system was so corrupt and bloated by free give aways, no one was willing to buy credits.
European carbon market reform set for 2019
The carbon market is supposed to drive Europe’s transition to cleaner sources of energy, but a cocktail of recession, free allocations to polluters and over-achievement on green energy targets have created a flood of 2bn allowances. That has led to a carbon price of around €7 (£5) per tonne, too low to encourage power companies to switch from polluting fuels such as as coal.
This has led to criticisms of schemes for human rights abuses and scams involving the destruction of industrial gases in Asia. Until a ban in 2011, over 80% of the EU’s offsets were spent on these latter projects, which the EU’s then-climate commissioner later admitted had a “total lack of environmental integrity”.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/feb/24/european-carbon-emissions-trading-market-reform-set-for-2019
Stewgreen
as a suggestion, could you try using a bit more formatting and more linebreaks. I for one have never read a single one of your posts because they are very unfriendly on the eye.
esmiff
when you say
" Despite governments handing out trillions of dollars in free carbon credits, the carbon trading market never happened on the intended global scale"
does this not suggest to you that your conspiracy theory is flawed in some way?
diogenes
What conspiracy theory ?
Carbon credits bring Lakshmi Mittal £1bn bonanza
LAKSHMI MITTAL, Britain’s richest man, stands to benefit from a £1 billion windfall from a European scheme to curb global warming. His company ArcelorMittal, the steel business where he is chairman and chief executive, will make the gain on “carbon credits” given to it under the European emissions trading scheme (ETS).
The scheme grants companies permits to emit CO2 up to a specified “cap”. Beyond this they must buy extra permits. An investigation has revealed that ArcelorMittal has been given far more carbon permits than it needs. It has the largest allocation of any organisation in Europe
http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/business/article192167.ece
The honourable gentleman can please refer to the answer I gave earlier for the reason it didn't take off on a global scale. The European scheme continues.
http://www.carbontrust.com/resources/reports/advice/eu-ets-the-european-emissions-trading-scheme/
History of carbon trading
http://www.scrapthetrade.com/history
Why does The Guardian promote global warming ? Because advertisers pay them to. Particularly Shell and HSBC carbon trading desks, back when anyone cared. Yes they employ useful idiot believers to promote it
Climategate: George Monbiot, the Guardian and Big Oil - James Delingpole
But who is it that sponsors the Guardian's Environment pages and eco conferences? Why, only that famous non-fossil-fuel company Shell. (Though I notice their logo no longer appears on top of the Guardian?s eco pages: has the Guardian decided the relationship was just too embarrassing to be, er, sustainable?)
And which company has one of the largest carbon trading desks in London, cashing in on industry currently worth around $120 billion ? an industry which could not possibly exist without pan-global governmental CO2 emissions laws ? BP (which stands for British Petroleum)
And how much has Indian steel king Lakshmi Mittal made from carbon credits thanks to Europe?s Emissions Trading Scheme? £1 billion.
And which companies were the CRU scientists revealed cosying up to as early as 2000 in the Climategate emails? There?s a clue in this line here: ?Had a very good meeting with Shell yesterday.?
And how much was Phil Jones, director of the discredited CRU, found to have collected in grants since 1990? £13.7 million ($22.7 million)
And why does this Executive Vice-Chairman of Rothschild?s bank sound so enthusiastic in this (frankly terrifying) letter about the prospects of the ?new world order? (his phrase not mine) which result from globally regulated carbon trading?
Or why not try this blog, in which a German Green party MP is revealed being given hefty donations by a solar power company?
Or how about this tiny $70 million donation to the climate change industry from the Rockefeller Foundation?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100019523/climategate-george-monbiot-is-in-the-pay-of-big-oil/
diogenes
Honestly the next scam is only around the corner, you won't have to wait long to be happy in again!
it's the global "they" all over again...
We need an alternative term for these "not for profit" organizations. One which makes it clear that while the organization itself technically does not make a profit, many of those involved personally profit to a high degree and are paid in one way or another sums which no serious employer would contemplate giving them on the basis of their limited abilities.
Like the BBC, they operate from lavish architect designed facilities.
It is very generous of the BBC to employ so many key staff from not-for-profit outfits like the Guardian, to get their policy directives straight to the public, who have to pay for it all, and don't get a choice.
and esmiff you will be able to tell me just how much profit has accrued to BP and Shell from carbon trading as against dealing in petroleum products?
The BBC's commercial arm?
Alan Yentob, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen and the rest ... probably have heard the word "peculation" - but not often -and probably have no idea what it means ... a bit like Anne Robinson .
That's the thing about the economics of OPM.
"That investigative stuff is so hard, isn't it, when your News department has a mere 2000 journalists?" --jamesp
It gets easier when you have none, which is closer to the case.
diogenes
Very little because they gave it up after the Copenhagen global conference hit an iceberg called 'Climategate'.. I do realise I am promoting something that didn't actually happen because about 20 years ago, very influential people believed James Hansen's lies.
This was the master plan. Replace mortgage derivatives with carbon derivatives.
"Carbon Capitalists Warming to Climate Market Using Derivatives
For Wall Street, these kinds of voluntary carbon deals are just a dress rehearsal for the day when the U.S. develops a mandatory trading program for greenhouse gas emissions. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley will be watching closely as 192 nations gather in Copenhagen next week to try to forge a new climate-change treaty that would, for the first time, include the U.S. and China.
U.S. Cap and Trade
Those two economies are the biggest emitters of CO2, the most ubiquitous of the gases found to cause global warming. The Kyoto Protocol, whose emissions targets will expire in 2012, spawned a carbon-trading system in Europe that the banks hope will be replicated in the U.S.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aXRBOxU5KT5M
@diogenes said my comments "more formatting and more linebreaks" needed
- I took the linespaces out, cos otherwise people complain that the comment is too big and takes up too much of the page.
- That long comment, comes from me SHARING my own notes I get from précis-ing down 50 pages of OFCOM text and picking out the essential parts (and adding a few explanatory comments). I use 'linebreaks' to put separate concepts on individual lines and in my original notes I also use line-spacing (empty lines)... so yes it is easier to read. However with complex issues and lots of quotes the comment can turn out very long, so before posting sometimes I edit it right down and that may include removing some line-spaces.
" never read ..cos they are very unfriendly on the eye." Well if you think it's easier go and read the original 50 pages
( Alarmist bloggers frequently make such remarks as they seek easy ways to DISMISS & avoid engaging in complex issues.)
------------------------------------------
@diogenes says "how much profit has accrued to BP and Shell from carbon trading as against dealing in petroleum products?"
..Well that's a strawman argument as it suggests the only way BigOilprofits from climate alarmism is thru carbon credits ..However anything in the current market that pushes up the price of oil is good for oil company profits, cos the $ margin at $150 a barrel is much higher than at $45/barrel. A different matter would be a new market where oil companies were unable to sell their oil, the stranded assets problem. However that doesn't look like happening soon.
Today more takes from Guido... Paul Homewood ...Biased BBC (only 10 comments guess they've heard it all before)
BBC issues a response "News channels broke sponsorship rules, Ofcom says" ..The spin there in the title is they omit the channel was BBC
Yet the very next quote contradicts that : \\The deals carried an "inherent risk to independence and editorial integrity", Ofcom said.//In their choice of examples they pick the "Diabetes Federation" prog and "Aga Khan Foundation" progs ..and don't mention those 8 climate/UN related progs.
Context : Ah I understand Ofcom doesn't have remit over the normal BBC
There seem to be 2 categories of progsThese criticisms were only of the BBC small commercial channels. From page 32
#1 - Those 14 progs found in breach of sponsorship regulations (20 times) that I mentioned previously, funded by UN bodies and other special interest groups.
#2 - Those FBC Malaysia Bias progs which sometimes promoted palm/oil (bio fuel and claimed ethical deforestation)
.. the BBC seems to say 'We never knew they were cheap cos the Malaysia gov put money in'
.. In reply Ofcom seems to say 'We can't prosecute you on sponsorship law grounds, cos we can't prove it although it's a bizarre coincidence' 'We find in specific instance the BBC broke impartiality rules'
.. Further they add on the "Editorial independence" matter "Broadcasters should note that, in light of this and related cases, Ofcom intends to work with broadcasters to develop best practice guidelines to help them maintain compliance with these crucially important aspects of the Code. "
@esmiff
Tulips.
Esmiff:
Is it? Where’s the evidence? Perhaps you meant: “The most ubiquitous of the gasesfoundclaimed to cause global warming.” CO2 is still rising but the global is not warming; such has been the subject of a lot of discussion. Please keep up with the conversation, smiffy!Your dislike or distrust of companies like Shell or BP misses one point – these are companies that deal in reality. As a result, they do try to maximise their profits from the business that they engage in, which is the exploration for, recovery and processing of crude oils and gasses, and the marketing of its subsequent derivatives. And what is wrong with that? It is that which has brought us out of the stone age to our present state, and it is only that which will enable us to continue to advance. Naturally, they do want to be portrayed in the eyes of the general population as Good Guys, so will endeavour to publically maintain politically correct activities. I suspect that they have not gone hell-for-leather on carbon trading is that they see it for what it is – pure pie in the sky. How can you trade something that is as intangible as “carbon”? (By which I mean the concept of its control by “Trading” not the physical reality of the compound.) Only charlatans and shysters will push for that idea; while governments (which contain copious quantities of both those people, irrespective of their proclaimed political leanings) have managed to push that agenda successfully for over a decade, people are starting to get wise.
Aug 18, 2015 at 12:26 PM | TinyCO2
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Uh? The BBC are the mouthpiece of the bien pensant Liberal elite who have done - and continue to do - so much damage to the UK. Remember that elite now extends way to the right as well as to the left, as the current mob's devotion to PC, appeasing Islam and closing down free speech demonstrates.
The BBC's commercial arm?
Alan Yentob, Mark Thompson, Danny Cohen and the rest ... probably have heard the word "peculation" - but not often -and probably have no idea what it means ... a bit like Anne Robinson .
Aug 18, 2015 at 11:29 PM | tomo
=============================================================
Ha. Very good. Reminds me of when Gove accused Harman of moral relativism. Poor little Hatty didn't have a clue what he was talking about.
@Jeremy Poynton
I still like dragging up the 2000 / 2001 extradition to Hong Kong of two BBC producers / managers who thought to sell the rights to manufacture toys based on a BBC kids series - only they didn't actually play with a straight bat (and demanded bribes) and double crossed one Chinese manufacturer - who dobbed them in - they were extradited, tried & convicted of something akin to racketeering and served porridge (plain noodles?) in HK...
Not a word as far as I could see in any UK press..... there have been other commercial efforts that have gone sour / failed which get bailed and buried.... The audio books were a fiasco that iirc bordered on the illegal.
ps
Anne Robinson looks like she's angling for a lead part as an alien in the stage version of Avatar .... without the prosthetics / CGI
The BBC is very similar to its offspring, Australia's ABC. The ABC is a bloated, taxpayer funded behemoth which employs more "journalists" than any organisation in the country, yet produces very little original content.
A friend of mine who works for a commercial TV station says that when he is sent to cover a live event, it's just him and a camera operator who also does the sound. The ABC typically sends a crew of at least half a dozen people to do exactly the same thing. The lack of commercial discipline leads to massive waste. Yet, they constantly cry poor, and claim to be the only thing standing between us and the complete destruction of local content production.
The commercial stations produce local content on a shoestring, yet regularly out-rate the ABC's lavishly funded, pathetically limp and painfully PC productions.
It seems that public broadcasters all over the world are pretty similar, despite variations in their funding models. My Canadian friends have the same sorts of issues with their version, the CBC.
@johanna
Yeah... I heard that about ABC / CBC - what I didn't hear is their leveraging public assets to hand out lucrative work and commissions to their cronies and generally swanning about like Renaissance princelings. That overstuffed workforce thing generally feeds into utterly toxic management ... ah... maybe I'm on to something?
The BBC of itself is one thing - the subculture of production / engineering facility companies and key talent agents are gorging on the - what is it? £5 bn turnover with a deep, soft safety net for failure - funded by money demanded with menaces that the gits are too cowardly to collect themselves .... for churning out mostly mediocre drivel - if you really want a wake up read the annual reports and have a notepad and calculator to hand.
tomo - the ABC "commissions" most of its local drama and comedy from private companies. A bloke called Andrew Denton, who had a fairly successful couple of shows decades ago and is now a producer, seems to get first dibs on that budget, no matter how lame the content is. His wife runs a leftie book show on the ABC which no-one watches, but she has been there for years. Her best friend (who is a permanent fixture on her show) has had a couple of appalling, foul-mouthed (but not in a good way, like The Thick of It) series commissioned as well.
The ABC is, of course, full-on in supporting CAGW, including on what are laughably called its "science" shows.
The differences between the worst things about the ABC and the BBC are minimal, from what I can see.
johanna - all sounds rather familiar. It's that OPM funding - where would they be without it ? I know where I'd like 'em to be.
In my travels around the UK I've seen a number of public works (bridges, libraries, public halls, school buildings and the like) which have rather quaint plaques on them as being "erected by the local community and funded by public subscription" - I think this is relevant ... if there's perceived value - then people stump up voluntarily rather than being victims of municipal extortion.
The crowdfunding model is now with us - I contributed to Phelim & Co's "Frack Nation" and I see no reason why this model shouldn't be extended to other media productions - where the producers pitch the show and you become an actual investor.... The idea that an incestuous bureaucracy should have a monopoly of public funding with practically zero accountability and defining it's own terms of operation is just beyond flawed....
I'm quite surprised that Anthony Watts has not made any moves in the crowdfunding area (or indeed Martin Durkin...) . I'm just so ticked with the content on offer from BBC / ABC / CBC and I don't think I'm alone in that - and if somebody pitched a program idea that I liked - I'd reach into my pocket to help fund it - this is something that effectively hasn't been previously possible.
ps
Obviously ABC are employing the wrong swearing consultants - where is Australia's Ian Martin?