According to the Herald, the new BBC late night politics show
for the referendum, billed as “cheeky and fun”, has so far been a bit of a disaster.
It seems that Scots may have been a bit insulted by its lack of gravitas.
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| Did the BBC think that a London presenter, and daughter of much loved Labour leader, the late John Smith, would encourage unionist loyalty? |
The show was first broadcast on Tuesday night with a not unreasonable
viewing figure of 89,000, which they reckon to be 8% of the Scottish audience. (I’ve
no idea how they work that figure out, because if 89,000 = 8%, then on rough calculations
1% would be 11,100 and the total potential audience 1,110,000. So, given a Scottish population of around 5.3 million, I am guessing that there must be a standard
calculation for working out potential viewers at different times of the day, or
for different styles of programming, or that they count one television = one
viewer.)
However it is calculated (any explanations of the system used would be appreciated), it remains a fact that the
audience on Wednesday had dropped to 53,000, and on Thursday a mere 22,000 (or
2%) watched the programme.
To be fair STV’s late night political programme viewership decreased
as the week went on. Tuesday 166,000, Wednesday 107,000 and Thursday 89,000, so
we might conclude that as the week moves on people have other things to do with
their late evenings, or perhaps that there was better, more exciting
programming on one of the many other channels that even Freeview provides.
Nonetheless, the BBC lost 75% of its viewers over three days,
whereas STV lost only around 50%... and by the end of the week had the number
of viewers that the BBC had started with.
Not being a watcher of television as a rule, I saw none of
the shows on either channel, so I can’t make a personal comment, but the Herald’s
own commentators seem to feel that the show was dumbed down ( someone compared
it to “The One Show”); that it was biased (they invited the most senior UK
politician in Scotland (his own description), one Daniel Alexander, to give a
case for NO, and there was no similar representative from YES), and it didn't go without notice that the presenter had
been imported from London, and was the daughter of one time UK Labour, John
Smith, the memory of whom David Cameron has been trotting out in his efforts to
stop independence.
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| TV licence detection is now run by Capita (or CRAPIA, as Private Eye would have them). Never, regardless of your licence situation, let these people over your doorstep. Unless accompanied by police, they have no right of entry. |
Once again it begs some questions:
In the days of multichannel possibilities, is the licence
fee a reasonable way to fund the BBC?
Is it necessary to have a state broadcaster at all?
If it is, is it necessary to have such a massive
organisation with so many tv channels, radio stations and such a high internet
presence?
Should it not be drastically slimmed down so that people who
don’t watch it, or watch it very rarely, don’t have to pay £145 a year for the privilege
of having a tv set in their homes?
Could not modern technology find a way of turning off the
BBC signal to televisions in homes of people who do not wish to receive it?
And, if we must have a state broadcaster, if it must be
bigger than any other organisation, if it must cost so much to run, and if
technology can’t block BBC signals, couldn't we demand that the organisation be
forced (by law and under strict observation by a regulator) to be absolutely
apolitical and unbiased?
Commercial organs of the press have the right to print any
kind of material, be it biased, dumbed down, moronic, or whatever. You and I
have the right not to buy the paper version or read the content online. In
other words we have don’t have to pay for it.
With the BBC, if we find it biased and not to our taste for any
reason, we can refuse to watch it or listen to it, but we are still obliged by law,
under pain of imprisonment, to pay an annual £145, (or whatever sum the English
Cabinet Secretary for Culture decides) to have a tv set capable of receiving it
in the house.
That’s plain wrong.
Appropriate time to remind you of this event which Cynical Highlander highlighted yesterday. You might like to go along if you are in Glasgow.
