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Is The Bbc In Breach Of It's Charter?

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Colmc54 | 00:38 Mon 06th Jul 2015 | News
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The interesting thing here is that Marr's hectoring, interrupting interview is posted by who it was. There has been a general election since then but the Tory-hating BBC is, if anything getting worse.

My solution is to put the BBC back in the real world and let them make their output encrypted and paid by for by the people who actually want to view their output and abolish the TV licence.

Then the unionised ranks of the BBC would no longer be trapped in the straightjacket of their charter that includes an obligation to be politically neutral and they would be able to finally confirm what most of us know already, namely that they are totally owned by and biased in favour of the Labour party.

The majority of the UK who voted in the way we did at the last election would no longer be obliged to fund a politicizied metropolitan left-wing pseudo-intellectual cult that is every day trying to change the way we think, and instead open the door for a more honest media coverage of the politics of our country.

If you bought the car you wanted to buy, and then the dealer said "by the way you won't be able to take it on the road until you've bought this other car" you would laugh and accuse him of being corrupt. But yet that is the anachronistic relationship the BBC has grown fat and complacent with for far, far too long.
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////Then the unionised ranks of the BBC would no longer be trapped in the straightjacket of their charter that includes an obligation to be politically neutral and they would be able to finally confirm what most of us know already, namely that they are totally owned by and biased in favour of the Labour party. ////

You can't have it both ways - either they're trapped in neutrality, or they're exhibiting left wing tendencies. What you don't like is not their neutrality, but their failure to be Right Wing.
I'm not arguing for or against the licence fee, Gromit. Personally I'm completely indifferent to it. £145 is neither here nor there as far as I'm concerned and if it buys me a TV channel without adverts then it's not so bad at under three quid a week (less than the price of a pint of beer in many places).

My point concerned the equivalence raised between the BBC (allegedly Labour leaning) and the Daily Mail (allegedly Tory leaning). People who want to watch TV are forced to fund the BBC, even though they may never watch it. People who read the Socialist Worker are not forced to support the Daily Mail. It's fair comment that this is the model of funding that successive governments have favoured but that makes it all the more important that the BBC caters for all political viewpoints and does not favour or propogate any individual political agenda.
The BBC Trust is supposed to keep a check on the workings of the BBC. The current Chairman was nominated by Conservative Minister Savij Javid. The previous Chairman was former Conservative Minister Chris Patten. Prior to him we had Michael Grade, a Conservative Peer.

Particularly in respect to the BBCs Governance there seems to be a Conservative bias, which makes accusations of a Labour leaning all the more perplexing.
“It is based on your mistake that the Daily Mail having a circulation of 3,866,000 readers. The Mail in fact has a daily circulation of 1,700,000 and plummeting.”

There is a difference between “circulation” and “readership”. Circulation is the number of copies sold; readership is the number of people that read those copies. Whilst the DM’s circulation is indeed under 1.7m (compared to around 2.5m ten years or so ago – along with all newspapers printed copy circulation is decreasing as digital versions take hold) its readership is stated at about 3.8m. For the purposes of this debate (the influence a newspaper has over the electorate) readership is clearly the important figure so Canary’s calculations are by no means skewed.
Colmc54,

Have you read the BBC Charter?
New Judge,

Readership is unprovable and is at best a guess. It was invented to sell advertising by inflating the the paid for figure. I doubt that every Daily Mail sold is read by more than two people. But as I say, it is unprovable either way.
if this is taken into account, canary's figure is a little on the conservative (small "c") side
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/20/mail-online-traffic-metro-standard-mirror
Quite true. But I doubt the average readership is less than one per copy and is probably closer to two or even more. If I had to wager I'd go for it being closer to 3.8m than 1.7m.
//...and they would be able to finally confirm what most of us know already, namely that they are totally owned by and biased in favour of the Labour party//

What a load of ***
ok - what a load of carp
The Mail on-line gets just over 5 million unique views a day, but the audience is worldwide. It has a US edition and employs staff in the US . Which is a ling way of saying a lot of its readers are not in this country and not Conservative Party voters.
"The majority of the UK who voted in the way we did at the last election would no longer be obliged to fund a politicizied metropolitan left-wing pseudo-intellectual cult."... Colmc54, that majority is 46% of the electorate.


Gromit >"Since 1922 successive Government have seen the need for a public service broadcaster. It gives politicians the power to set the national agenda and project their view on the nation and abroad. The BBC is the instrument that disseminates the Governments power and as such is an important tool for them.
It is for that reason that I doubt there will be any major changes."

I see no reason why this is the case Gromit according to 'Copy of Royal Charter for the continuance of the British Broadcasting Corporation' :

>>>3. The BBC’s public nature and its objects

(1)The BBC exists to serve the public interest.
(2)The BBC’s main object is the promotion of its Public Purposes.
(3)In addition, the BBC may maintain, establish or acquire subsidiaries through which commercial activities may be undertaken to any extent permitted by a

Framework Agreement. (The BBC’s general powers enable it to maintain, establish or acquire subsidiaries for purposes sufficiently connected with its Public Purposes – see

article47(3) and (4)).

4. The Public Purposes. The Public Purposes of the BBC are as follows—
(a)sustaining citizenship and civil society;
(b)promoting education and learning;
(c)stimulating creativity and cultural excellence;
(d)representing the UK, its nations, regions and communities;2
(e)bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;
(f)in promoting its other purposes, helping to deliver to the public the benefit of emerging communications technologies and services and, in addition, taking a leading role in the switchover to digital television.

5.How the BBC promotes its Public Purposes:the BBC’s mission to inform,educate and entertain

(1)The BBC’s main activities should be the promotion of its Public Purposes through the provision of output which consists of information, education and entertainment, supplied by means of—
(a)television, radio and online services;
(b)similar or related services which make output generally available and which may be in forms or by means of technologies which either have not previously been used by the BBC or which have yet to be developed.
(2)The BBC may also carry out other activities which directly or indirectly promote the Public Purposes, but such activities should be peripheral, subordinate or ancillary to its main activities. Overall, such peripheral, subordinate or ancillary activities of the BBC should bear a proper sense of proportion to the BBC’s main activities, and each of them should be appropriate to be carried on by the BBC alongside its main activities.
(3)The means by which the BBC is, or is not, to promote its Public Purposes within the scope described in this Charter may be elaborated in a Framework Agreement (see

article49).

6.The independence of the BBC

(1)The BBC shall be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output, the times and manner in which this is supplied, and in the management of its

affairs.(2)Paragraph (1) is subject to any provision made by or under this Charter or any FrameworkAgreement or otherwise by law."
^^^http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/about/how_we_govern/charter.pdf

Also
"What is public service broadcasting?

Public service broadcasting refers to TV programmes that are broadcast for the public benefit rather than for purely commercial purposes.

These programmes include local news coverage, arts programmes and religious broadcasts.

Ofcom’s regulations mean that certain TV and radio broadcasters are obliged to include a specific amount of public service broadcasts as part of their licence to

broadcast."
http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/television/what_is_psb

Question Author
I like being contentious as I find it leads to a more honest expression of public opinion.

I think I learned more about Homo sapiens in one period of English, during which the teacher (probably off-piste as it were) explained to us all the subtle tricks of editorial journalism, than I ever learned in Biology!

The editor sends a reporter out, lets say today after Osburne's speech, to record comments from the public. However it is impossible to know to what extent they reflect public opinion because the editor has the authority to choose which interviews are broadcast and which are not.

In the last election a heckler stood up and disrupted the PMs concluding remarks. The camera was there already on her whereas on Question Time it usually takes some time to get a microphone, let alone a camera, to zoom in on an individual in the audience.

I think the BBC is systemically biased in favour of the Labour party. I think they use their editorial authority over all of their programming to try and influence, or impose, the way it's licence payers and their children view reality in a way that thanks to my English teacher is as blatant and obvious as the sunlight coming through my window.

However, he would be quick to point out, you will only see it for yourself if you don't necessarily agree with their version of their projected version of reality.

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