Thursday 28 October 2010
it's a BBC world
Nick Cohen makes the point that the BBC is now having to fund the World Service, from which licence payers get no benefit, but that DfID's budget is ring-fenced, and quite often is spent propping up dictators. So maybe the World Service should be funded by DfID, because it actually brings sound journalism and truth (yes, really) to peoples who have no other access to it. Yes, maybe it should. I have to declare an interest as a former employee, 13 years hard graft and now a BBC pensioner. He cites Dambisa Moyo, a Zambian economist I am sorry to say I had never heard of until this week, will read her. Apparently Nigel Lawson also cited her recently, coming from a rather different political standpoint from Cohen. Worth a thought, say I. His Master's Voice, however, referring to the bit of the BBC World Service that is in Reading, BBC Monitoring, where I spent most of those 13 years, and which brought me to Reading in the first place, says everything is going to be Just Fine. It Says Here. Usual unrivalled commitment to investigative journalism and The Facts. Not.
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5 comments:
The World Servcie is great and must be defended, supported and protected.
Could we start a movement to revert to the original name - Empire Service?
One of the best ways of defending, supporting and protecting it would be to let Licence Payers know how good it is! In the past, the BBC has resolutely refused to publicise the services and programmes within the UK, on the basis that we, the listeners, didn't pay for the World Service. Well, we do now! so let's see the output advertised in the Radio Times and daily newspapers in future, please.
"the World Service, from which licence payers get no benefit"
I can listen to it (and do) in the UK via my radio and freeview. I have not listened via the BBC website but could easily do so. I'm a licence payer and it's a benefit to me at least.
"From the middle of this decade, the World Service of the BBC will no longer be funded by the Foreign Office. The money will instead come from the television licence fee which pays for the BBC's domestic broadcasting. We asked a former head of the World Service, John Tusa to explain the implication of this change." http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00bcjs1
So its not happening just yet. Now we have got that straight, there's time to look at some current cuts. "BBC World Service radio staff are angry that new boss Craig Oliver is axing their highly regarded show The Interview, presented by Owen Bennett-Jones." http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/markets/article-23880878-bbc-world-service-fury-as-the-interview-is-axed.do
Real shock horror - that programme is so good that it ought to be on BBC Radio 4 (or even Radio 3, but that seems to be all music these days).
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