Manchester Free Software Meeting - Ian Forrester - BBC Backstage

that we all have to pay for even if we just want to watch other TV without getting a fine and a criminal record, and the BBC that is keen on making us all pay it for using our home computers too?

The BBC should get off our backs and let people buy the broadcasting they want to.


The BBC has had its day, and that day was the middle of the last century. Scrap the licence fee. Keep Salford BBC free.

A good policy to have, in my view, is that if you're saying exactly what the Sun is saying, you need to see whose nefarious interests you are serving. And the truth is that public service broadcasting (PSB) provides a better balance (but not perfect as we know) than a broadcaster serving corporate interests only. Of course we could discuss the BBC getting more corporate internally - this is true - but it does in some cases offer a little more balance than other areas of the media.

News International (the publisher of right-wing tabloid the Sun and broadsheet the Times) is massively in favour of the removal of the license fee as it would damage one of their competitors in a single stroke. Calling for the abolition of the license fee therefore aids some of the nastiest and most war-hungry corporate propagandists in our media system, unless good alternative proposals to fund PSB are made with that call.

We could go along the Australian model, of course, by funding PSB directly from government, but this would still make them accountable only to the UK government (as is the case presently). It is difficult to see how the Beeb would have been more likely to resist Alastair Campbell's nasty and sustained attack over the "45 minutes" story if they were funded directly from govt (or indeed if they were funded from advertising). [The "45 minutes" story suggested that although the UK govt were claiming that Saddam Hussein could launch missiles within 45 minutes of giving the order, Director of Communications Alastair Cambell personally knew it to be untrue. After a personal and vitriolic bullying campaign from Campbell against the BBC, the broadcaster's board resigned en masse - an act of cowardice that may be the biggest reason why the UK got away with going to war on a web of lies].

For the record, I do personally dislike the bullying and intimidation that licensing officers use to chase people who do not have a license, and I don't like the fact that legal and financial penalties are disproportionately applied to people who are poor or female (for reasons that are too off-topic here to go into).

In summary I think we should be careful to protect PSB - and if possible we should strengthen it against corporate attacks. The question is - how should we do this so that we can have a good source of non-biased news in the UK?

The BBC mainly. I don't particularly value BBC news. It is quite accurate in its facts, but then so are many other news sources. It is also very selective in what it does and doesn't tell us, a sure sign it is crippled by political correctness like all public sector institutions. The BBC refuses to publish the recent report into its reporting of the middle east which was prompted by allegations of bias. The BBC spends a lot of money advertising jobs in the Guardian newspaper, which like all newspapers has its own political slant and appeals to readers with that slant. Also, the BBC is its own judge and jury in cases of bias and impartiality.

The BBC also has dubious claims to being a public service broadcaster. What does this mean exactly? The vast bulk of its output is indistinguishable from the low brow rubbish pumped out by commercial broadcasters - Eastenders, Top Gear, game shows, quizzes, the government's lottery shows, £6 million per year man Jonanthan Ross and his masturbatory jokes about ex prime ministers and the silly antics and of not so young pop DJs like Chris Moyles.

Who knows what new avenues might present themselves in British broadcasting if the multi-billion BBC goliath was not there to cripple competition with its funding system guaranteed by the full might of the criminal law? The BBC uses Capita to get that cash, and that says quite a bit about the so called public spirit ethos of the corporation!

The BBC boasts of its massive database with all our addresses on it and soon will make a bid for some kind of licence of home computers too, probably meaning that anyone buying a PC will have to give their name and address to the government. Who knows - perhaps the government will store your TV and PC licence details on your nice new ID card so that the BBC can find you quicker if you fail to pay up.

The time has come to get rid of the empire building BBC, not to listen to what wonderful new things this cash hungry, cash wasting, database building monster has in store for us using our money.

If there is a shift from licence fee to pay for what you see there will be a fundamental shift in where the gathered cash goes but not in how much cash is gathered. There will still be an obligation to pay the "fee" (regardless of how it is styled) but, because the fee will be directed to private concerns it will necessarily contain a profit element. Worse, it will result in serious cultural pollution as the sop of competition is introduced to encourage the illusion of choice. As most private media spends more in a year on advertising than the BBC gathers in licence fee, it is certain that additional consumer borne costs will arise to sustain advertising. As commercial televison can also carry a significant amount of advertising there will be less time available for actual programming. And finally, just as the BBC has discovered, commerical television has discovered that delivery through the Net is a "viable" model. Which then obliges the consumer to endlessly upgrade to, usually, proprietory software systems that are required to continue recieving a service. Which then installs an off switch in your media: you dont pay you don't get.

So agitate to abolish the Licence Fee by all means. But it will mean that payment will also be required for 1) profit 2) competition measures 3) additional advertising 4) expensive software.

Not quite what people think of when they think of saving a few hundred pounds a year.

The licence fee is a scam. I watch no TV at all except football on Sky Sports. For about £10 per week I get to see matches that would cost me much more to attend. Sky saves me money. Why do I have to pay the BBC to produce cr*p like Eastenders, Casualty and Top Gear just because I like watching football on Sky?

These days is would be very easy to put the BBC and all the dross it produces on a subscription platform so those that want it can buy it and leave the rest of us alone.

Watch out for the forthcoming BBC attempt to get a PC licence up and running! That Capita run BBC database is going to get even bigger. And that info could just end up on your nice new ID card too so when you are stopped by the police they could check to see if you've paid for Eastenders like a good boy or girl who knows that government funded trash TV is a necessary compulsory purchase to keep you stupified in front of your TV and unlikely to think for yourself.

Keep BBC staff at arm's length - they are employees of a vast, arrogant, sinister multi-billion pound corporation that is financed by the strong arm tactics of the criminal law system with the full backing of the state.

Oh dear Pete - your views are quite confused. You want unbiased news, but would choose Sky over the BBC? The Beeb may be awful sometimes in its coverage - especially in the ways I previously outlined - but Sky? Sky is owned by Rupert Murdoch who - as you should well know if you get into debates like these - is not afraid of pushing his staunch neoliberal views onto the world. This is particularly the case in the UK, the US and Australia. Even if you think his propaganda is not damaging the world and encouraging conflict in the Middle East - and that would make you a minority on Indymedia - I think you'd find it difficult to justify his substantial media ownership. It can't possibly be healthy for one person to have control of such a wide variety of media outlets (and he's not the only one doing this).

Meanwhile the BBC "is quite accurate in its facts, but then so are many other news sources"? Utter rubbish. The BBC's output admittedly is not as tainted by corporate priorities as other news sources are, but the idea that we are getting "quite accurate" news is laughable. This has been the case for some decades, as Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman discussed at length in their book "Manufacturing Consent", and has been covered more recently (amongst others) by David Cromwell and David Edwards in "Guardians of Power". In short, the BBC is less biased than some sources but it is far from perfect.

What bias would you say that the BBC has on Middle East coverage? The report in question is an allegation of anti-Israeli bias, but I'd say that would be particularly hard to prove. Especially since Israel has working in its favour some extremely powerful and well-funded lobby groups in Israel and the United States - and who do the Palestinians have to lobby for them? Some widely scattered, small and underfunded pressure groups - nobody with substantial power or media leverage.

You might like also to see the following article, which suggests that Israeli sources will not be interviewed if there is Palestinian balance, and that CNN comes under pressure to conform to a pro-Israeli line:

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/apr/01/bbc.israel

Incidentally, I note you mention the "political slant" of the Guardian - do you regard it as particularly left-leaning? You'd be mistaken to do so. It is after all a commercial operation and prints news that fits in with the corporate agenda. It sometimes takes a progressive/liberal line on soft issues, but its sister paper The Observer was pro-war, and meanwhile both publications take around 75% of their revenue from advertising, which is primarily made up of environment-destroying interests: cars and flights. The idea we have a "liberal media" is a myth.

To summarise, I can tell you are substantially opposed to the BBC, but I think it is not primarily because you are against the license fee - it's because you regard it as a liberal institution and you'd rather your news came with a conservative/pro-war bias. You are in a minority group if that's the case - and if you want to continue debating, you'd do well to answer some of these questions rather than just moaning about the Beeb in general.

Jon, just how naive do you have to be to regard TV news that the government forces you to buy even if you only want to watch other TV channels as impartial, reliable and of good quality? Doesn't the threat of a fine and a criminal record give you some idea why so many people buy BBC products? If BBC news is so good people would buy it voluntarily wouldn't they? So why the nasty legal threats via letter and TV adverts, and those huge, sinister posters about the giant BBC database that are mostly seen in poorer areas of Manchester and other cities, never the posher ones?

The general quality of BBC output gives most sensible people a good indication of the quality of its news. Eastenders, Flog It, Top Gear, Chris Moyles, Jonathan Ross, celebrity dancing competitions, tedious property and cooking shows, endless cops and robbers shows, police chase video programmes, Celebrity Cash in the Attic and countless other knick knack valuation shows, dozens of dull doctor and nurses dramas! Need I go on?


Of course, I've no objection to people buying trashy BBC programmes and dumbed down new if they want to, any more than I object to people buying trashy newspapers, celebrity chat magazines and lottery tickets from the government lottery that the BBC pushes on their behalf. If that's the rubbish they want, who am I to say they can't have it? But why do I have to buy such rubbish just because you and others are gullible enough to want it?


Anyway, keep BBC staff at arm's length. They might seem nice enough, but they approve of that giant Capita run BBC database that is used to harrass many people who simply don't want the BBC and are happy with other providers. And don't forget - your TV licence database details will proabaly end up on your ID card. And start saving up for your PC licence too - the BBC is keen on that idea to boost its already huge £4 billion per year income!

Hi Pete. I'm pleased to have the opportunity to carry on this conversation. I shall try to answer your main points. I would stress that I am not a big fan of the Beeb, but nevertheless think that your priorities are skewed because of your political allegiances. My response - and this one - are attempts to highlight that.

1. How naive do you have to be to regard TV news that the government forces you to buy as impartial, reliable and of good quality?

I've not said any of those things about the BBC - read my posts again! In fact I said that it is "awful sometimes"; however I did say that I regard its output as better than commercial channels. I think in my previous posts I have written enough about mainstream media bias to prove that I am not a big fan of all BBC News output.

2. Would people voluntarily buy BBC (news) products if given the free choice?

I think they would to a certain degree - the BBC News teams holds much more establishment sway than, say, Sky news. I'm not sure where ITN news and Channel 4 come on the "respect hierarchy" but in the older, conservative mindset, the Beeb rather rules the roost (to a certain degree regardless of the quality of its news programmes). It's mainly to do with how long the institution has been around, I think.

The BBC does produce good original drama and documentaries - however to debate this properly I guess we would need access to solid research to determine a "quality x quantity" ratio for the BBC versus (say) Sky channels. The lack of advertising on the BBC also counts in its favour - not just aesthetically but from the perspective of (in theory at least) reducing corporate influence over programme content. Sadly the govt have the BBC by the balls, as I noted in my first post - the only reason why Sky has not been attacked by the New Labour machine is that it has not broadcast anything that has sufficiently challenged government propaganda (e.g. over Iraq). The BBC did, to their credit (but retracted it, to their eternal shame).

However this question rather ignores the wider question, which I posed in my first post: "How should we fund public service broadcasting?". Perhaps you think we should do away with it. If so, the objectivity and impartiality of news would be the first to suffer. It is bad enough already without our championing a system to make it worse.

3. Why do the BBC use legal threats and intimidation?

I've already said I am not a fan of this, but in the current system, I guess they don't have a lot of choice. Again, I refer you to the Australian model, where funds for PSB are taken from tax revenues. We could do this, but if we did, you could still argue that you still have no choice as to whether or not you pay for BBC output. If you would argue in this way, you would have to own up and say that you are against all models of PSB.

4. Is there a bias against poorer areas in terms of license targetting?

Probably, and I don't like that either. It's not entirely relevant to the discussion though.

I would say here that I would be in favour of a graded system in which people pay according to their means - so if they are on benefits, they get their telly service for free or a reduced cost, and if they are well off, they pay more. That I guess would bring us back to the taxation model (which for the record I am not opposed to, so long as it was transparently managed).

5. Does the BBC produce quality programmes?

I've already answered this, but it's fair to say they produce some celebrity rubbish too. Surely though if you are paying £40/month to Sky, you are funding celebrity rubbish on their channels - do you also object to that? My view, which again is slightly off-topic, is that celebrity rubbish of all kinds should be resisted - you are right that it keeps people stupid. But this is a dilemma: in a democracy, how do you force people not to distract themselves with mediocrity? The government surely isn't going to do it, lest they get an angry mob of 60 million people on their hands!

6. Will the BBC try to license home computers?

I've not heard that one, but I don't think they would try. It smacks too much of Soviet-era "license to own a photocopier" and a direct challenge to the little democracy we have left. The press, as rubbish as they are, would make too much noise about it for it to be possible.

7. General remarks about ID cards etc.

Not entirely relevant, but I did read that the BBC were going to get access to the UK tax records database to refresh their licensing database. I think this is a disgrace, and I expect you would too. I think it would break the law (Data Protection Act) but there is a grey exemption area around "detecting and preventing crime" which they might use. Bloody loopholes ;-)


Now I have answered your questions, and hope you don't feel I have ducked any. If you would like to continue this debate, please answer the following:


1. Do you believe in public service broadcasting (PSB)? Given the wealth of information available on the corporate influence upon the media, does that affect your view about PSB and the quality of news/political content?

2. In what way do you think the BBC is biased? Do you think it is pro-government, pro-corporate, or pro-citizen (or a mix of the above)? Is it right-wing or left-wing? Does it favour the Israeli side, the Palestinian side, or neither, when dealing with the Middle East conflict?

3. How do the BBC News biases compare, in your view, to the biases of Sky News?

4. Is the BBC more "dumbed down" than Sky? Does it produce more, less or the same amount of "dull" and "endless" "dross"? If you have a specific answer, can you prove it?

I look forward to reading your responses.

Jon, the facts are simple.

1. The government forces us to finance the trash TV it pays the mega monolithic, £4 billion per year income corporation that is the BBC to manufacture even if we only want on watch other channels.

2. The criminal law system and a huge, sinister, Capita run database is used to enforce this bizarre arrangement, and there are plans to extend the licencing system to PCs.

3. The main victims of the licencing system are the poor, which is why the BBC puts up most of its sinister posters in poor areas.

Jon, the BBC is outdated, financed by a method more suited to a fascist country than a supposedly forward looking 21st century nation that tusts its citzens, and is it even looking to encroach more on our freedom and pockets by a PC tax! It demands more cash while it pays 'celebrities' like Jonathan Ross £6 million per year for a chat show!

So, as I said, don't trust BBC types. Keep them at arm's length. Don't go to meetings where the BBC kindly tells you about software it is developing. Remember the database, remember the posters, remember the compulsion, remember the poor people getting fines and criminal records, remember the overwhelming majority of BBC product that is cheap and nasty tacky rubbish.

Don't go to this meeting. Ignore the government funded broadcaster that is the BBC.

Some People claim the BBC is some kind of Monopoly that prevents freedom of choice.

I like to watch Premier League footbal matches on Foreign television stations. Sky prevent me from doing this. It would only cost me £2 a week, but Sky spend millions to tell people things like this:

"If you know who is showing Premier League matches via a foreign satellite system you can report this directly to Media Protection Services Ltd (MPS), The Premier League have employed MPS a specialist fraud detection agency, to monitor the use of satellite systems which broadcast Premier League football matches illegally."

Forget your BBC database, Sky has a box in your house that relentlessly informs on you. Every fifteen minutes of every day. Even if the set top is off. If you look around the poor areas of any City you can see these things being advertised to the poor and vulnerable. Unlike the BBC, Sky makes the victim pay for their own surveillance.

"It is illegal to use equipment designed for use abroad to screen the matches in commercial premises in the UK. The maximum fine on conviction is £5,000 per offence. A civil action for damages can also result."

How many Civil Actions do Sky take out every year? It is one of those things, commercially sensitive, so you really are not supposed to ask. Why is it illegal? Because Sky say so, which shows how much they value freedom of choice, because it interferes in a Sky contract. I never signed a contract with Sky so I am free to use whatever satellite technology I want. Except Sky say I cannot:

"We will also be pursuing the suppliers of foreign satellite systems who are clearly trying to illegally cash in. Their advertising blurb and statements in the media are deliberately misleading and confusing."

Does this come from Sky or the BBC? It matters, because Sky would have it that only the BBC dissemble. In the last two years, there have been over 900 successful criminal prosecutions and 2 licensees have lost their licences after being sued by Sky. Not to mention in excess of 200 civil actions and judgments that have been obtained. Unlike the £1000 fine of the BBC Sky insist on damages of up to £65,000. Dont be fooled Sky is far more Authoritarian than the BBC.

Ironically, it is Sky that says the following:

"These companies believe the longer they can stimulate a false debate on this issue the longer they can continue making money off the back of licensees, who in turn are the ones putting their livelihood on the line."

The BBC is not paid for by subscribers, even those who only want to watch Football, it is paid for by licencees. The Licence derives from the Authority of the Crown granting an exploitable contract to the British Broadcasting Corporation. A separate licence was granted to Sky by the Premier League which does not give any rights at all to any broadcaster other than BSkyB to show live Barclays Premier League matches in the UK. Yet Sky claim that people are "subscribers" - once they begin to call their fee "The Football Licence" then it might be possible to take Sky seriously.

Television Without Frontiers, which is one of those damned EU initiatives, is held by Sky to be irrelevant. That is, it can not intefere in the operations of the Sky Contract with the Premier League. Sky has, this way, denied access to all of the European free channels. Sky says that I should pay them about £520 a year - why? I never actually watch football, but Sky insists that I pay them to watch channels they do not own. Why should I pay the Football Licence?

don't subscribe to Sky! You won't get nasty letters from Sky threatening you with a fine and a criminal record if they catch you watching any other TV channels using their vans and their sinister Capita run database. When I cancelled my Sky subscription a few years ago all I got was a nice letter thanking me for my custom and later another saying I could re-subscribe for a reduced price! If only the BBC and its database and revenue henchmen were so polite.


Steer clear of the government finaced, criminal law backed, multi-billion pounds per year income mega monolith broadcaster and its nasty ways. Don't collaborate with its staff. If you have to pay it because it demands money with nasty threats of a fine and a criminal record just because you want to watch other TV, then that's understandable, but don't fraternise with the people who benefit from such loutish behaviour. So don't go to this meeting.

Pete - I can't debate with you if you refuse to answer my questions. You can reel off as many "facts" as you like, but repeating them, and avoiding all the good points I've made, loses you your argument.

Jon,

you might wish to debate a lot of things about the licence fee. Such as why the BBC is compelled to use a private consortium to collect the fee, why Capita gets it persistently, aggressively and totally wrong about people and renders debts to agencies on the basis that "everybody has a television."

But that debate will not actually happen by discussing the situation with someone who advocates "choice" and presents sky as one (if not the only) alternative. The truth would seem to be that Pete does not understand that Sky charges him £520 a year (His £10 a week) for an average of 25 hours a week viewing time. That is an average of 40p per hour. Up to 30% of that hour can be taken up with channel identity so that is up to 12p. It is a subscription service, so Pete is obviously happy to subscribe 12p an hour to watch advertising.

Not being an owner of any kind of television reception device, I am free of the licence fee. But I would prefer to pay the standard BBC fee than the largely unregulated fee extracted by Sky.

Should there be a fee for internet usage? I think not - as an interactive medium, such a levy is tantamount to censorship. As found in the recent "mp3 piracy" clampdown - the Internet is being censored heavily by interested parties. Adding a levy fee to that would make it even more contentious.

But something does need to happen to ensure that cultural media is sustained - and that will cost money. The alternative would seem to be Sky billing everybody 12p an hour regardless of whether they want an endless stream of adverts or not.