> The Guardian asked the BBC if it was confident in his claimed financial returns and questioned why the programme’s promotional material did not mention that Hassan’s cryptocurrency Orfano was abruptly shut down in October, with many unhappy investors claiming they were left out of pocket as a result.
I feel like this is the key thing. He probably made the money with a scamcoin and the BBC nearly aired something that didn't even include this fairly critical fact?
> it was one of the channel’s headline commissions for its new regional television news show We Are England. This new show replaced the long-running Inside Out regional current affairs series, which was cancelled as part of BBC funding cuts in a decision that resulted in many investigative journalists based outside London losing their jobs.
> Continuing cuts to BBC budgets and deep job cuts, caused by successive licence fee freezes, have been blamed for recent errors in the corporation’s news output, especially in regional English newsrooms.
Lack of funding lead to budget cuts which lead to worse quality journalism which will probably be used to justify reduced funding in the future.
When the Tories and neoliberals stop destroying cherished public-good institutions to justify their removal, I'll stop pointing out when it's the root cause of the discussed topic. Fair?
I am not sure what this comment is meant to convey, but it sounds to me that you are alluding to BoJo gutting the BBC for his own political gain.
I think the reality is the license fee is overwhelmingly unpopular, has been for decades. The BBC has not evolved its business model to keep up with democratized broadcast and if BoJo is the one to do what is inevitable then who can blame him to use the opportunity to be the one to pull the trigger.
The license fee is unfair, unsustainable, and in my opinion unenforceable given today's technology. It used to be that having a "TV" meant you implicitly watched the BBC. As the decades passed cable and satellite became popular and so people could own a TV and never watch the BBC, but the BBC would still insist you were watching their service and send inspectors to your house.
They would threaten you (I've experienced this myself) and ask to come into your home as if they had the authority, which they did not. So many people let these assholes into their homes to "inspect" their viewing habits and issue a fine if they found a TV in your home, because obviously if you have a TV you MUST be watching the BBC. What's even more crazy is you get a discount for a B&W TV, that's just how stuck in the past this license thing is.
Today you can legit have multiple TVs (now displays) and never watch the BBC. But the BBC thinks that because you have an internet connection you must be watching the BBC.
It's just nuts, and as I said, unenforceable. So it must end. The BBC has had the opportunity to adapt over the last ~30 years as the internet and other entertainment sources came into people's homes, but they chose not to. I say let the BBC fade away or adapt on their own feet.
The relationship between the licence fee and the BBC isn’t that simple. You must pay the TV licence fee if you receive any broadcast television generally available to the public, regardless of if it’s BBC content or not. If you only watch Channel Four, and never BBC, you must still pay the licence fee. Your viewing habits are completely irrelevant.
The TV licence comes from law, and the government happens to delegate responsibility for collection to the BBC. But the BBC doesn’t get the money directly, it’s handed over to the government who then allocates to a number of different public broadcast functions. As it happens the majority of that money ends up back with the BBC, but not all of it.
In short the TV licence fee is really a tax on receiving public broadcast. It just so happens that the majority of that tax is used to fund the BBC.
Also the BBC isn’t a normal company. It can’t unilaterally change its funding model, only the government can do that. As the U.K. primary public broadcaster it can’t raise funds by charging a traditional subscription, or by advertising, the law prohibits it. Additionally the BBC is also bound to create radio broadcast, which is also funded by the licence fee.
So the BBC hands are tied. It’s unfair to criticise an organisation for failing to change something it has no legal ability to change. I’m sure the BBC would love to explore other funding options, but politicians aren’t interested in playing ball. They would rather trade on peoples dislike of the licence fee for cheap political points, than engage in a proper conversation about how, or even if, we fund public broadcast in the UK.
The BBC is held up as one of the best, if not the best, public broadcaster in the world. It would be a shame to see it die, or heavily diminished in its capabilities. The BBC provides far more public good than just news and TV. It produces incredible amounts of educational material for schools, and has provided an incredible venue for some of the UKs best journalists and documentarians like David Attenborough to truly hone their craft, and educate billions about the world we live in.
I would have agreed with you in the past. And I still do when it comes to defending a lot of the BBC content that doesn't come from the news department.
But BBC News is just so bad and utterly corrosive that I'd abolish the entire institution just to get rid of it. Yes I know other UK media is all as bad or worse, but none of them have the public standing or institutional power that the BBC has. I don't think there's any way of reforming the news department at this point. It's not just a matter of a few bad shows or bad 'journalists'. The entire ethos/mission of BBC News is fundamentally broken. They don't know how to do journalism as a public broadcaster, and I don't think they could ever learn how. Certainly not within the current media culture in the UK.
This incident isn't a one off. It's typical. The only unusual thing is the program got cancelled and they actually deleted the article - usually they double down for weeks and refuse to admit fault. I'm guessing that's only because crypto isn't (yet) a partisan culture war issue in the UK media.
> It’s unfair to criticise an organisation for failing to change something it has no legal ability to change
The BBC is the government one way or another. So given the ministers are effectively the CEO then they are the ones who should be adapting as they have the control and report to the citizens who are analogous to shareholders. So yeah I can criticize the BBC for failing to adapt and do things that the people in control are able to do.
A government controlled corporation should be held accountable to the people, and the people obviously don't think the license fee is fair given the modern avenues of entertainment consumption. I mean charging a license fee for watching YouTube is absolutely insane. The government did not produce any of that content, individuals did, it's not even their infrastructure. Essentially the government could charge a fee for you emailing a family video to a friend.
It's archaic, unfair, and unsustainable. Make it a real tax, allow advertising, monetize BBC content on other platforms, charge subscription fees. I mean the options are wide open, behave like a competitive corporation or tax it. All of this is under control of the people who ultimately operate the BBC.
So yeah, first step is to wake up and abolish the license fee as it's just loopy so as much as I dislike BoJo, objectively he's making a bold and inevitable move which is perhaps motivated by his desire to stay in power.
It's also worth noting the UK govt' spent $5.1bn on the BBC last year, in contrast Sky operated on $5.2bn in revenue. There are clearly some huge inefficiencies at the BBC that can be remedied internally without government approval. Bemoaning $5.1bn as not being enough is garbage. I mean, ITV operates on $2.1bn in revenue. Cutting back the waste seems appropriate to me.
I think you seriously misunderstand the relationship between the government and the BBC.
The whole thing is setup to create a clear firewall between the BBC and government to preserve the BBC’s impartiality and prevent it becoming a mouthpiece for whoever’s in power (it’s a separate debate as to how successful that is).
Ministers are not the CEO of the BBC. Not even close. The BBC has an entirely separate board that should have no relationship to the current government in power (something that BoJo is desperately trying to erode).
The whole point of all this is to explicitly make sure the BBC isn't a government controlled corporation, regardless of how much the government wishes it was.
> It's also worth noting the UK govt' spent $5.1bn on the BBC last year, in contrast Sky operated on $5.2bn in revenue. There are clearly some huge inefficiencies at the BBC that can be remedied internally without government approval. Bemoaning $5.1bn as not being enough is garbage. I mean, ITV operates on $2.1bn in revenue. Cutting back the waste seems appropriate to me.
You clearly have no idea how huge the BBC’s legally mandated remit is. Comparing the BBC to Sky is like comparing TfL to Uber. Sure they’re both transport companies, but TfL is legally mandated to provide a good transport service to all, regardless of background or income, and treat their employees well. Uber can fuck their drivers, and refuse to provide services to the unprofitable.
Indeed, the BBC cannot give in to government pressure. It sets great store by factual accuracy. And if the defense of the realm is at stake, it has to be very responsible.
See the wonderful documentary^W comedy Yes, Minister.
You can have a parent company specifying budget, policy, and mandates whilst being entirely hands off on the day-to-day.
> The BBC has an entirely separate board that should have no relationship to the current government in power
The director/board all report to the Queen, who defers to the government who enact mandates for the BBC. The government appoints senior members. I just don't see how you can say the BBC is autonomous in terms of what its board decides.
> From Wikipedia: The chair and four non-executive members representing the four nations are appointed by the Queen-in-Council, on the advice of the UK Secretary of State. Five other non-executive members are appointed by the board and the four executive members are chosen by the board.
I mean, seriously, how is that independent from the government? They literally have government appointed people on the board.
> Comparing the BBC to Sky is like comparing TfL to Uber
No it isn't. TfL is not a private car service, like at all. BBC and Sky are largely apples to apples in terms of their primary interests.
Sky manages to operate a very broad set of programming, a news division, its own distribution technology, Sky employes 10k more staff than the BBC too.
It's a more general effect where conservatives will cut budgets and mismanage government services and then, having done that will turn around and go "See, look! I told you the public sector can't do this!".
And in my opinion, you're kind of falling for it. Is it true that the BBC has not evolved its business model? Well yes and no. Yes it's true that the BBC has largely failed to find new forms of revenue. That's directly because the royal charter prevents it from doing so. Is it true that the license fee is a weird tax that is badly enforced. Absolutely, but again, it's not the BBC's choice how the license fee is set up. It's the governments choice, and rather than fix the problems, the government has made them worse (through stealth budget cuts including forcing the BBC to cover the cost of free licenses for the elderly). The government could scrap the license fee tomorrow and fund the BBC out of general taxation, or remove the restrictions on the BBC monetizing its content, or remove the BBC's obligation to do a whole swathe of programming that is unprofitable but required by the royal charter. All of that is in the government's power to do. It continually chooses not to fix the problem and instead continually just bash the BBC for things that aren't within it's control.
If you look at the things that the BBC is actually in control of though - the content it produces - it does a fantastic job.
> As per the Orfano website, Orfano is a unique Rugpull-Proof coin moulded by the community, looking to benefit the lives of orphans in the poorest countries
That'd be especially scummy, to defraud people with something like that.
> The coin has been Audited by Techrate and has passed this assessment.
> The main purpose of the token is to provide support and life-saving aid to orphans in the poorest countries. The future plans of the team are to explore partnerships with other coins to further use cases such as NFT marketplaces.
> Owners: Hanad Hassan (CEO) - Founded the coin alongside Ahmed Mohammed. Hanad Hassan has prior experience working withing the charity field however he will also be recruiting team members with a wealth of experience in project management and charitable organisations. Mr Hassan has also worked as a team member for 2 separate coins which have achieved high levels of success, $PIT and $SAFEMOON.
> Ahmed Mohammed (CMO) - Mr Mohammed is the owner of a digital marketing agency and has utilised his expertise to market $ORFANO and gain excellent exposure for the token.
Well. So, they were just about to glorify a scam coin less than a week after publishing a crypto-critical piece which sounded as if they had employed Alex Jones[1]. That's worse results than a broken clock lol. If they had went with a retarded blind crypto-good/crypto-bad approach, they would have scored 1/2, not 0/2.
I feel like this is the key thing. He probably made the money with a scamcoin and the BBC nearly aired something that didn't even include this fairly critical fact?