Vocal Voices

The licence fee or the BBC?

The next charter renewal, due later this year, and some MPs want it to be the last.

I am reasonably happy to pay for an advert free State broadcaster, but I am not happy with its output or the way it is run. It has too many fingers in too many pies. It has far too many radio stations and TV channels. It is unbelievably politically correct. It virtually runs on nepotism or positive discrimination. It makes "Stars" out of nobodies and then pays them way beyond their worth. And it is SE centric even though its studios are now in Salford.

The BBC Trust, supposedly our voice on things BBC, needs to be scrapped or made up of people from across the country. They should come from all social classes and with a wide range of interests. At present the Trust only represents a narrow view of the world and is too protective of the BBC.

The licence fee is outmoded due to the proliferation of TV services available on the internet. It has really become, by default, a sort of licence fee for the internet, and I wonder, therefore, if it can be properly policed. If it can't be properly policed, you might just as well get rid of it. The BBC should in future be funded purely through advertising.

All the criticisms you've raised of the BBC are valid. The worst aspect of it is the NuLabour political correctness element of it, especially at local level, which drives both Cromwell and I (to name but two!) to foaming rage. I'm reminded of the Seattle Seahawks fan who said he couldn't watch a televised game without lining up a large number of remotes at the side of his sofa so he could hurl them at regular intervals at the TV screen. Well that's me with BBC Midlands Today.

The only way you will get rid of this pro-left wing bias is a wholesale cull of staff both behind and in front of the cameras. Perhaps if the BBC were answerable to advertisers rather than the BBC Trust, the emphasis would be different.

Ossie, every time I'm home in the Midlands and am stuck watching BBC, I could be forgiven for believing I'm watching Islamic TV. I can't get away from it no matter what I do.

Personally I don't care. Make it a license to watch Terrestrial broadcast as they do in France and then let the BBC fight for Government funds like everyone else. But they'll have to "PROVE" they need it.

I believe every country should have a state broadcaster. I just don't believe that there should be carte blanch direct funding of it via the license. That breeds lack of accountability and the kind of radical takeover we've seen over the last 18 years...

The BBC does some good things but it Is too big, too full of it's own self importance and way too pc. So the license fee has to go. As long as adverts are limited to say ten minutes in the hour, I don't have a problem with them.

Cromwell, reading comments in other places, most people think your way, and many think like Suff that the licence tax leads to unaccountability and empire building within the big Empire.

We are also kidded by the BBC and government that we have a voice via the BBC Trust, and that is just not true. The Trust works more for the BBC than it does for us.

needs trimming ,vastly over staffed

I think the BBC has definitely become worse in recent years.

We record lots of programmes on other channels now, and, when we watch them, simple
zoom over the adverts. That way we can watch programmes at times to suit us, and pause
them when we want to make a cup of tea.