The BBC

Absolutely.

I'm doubtful that any BBC broadcaster should be allowed to publish any contentious opinion.

What if you’re a camera operator and you’re campaigning for Black Lives Matter on Facebook? Or a research assistant and you’re campaigning for a second Scottish independence referendum? Do you have to quit your job?

I don't know (about the new rules or what should be the rules), but FWIW my own point was re broadcasters, people actually talking to the audience.

I'd tend to think that rules should be much more liberal re: other staff.

Gary Lineker talks to loads of football fans, and also makes himself known for his political views. I think that's somewhat problematic - even if sometimes I might agree with his views.

But if someone who's filming Lineker, Murphy and Shearer in the studio happens to be against Brexit and says so on Facebook, I don't see that that's problematic.

I think I roughly agree with that. But you can see how it can get tricky. Producers, for instance, have a lot of editorial power. They’re not in front of the camera, or the microphone, but they’re instrumental to the substance of a programme.

What counts as ‘partisan’ and ‘opinionated’ is going to be interesting. Is Andrew Neil organising a right-wing boycott of the Co-Op because they apologised to a trans woman for advertising in The Spectator covered? Is the editor of Newsnight retweeting the presenter of Newsnight writing in the Murdoch press about ‘cancel culture’?

It’s hard to see how anyone other than Adrián Chiles is going to maintain a newspaper column.

i feel like maybe there's a difference between BBC employees pointing out their experiences of racism or misogyny and sharing unchecked rumours straight from CCHQ on a BBC Twitter account but i'm sure the new DG will be able to protect the factual accuracy of news output without drawing an equivalence between those two things

It doesn’t need to be massively hard - social media output from relevant staff should be treated like any other output and subject to similar editorial processes. So LK should be getting second sources for stuff she tweets just like stuff she reports on air, and analysis is OK and opinion isn’t.

Not that this is what they’ll implement obv

Coincidence that the head of Editorial Policy stepped down effective last week? (Probably, tbf)

it seems pretty much par for the course that someone from a sex trafficking clan is taking over as the new Woman's Hour presenter.

Oh no. Just seen. Awful person.

the day before election '19 she told a caller on her 5live show that even if Corbyn as PM would materially improve their life, it would be a selfish and evil act voting for him because he is an antisemitic danger in her not very humble opinion.

I don't know her. But she's from The Telegraph? :(

it does feel like it's all change at the bbc at the mo

right-wingers getting plum r4 gigs not that much of a change tbh

Lol otm

She also stole her dreadful coral lipstick from a dying bingo lady.

BBC Scotland stopping daily live coverage of Nicola Sturgeon's coronavirus briefings https://t.co/TQ2te4IlM5
Good to see @BBCScotland have taken account of representations from @jackiebmsp and me!

— George Foulkes (@GeorgeFoulkes) September 10, 2020

Fuck the BBC, and Labour.

Or, Scottish Labour.

both Labour and the BBC are rotten to the core and no use to anybody apart from the establishment they serve, they both need liquidating.

still got mad love for R3 tho!

fun fact i heard yesterday - the budget for Drama on 3 for an entire year is the same as one episode of Holby City

Radio 3 has been massive this summer, scrap everything else sure

Anecdotal and all that but almost every elderly person I know regularly tuned in to those ScotGov briefings as their main source of info about a virus that scares the shit out of them and that is currently on the rise. Most of them won't know how to watch on twitter/youtube.

I'm still stewing about this. Like there is literally nothing else on BBC Scotland when those lunchtime briefings are held.

I don't mean the telly's shite and it's all repeats. There is nothing else programmed on that channel until 7pm!

so they've effectively said they'd rather show nothing than show a public health briefing because it might make the government look good

This sounds like a stupid move. I haven't seen the Scottish briefings so I'm not saying this as a comparison, but it does occur to me though that if the Tories were still getting a free guaranteed TV slot every day I'd be kicking off by now, especially because you know they'd use it to talk shite about moonshots and new A-roads.

I'm pretty sure ScotGov isn't doing that, but if it wants to defang the political justification it should just have Jason Leitch or similar front them, rather than Sturgeon. The BBC isn't a state broadcaster (well it's not meant to be ffs)

On some rare occasions it strays into political territory - main NS saying she needs furlough extended and doesn't have borrowing powers to make it happen without Westminster.
To be fair to her she bats most politically loaded questions away and explicitly states that's not what she's there for.

it should just have Jason Leitch or similar front them, rather than Sturgeon. The BBC isn't a state broadcaster

I get this point totally but Leitch himself repeatedly says he advises and government decides so it's not appropriate for him to answer some questions.

When UK was briefing daily they rotated the hot seat and ended up with 'Where's Boris' trending so maybe people expect leaders front and centre in times of crisis.

I should also say it's clear NS is growing in popularity probably as a result of the briefs and it's understandable the opposition would attempt to prevent that.

I personally don't have an issue with politicians gaining popularity for being seen to do their jobs properly and I think the public information value is more important than the political point scoring at this point.

It will also cost the opposition. It's an own goal to fight to stop people you want to vote for you from being informed about a deadly virus.

BBC Scotland has confirmed that it will continue to screen Nicola Sturgeon’s coronavirus briefings live on TV in the “coming weeks”, after its decision to scale back coverage was met with widespread criticism.

The BBC Scotland director, Donalda MacKinnon, insisted there had never been any intention to stop coverage but added that “other voices and perspectives” would feature alongside the first minister’s weekday briefings.

So in the interests of balance we're giving opposition a right to reply to a health briefing.

They've gone from considering cancelling broadcasts of a non political briefing because it was perceived as political into making it political!

Thst should say "opposition pols"

and that should say "that"

Not seen the Scottish broadcasts but in England all the announcements have a q and a session at the end of them which provides some balance (not so much when they are answering vetted questions from the public though)

Said sessions can be terribly repetitive, it's like the journos aren't listening to the previous questions. Or need to be seen asking the question themselves.

Scottish one is the same. Journos a mix of clowns who don't listen and trolling arseholes trying to turn everything into SNP vs the UK.

I think the plan is for the BBC to cut away early from the Q&A to Jackie Baillie and Douglas Ross and get them to undermine anything the government attempted to communicate.

Impartiality

Scottish one is the same. Journos a mix of clowns who don't listen and trolling arseholes trying to turn everything into SNP vs the UK.

I think the plan is for the BBC to cut away early from the Q&A to Jackie Baillie and Douglas Ross and get them to undermine anything the government attempted to communicate.

Oops

Lately the BBC has been playing really long Microsoft commercials before you can watch a funny video of a llama running around on a football pitch, etc. Our NPR/PBS does what they call "enhanced underwriting" (i.e. commercials) but they're usually pretty brief blurbs (except on the PBS News Hour, which has full on commercials). I don't like it, but I'm not a UK taxpayer so I have no say in the matter.

Outside the UK, the BBC is a commercial broadcaster. That money gets plowed back into the UK public service side, at least in theory.

BREAKING: Boris Johnson has asked former Mail editor Paul Dacre to run thr broadcasting watchdog Ofcom. Charles Moore is close to a done deal to be BBC chairman https://t.co/rlQmfcDSGq

— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) September 26, 2020

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jan/24/comment.comment

I can't see this, if true, ending well for the BBC but reckon its popularity is greater than Boris's. Does he want to be known for destroying the BBC?

Also, there was an interesting letter in today's guardian pointing out that the BBC is already neutered - it's not allowed to distort the market by being too good, too innovative.

Also that the government gets 10m a week from licence fee, way more than any of the other streaming services.

here's Nick Robinson showing us how the new impartiality will look

The wartime leader is back. Brits want to "fight & defeat the virus" not "throw in the sponge" he says. The PM calls for “collective forbearance, common sense & willingness to make sacrifices” in the battle against coronavirus & warns that tougher measures could be introduced pic.twitter.com/5cci63sbVw

— Nick Robinson (@bbcnickrobinson) September 30, 2020

The first of hopefully many PLAY FOR TODAY box sets is being released by the BFI in a few weeks. Many of the best ones have been released already (e.g. the unbelievable Alan Clarke box), but this is still incredible

Nice

> PLAY FOR TODAY box sets is being released by the BFI

there seems to be a PLAY FOR TODAY season on bbc4 starting tonight, not sure how extensive it'll be - documentary at 9 tonight with Country on immediately after.

episode guide lists:
Country
Abigail's Party (wed)
A Hole In Babylon (next tue)

play for today stuff is great. interesting to me that my mum mentioned it, saying how good it was, and i felt the same way. we have a bit of a generational divide in some ways, but it's an example of national intellectual or artistic pride which seems to me to be entirely healthy. it had a focus outside of London, looked at difficult, painful or awkward subjects in a strongly dramatic way.

in other stuff, i've been impressed, in a quiet sort of way, with tim davie so far. good overview of him here, though it repeats the assertion, debunked by Stewart Lee in the LRB, that he said he'd reduce left-wing comedy. but he's got credibly strong commitment to diversity and promotion. there's a really good interview with him by the CEO of the Royal Television Society Theresa Wise.

My general point here is that although many media pieces and articles (including the prospect piece) focus on the challenges of the editorial position and journalistic presentation in their news programmes, the key challenge presented by Ofcom in their second annual report is actually about how they meet generational diversity in terms of consumption - ie delivering to both traditional sofa-broadcast generations, and younger people consuming media across a number of distribution providers (eg Netflix) on various devices. The key weakness for the BBC is that they are being attacked on funding while being asked to reach more people. That's as much a technology problem as it is a content problem.

Tim Davie's answer in that interview is really good on this: that it's a case of the frame of competition widening, but that the BBC shouldn't be distracted by that, and should focus on what it's good at.

I think the challenge will be that the licence fee will be removed on the basis that it's unjustifiable where the BBC is no longer the sole or even main provider of entertainment to a lot of important demographics, and that this will be used as a way of manipulating their editorial position (tho it seems hard to me to imagine it being more client journalism than it is now, despite the presence of Lewis Goodall for instance, who must feel quite lonely).

Tim Davie strikes me as someone who will defend his organisation and his employees in a smart way, business focused and difficult to argue with.

That's an intelligent, well-informed post, Fizzles.

On the other hand, TD was once very actively involved in the Conservative Party. That seems to indicate that he is an unforgivable scumbag.

in the upper echelons of any industry unfortunately Tory scumbags are a given

both otm posts.