[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Jack_

The BBC has been criminally underrated in this thread. MTVN pretty much nailed it but I think it's on near enough the same pedestal as the NHS in terms of what Britons should be proud of.

There is so much to it and there should be something for everyone: its sports coverage is unrivalled, its drama is excellent, documentaries are top notch and go further than a lot of commercial ones do since they aren't chasing revenue and ratings, its radio networks blow the rest of the market out of the water in terms of quality, well targeted programming, it covers festivals and live music events like no others and its news coverage is the most nonpartisan of all the mainstream broadcasters and arguably printed press in the country.

The arguments against that last point are incredibly tedious too. You have people on the right complaining that the BBC is has a lefty liberal hand-wringing champagne socialist Marxist agenda, while its critics on the left think it's a centre-right Conservative/UKIP mouthpiece. What does this actually tell you? That's correct, that it's neither...or rather both. Yes Nigel Farage gets a hell of a lot of screentime, yes there are plenty of examples of how the Tories were let off the hook during the election campaign and how Jeremy Corbyn faces criticism that David Cameron does not under similar circumstances, but so too has there been a number of documentaries about tax avoidance and underhand tactics by the government...where would you find these on a commercial rival in amongst the newest inflammatory documentary about immigrants on benefits with ten kids? That's because it goes back to my earlier point - the BBC can produce this kind of programming as it's not chasing after revenue and ratings to the same extent that commercial rivals are.

Subscription services suck too. Don't get me wrong, there has been plenty of good programming offered by streaming outlets like Netflix, and there is definitely weight to the argument that viewers should be entitled to watch things when they want, but do I want this to replace live, scheduled television altogether? No I do not, because there is still and always will be something exciting and in-the-moment about scheduled TV, an experience that can be shared by everyone viewing at the time. Perhaps it will become the distant past in the future, but I sure hope it doesn't for a long time, and I begrudge people who wish it along.

There are many things the BBC are doing wrong at the minute - taking BBC3 off air, peddling an age-specific mantra on Radio 1, arguably being a mouthpiece for the government - but the blame for all of these things can either be placed at the hands of the awful BBC Trust, or indeed the government of the time who oversees its status. Is it any wonder that the BBC appears to be in favour of the government in its news coverage when it faces such stiff opposition and a threat to its existence by those very same people?

I understand why some people don't or don't wish to pay the licence fee, and hell as a student I've tried not to pay it too (but when I have more money I won't care at all), so do I think it should be compulsory? Not really, but scrapped altogether? Absolutely not. We should be really, really proud of the BBC - for all of its historical shortcomings, it's an incredible British institution that offers so much to so many people around the world. The day that is replaced by a monopoly of ratings and revenue seeking networks with shouty news and tacky, sensationalist programming - will be a rather bleak one.

Nobody accuses the BBC of having a left wing bias, except a right wing govt.

'Accusations of a left-wing bias were often made against the Corporation by members of Margaret Thatcher's 1980s Conservative government. Norman Tebbit called the BBC the "Stateless Person's Broadcasting Corporation" because of what he regarded as its unpatriotic and neutral coverage of the Falklands War, and Conservative MP Peter Bruinvels called it the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation."[1] Steve Barnett wrote in The Observer in 2001 that in 1983. Stuart Young, the "accountant and brother of one of Thatcher's staunchest cabinet allies", David Young, was appointed as BBC chairman. After him, in 1986, came Marmaduke Hussey, a "brother-in-law of another Cabinet Minister. ... According to the then-Tory party chairman, Norman Tebbit, Hussey was appointed 'to get in there and sort the place out'".[2]'

Former political editor Andrew Marr argued in 2006 that the liberal bias of the BBC is the product of the types of people the Corporation employs, and is thus cultural not political.[8] In 2011, Peter Oborne wrote in his Daily Telegraph blog, "Rather than representing the nation as a whole, it [the BBC] has become a vital resource – and sometimes attack weapon – for a narrow, arrogant Left-Liberal elite".[12]

Speaking to journalists at a Broadcasting Press Guild lunch in 2009, Jeremy Hunt, the Shadow Cabinet Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, claimed that BBC News needed more Conservatives: "I wish they would go and actively look for some Conservatives to be part of their news-gathering team, because they have acknowledged that one of their problems is that people who want to work at the Corporation tend to be from the centre-left. That's why they have this issue with what Andrew Marr called an innate liberal bias."[13]

Other commentators have taken the opposite view and criticised the BBC for being part of The Establishment. The commentator Mehdi Hasan in the New Statesman pointed out the right-wing backgrounds of many BBC presenters and journalists, querying why even many "liberals and leftists" accept the right's description of BBC bias.[14] Guardian columnist Owen Jones is also of the opinion that the BBC is biased towards the right owing to numerous key posts being filled by Conservatives.[15]

A study by Cardiff University academics, funded by the BBC Trust, was published in August 2013, examining the BBC's coverage of a broad range of issues. One of the findings was the dominance of party political sources. In coverage of immigration, the EU and religion, these accounted for 49.4% of all source appearances in 2007 and 54.8% in 2012. The data also showed that the Conservative Party received significantly more airtime than the Labour Party. In 2012 Conservative leader David Cameron outnumbered Labour leader Ed Miliband in appearances by a factor of nearly four to one (53 to 15), while Conservative cabinet members and ministers outnumbered their Labour counterparts by more than four to one (67 to 15).[16]

Former Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, has criticised the BBC as part of a "Westminster conspiracy" to maintain the British political system.[17]

During times of conservative rule there is a distinct shift to the right in organisational structure, staffing and programming.
Tory mouthpeice Marr is secure in his employment currently.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_BBC