BBC rigs its submission to Charter Review

 

 

From the Mail:

BBC ‘ignored public’s views on its future and instead used paid-for-study to represent the views of the population’

The BBC Trust side-lined the views of the public from its official report on the future of the Corporation – despite lecturing everyone else that the public’s voice should be ‘heard loud and clear’.

It also skewed the results of a survey, even after telling MPs that any decisions about the future of the broadcaster should be based on ‘evidence’ rather than any preconceptions.

Rona Fairhead, chairman of the Trust, spent the summer arguing that the BBC’s future should not be dictated by ‘prejudice’.

Instead, she argued, it should be decided by the public who pay for the broadcaster, and based on firm ‘evidence’.

‘This should all happen through a proper debate in which the public’s voice is heard loud and clear. The BBC’s future is simply too important to be settled behind closed doors.’

However, it would seem that the Trust failed to listen to its own advice.

Around 40,000 people then responded to the Trust’s questionnaire about the BBC, in the belief that the governing body would then pass their views on to the Government.

But the Trust decided not to include the survey results in its official report on the future of the BBC, and relied on a much smaller, paid-for study to represent the views of the public instead.

Last night, people who filled in the survey were outraged that they took the time and effort to set down their views, only to have them dismissed in the Trust’s official report.

Caroline Levesque Bartlett, who runs a campaign to ban the licence fee, said: ‘I find it really irritating…we are allowed to share our view only once every ten years, and the BBC Trust rigs. What a sham.’ A BBC Trust source admitted that the results of the public questionnaire were not properly included in the official document, and hinted that it may have run out of time to do the analysis it wanted.

She added that some of the broad findings were ‘reflected’ in the report, and that the full analysis would be published at a later date – after the deadline for submissions to the Government’s Green Paper on the future of the BBC has already passed.

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22 Responses to BBC rigs its submission to Charter Review

  1. Richard Pinder says:

    I think most people took it for granted that the BBC was only trying to deflect submissions to the governments review so it could bin the submissions.

    As for the submissions. I was emailed about an investigation into the Governance of Complaints handling and Editorial failings at the BBC, which already included my Climate Science bit from a previous request. But there seems to be a lot more submissions than before.

    I have just realised that there must be five people in the Space Special Interest group of Mensa, two Astronomers in Oxford, one in Manchester and the brother of the leader of the Labour Party. And that’s all the scientists in Britain I know who realises that the Unified Theory of Climate by Ned Nikolov & Karl Zeller, is the key to Climate science in the same way as the Theory of Relativity was to Physics.

       23 likes

  2. wronged says:

    Someone please tell me the the diifference between a communist Stalinesqe run state and the BBC.

    We, the public are inconsequential to the BBC.

    I take the time and trouble to fill in a questionnaire and the BBC just throw it in the bin.

    My guess is that the BBC didn’t like the overwhelming negative responses it received.

    An off the cuff ‘sorry’ will not be acceptable.

    I am raging about this. Really annoyed.

       95 likes

    • The General says:

      You just need to listen to the Friday feedback program to realize that the BBC does not accept any criticism from its viewers.

         63 likes

    • tarien says:

      But isn’t that like eveything else that is fraught with utter duplicity & biase-take for example the IN favour of staying Europe bunch headed by this Rose fellow-and what do we have a header on the BBC this morning is this concern? Yes you guessed it, an opening on this very important subject reflecting only as to who was heading the the In vote, nothing about the OUT vote situ. Can it get worse?

         30 likes

      • Richard Pinder says:

        I think the head of the out vote people is Lord Lawson who is one of at least three parliamentarians barred by the BBC because he is also the Chairman of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which published “The BBC and Climate Change: A Triple Betrayal” by Christopher Booker.

        The two other parliamentarians barred by the BBC complained about the treatment of Lord Lawson by the BBC.

        Peter Lilley, a Tory who is one of only two parliamentarian scientists, said that the BBC is ‘afraid of letting a single critic point out  that the climate change emperor has no clothes’. The other one is Labour MP Graham Stringer who said: ‘This is a form of censorship’.

           45 likes

        • Geyza says:

          Peter Lilley knows his stuff. He is one of only 2 MPs who voted against the climate change act. he has his head screwed on right.

             7 likes

  3. magicoat says:

    When will you learn wronged 2+2 equals 5 and that “WAR IS PEACE,” “FREEDOM IS SLAVERY,” “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”
    Take that man to room 101

       34 likes

    • tarien says:

      Society has become so fake that the truth actually bothers people.

         28 likes

      • Doublethinker says:

        As George Orwell said, ‘ In times of universal deceit telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act’ Sadly we are exactly where he feared we would end up. As a post above mentions the BBC bears similarities to the secret police in Stalin’s USSR and an uncanny resemblance to the Thought Police.

           31 likes

  4. wronged says:

    What want to know is how did Rhona get the surname Fair Head!!!!

       9 likes

  5. BBdontSee says:

    I get all my BBC bias from the radio since I don’t watch any TV. I don’t have or even need a licence. Many people misunderstand the law regarding the TV licence and think a licence is required for possessing a TV. This definitely is not the case. DVDs, Netflix and Amazon prime do not require a licence. If you can stomach it, iPlayer and catch up doesn’t either.
    The obvious thing to do is for a significant number of people not to renew their licence as soon as possible. When the letters arrive just ignore them and don’t answer the door to unknown people. This is all perfectly legal unless you actually watch broadcast TV. Do it as soon as your licence reminder arrives. This is the only way to reduce the power of the BBC.

       28 likes

    • Doublethinker says:

      Do you know if there are any devices which introduce a delay of say a minute into the TV system and then play back a recording of the programme one minute behind the original broadcast? If so are these devices a legal way to avoid paying the BBC whilst watching other TV broadcasts.

         6 likes

      • nofanofpoliticians says:

        Well, that is a very good question.

        As a Sky subscriber, using my sky remote I am able to turn a programme on, put it on pause for 5 minutes (or however long it takes to make a cup of tea) come back and then watch. By definition it will be delayed but I would guess that it falls outside the normal catch-up criteria. I’m not sure, and also am unsure whether this is possible to do using a “Freeview” remote.

           7 likes

      • Roland Deschain says:

        It wouldn’t work, I think. You would still be using a device receiving the transmissions as broadcast.

           7 likes

      • Geoff says:

        You’ve just invented the PVR! All PVRs, Sky, Freeview and Freesat allow live TV to be paused, which is essentially the same as recording, as soon as you hit pause the recording starts on the HDD.

        Thus as you are recording live TV, you will need a licence.

        It could be argued I guess that no TV is actually ‘live’ in these digital days, its always 2 or 3 seconds behind due to processing the digital signal, hence no clocks prior to the news now. Its the same with DAB, the only way to get an accurate time signal is on steam powered FM!

           8 likes

  6. nofanofpoliticians says:

    Not unlike other public sector organisations, the BBC have completely lost the idea of who the customer is and who is supposed to be providing a service to whom.

       35 likes

  7. seismicboy says:

    and where is it written down that the license fee can be used to translate their liberal biased bullshit into 27 foreign languages? Where does it say The BBC have to be a voice for all the world’s have-nots, hard-done bys and every other unfortunate? What about us normal folks? It’s an outrage. They are an uncontrollable behemoth.
    If they want to be all things to all people, they can do it on their dollar, not mine.

       50 likes

  8. Gunner says:

    Even after they had constructed a questionnaire which limited the scope for negative feedback and comment, they still didn’t have enough ammo for the review ? No wonder they won’t test their market acceptability with a subscription service….

       21 likes

  9. Geyza says:

    Isn’t this how the labour government responded to the submissions to their review of a manditory ID card scheme? They lumped the hundreds of thousands of responses via petitions all together and classed it as one single response, whilst treating each of the respondents to it’s own paid-for reviews as individual responses. It was the only way that they could claim that a majority was in favour of having a very expensive, intrusive ID card. Let’s not forget what the totalitarian leaning Blair government proposed. A manditory ID card by 2013, requiring 55 different items of very personal information which the individual themselves would have to pay to keep up-to-date, or face a 1000 pounds fine or a prison sentence. All in order to submit ourselves to be registered to the almighty state. The legal equivalent of enslavement as chattel to the state.

       8 likes

  10. s.trubble says:

    I think of the vast acres of crustacea which would be spared if only this bBC army of talent could be converted to the private sector. It could even spark a book, the Prawn that would be King!!

       3 likes

  11. Dave666 says:

    Nice to know I wasted my time putting my view forward. Although ever interaction with the BBc ~I have ever had has been a waste of my time.

       3 likes