Back to the future, maybe
This organ used to pride itself on its unique and contrary, slightly left-field ‘oldie’ takes on aspects of modern living.
Indeed this was the central theme our board’s USP when pitching for the US$1.6 billion funding injection in the fall of 2016 that took us into exclusive league of independent conglomerates previously dominated by Facebook, Amazon and Google – and yet, inevitably, our success has also had its downsides.
With the now all-pervasive “Fake News” phenomenon, President Trump’s election in the USA, concerns over foreign powers hacking into national security computers and/interfering with Western democracy general elections, the global popularity of social media influencers and growing hordes of Rust imitators, we are constantly applying ourselves to ever-harder task of staying ahead of the pack.
It is no easy task. Where once we were a bit of a lone wolf howling in the wilderness we are now part of a chorus railing against any and everything in a world that has gone PC-mad.
Our consistent line has been that BBC holds an anachronistic position in UK life, unfairly supported by the rubber ring of safety that is the TV licence.
Over the last half-century it first sought to maintain its featherbedded position by trying to be all things to all people – simultaneously the “Voice of the Nation” and yet also prepared to spend billions of taxpayers’ money competing for the best entertainment talent and leading sports rights in an effort to its retain ascendancy in the ratings as justification for its existence and also supposed proof of its ‘success’.
Once it had finally tired of this “King Canute” stance about the turn of the Millennium, in an effort to remain relevant it then switched tack to try and re-position itself as the natural home of UK political correctness and what is now called “woke” sensitivity.
The results were, of course, inevitable.
We have now reached the stage where the 2014-2017 John Morton-written and directed spoof series WIA, starring Hugh Bonneville as Ian Fletcher, the BBC’s Head of Values, doing his best in a succession of increasingly ludicrous scenarios could easily have been mistaken – by an unenlightened visiting alien landing at Broadcasting House – for a genuine “fly on the wall” documentary on the inner workings of “Auntie”.
Radio Five Live, whose broadcasts I dip in and out of on a daily basis, has finally driven off the road of sanity in an effort to stay up with fashion, not least by ridding itself of a slew of veteran expert sports presenters and reporters (as recently featured on this website in Tom Hollingworth’s excellent piece on 20th January) as it pursues its latest gambit to reach out to a new and younger audience.
Yesterday I happened to catch an interview on Nihal Arthanayaka’s afternoon show (1.00pm to 4.00pm) – a typical example of the BBC’s “woke”, PC, output – with a lady involved in mental health rights and issues.
At one point the conversation turned to the “Yuman Rights” of those with mental health challenges in the workplace.
Both interviewer and interviewee agreed that it was an iniquitous outrage that any prospective employer, when interviewing candidates for a job, should ever take into account the fact that someone had openly admitted they were subject to mental health problems or issues.
In that situation – apparently – a decision by a prospective employer to award the job to anyone other than that person was fundamentally wrong, discriminatory, a violation of basic human rights and practically worthy of instant imprisonment without trial.
This latest item of incessant ‘virtue signalling’ propaganda being shovelled out by the yard over the airwaves is just yet another example of the BBC dancing to the tune of the all-conquering PC-campaigning brigade.
Coming hard on the heels of the announcement by Radio 4 presenter Sara Montague that she has recently been awarded £400,000 in ‘back pay’ from the BBC in settlement of her gender discrimination claim arising from the historical gap between her salary and that of her fellow – male – presenter of Today (John Humphreys), it simply goes to confirm that the BBC not only urgently needs a root-and-branch shake-up of its culture, but preferably also a hour-long cold shower dose of reality as it is lived in the world beyond its privileged, cosy, complacent, taxpayer-funded, walls.
