BBC AGAIN

Recently it came to light that the BBC had been faking winners of competitions and other frauds. Viewers sometimes entered competitions which the BBC knew they had no chance of winning. In some cases members of staff posed as "winners" and in other cases names of winners read out on air were fictitious. In one case listeners to a radio programme thought they were responding to a live show when in fact it was pre-recorded. Viewers had been cheated. Ofcom has now imposed a fine of around £400,000 on the BBC. Except of course in reality they have fined the viewing public as the money will doubtless come out of the extortionate license fee that every owner of a TV has to pay. It would have made more sense if the wretched watchdog had ordered an immediate reduction of license fees in the future and possibly a few sackings to boot. I would have thought there were grounds for criminal prosecutions against some individuals but perhaps everyone who works for the BBC belongs to one of the "special" groups that the police are reluctant to tackle.

BBC SCHEDULING

So today, at least from late afternoon, all the BBC TV schedules are all to cock. If you went to to your local cinema to watch the advertised "Superman" film and then as the curtains opened you found they had decided to screen "Sound of Music" instead you could well be extremely annoyed. You might want your money back. If the cinema was in fact a complex of small screens and they announced that they'd switched "Superman" to the place next door you might still be upset. If the cinema kept on doing this sort of thing people would go to a more reliable cinema and managers at the first cinema would be sacked or it would go out of business. BBC schedulers are very incompetent but of course that doesn't matter because although nothing tonight was screened at the time advertised on the channel advertised this is not a commercial organisation. The company get their cash and the managers their salaries (+ bonuses) even if nobody gets to watch what they want to watch. English Heritage are trying to make sure BBC Television Centre gets preserved for the nation. We need to ensure this wretched organisation (BBC I mean, but much the same applies to English Heritage) comes to a quick end along with all its managers.

BBC NON-NEWS

Not long ago watched the BBC 6.00 pm news. About 10 minutes in we had a lengthy report on the National Health Service (NHS)and were told that as it's 60 years since the 'birth' there will be a report every day for a week. Of course this is just an excuse for the BBC to roll out old footage and every minute spent on this documentary material is one minute less of hard news. Presumably all the people at the BBC have GCSEs in media studies or even degrees in media studies so it is a little amazing that they are unaware of the difference between news and documentary. Except perhaps it's not surprising as any fool can pass media studies at whatever level.