Save Auntie!!

[yeti]

The BBC is under threat.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/06/bbc.television1

 

Petition

www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bbc/?vl

 

[Guest Tracker]

I don't pay my license fee to subsidise stations for specialist music lovers or immigrants, I pay it so that I can watch and listen to programmes aimed at the wider general population. This by definition will include some content aimed at minorities and this I accept and understand.

 

If minority audiences want minority audience targetted programmes then they should be prepared to pay for them by subscription like Sky sports or film viewers do.

 

If the government wants minority audience programmes transmitted then the government should pay for them out of general taxation and leave the license fee to pay for the wider entire nation's perceived needs.

 

I say perceived needs because to my mind whoever is purporting to perceive our education, information and entertainment needs currently on BBC tv is not doing too wonderful a job of perception!

 

So get rid of the dross and get back to what the BBC did best as a core purpose - educate, inform and entertain the entire nation!

 

No - I won't sign this petition!

[donna miller]

When the BBC start to actually make proper programmes again, instead of all this ' reality show' cr4p, then maybe less people will complain, or here's a novel idea, stop repeating the same drivel time and time again. Yes I'm sure Ronnie Barker was hilarious in porridge and Open all hours, but I watched them as a youngster and could probably recite each episode word for word.

The BBC's argument is that other stations have to advertise and have commercial breaks to fund themselves, and yet virtually every BBC programme has some very blatant product placements within its broadcasts, do you think they do this for free, or are they indeed taking advertising revenue as well as the licence fee. Stop treating us like fools and give us this ' unrivalled service' you keep bleating about, and while you are at it, stop paying people like Chris Moyles £600k a year as a presenter, as well as all the other prima donna 'superstars' who eat up the budget, maybe, just maybe, there will be enough money left over to give us some good quality programmes without "on the way down " celebrities showing us how well they can cook-clean-dress-paint and dance.

 

 

p.s. And like Rich, I wont be signing the petition, sorry.

[Tony Jones]

Auntie can't win really.

 

If the Beeb makes special-interest stuff, we complain it's elitist and that we're subsidising other people.

But if they make programmes that appeal to a big audience, then Rupert Murdoch gets his newspapers to bleat that the BBC is unfairly competing against commercial rivals (ie Rupert Murdoch), so all those who think his "news"papers are worth reading get up in arms!

 

If they're getting both those kinds of criticism, they've probably got it about right!

[malc d]

Although I am a supporter of the BBC I am reluctant to even read the petition until they sack the person who signed off Jonathon Ross's contract.

 

Freeze ( or better still, reduce ) the licence fee until someone gets a grip of the finances of the BBC who throw money around like confetti.

(Have you heard about the salaries of the top " executives")

 

Do we really need so many people reading the news, discussing football, summarising snooker etc ?

 

.... and how about the indiscriminate use of helicopters !!!

 

Do we really need to see what England looks like from the air

when it snows ?

 

(I could go on - but I won't).

 

 

;-)

[nightrider]

The BBC has never been the same for me since Terry Wogan quit his morning slot, can't be doing with Chris Evans.

[BGD]

Soz - but the BBC doesn't need "saving".

 

It needs changing: back to basics.

 

These cuts in ethnic minority programminbg, and in channnels (like the teen one) that simply don't compete with other broadcasters, is frankly long overdue.

 

As is the cutting back of its web stuff.

 

 

The expansion of core programming is also welcome.

 

 

 

It can't be all things to all men, and the proposed changes (some expansions as well as contractions) are in my view a very sensible and overdue overhaul to refocus it on its core position.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[CliveH]

The BBC survives via tax levied on every household. As such for all the reasons outlined above I too will not be signing this petition.

 

I find the BBC's News reporting has a huge left wing "politically correct" bias.

 

I too think that if minorities want local radio then this should be done on commercial basis not handouts from the taxpayer.

 

The BBC can produce stunning programmes and should go back to doing that. If the quality of its programmes improves then I might be convinced to not to call for the TV Licence to be scrapped and the BBC move to a subscription based funding.

 

But based on how i see my TV Licence money being spent on rude and abusive overpaid individuals whose audience is relatively small and a multitude of all things to all men/women specialist TV and radio stations that I have no interest in - I say the TV Licence should be scrapped and the BBC should sink or swim on the quality of its programmes based upon what I am prepared to pay to listen to or watch.

 

So No - I will not be signing this petition.