"The BBC's activities and ambitions are chilling"

[Bob The Skutter]

From BBC News
News Corporation's James Murdoch has said that a "dominant" BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK.
The chairman of the media giant in Europe, which owns the Times and Sun, also blamed the UK government for regulating the media "with relish".
"The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision," he told the Edinburgh Television Festival.
The scope of the BBC's activities and ambitions was "chilling", he added.
Organisations like the BBC, funded by the licence fee, as well as Channel 4 and Ofcom, made it harder for other broadcasters to survive, he argued.
'Chilling'
"The BBC is dominant," Mr Murdoch said. "Other organisations might rise and fall but the BBC's income is guaranteed and growing."


...
Free news
Mr Murdoch said free news on the web provided by the BBC made it "incredibly difficult" for private news organisations to ask people to pay for their news.
"It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it," he said.
News Corporation has said it will start charging online customers for news content across all its websites.

Leave it to a Murdoch to complain about the BBC when basically they own most of the rest of the media in the country.

I like the bit where it basically blames the BBC for them being unable to monetise news on the web. Like others don't provide free news, and like they've managed to do it in other countries but not in this one.

I know there are people here (Americans especially) who don't like idea (or the reality) of the TV Licence, but without the BBC I can say that 99% of the time there would be nothing on TV I would watch that wasn't an American import.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

Yeah basically because people can access the BBC new site for free(just like every other new site on the net), he is having problems getting people to pay for news on his sites, has he not already started putting news stories on their website for subscribers only.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Yeah basically because people can access the BBC new site for free(just like every other new site on the net), he is having problems getting people to pay for news on his sites, has he not already started putting news stories on their website for subscribers only.

Not to mention the dodgy reputation his newspapers have, why would anyone consider paying for them when there's other more reliable news sources out there for free.

 

[Haggis and tatties]

^^Yeah i can only agree with you there, the last time i looked at Sky news was during the terrible Sohamn murders, and Sky seemed not so much to be reporting it as they seemed to be relishing in this terrible tragedy...i know the news needs to be reported but Sky news in my view seems to enjoy the fact something really bad has happened in the way they cover it 24/7, i personally found their coverage of the Sohamn murders very distasteful.

Never watched Sky news again.

 

[Zulu Romeo]

Yeah basically because people can access the BBC new site for free(just like every other new site on the net), he is having problems getting people to pay for news on his sites, has he not already started putting news stories on their website for subscribers only.

Not to mention the dodgy reputation his newspapers have, why would anyone consider paying for them when there's other more reliable news sources out there for free.

When you consider that ex-News of the World editor Rebekah "Named and Shamed" Brooks will soon become Chief Executive of News International Ltd. (the company owned by News Corporation which is in charge of The Times and The Sunday Times as well as the Sun and News of the World) then things are looking decidedly more grim.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^So can you imagine what it would be like if there truly was a "soft touch/no touch" regulation on the media in this country? I mean OFCOM are fairly useless as it is, and spend the whole time having reports and not actually doing much of anything, if they weren't there at all I can imagine Sky News would be like Fox News or worse.

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I like the bit where it basically blames the BBC for them being unable to monetise news on the web. Like others don't provide free news, and like they've managed to do it in other countries but not in this one.

Right, it's the BBC's fault that ten years of attempts to monetize news on the 'net, from Salon to the New York Times, have failed.

The Associated Press is trying to monetize their reportage with arcane licensing fees, and it's about to render them irrelevant. Yes, there is a cost involved in gathering news and reporting it, and I understand the need for revenue. But no one's quite figured out how to do that effectively.

 

[Captain Shaw]

The chairman of the media giant in Europe, which owns the Times and Sun, also blamed the UK government for regulating the media "with relish".

The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision," he told the Edinburgh Television Festival.
The scope of the BBC's activities and ambitions was "chilling", he added.

If they are so heavily regulated why have his papers not been shut down for all there lies they print everyday.
And if the BBC is state sponsored Journalism why is Brown the most hated man in the uk.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

^I wouldn't be surprised if the government are slowly trying to chip away at the BBC with all these little demands placed on what they must do, and want to syphon off funds for other purposes. So in the long run Murdoch may just get his way.

 

[Pingfah]

Maybe it's me, but the manner in which he phrased his comments seemed to be implying that the BBC is beholden to the government somehow, which is obvious nonsense if you look at their output.

Also, that article is an excellent example of how the mandate put upon them as a condition of their license fee, to offer impartial, accurate coverage, can work quite well. Can't imagine Fox presenting an article about themselves like that.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Maybe it's me, but the manner in which he phrased his comments seemed to be implying that the BBC is beholden to the government somehow, which is obvious nonsense if you look at their output.

Also, that article is an excellent example of how the mandate put upon them as a condition of their license fee, to offer impartial, accurate coverage, can work quite well. Can't imagine Fox presenting an article about themselves like that.

Of course he presents it like that. He wants to make it seem like it's government controlled media that only "independent" and commercial media counteract.

 

[payndz201]

It really is a case of "Well, he would say that" about Murdoch (and by that I mean Rupert, since I have no doubt that his son is acting as his sock puppet). After all, Rupe recently decreed that he wants to charge people to read his news websites... but how can he profit from that if there are free alternatives that people will go to instead? Answer: do everything he can to eliminate those free alternatives, preferably by force of law.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if, come the next election, the Murdoch papers swing behind whoever is most willing to "liberalise the market" - ie, scrap OFCOM and its troublesome media ownership rules and divert part of the licence fee away from the BBC to commercial rivals. Hmm, wait a minute, haven't the Tories promised to do both those things? (Hint: yes.)

News 24 doesn't get higher ratings than Sky News because it's subsidized: it gets higher ratings because it's better at delivering the news, and that's all there is to it. My gym shows News 24 and Sky News side by side, and even without sound it's easy to tell which has more actual journalistic content. Sky seems incapable of going more than ten minutes without some vapid 'human interest' puff piece.

 

[captcalhoun]

i only watch Sky Sports News when Dad has that on.

mind you, the old fart's fucking bonkers, he won't believe anything about sport in the paper unless it's been on SSN. and keeps going on that they 'print anything they like' in the papers...

 

[Captain Shaw]

No offense to any Americans on here but with the little i have seen of fox and with the way sun behave i think we need ofcom and the BBC more than ever.
And if the tory's are going to weaken the BBC are they also going to ban the likes of Murdoch donating money to party's.

 

[Rocketman]

Technically, his newspapers being utter shit does nothing to detract from his argument. Although he'd probably be better off complaining to the European Union

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Technically, his newspapers being utter shit does nothing to detract from his argument. Although he'd probably be better off complaining to the European Union

Than complaining to who? His speech was at a TV festival, not a complaint to the regulators. And no, what detracts from his argument is the fact that no one has managed to do it in any other country, even where the BBC isn't the "state sponsored media" and even without the BBC there would still be a thousand other sources for news on the internet that are free.

 

[Rocketman]

Than complaining to who? His speech was at a TV festival, not a complaint to the regulators. And no, what detracts from his argument is the fact that no one has managed to do it in any other country, even where the BBC isn't the "state sponsored media" and even without the BBC there would still be a thousand other sources for news on the internet that are free.

Actually, enough players in the online news market have managed it, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times only being the most prominent examples.

Paid-for-news can succeed, in markets where there is a scarcity of `free' competitors.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

Than complaining to who? His speech was at a TV festival, not a complaint to the regulators. And no, what detracts from his argument is the fact that no one has managed to do it in any other country, even where the BBC isn't the "state sponsored media" and even without the BBC there would still be a thousand other sources for news on the internet that are free.

Actually, enough players in the online news market have managed it, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times only being the most prominent examples.

Paid-for-news can succeed, in markets where there is a scarcity of `free' competitors.

So specialised fields, such as financial markets, where interested parties might actually want a more in-depth analysis of it can pull it off. And maybe if they'd have gone down that route from the start other news could have pulled it off, but now everyone is used to free advertisement subsidised news it'll be hard to put back in the bottle. But sure you might get a niche of people who are willing to pay for good quality news coverage from a source they trust, but I think most people would go without rather than pay for it at this point.

 

[payndz201]

But sure you might get a niche of people who are willing to pay for good quality news coverage from a source they trust, but I think most people would go without rather than pay for it at this point.

Even after foot-shooting exercises like the rigged phone vote scandal, I'd wager that more people would say they trusted the BBC than they do Murdoch's newspapers - or moat-dredging, duck-housing politicians, for that matter. Which of course is why Murdoch's papers, among others (the Daily Fail foremost), hate the BBC and are engaged in a constant campaign against it... as are politicians (of all stripes).

As the old saying goes, if all parties accuse you of being biased against them, you must be doing something right. To me, the BBC is like the NHS - it's not perfect by any means, but it's always there when you need it, is still something founded on noble ideals that every Brit can be proud of... and it's a hell of a sight better than the unfettered free-market alternative.

 

[Cutter John]

Get'em guys! Murdoch and his ilk have pretty much killed responsible tv journalism here in the US. Don't let him do it to you too.