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DEFUND THE BBC LAUNCHES LEAFLET DRIVE: Steve Bird (£ Telegraph 25/10) said that Defund the BBC – a pressure group supported by a group of Conservative MPs including Andrea Jenkyns, Ben Bradley, Lee Anderson and Christian Wakefield – had launched a leaflet campaign entitled ‘The BBC is Broken’, telling homeowners how to legally cancel their licence fee payments.  Mr Bird reported that the document accused the corporation of not keeping up with technology and caring less and less about its duty to provide impartial content, especially for those outside the M25.

He said that Rebecca Ryan, the campaign director, had asserted:

‘Defund the BBC is working to inform the British public on how they can cancel their TV licence without fear of prosecution. The BBC’s system for catching and prosecuting non-licence fee payment disproportionately affects women and the poorest and most vulnerable in society. This must stop. Decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee is only the first step. It is totally unreasonable to force people, by fear of imprisonment, to pay the BBC in order to watch non-BBC live TV.’

JAMES PURNELL LEAVES BBC: Mark Duell (Mail 24/10) reported that former Labour government culture secretary James Purnell, who had become  the BBC’s director of radio and education, was leaving the corporation ‘after losing his place on its executive team following the arrival of new director general Tim Davie’.  Mr Duell said that Mr Purnell, who had worked at the BBC for seven years and had been responsible for developing the BBC’s strategy in the run-up to Charter renewal in 2017, had been appointed vice chancellor of the University of the Arts in London. Mr Duell added that Mr Purnell had also been responsible for developing the new BBC platform BBC Sounds.

BBC ‘CAST LEAVE VOTERS AS STUPID’: Naomi Adedokun (Express 24/10) said that the Conservative MP for Ashfield, Lee Anderson, had claimed that Brexit-supporting voters were ‘switching the BBC off in droves’  and ‘ripping their TV licences up’ because corporation coverage of the EU cast them as ‘stupid’ and had alienated them. Ms Adedokun said Mr Anderson had asserted that the BBC had accused them of ‘being thick, racist and not knowing what they voted for’.

BBC CHAIRMAN: ‘GREAT MAJORITY OF OUR OUTPUT IS VERY GOOD’: Anita Singh (£ Telegraph 21/10), reporting a speech by BBC chairman Sir David Clementi to the Voice of the Listener and Viewer organisation,  said he had asserted that the corporation ‘took seriously’ that over-50s thought the BBC was biased to the left while young people tended to believe it was too right-wing and part of the establishment.  Ms Singh added that he had also observed that for the ‘great majority of our output we are very good’ but impartiality was new director general Tim Davie’s priority number one ‘and we are doubling down on impartiality’.  She said he had also hit back at politicians who criticised the BBC and claimed that many of them  – apart from BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and BBC2’s Newsnight – did not spend much time with corporation output. He had also hit back at those who wanted the BBC to become a subscription service because their argument was ‘largely ideological’ and they did not realise what would be lost in terms of the educational and informational services.

James Bickerton (Express 21/10), also reporting Sir David’s speech, said he had asserted:

‘Around 27 million people in the UK came to the BBC website to find out about the election results (in December 2019). It was a reminder of the trust people place in the BBC. But the fact criticism came from all sides of the political divide shows to me that we were doing our job without fear or favour.’

BBC ‘SACRIFICES QUALITY FOR EQUALITY’: Milly Vincent (Daily Mail 21/10) said that former England cricket team captain and BBC cricket correspondent Sir Geoffrey Boycott had accused the BBC of ‘sacrificing quality for equality and of holding its presenters to a standard of political correctness which meant they were ‘frightened of saying anything’. Ms Vincent, noting that Sir Geoffrey had left the BBC in June and had been replaced by Isa Guha, a former England women’s cricketer, along with the recently retired cricketers Sir Alastair Cook and James Anderson,  said that Sir Geoffrey was also said to have claimed that at the BBC everything was now about ‘gender and race’  and that the corporation was not run particularly well.

BBC ‘TERRIFIES ELDERLY’: Katie Weston (Daily Mail 21/10) reported that the BBC had been accused of ‘terrifying the elderly’ – who in July lost the right to have free BBC licences – by sending out letters ‘emblazoned with capital letters’  threatening fines  of £1,000 if they did not pay their £157.50 annual fee. Ms Weston also noted that the letter wrongly implied that licence fee collectors had the right of entry to homes in their investigations about non-payment.  She reported that the BBC had claimed that the letters had not been sent out to the elderly.

POLL: 98% SAY BBC BREXIT COVERAGE FAVOURED EU: Steven Brown (Express 20/10) said that a poll conducted by his newspaper into attitudes about the BBC’s coverage of Brexit had found that 98% (of 19,285 responses) believed that the Corporation ‘did side with the EU’ in its Brexit reporting. He explained that the conducting of the poll had been prompted by a tweet from former Labour MP  Baroness Hoey which said that when the history of the Brexit period was written, the corporation would be shown to have ‘totally sided with the fear-mongering EU’.

‘ASTONISHING’ BBC ADMISSION ABOUT PRINCESS DI SCOOP:  Victoria Ward (£ Telegraph 20/10), discussing the ‘bombshell’ interview Princess Diana gave to Martin Bashir of the BBC 25 years ago, reported that the BBC press office had said that a ‘physical copy’ of a handwritten note from the princess exonerating Mr Bashir of claims that he had pressured her by using false documents to agree to the interview no longer existed. Ms Ward added that, despite this, the corporation insisted that the existence of the note was documented in BBC internal records and had been seen at the time by BBC management.    She said that Andrew Morton, who had written biographies of Princess Diana, had described – in a Channel 4 documentary about the interview due to be broadcast on October 21 – the BBC’s admission about the note as ‘astonishing’.

Kate Jackson (Sun 12/10) said that in the Channel 4 documentary about the Princess Diana interview, Patrick Jephson, the princess’s former private secretary, would claim that the BBC had exploited Princess Diana, and that ‘making her perform  (in that way) had been ‘a combination of seduction and betrayal’.   Ms Jackson also reported that Andrew Morton would claim that the princess – living in a world of anxiety about being ‘bumped off’ and possible surveillance – had been ‘very cleverly’ played upon by Martin Bashir.

‘WOKE’ BBC ‘SHOULD BE DEFUNDED’, SAYS BURCHILL’: Julie Burchill (£ Telegraph 18/10) argued that as ‘a circuit-break to the gloom and doom ahead’, the government – in order to win back support – should embark on a ‘brisk defunding of the BBC’.  She opined:

‘I’m sure that most of us could get behind putting a rocket under all those self-righteous metropolitans who work for it and treating them to a trick they’ll never forget. How odd to think that the BBC was once one of the main things that kept the nation’s morale up – during the Second World War, especially. I dread to think how they’d react these days; no doubt we’d be instructed not to mindlessly rally round the flag against Germany in a jingoistic way – especially considering the racism of Churchill, in contrast with Hitler’s vegetarianism.’

Ms Burchill added that when Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph, had been mooted as a possible candidate to become chairman of the BBC, ‘you could smell the fear and the fury of the Woke across the capital’,  and that they should not be kept on the run. She asserted:

‘They’ll never reform themselves and to believe they will would be as foolish as expecting the best from the EU, another corrupted monolith with which they have so much in common; the endless entitlement, the fake enlightenment, the ceaseless spending of other people’s money.’

Ms Burchill concluded:

‘And now more than ever, as our country stands on the brink of a social sundering far greater than anything we have experienced since the civil war – north against south, pro-lockdown against anti-lockdown, British country against British country in a crumbling union – we don’t need yet another state-sponsored snowflake telling us how racist we are. Step forward Countryfile presenter Ellie Harrison, who has announced that the countryside itself is racist: ‘In asking whether the countryside is racist, then yes it is; but asking if it’s more racist than anywhere else – maybe, maybe not.’ Institutions outlive their usefulness and at that point they change or they perish. ‘Nation shall speak peace to nation’ (the BBC motto) and ‘United in diversity’ (the EU motto) are amusingly interchangeable – and they are wearing thin, despite the oceans of money employed to paper over the cracks. We don’t know where we’ll be this time next year, so do put the boot in, Boris – give us some savage amusement till this nightmare before Christmas is over.’

BBC NEWSREADERS’PAID FAR TOO MUCH’: Sophie Barnes reported that Martin Bell, a former BBC foreign correspondent (£ Telegraph 18/10), had claimed that BBC newsreaders – earning up to £465,000 a year in the case of Huw Edwards, who presented the News at Ten on BBC1 – were paid far too much for ‘mostly reading words off an autocue’.  She added that Mr Bell, who had left the BBC in 1995 to stand as an ‘anti-corruption’ MP, had said he had earned £60,000 and had never asked for a pay rise.

DIMBLEBY AND GIBB ‘NOT ELIGIBLE’ TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN: Edward Malnick (£ Telegraph 18/10), reported  that the job advertisement for the new chairman of the BBC stipulated that candidates must be independent of the BBC, and not employed by the corporation in the past five years, and he suggested that this would mean former BBC1 Question Time presenter David Dimbleby and former BBC head of political programmes Sir Robbie Gibb – both of whom had declared an interest in the role – would fall at the first hurdle if they applied for the post.

OFCOM LAUNCHES COMPETITION INQUIRY INTO BBC SOUNDS: Brian McGleenon (Express 17/10) reported that media regulator Ofcom had announced an investigation into the impact on the market of BBC Sounds, a corporation platform which allowed users to listen to BBC radio stations and a selection of other stations live and on-demand.  He said that the move followed the raising of concerns by commercial radio industry organisation RadioCentre and the all-party parliamentary group for commercial radio. He added that Ofcom had stated:

‘. . . there have been a number of incremental changes to BBC Sounds, and some stakeholders in the commercial radio sector have concerns about its development. The audio and radio sector is undergoing a period of rapid change due to the evolution of streaming services, including the entry of global players such as Spotify and Apple Music.

‘Audience expectations are also changing; increasingly they want to listen to the content of their choice, when and where they want to, and there is a tendency for younger audiences, in particular, to listen online.

‘The BBC has responded to these audience changes and competition by developing and expanding BBC Sounds. Given the incremental changes that the BBC has made to BBC Sounds, we consider that now is the appropriate time to take stock of the market position of BBC Sounds and assess whether there are any issues that need to be addressed, via regulatory action or other means. We are therefore seeking evidence from stakeholders about the impact of BBC Sounds on the market.’

‘GEORGE OSBORNE ‘COULD APPLY TO BECOME BBC CHAIRMAN: Christopher Hope (£ Telegraph 17/10) reported that the post of BBC Chairman had been formally advertised with a closing date for applications of November 11, and that the government had increased the salary for the part time role from £100,000 to £160,000 a year for a three to four day working week. He speculated that those being urged to apply now included the former Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, who had resigned from his role after the EU referendum in 2016, and now reputedly held several jobs, including as a fund manager at BlackRock, for which he was said to earn £650,000 a year for one day’s work a week.

NEW BBC CHAIRMAN ‘SHOULD NOT BE TROJAN HORSE’: Television presenter and former Conservative MP Gyles Brandreth (£ Telegraph 12/10) asserted that he agreed with former BBC presenter David Dimbleby that the new chairman of the BBC should be someone ‘who believes in the BBC’  and not someone who ‘would bring the broadcaster to heel’.  He said:

‘Appointing a chairman with a view to that chairman undermining the very organisation they are supposed to lead isn’t on. The BBC employs 22,000 people, and twice as many freelancers (like me), and in my experience these are good people – talented, committed, and for the most part not that generously paid – and they deserve to be led by someone who respects, understands and values what they are doing, and can help them to do it even better.

‘You can’t have a general who doesn’t believe in the army or a conductor who despises music, can you? The BBC needs a chairman who will be its champion, not a Trojan Horse sent to reinvent it on the sly.’

By contrast, former Circuit Judge Peter Birts QC, in a letter to the Telegraph (£ 12/10), wrote:

‘If David Dimbleby thinks it’s the BBC’s job to be “a thorn in the side of government” (report, October 10), he has already disqualified himself from the chairmanship by reason of a total misreading of the BBC Charter, the Framework Agreement and the Ofcom Broadcasting Code, all of which require the corporation to commit itself to “achieving due impartiality in all its output”. (See also section 4 of the BBC’s editorial guidelines.) If this misunderstanding has been widespread among other senior figures, it explains a great deal.’

BBC ‘PUSHES  RE-IMAGINED FAIRY TALES’ TO AVOID ‘BAD MESSAGES’: Kurt Zendulka (Breitbart 11/10) said that the BBC was promoting  a series of ‘woke’ versions of fairy tales by former BBC Blue Peter presenter  Konnie Huq, who had been inspired to write them by her battles to win pay parity with men. Mr Zendulka reported that in Ms Huq’s book Fearless Fairy Tales, Sleeping Beauty had become ‘Sleeping Brainy’  while ‘Gretel and Hansel’ saw the former resenting the fact her twin brother was paid more for the same sweet-shop labour.

GOVERNMENT ‘COULD PRIVATISE CHANNEL 4’:  Ben Woods (£ Telegraph 11/10) suggested that ‘ministers’ were considering whether Channel 4 – currently state-owned – should be privatised and also whether ITV and Channel 5’s public service obligations should be scrapped. Mr Woods noted that media minister John Whittingdale had earlier in the week questioned whether Channel 4 – which had been forced during the pandemic to cuts its production budget by £150m and find £95m in savings – had a viable future in its current form. Mr Woods added that ITV and Channel 5 were both lobbying about public service obligations because they entailed higher costs and attracted smaller audiences than game shows and drama.

BBC STARS ‘PAID MORE THAN DISCLOSED’:  Chris Hastings (Mail on Sunday 11/10) claimed that many of the BBC’s biggest stars were becoming resentful that the true earnings of some of their colleagues were not being disclosed because they received large percentages of their pay from BBC Studios, which kept such figures out of the public domain. Mr Hastings instanced Fiona Bruce, who he said enjoyed a disclosed income of £450,000 from her roles in news presenting and as host of BBC1 Question Time, but was actually thought to earn more than £1 million a year through additional programmes such as The Antiques Roadshow, which was made by BBC Studios. He added that the BBC had responded that the BBC Charter did not require it to disclose pay from BBC Studios.