James Rodgers City University London Foreign affairs usually count for little at general elections. Voters’ more pressing concerns come to the fore: health, education, their own personal economic circumstances. There are exceptions. While exact effects are hard to prove, the Liberal Democrats’ claim that they benefited in the 2005 UK election from opposition to the …Continue Reading
Ivor Gaber University of Sussex My entry for the prize for the most unsurprising allegation of the year was the uncannily similar complaints that emanated from a number of Conservative MPs who claimed that the BBC’s reporting of the 2015 general election had been overtly pro-Labour (fat lot of good it did them, one might …Continue Reading
Jeanette Steemers University of Westminster & VLV Trustee Before the publication of the Government’s Charter Review Public Consultation (Green Paper) in July, few would have anticipated that children’s content would occupy such an important place in it. But there it is on Page 54, and everyone who values the BBC should take note. It says: …Continue Reading
Máire Messenger Davies University of Ulster The weekend of September 25th and 26th this year was a long-awaited one in the BBC’s TV viewing calendar. All over the country, millions of people1 were settling down with sighs of contentment and anticipation and, no doubt, large glasses of something refreshing, to watch the start of the new …Continue Reading
Graham Murdock Loughborough University & Goldsmiths, University of London The current struggle over the future of the BBC is part of a wider battle for the preservation of public spaces that provide essential resources for personal development, unexpected encounters, shared conviviality, and the mutual recognition at the heart of democratic life. They were the result …Continue Reading
Tom Mills University of Bath The figure of Rupert Murdoch looms large in defences of the BBC, and whilst we should not imagine that the recurrent political wrangles over British broadcasting can be reduced to the power and interests of News International alone, Murdoch and his associates have certainly played a central role. Understanding the …Continue Reading
Pat Holland Bournemouth University The DCMS Public Consultation on the BBC’s upcoming Charter Review is a strange document, based on a set of contradictions so extreme that they are sometimes laughable. It begins with unexpected warmth: ‘The BBC is at the very heart of Britain. It is one of this nation’s most treasured institutions -playing …Continue Reading
Colin Browne Chairman, VLV Board of Trustees The future of the BBC is too important to be left to politicians. We all fund the BBC through the licence fee, so it is vital that citizens and consumers have the opportunity to contribute to the debate about its future. The previous licence fee settlement in 2010, conducted …Continue Reading
Steven Barnett University of Westminster To a large extent the BBC damage is already done. Driven by ideological hostility, under cover of “essential public expenditure cuts”, and with no democratic mandate for inflicting its own political animus on a much admired institution, the newly elected Conservative government – exactly as the Coalition government did 5 …Continue Reading
Jonathan Hardy University of East London The BBC, once again, faces an existential threat. Part of what saved the BBC in the 1980s was opposition to free-marketeers’ plans from within the Conservative Government itself. This time there are Tory supporters, certainly, but most will accept the leaner, more ‘narrowly-focused’ BBC, carefully proposed by Culture Secretary, …Continue Reading
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