So much on TV nowadays is rubbish.  There are very few quality programmes to choose from.  A mix of repeats, retro classics and reality tv.  But two of the nation’s favourite TV programmes are now going head to head on a Saturday night.  Why oh why has the BBC taken the decision to deliberately schedule Strictly Come Dancing against The X Factor?

With a paucity of high quality viewing on a Saturday night, I cannot comprehend the arrogance and short sightedness of the BBC scheduling its top Saturday TV programme against the X Factor. 

The BBC is the only broadcaster that gets a guaranteed income with the license fee so it doesn’t have to focus all its energies on chasing ratings.  It can focus on quality.  So why not, as Simon Cowell has suggested, schedule both programmes on a Saturday night, so the viewing public can have the opportunity to watch both back to back.  Cowell has stated that he and ITV are happy to put the X Factor forward or back in the schedule to avoid the clash, which makes sense for the viewing public.

As a matter of principle, I will watch the X Factor tonight, LIVE TIME, (and add to their viewing figures), and Sky Plus Strictly to watch at a later time.  I urge you to do the same and send a message to the BBC….don’t be so arrogant with your scheduling, listen to your customers ie the viewers.

I for one, could live without the BBC in my daily viewing.  Paying a license fee, a tax, on a Channel I rarely watch feels an invasion of my civil liberties.  I would be happy to programme lock the BBC if offered the chance between paying a fee to watch it or paying no license fee and getting no BBC.  Consumer choice is the most powerful of democratic principles.  Some would say this loses great programmes for minority groups and a first rate news service.  Well the news service is questionable against the quality shown by Sky News, self funded by advertising revenue.

The BBC, as mentioned in previous blog articles on this site, needs urgent reform.  With 47 of the BBC’s Executives earning salaries greater than the Prime Minister’s, this fat, bloated Corporation needs an urgent review and change.

Like many of you, I remain horrified at the way the BBC reports political events.  Whilst I would dearly love to listen and believe in their protestations of independence and neutrality in their broadcasting, it does not wash when I sit in front of the box and compare coverage to say Sky News.  Perhaps there are suicidal tendencies at the Beeb, not comprehending a major political earthquake aside, the Conservatives are heading towards power and the Beeb is heading for a shakeup.

Whilst Labour don’t have a purely harmonious relationship with the BBC, when it comes to license fee rises, there has been little debate or opposition from this Labour Government.  Labour Ministers have on the whole looked after the BBC and big reform has been kept at bay.

Now the BBC needs to consider this.  David Cameron has a history in broadcasting.  He was raised under Michael Green’s era at Carlton and understands the difficulties and successes commercial tv has.  He understands the privileged position the BBC has enjoyed.

The BBC has not had a good year.  The Jonathon Ross & Russell Brand debacle showed the Beeb to be weak and indecisive.  The huge salaries of Beeb’s top staff did not sit well with a nation suffering under the strains of recession, seeing pay cuts, wage freezes, job losses, businesses going bankrupt.  £800,000 for the Director General of the BBC…..4 times more than the Prime Minister.  Are we saying the head of the BBC is 4 times as important as the Prime Minister?

The BBC is a vast unwieldy beast.  Prime for trimming and facing commercial reality.  Cameron faces several choices.  The nuclear option…cut the license fee completely off and ask the BBC to adjust to free market forces.  However, this seems one step too far as this would see ‘niche’ BBC offerings axed.  And free market zealots will have to concede that many offerings, like regionalised news and stations like BBC Parliament would not be able to survive in a free market as advisers would not flock to those stations with niche viewing figures.  So does the nation benefit from regionalised news and stations like BBC Parliament?  The answer has to be yes.  Hence, a Conservative Government would not prioritise a license fee massacre. 

However, Cameron would be right to freeze the license fee and seek efficiency savings from the BBC.   What also needs discussing is the Beeb’s role.  Especially what should it do online and in mobile phone technology. James Murdoch, News International’s Chairman, believes the BBC restricts the free market in media and impedes fair competition in areas like the internet and other commercial activities.  Murdoch has accused the BBC of ‘trying to create a British Google…funded by the taxpayer’!

This makes an interesting contradiction for Cameron.  Balancing his free market desires against those of his social conscience, offering programmes that the country would otherwise not see.

What is true is the BBC faces big change under Cameron and that will be no bad thing!

Some quick reflections on this Sporting Sunday.

Formula 1 is on the verge of a messy break up.  8 teams from FOTA, (Formula 1 Teams Association), do not agree with new rules, specifically budgetary caps/limitations due to come into force for the Formula 1 2010 season.  The teams proposing to leave F1 and set up their own breakaway series would be…. Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, BMW Sauber, Toyota, Brawn, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Toro Rosso.

That would leave, as it stands for now for next year, F1′s line-up in 2010 comprising Williams and Force India, who were forced to break with FOTA due to their own contractual obligations, and three new entrants in Campos Racing, Team US F1 and Manor F1 Team.  Formula 1 would be left with 1 big name team, and that nowadays is midfield team Williams, whose glories now seem more historical footnotes that reigniting future world championships.

The best drivers, Hamilton, Alonson, Button, Raikkonen, Massa, Vetel etc would all be part of the new breakaway.  Formula 1 would have nothing left.  It would have to start again. 

So where does that leave the BBC’s new £250 million 5 year TV Deal?  Allegedly, reports are coming through that there is remarkably no break inclusions in the new contract!  Let’s hope the BBC have not sent negotiators to do a 5 year deal with no break clauses!  Otherwise tax payers could be paying for viewers to watch a poor series with Manor vs Campos.  Dull, dull, dull.

Perhaps you may feel I am being cynical to the BBC as they could not have predicted this.  Well yes, splits have been brewing for a while.  Other stations have made their own agreement nicely eg Sky in Italy has a clause that Ferrari have to be part of the Championship, if Ferarri are not, that’s a break clause.

Let’s see what happens but it feels more tax payers money has gone walking into the fire to be burnt away to nothing……………………..

I hope readers appreciate the PR spin that is happening today.  Any bad or controversial news, get it out today, with MP’s expenses online.  Journalists will be pouring through thousands of documents seeking to find mis-claims and corrupt MP’s seeking that high publicity resignation.  What better day for releasing PR that you don’t want on the front page.

Next up, the BBC have just announced that the appointment of Sir Alan Sugar as a Government adviser does not breach impartiality rules in the BBC code of conduct and therefore he will be allowed to stay on as the host of the Apprentice.  Again, note this was a decision made by the BBC.  A decision made by the BBC! 

Impartiality.  Hhhmmmmm.  So lets leap on the search engines and see what we can find out about the impartial Sir Alan Sugar.

I had to smile reading a letter he wrote to the Financial Times in March 1992, : ‘I have noted with disgust the comments of a certain Gordon Brown who has accused me of doing well out of the recession. I do not know who Mr Gordon Brown is. Whoever he is, he has not done his homework properly. The man doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Labour offers no sort of route out of recession.’  How times have changed!

Allegedly Sir Alan has donated over £1million to Labour over the years.  That is hardly pocket money!  It is important to make note on Sir Alan’s portfolio of 35 different and interconnected companies. His wife and sons are also directors of many of them.  Companies House documentation reveal that one of his firms, Amshold Limited, is based in the offshore tax haven of Jersey, nice to see his firms all pay UK taxes.  Last month Sir Alan’s computer manufacturing firmViglen won a Government contract worth up to £30million to supply public sector organisations with 70,000 PCs. Nice win for Sir Alan’s business venture.

Interestingly his latest Apprentice winner Yasmina Siadatan will be employed in Sugar’s new enterprise Amscreen, a business installing digital screens and advertising in surgeries and NHS waiting rooms.

But this is not an assassination on Sir Alan.  It is important to note that he does do work in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital and even donates his Apprentice fee to the hospital.  But media and politicians always point their finger of concern as to Sugar’s companies supplying Government contracts whilst at the same time Sugar is employed directly or indirectly by the Government, and this is coupled with concerns being raised as to donations Sugar has made to the Labour Party.  Hence the argument over impartiality is a valid one for discussion in a free speech democracy.

Whilst nobody is suggesting he bought his title, (Lordship), or the Labour donations led to Government contracts, there will always be rumours and suspicion given his close ties to Brown.

Sir Alan, who has made his millions in computers and property, is also rumoured to be considering being a front running Candidate for London Mayor in 2012. See here:  http://tinyurl.com/mwu22z  He has been a member of the Prime Minister’s business council since it launched.   Surely that is enough for his involvement in Government?  Maybe Brown wanted him to have a higher profile…I can’t see why…a popular media personality, constantly in the news….not for his business dealings…more so for his media work.

What makes this appointment sensitive is that the next series of The Apprentice is due to air early next year, in the countdown to a General Election expected in May. Sir Alan will get a stack of media attention.  He may not speak politics but the general public will see him in this role as head of The Apprentice……and then here him on the news supporting government policies.  I beg to ask if that is impartial?

So what’s your definition of impartiality?  Interesting if it matches a Labour donating businessman, who has written articles in the media supporting Labour, who may stand for London Mayor and whose businesses have benefited from lucrative Government contracts….allegedly!

FYI Websters Dictionary definition is:  not partial or biased : treating or affecting all equally.

Collins dictionary uses these descriptive words for impartiality: equality, equity, even-handedness, fairness, lack of bias, neutrality, nonpartisanship, objectivity, open-mindedness 

Us Tories, get asked about what taxes we can potentially cut when we get into power.  Well here’s one…the BBC License Fee, (‘Brown Broadcasting Corporation’), is one tax a incoming Conservative Government should look to cut immediately.

Currently the license fee stands at £142.50 per household with a tv.  The very bastion of regressive taxation.  Have you noticed that Socialists never complain that the burden of the BBC license hits hardest on the poorest members of society….hhhhmmmm I wonder why that is!  I am sure that political favour towards the left has no sway in that deafening silence?

I lost faith long ago with the BBC.  With the freedom of choice that we have today, we can enjoy a multiplicity of channels, with great content.  My channel of choice for breaking news is Sky News.  I see less political bias in their journalism than I do with the BBC.  I really feel that Sky journalists, like Adam Boulton are hungry to challenge all to get to the story.

The political leanings to the left of the BBC are well documented and I won’t retread them here.  Suffice to say that examples like the failure to report Dan Hannan’s withering attack on the Prime Minister, just show how out of touch they are.  Thank god for satellite news and the power of social networks, especially the likes of YouTube. 

This is something the state broadcaster has failed to come to grips with.  News can come from anywhere and can spread the world over at the touch of a return key across the worldwide web. The BBC don’t control the way we hear news any more…they are just one of many news channels.

But the BBC is more than just a news channel.  It’s about entertaining, through the likes of flagship programmes like Eastenders, the Rise & Fall of Reggie Perrin and the Jonathon Ross show……let’s come to him in a minute!

ITV are struggling.  In a free market they are having to cope with a global recession and this means that the very basis for their revenue… advertising costs are falling fast as companies cut back and seek to retain their core infrastructure ready for an upturn.  What do ITV do, as any core market business does, they cut costs, they lose headcount, they spend less, they freeze salaries, they ditch shows.  This involves all the major stars as well…including the likes of Simon Cowell, Ant & Dec getting salary cuts.

Contrast that to the BBC.  Relatively little effect, as is typical with a public sector service, proped up by the tax payer.  Jonathon Ross can get away being blatently rude to Andrew Sachs, scrape by with a 3 month slap on the wrist, and then make continued poor taste comments on the BBC, including a recent homophobic jibe.  What does the BBC do….no change in Ross’ £18m deal, (a £2m a year salary).  Ross has become such a liability that the BBC will now record his radio show a day in advance, so they can edit out mistakes.

The willfully gay abandon, that the BBC spend our cash quite merrily on seizing big sporting events…including the recent acquisition of Formula 1, is frightening.   Formula 1 is a bloody costly sport and the BBC allegedly paid £150 million of tax payers money for a 5 year deal.  Does that represent great value to ALL taxpayers?

Take a look at the recent viewing trend statistics from BARB, (Broadcasters Audience Research Board), http://tinyurl.com/oqrdwu.  What is interesting to see here in this graph is that contrary to BBC claims, viewing figures for BBC1 have not risen but declined.  So an interesting scenario is that BBC license fee continues to rise by more than inflation each year but for a declining audience share.  What will strike you about this chart is that viewing figures for other channels, eg Sky, continue to rise year on year—great for them as self funded broadcasters.

The time has come.  Let the people decide who they want to watch…..let’s scrap the license fee, leave the people with some money in their pockets and let’s see the BBC become a proper commercial venture, cost conscious and screening what the public want.

BBC Question Time.  Dimbleby lets the gladiators battle as the baying crowds call for blood.  Thumbs up or thumbs down signals the fate of the panel!……Dimbleby is no match for the genius of Question Time legend Sir Robin Day…..his performance this week, over expenses was a shameful example of a journalist losing sight of his values and letting the crwod take control, to fuel viewing figures