5,000 jobs to go in BBC shakeup

[ze_dscherman]

BBC boss Mark Thompson today a published his blueprint for the corporation's future, unveiling "painful" plans for the loss of around 5,000 jobs and warning the BBC needed to be financially fit to remain "the greatest force for cultural good on the face of the earth".

He apologised to staff for the hardship they were facing with redundancies but said it was the price the corporation needed to pay to survive.

SNIP

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1368277,00.html

[aquart]

1. Uh oh. Emailing my cousin now.

I don't think she's ever worked anywhere else.

[Sideways]

2. I Watched Thompson Today On BBC World He Is A Shifty Character

The female reporter on site explaining the cuts looked as if she was going to cry. Happy Christmas and Bye Bye. Fuckers are going to destroy the BEEB.

[Mr Creosote]

8. Shifty? Stupid I should think

They need to cut costs so they save £320 million by cutting 5,000 jobs. And at the same time plan a wholly unneccesary move to Manchester at a cost of £600 million.
That's a good use of the licence fee.

[fbahrami]

3. I knew it was over for the BBC ...

when they admitted to being wrong about Blair and the his claims about Iraq's WMDs.

[Barrett808]

4. Anybody else think these reitrements and shakeups are punishment...

...for questioning the official government line?

[AP]

5. It's part of a plan Labour has had since '97 to separate the

entertainment part of the BBC from the news part, I suspect.

The Tories probably want to do this too, but would sell the entertainment parts off at a huge discount to insiders (not unlike Republicans who do this with railroad rights of way, mines, timber, Social Security, feeding troops, etc. etc.).

It's my impression that Labour doesn't think it's right that there's such a concentrated control of culture and information, regardless of whether it's privately or publicly controlled. They want to push control of news down and out to the regions (ie, rather than have all the news produced in London, Labour want the regions to have more control over their own news shows) and they don't want the government to have so much control over what entertainment gets produced, so they're going to cut back on entertainment production (which is most of what BBC does -- BBC is way more about promoting music and the premier leauge than it's about reporting on the government these days, which is a huge problem and a huge conflict of interest).

In principle, what Labour is doing is actually a pretty smart and effective antidote to fascism. I think having such centralized control of the media is one of the reasons Thatcher and Major made it as long as they did, but that's just a hunch -- I do know that the BBC really does have a huge influence on how Brits think of empire, and their reporting on Africa and former colonies is awful despite having a general approach to news which is about 100 times better than the approach in the US (they actually have issues that go through news cylcles and they really get into them).

I know that most people won't agree with me, but I think decentralizing control of the news and cutting out entertaiment (which the government currently funds with the regressive TV tax) is a good idea.

People here will probably say that the BBC needs to be big and centralized to fight the government. But I think -- just like in the US -- news needs to be something that more directly reflects what's going on locally -- or where there is less distance between the listener and the source of information, in all respects (geographic, class, etc.). Consider NPR: I wish my local NPR could control content and didn't pipe through the national propaganda 6 hours a day. I donate to my local station and I want them to respond to me, and I want the people who make decisions to come from MY community and not from the Beltway. I thik that's the way to make the media a stronger voice for combatting fascism. The downward and outward flow of power is almost always the antidote to fascism, and not the concentration of power in the hands of fewer and fewer increasingly powerful people. And I think, at its heart, that's what Labour is trying to do with the BBC.

[found object]

6. BBC: Rupert Murdoch on line one (n/t)

.

[AP]

7. so long as he pays through the nose for a tiny part, and if there's no ...

... concentrated power ...

If there are enough players of all sizes, and the playing field is level and doesn't shut anyone out (ie, if it's not like the US where a few very large corporations control EVERYTHING), and they all pay their fair share of taxes...

Part of the reason Fox can propandize in the US is because the government has legislated a Telecoms playing field which is extremely uncompetitive. If there were more players and more voices, and there weren't a bias towards size and concentrated power, and if there weren't so much cross-marketing (with, for example, Juan Williams doing a one-hour promo of Bill O'Reilly when Williams had the TOTN on NPR) I don't think FOX could whore it up for Republicans as much as they do.

[found object]

9. That's a lot of ifs

and here's another big if. If the govt were actually run "Buy The People,For,and Of" then centralization wouldn't be such a big problem. The problem with privatization is, eventually the weaker competition is bought out and the playing field becomes a concentrated power of a few megalomaniacs principled only by profit.

My prediction is: The BBC will sell off its entertainment assets before the air waves become extinct, and in another ten years will be re-invested in some sort of broad-band entertainment.

[AP]

10. I think centralization is always a problem, and I'm impressed that this

goverment recognizes that and wants to decentralize control of the BBC.

[0007]

11. Indeed

We're so screwed

[Deja Q]

12. LOL at the grotesque comment of his. Pity the reality isn't funny.

:-(