Written evidence submitted by Kenneth Critchley

The future of public service broadcasting.

Please find below my submission.

I am a simple user of television and radio, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the BBC and what public service broadcasting has become.

10 to 20 years ago I would have trusted the BBC to have been impartial and to have had fair opinions.

Over the last five years and increasingly during the EU referendum and afterwards I have seen the BBC become a campaigning organisation for every woke anti-Conservative cause.

To the extent now, that I actively avoid any BBC television output, with its constant attempt to push in every programme the woke agenda. Doctor Who, Scrooge to name but two recent examples of this woke output.

BBC Radio Four was the station I loved. For over 30 years I have avidly consumed its rich and varied output, I was a daily listener to the Today Programme and much of the general output of Radio Four.

No I can hardly bear to tune in and when I do the appalling Wokness of the output has me turning off the radio. Now of all the BBC Radio 4 output the only programme I listen to is “In Our Time), it is informative and probably for me the last programme that could be said to be public service.

Public service broadcasting, what is its purpose? To inform the public without bias and In return to be funded by some form of general taxation? (the current license fee is undoubtedly a regressive tax).

Yes there is a role for public service broadcasting, but it needs to be unbiased and representative. What is the public service element of the “Now show“ or the vast majority of the BBC’s drama,commedy and music output?

Slim it down, take it back to its roots, News and current affairs, culture and public information. Not the myriad of output currently available which meets none of these goals produced by the BBC and the other public service broadcasters.

Make it unbiased, I do not wish to hear opinion stating this fact “Emily Matis“ by the presenter or contributer to the programme . I want to hear fact reported as fact and if there is to be a discussion regarding those facts alternative opinions presented. Not a wholly biased discussion between David Lammy and Owen Jones, as happened on the today programme following the Grenfell Tower tragedy. Public service broadcasting has to be representative, Not just of the views and opinions of the London elite and the Home Counties but of the whole country. Views and opinions are not uniform across the country, as the EU referendum demonstrated, but the BBC and the other public service broadcaster failed to understand the feelings and opinions of their own countrymen. Why because those who are employed by and work for the public service broadcasters exist in a very small bubbled life in the UK. When was the last time they really listened to the views of people who live in northern towns, the people who were worried about mass immigration taking away their job prospects?

Sadly the output of the current public service broadcaster is has become narrow minded in its approach to the major challenges facing the UK over the next few years.The output does not represent the views of a large section of the British population, instead we are preached at by editorialising that generally only focuses on one side of the argument. Why do Labour Party activists masquerade as being representative of the NHS, teachers, scientists? Surely the editors already know the political opinions of those they’re asking to speak as though they were impartial. Why are these affiliations not made clear?

Should there be a future for public service broadcasting? Well certainly not based on the current model of a poll-tax supporting a largely unaccountable left leaning and woke establishment of the current public service broadcasters.

There should be a role for a truly impartial public service broadcaster, perhaps even retaining the brand BBC, unless this has now become a irreversibly tarnished with the output of recent years.

That role should be dramatically reduced from the current bloated output of the BBC, the public service element focusing on News(Not opinion), factual output seeking to educate and improve the lives of the people in the UK(Not an attempt to brainwash under the disguise of documentary, news or light entertainment) and public information. This narrowly focused public service broadcasting could be funded by some sort of token general taxation. What could be achieved for a £10 a year licence fee?

Much of the current output of the BBC and the other public service broadcaster should move to a subscription service basis, those who choose to listen to it can pay for it those who do not choose to listen to it, should not be forced to pay for the output. I would happily pay a nominal sum do you have access to “in out of time“. The rest of the current BBC and the other public service broadcasters ourput I can do without.

In summary the current public service broadcasting output is no longer fit for purpose. It has morphed into a medium to preach in an utterly biased way to the British population. The continuation of a poll tax to pay for this bloated and biased output is no longer valid or democratic. There is though a role for public service broadcasting in the UK, but this needs to be massively slim down and focus on fact informing and educating the population. The other outputs of the public service broadcaster should be paid for by those who use the service, the models exist today for subscription based fundIng, This should be the future for the vast majority of the BBC’s and the other public so this broadcast is output.