Should the BBC be defunded?

Absolutely like Trump🙂

Conflation happens a lot on GN, Magenta.

Was asking Lathyrus

You mean like Trump?

It's a bit of a leap to accuse somebody of condoning fake news for the sake of political advantage because they want to preserve an institution that has pioneered broadcasting, informed and entertained people for over 100 years in wartime and in peacetime.

I am not defending the specific lapses the BBC has made recently and over the years I am just trying to see the bigger picture.

Hmm. Not sure if it reveals the politics per se.

It certainly reveals who is prepared to put truth and honesty aside for political advantage.

Casdon

This will reveal the politics of every Gransnet member who replies!

I don't agree with your statement. I don't think the BBC should be defunded for many reasons that have nothing to do with politics. I know people who are right wing and left wing and neither lot wants to see the BBC defunded.

I don't think that the BBC is bunch of left wing loonies as most of their output is apolitical. Strictly Come Dancing, Gardeners World, Masterchef, Pointless and The Blue Planet are just few random examples.

Guess who I voted for in the last election (Clue it was not Labour)

If the licence fee goes that's probably the end unless the government funds it from general taxation via an insulating body. I recall a senior independent broadcast executive said some years ago. 'It's the BBC that keeps us honest.' The Panorama debacle is awful but insignificant when compared with the thousands of BBC broadcast hours every year.

Allira

foxie48

Apologies Allira you are correct, the report I read seemed to say it was the Production company "October films" but having done some more checking it was done by BBC editing staff. Absolutely stupid of them, I hope they were sacked!

Perhaps the report was put out by the BBC Editing team foxie48 🤔

And thank you! 🙂

foxie48

Apologies Allira you are correct, the report I read seemed to say it was the Production company "October films" but having done some more checking it was done by BBC editing staff. Absolutely stupid of them, I hope they were sacked!

Perhaps the report was put out by the BBC Editing team foxie48 🤔

I think, if the BBC ever switches to a subscription funding model, it will continue to exist only as a shadow of its current size as only a small minority will choose to pay it.

That's a resounding "No' from me.
Better "Under no circumstances".

foxie48

Apologies Allira you are correct, the report I read seemed to say it was the Production company "October films" but having done some more checking it was done by BBC editing staff. Absolutely stupid of them, I hope they were sacked!

Indeed.
Thank you foxie for posting this though. Good of you a ‘mea culpa’.
The BBC could learn from you!

I've just listened to the Trip episode which covers this issue. Apparently in a very recent survey in the US about what media Americans trust, the BBC came out second after the weather channel! Worth a listen if you haven't already heard it.

Apologies Allira you are correct, the report I read seemed to say it was the Production company "October films" but having done some more checking it was done by BBC editing staff. Absolutely stupid of them, I hope they were sacked!

I only watch iPlayer too. They do drama very well. I don't want to lose iPlayer. That would be a catastrophe! 😅

Crikey.
A resounding ‘yes’ from me! I’ve just done an interactive tick box ‘how much of the BBC do you watch/listen on radio to?”

The only box I ticked was BBC iPlayer!

We listen to Classic FM which is Global Player.

This was my result:

“Value for money based on your consumption
Cost of a TV licence (2025)
£174.50

The actual value of what you consume
£19.36

The one BBC channel you consume has an annual budget of £278m. This is 11.1% of BBC’s 2024 spending.”

😮

That’d be cheaper by miles than my Netflix subscription!

Whitewavemark2

Personally I think anyone who attracts Trumps anger goes up in my estimation and I suspect the same is true of the BBC. It hasn’t lost its reputation - that is wishful thinking on the part of The Excuse for a newspaper Telegraph and rival media groups.

Most thinking people will accept that given the level of output there will be errors, bound to happen.

Not was it an error, it was deliberate.

This has nothing to do with whether or not we think Trump is the right person for the job of POTUS.
Personally, I'm sick of seeing him pontificating but that's irrelevant.

We should be able uphold the BBC to higher standards than this and believe in what they are broadcasting.
They've lost the trust of the public.

Whitewavemark2

Personally I think anyone who attracts Trumps anger goes up in my estimation and I suspect the same is true of the BBC. It hasn’t lost its reputation - that is wishful thinking on the part of The Excuse for a newspaper Telegraph and rival media groups.

Most thinking people will accept that given the level of output there will be errors, bound to happen.

Well, fair enough, but lying by editing is not the right way to go about it.

We need the truth, not brainwashing by our public broadcaster.

Yes, it was a deliberate act which was done by the independent company that had been commissioned by the BBC.
. It's not that BBC employees deliberately edited the film to make it biased, because they didn't.

No, foxie48, apparently it was not the company, as I posted, possibly on another thread.

Allegedly It was the BBC which edited the film which had been shot by an outside company.

They (ie October Films) were unaware that the edit had been discussed at length twice by the BBC’s Editorial, Guidance and Standards Committee (EGSC), once in January 2025 and once in May, and were not informed by the BBC that the story had leaked to the press.

Furthermore, we are told that the October executive producer who worked on the show, Neil Breakwell, or the editor, was never even aware that the footage had been spliced together in such a way that it was made to appear Trump was inciting his followers to “fight like hell.”

That decision was made by the BBC’s in-house producer-director, we are told, who had made the edit prior to the documentary being shown to EPs Breakwell and the BBC’s Leo Telling. When they were first shown the footage before the show premiered in October 2024, we understand Breakwell and Telling were not informed of the changes that had been made.

The news will lead to questions over the BBC’s relationship and transparency with production companies

Deadline 12/11/25

I have edited that report. You can read the full version here:
deadline.com/2025/11/bbc-donald-trump-saga-october-films-kept-in-dark-1236613974/

Yes, I think they should be defunded, they're not providing the service I want.
From my point of view I don't listen to their television news services any longer, preferring the alternatives, and I don't think much of many of their televison programmes.
I do listen Radio 4 Extra at night, but all these broadcasts are repeats, are on three times a day and often repeated at weekends. Radio 4 is a mere shadow of what it used to be.

Personally I think anyone who attracts Trumps anger goes up in my estimation and I suspect the same is true of the BBC. It hasn’t lost its reputation - that is wishful thinking on the part of The Excuse for a newspaper Telegraph and rival media groups.

Most thinking people will accept that given the level of output there will be errors, bound to happen.

Lathyrus3

Ooops. I accidentally cut two tapes and spliced them together.

Quite unintentional.

My mistake.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Just like Rayner’’s “mistake” and Reeves “mistake”. 🤣🤣🤣

A reputation, once lost, is hard to recover.
Ask Gerald Ratner.

"It wasn’t mistakes it was deliberate in all areas of where they got things done.Not just Trump and the two speeches but deliberate bias." Oreo

Yes, it was a deliberate act which was done by the independent company that had been commissioned by the BBC. I have no doubt that the BBC commissioning editor would have taken it at face value, like most of the people who watched the programme, after all, Trump did say everything in the film but in a different time frame. The BBC is in serious trouble because it failed to act appropriately after the film had been shown and the editing came to light. It's not that BBC employees deliberately edited the film to make it biased, because they didn't. It's the same issue with the Gaza film, it was not BBC employees who used the son of a Hamas official to make the film it was an independent company that had been commissioned and again, when the issue came to light the BBC did not act quickly or appropriately. That's why the DG and head of news have resigned, it's been because of their failure to act appropriately and decisively not that they have deliberately sanctioned biased or inaccurate reporting.