License fee gone 2027

[Captain Z]

Jennie Bond will return

[Mister Six]

The BBC is about the only bit of soft power left now the queen's secretly dead, JK Rowling's gone bananas, Doctor Who is rubbish and Downton Abbey is reduced to churning out a shit film every couple of years.

BBC News is terrible, but the rest of the service is (was?) a huge asset to the UK, and I can't imagine that yet another media company owned by a billionaire cunt is going to improve matters at all.

The Tories need to change their damn name though. Knackering the BBC and NHS isn't conservative at all, unless you're 100+ years old.

[TrenterPercenter]

Still that Starmer though...

[jobotic]

As if Dorries will be there in 2027

[idunnosomename]

Yeah exactly, this isn't legislation, it's a promise by Dorries, and what's that worth?

[Sebastian Cobb]

It's not like Dorries is the only Tory up for dismantling the BBC though.

And could we trust Labour to oppose this or even undo the damage? They don't seem particularly interested in undoing the damage of neoliberalism in general, at best they promise to slow down the rate at which things are sold off.

[greenman]

BBC News has been cuntful for ever.  It needs dead.  Not dead, cleaning, returning to what it should be, what it pretends to be.  The rest though, that's another thing.  The BBC outside the News is one of the truly Great things about the UK.

Sadly though I think a lot of the reason "everything else" has been allowed to survive and generally be somewhat progressive is because it helps give credibility to the news.

I mean it might not a long way from the Mail in terms of right wing bias but ultimately I think its far more damaging simply because of the credibility it has with much of the public.

[Sebastian Cobb]

The powers that be have no interest in it and it's not gonna happen but in an ideal world the BBC would outsource its news to a sacrosanct third party to minimise interference I think.

Although I guess ITN does both ITV and Channel 4 news and they're pretty different quite often (excluding obvious establishment line following).

I'm quite surprised how although my dad acknowledges the BBC has always been a government mouthpiece, how neutral he thinks Laura K is. It's hard to say where his political leanings actually are, he's certainly not an archetypal Tory or Labour voter, I suspect he's voted for both of them in the past. He's usually critical of both of them and beyond a 'they're both as bad as each other!' kind of way. He thinks Boris is a clown and Starmer is useless. Fuck knows.

[Crenners]

I will genuinely miss Masterchef, Masterchef: The Professionals and Celebrity Masterchef. Hope they get picked up by Amazon's and paid enough for Gregg to get hair transplant

[Butchers Blind]

Well, I hope EastEnders gets the finale it deserves. Lots of plot strands to tie up there.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I will genuinely miss Masterchef, Masterchef: The Professionals and Celebrity Masterchef. Hope they get picked up by Amazon's and paid enough for Gregg to get hair transplant

I do worry between this and the selling of Channel 4 what the knock-on will be for British production houses.

Not that forcing the BBC to outsource production was necessarily a good plan to begin with, mind.

When the government talks about helping the British film industry, I get the feeling they mean being a cheap place for Hollywood to location-double America.

[bgmnts]

Why not offer it to people who aren't in the US then?

I mean, in mainland Europe no one talks about BBC Worldwide, in fact, your mention of it is the first time I've ever heard of it.  There must be shitloads of people who'd want to watch iPlayer here (and do it without using a VPN or something).

History Hour is a fantastic programme in my opinion, and you can get it as well as In Our Time on most podcast apps. I don't think you need a VPN for that.

[Ferris]

All that culture wars pandering to their tory overlords, and they were still tossed aside the second they needed a headline. When will people learn.

[Butchers Blind]

I guess the other problem with closing the BBC down is, where will all the paedos go?

[Ferris]

Still, at least that awful mr corbyn has been defeated.

Brexit, covid, selling off the NHS and BBC, it has all been worth it.

[greenman]

All that culture wars pandering to their tory overlords, and they were still tossed aside the second they needed a headline. When will people learn.

The people involved will doubtless move onto new cushy jobs elsewhere.

[checkoutgirl]

Since it's the Conservatives behind this, I fully expect whatever they replace the licence fee with to somehow be even worse.

The tories look at the American healthcare system and media landscape and get a massive boner so anything they do regarding the BBC and NHS is going to be detrimental pretty much by definition. Any debate or discussion around it is just semantics. It's the Titanic going down and making the mistake of arguing about the deckchairs.

You need to vote these libertarian loonies out immediately and hope they never get voted in again.

[Sebastian Cobb]

At least in the shit American system it's Americans making the money, Tories see it and go 'we'll have a bit of that' and then let the Americans do the leeching. They'd be totally fine with the BBC/Channel4 being owned by Discovery or Viacom even though all the money is being extracted and going overseas. It's what happens with rail innit. I guess it doesn't really matter about the nationality if the money's all going to some cunt, but still.

[Ferris]

Do you think a conservative voter might see this and think "oh, perhaps I will vote differently next time".

It's staggering to me that people vote tory at all, but after a decade of getting fucked over, they keep doing it. It's certifiable.

[Jasha]

I quite like the beeb as it goes and would miss it much more than the 13 quid they extract from the bank every month. Something something about paying more than that for a cup of coffee the UK's favourite pre paid funeral plan to provide fresh water for the whole village.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Do you think a conservative voter might see this and think "oh, perhaps I will vote differently next time".

It's staggering to me that people vote tory at all, but after a decade of getting fucked over, they keep doing it. It's certifiable.

Take Bromsgrove, it's a Tory stronghold between Brum and Worcester, their MP is Javid, before that it was Julie Kirkbride. At some point you'd think they'd collectively go 'this is bullshit!'.

They're probably busy with nimbying the latest housing development though.

[mothman]

I swear I've been hanging around you lot too long. Because while it feels like an open goal for Labour to say up front right now, everyone loves the BBC, it's one of the best things about the UK (etc., you know the drill), a Labour government will renew the charter yadda yadda... part of me thinks the current Labour leadership won't want to, so as not to offend all the anti-licence fee headbangers. Who'll never vote Labour anyway, but still.

[checkoutgirl]

At least in the shit American system it's Americans making the money

I look at the American insurrection as a cautionary tale. That was spearheaded (incompetently thank god) by a lunatic head of state and party and fueled by a deregulated news channel that acts with near impunity.

Maybe English people will never get motivated or naive to start an insurrection but crippling and selling off the BBC is a bad sign and the tories are psychopaths who are happy to destroy these institutions.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I look at the American insurrection as a cautionary tale. That was spearheaded (incompetently thank god) by a lunatic head of state and party and fueled by a deregulated news channel that acts with near impunity.

Maybe English people will never get motivated or naive to start an insurrection but crippling and selling off the BBC is a bad sign and the tories are psychopaths who are happy to destroy these institutions.

I think rail is the obvious farce because the conservative hardon for private enterprise has resulted in other European state-owned transport companies providing a poor service and reinvesting their profit in their own services. It's especially weird given historically Britain was the one pillaging other places (that is bad obviously).

[Dickie_Anders]

I flip between BBC news and ITV news in the morning before work. Watching last week I didn't see the BBC do a story about the party "scandal", not once, while it was all ITV was covering. They are absolutely terrified of this government. Can't help but feel this license fee "announcement" is in part a tory strategy to make them even more fearful of reporting anti-government stuff

[Sebastian Cobb]

Pub I used to drink in had STV news followed by ITV and I used to get unreasonably annoyed at Alastair Stewart's jowly pent-up rage.

Silly prick lost his Police, Camera, Action! gig by crashing his car pissed when picking up a takeaway and getting his second drunk driving conviction back in the day.

[Ferris]

Take Bromsgrove, it's a Tory stronghold between Brum and Worcester, their MP is Javid, before that it was Julie Kirkbride. At some point you'd think they'd collectively go 'this is bullshit!'.

They're probably busy with nimbying the latest housing development though.

It baffles me, honestly. I grew up in another West Midlands tory stronghold and I can't figure out why people just blindly vote for them year after year. Do you all like all your services being cutback and closed? It's like the Stewart Lee routine about young people not voting.

"Hahahaha... oh, I haven't got a future NHS/BBC now. Still, I've got this phone house" *trousers fall down*

From my experience - no, people don't like their government being hacked to fuck but can't put 2 and 2 together and realize they are contributing to the problem. Maddening.

[Fambo Number Mive]

The Tory MP for Romford wanted the BBC to play the National Anthem at the end of broadcasting each day.

Even being the modern equivilant of this clip wasn't enough for the Tories to approve of BBC News

[checkoutgirl]

I think rail is the obvious farce because the conservative hardon for private enterprise has resulted in other European state-owned transport companies providing a poor service and reinvesting their profit in their own services. It's especially weird given historically Britain was the one pillaging other places (that is bad obviously).

The deregulated rail system is similar to the health system in America. Profiteering, high prices, poor service and multi tiered pricing that is surely designed to confuse and bewilder. A total shit show. The supposed efficiencies (if they exist at all) are sucked up by the shareholders.

The end user is always the enemy with the conservatives. Always.

It's best to start with the assertion that whatever the Tories are up to will be designed to fuck over the majority. And then build your opinions based on that.

[Goldentony]

feel like they could have avoided this if they'd played any of the records id sent to Freak Zone/Freakier Zone