Re: [Swprograms] Does the BBC World Service fail Britain?

[Mike Barraclough <softbulletin1@xxxxxxxxx>]

>--- On Tue, 5/8/08, Sandy Finlayson <sfinlayson@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> At that point the vast majority of International
> Broadcasters were
> targeting their audiences with information on their
> countries so that
> people living abroad could get a sense of the country and I
> suspect they
> also were targeting expats who wanted news of home.
> 

A great deal of the BBC budget was directed at countries behind the Iron Curtain and other countries where there was not freedom of information, it always has been.

The impression of Britain you were getting from the BBC World Service was, in my view, essentially that of the middle class establishment, as an article in Time Out in 1973 says quoted in Julian Hales Radio Power:

"In one week in October 1973 the BBC thought it worthwhile to issue scripts on 'The Centenary of Landseer', 'Horse Brasses', the 'Stately Homes Boom', 'Memorial Gala for John Cranko', reviews of several art exhibitions and 'The Cecils of Hatfield House', rail strikes are met by the British public with 'good humour', bombings with 'calm'; even the Middle East conflict will end 'soon'. Everything has a happy ending.

'Left-wing' staff members with 'disruptive sentiments', the article claims, are cajoled into conforming with the accepted ethos, and even end by accepting it as the truth. They find themselves, like the others, giving 'full credit to the Prime Minister', missing 'no opportunity to glorify Britain and make the most of every 'British achievement'; they will say that militants are "hotheads", revolutionaries are "self styled" and use phrases like 'what the Chile junta is up to' making it sound like a group of 'mischievous children'."

Source Terry Baxter "The Best of All Possible Worlds Time Out 25-31 January 1974.

As with all polemics there will be some selective quoting and overstatement of the case but I would agree with Hale's conclusion:

"As far as feature programmes are concerned this makes the BBC External Services no better and no worse than the British Tourist Authority, with its thatched cottages, or Radio 4, with the Archers."

Is that the impression of Britain you wished to hear and did you think it was wholly accurate?

Times have moved on and I don't believe BBC World Service programmes would or do reflect those attitudes now, nor should they. In fact the establishment, and the BBC, is now viewed as generally more liberal than the population. But there's always a danger of viewing the past through rose-tinted glasses.

Hale goes on to say that the really big guns, and he is talking about the English service, are the news and current affairs programmes, they always have been.

Mr. Durrant's letter is based on some false premises which he states as fact, I can't find the phrase "Britain's voice around the world" on the BBC World Service website for example, and the dramatic headline may well be the work of the Telegraph editorial staff. 

The world has moved on, mention of the mother country and the Commonwealth makes me wonder if Mr. Durrant has. When he says British plays, British music, British literature is he referring to contemporary British culture which is a lot different to what it was in the past?

Mike








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