Re: [Swprograms] Director General Mark Thompson to outline BBC strategy

[<jfiglio1@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Yes, this is all domestic.

Early indications are elimination of BBC Radio 6 Music--an alternative, indie music service--and BBC Asian Network primarily for the South Asian audience resident in Britain.  Plus one third of the budget for the BBC website by 2013.

I don't get targeting the radio services because they are dirt cheap to operate in comparison to tv and the web.  Furthermore, dropping special programming seems anathema to one of the prime objectives of the BBC charter--finding underserved audiences and serving them.  Lopping off one of the BBC tv channels and ending the practive of programming reality tv trash would save far more.

So this is about politics and optics.  Someone feels the need to assuage Murdoch (why, I can't figure...what is he, 80 years old?) by appearing to hobble public broadcasting in Britain.  But the message back is garbled.  BBC management appears to be working to retain all the lowest common denominator commercial-type fare (where Murdoch at least has a valid point) while throwing out some of the stuff that a public service mandate would most appear to support.  By saying that the savings realized will be redirected to producing "quality fare", the corporation seems to be trying to have its cake and eat it too.  Not at all surprising, but pretty transparent all the same.

John Figliozzi

---- Richard Cuff <rdcuff@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: 
> Nothing I have seen indicates that the World Service, Radio 4, or BBC
> World News -- the services typically of greatest interest to shortwave
> enthusiasts due to their content -- are being cut as part of this
> effort.
> 
> The World Service (and, I believe, BBC World News -- the TV service)
> is funded separately from the rest of the BBC, which shields it from
> domestic initiatives but exposes it to the agenda of the British
> Foreign Office.
> 
> Richard Cuff / Allentown, PA
> 
> On Tue, Mar 2, 2010 at 2:55 AM, John Sullivan <xploreusa@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> > Director General Mark Thompson to outline BBC strategy
> >
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