Why would you take the word of the Health Secretary speaking in the House of Commons, when you could instead just ingest @Leon's conspiracy theories?
To be fair I did admit it was a conspiracy theory, and I said I was "wearing my tin foil trilby"
It was also an enormous coincidence, that the EU made its vaccine embargo threats on the day the UK admitted it was suddenly facing a future vaccine shortfall.
Or was it coincidence? I don't like coincidences.
Someone wondered last night if the government sent out that letter yesterday, BECAUSE of the EU threats. "Look, we don't have any vaccines anyway", is a good riposte to the EU mafia. They are less able to exert "moral pressure".
ie the depressing letter was going out anyway, but at least this way it did some good.
Plausible
I just did some simple maths on second vaccinations - take the first vaccinations that have been administered, and shift the number forward.
Look likes at least 10 million second vaccinations required in April.
Why would you take the word of the Health Secretary speaking in the House of Commons, when you could instead just ingest @Leon's conspiracy theories?
To be fair I did admit it was a conspiracy theory, and I said I was "wearing my tin foil trilby"
It was also an enormous coincidence, that the EU made its vaccine embargo threats on the day the UK admitted it was suddenly facing a future vaccine shortfall.
Or was it coincidence? I don't like coincidences.
Someone wondered last night if the government sent out that letter yesterday, BECAUSE of the EU threats. "Look, we don't have any vaccines anyway", is a good riposte to the EU mafia. They are less able to exert "moral pressure".
ie the depressing letter was going out anyway, but at least this way it did some good.
Plausible
I just did some simple maths on second vaccinations - take the first vaccinations that have been administered, and shift the number forward.
Look likes at least 10 million second vaccinations required in April.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Even the sanest posters are turning into Stanley Baker in Zulu. That's what Brexit does to you.....
To be fair - and thank you for the backhanded compliment, Rog! - I'm not personally offended. I'm a low-grade republican, and I'm emotionally unstirred by the Union Flag in an office. But I'm not really representative of the BBC's audience - which, I'm led to believe, is a lot more small c conservative than me - who, in short, quite approve of that sort of thing. I just get the impression large parts of the BBC doesn't really understand its audience.
That said, anyone listening to popmaster on today will have been slightly taken aback by the very atypically Radio 2 contestant who described herself as living with 'my husband, and also my other partner ... we're very Mormon-esque'. You know these people exist, but it is a surprise to hear them popping up on the Ken Bruce show.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Even the sanest posters are turning into Stanley Baker in Zulu. That's what Brexit does to you.....
You haven't seen Zulu have you?
Stanley Baker is the engineer who famously holds his nerve, and stays sane to the end, when all around are cracking up.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
One of the BBCs huge problems is that, along with so much media, it has forgotten what news is. Others have the excuse of lack of resource, but the BBC has experts all over the world and at home and doesn't use them. The BBC increasingly treats news (hard, reliable reporting as to what is actually occurring), discussion, opinion and magazine/feature type stuff as entirely interchangeable and the same.
One tiny example. There has been a conflict in Syria for 10 years and it is terrible. The BBC is better at reporting that individuals caught up in this are, unsurprisingly, battered, bruised, traumatised, injured and dead as a consequence than reporting who are the forces engaged, what are they doing, how are they led, which other forces back them, what are their tactics, how are they armed, what is the progress of which group, what are their aims - in other words factual reporting on events in the world. This is the thing they are conspicuously resourced and trusted to do and they are failing.
Why would you take the word of the Health Secretary speaking in the House of Commons, when you could instead just ingest @Leon's conspiracy theories?
To be fair I did admit it was a conspiracy theory, and I said I was "wearing my tin foil trilby"
It was also an enormous coincidence, that the EU made its vaccine embargo threats on the day the UK admitted it was suddenly facing a future vaccine shortfall.
Or was it coincidence? I don't like coincidences.
Someone wondered last night if the government sent out that letter yesterday, BECAUSE of the EU threats. "Look, we don't have any vaccines anyway", is a good riposte to the EU mafia. They are less able to exert "moral pressure".
ie the depressing letter was going out anyway, but at least this way it did some good.
Plausible
I just did some simple maths on second vaccinations - take the first vaccinations that have been administered, and shift the number forward.
Look likes at least 10 million second vaccinations required in April.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
Considering how much the English consider England / Britain / UK to be freely interchangeable it shouldn't be a surprise that EU and Italy are also now freely interchangeable.
They're certainly fiendish in the EU. Able to centrally dictate their will to the supplicant member states so that Italy alone does something. And Belgium does the polar opposite. Presumably just to confuse poor idiots like me who for some bizarre reason consider sovereign states acting unilaterally in their own perceived sovereign interests to be sovereign.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Even the sanest posters are turning into Stanley Baker in Zulu. That's what Brexit does to you.....
You haven't seen Zulu have you?
Stanley Baker is the engineer who famously holds his nerve, and stays sane to the end, when all around are cracking up.
lol
Of course I've seen it! I even know his son!
Then your analogy makes no sense
"Even the sanest posters are turning into a famously sane person in a film, that's what Brexit does to you"
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
Sorry but that is ridiculous. A budget of $7bn should be able to afford some class £10m dramas - and sell those around the world too.
Instead it is them trying to be in everything as you mentioned that is the problem.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Why would you take the word of the Health Secretary speaking in the House of Commons, when you could instead just ingest @Leon's conspiracy theories?
To be fair I did admit it was a conspiracy theory, and I said I was "wearing my tin foil trilby"
It was also an enormous coincidence, that the EU made its vaccine embargo threats on the day the UK admitted it was suddenly facing a future vaccine shortfall.
Or was it coincidence? I don't like coincidences.
Someone wondered last night if the government sent out that letter yesterday, BECAUSE of the EU threats. "Look, we don't have any vaccines anyway", is a good riposte to the EU mafia. They are less able to exert "moral pressure".
ie the depressing letter was going out anyway, but at least this way it did some good.
Plausible
I just did some simple maths on second vaccinations - take the first vaccinations that have been administered, and shift the number forward.
Look likes at least 10 million second vaccinations required in April.
It's basically groups 1 - 4.
Yes - I was just a bit surprised when I saw people being surprised (ha) at the number.
All I did was take the first vaccinations already given, and shift the number forward (as it were) 84 rows in Excel. Bit crude but gives you an answer that is probably good to +-10%
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
This catch....what's the rules on these boundary "ropes" when they get shifted? It looks like the actual boundary marking in the ground is in front of where the boundary ropes now are.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Yes, a new gammony "war on woke" BBC. The mind boggles.
Coming soon ... Brass Tacks!
Detective Inspector Barry Brass and his gorgeous pouting sidekick DC Toni Tacks solve the worst crimes that Hartlepool can offer using good old fashioned commonsense.
No minorities. No wheelchairs. All female characters either sluts or grannies.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
A great example of this....BBC have bought the rights to second tier cage fighting, Bellator, then stuck it on iPlayer. Why are they getting involved with cage fighting, which is popular but still a very niche sport, are buying the rights to a second tier organisation and then sticking it hidden away on their streaming service. Its like buying the rights to the rugby union championship i.e. the one below the Premiership, only the hardcore of the hardcore are interested.
They are doing the same with buying rights to some minor e-sports events. Nobody into e-sports thinks BBC, they think Twitch.
They are trying to get involved in markets they don't understand, are niche, buying the secondary stuff and aren't where the hardcore fans would ever think of going for that coverage.
I am sure some committee have see these things are popular with da yuff and those funny working class folk, but they don't understand them.
But do you know the terms of those deals?
People think "sports rights" and think of hundreds of millions paid in auctions for Champions League and Premiership football rights. Football will go on Amazon or BT Sport despite not getting the same numbers of eyeballs because there is big money on offer and fans will follow the games even if it means switching broadband provider and signing up for Prime.
Most sports just aren't like that (indeed sub-Premiership football famously isn't like that - ask ITV Digital). Minority sports are desperate for access to mass market outlets, while many involved in mid-level sports like rugby and cricket debate whether they should be placing a much higher value on eyeballs and lower on cash payments for the long term future of those sports.
I don't know, but you might well find some of these rights effectively subsidise the broadcaster to show them rather than the other way around. And of course there is a case for the BBC carrying content for a niche audience that is otherwise under-served by the Corporation.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
He was in an office
Well that is now apparent, but loads of others are not, they are at home. And it has only been a recent thing IMO that ministers need to wrap themselves in a flag every time they appear on TV whether at home or in an office.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
One of the BBCs huge problems is that, along with so much media, it has forgotten what news is. Others have the excuse of lack of resource, but the BBC has experts all over the world and at home and doesn't use them. The BBC increasingly treats news (hard, reliable reporting as to what is actually occurring), discussion, opinion and magazine/feature type stuff as entirely interchangeable and the same.
One tiny example. There has been a conflict in Syria for 10 years and it is terrible. The BBC is better at reporting that individuals caught up in this are, unsurprisingly, battered, bruised, traumatised, injured and dead as a consequence than reporting who are the forces engaged, what are they doing, how are they led, which other forces back them, what are their tactics, how are they armed, what is the progress of which group, what are their aims - in other words factual reporting on events in the world. This is the thing they are conspicuously resourced and trusted to do and they are failing.
If I was a zillionaire. one the things I would fund is a news site that combined a wiki with a on going story "threads" - many stories are continuous (such as Syria) and need to be linked to a great deal of background information.
What is surprising, is that the BBC online content isn't more interlinked and indexed..
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
A great example of this....BBC have bought the rights to second tier cage fighting, Bellator, then stuck it on iPlayer. Why are they getting involved with cage fighting, which is popular but still a very niche sport, are buying the rights to a second tier organisation and then sticking it hidden away on their streaming service. Its like buying the rights to the rugby union championship i.e. the one below the Premiership, only the hardcore of the hardcore are interested.
They are doing the same with buying rights to some minor e-sports events. Nobody into e-sports thinks BBC, they think Twitch.
They are trying to get involved in markets they don't understand, are niche, buying the secondary stuff and aren't where the hardcore fans would ever think of going for that coverage.
I am sure some committee have see these things are popular with da yuff and those funny working class folk, but they don't understand them.
But do you know the terms of those deals?
People think "sports rights" and think of hundreds of millions paid in auctions for Champions League and Premiership football rights. Football will go on Amazon or BT Sport despite not getting the same numbers of eyeballs because there is big money on offer and fans will follow the games even if it means switching broadband provider and signing up for Prime.
Most sports just aren't like that (indeed sub-Premiership football famously isn't like that - ask ITV Digital). Minority sports are desperate for access to mass market outlets, while many involved in mid-level sports like rugby and cricket debate whether they should be placing a much higher value on eyeballs and lower on cash payments for the long term future of those sports.
I don't know, but you might well find some of these rights effectively subsidise the broadcaster to show them rather than the other way around. And of course there is a case for the BBC carrying content for a niche audience that is otherwise under-served by the Corporation.
I doubt they will have have cost that much, but it won't be like British Netball that pay for a broadcaster to cover them...Bellator don't need the BBC (or any British broadcaster) to cover them, so it won't be one of those deals. They have a decent business model that doesn't need a tiny tiny viewership from the UK wanting to watch second tier MMA.
But the main point was they are trying to be jack of all trades. The BBC have no expertise in cage fighter and it shows. And there is no need for them to be involved, its not an "underserved" sport again like Netball, as BT already provides the coverage to top tier of the sport, plus you can access more via UFC paid channel.
Its screams some committee said wells what's popular with the da yuff, cage fighting and e-sports, well we need to get involved...anybody know anything about it....room of upper middle class middled aged folks...lots of shrugs....result they buy rights for stuff nobody really cares about.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
Sorry but that is ridiculous. A budget of $7bn should be able to afford some class £10m dramas - and sell those around the world too.
Instead it is them trying to be in everything as you mentioned that is the problem.
But they can't do that either. The only way the BBC justifies a national poll tax is because it is - or tries to be - everything to everyone. So all must pay. If it only produced smart, high end drama like Netflix a lot of people who don't like that would say Oi where's my Bake Off or Strictly or Eastenders.
If it just did Strictly and Enders posh people would abandon it. If they closed the radio stations millions would be angry and nix their licence fee direct debit.
So the BBC has to spread itself thinly to justify its "unique" nationwide, poll tax funding.
I believe you've said this before, the only future for the BBC is as some kind of subscription service, with a lot of streaming. I can't see any other way forward
I was watching a rerun of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin the other day and he turned the picture of the Queen to the wall when he took his secretary into the bedroom lol. One could imagine Bozo doing that
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
And VDL, who seems to like a mask with 2 flags on it....
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Yes, we used to leave all this to foreign jonnie countries lacking in taste and trying too hard to prove something. Now we've become one.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
I was watching a rerun of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin the other day and he turned the picture of the Queen to the wall when he took his secretary into the bedroom lol. One could imagine Bozo doing that
I could probably watch that again. I liked it at the time.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Even the sanest posters are turning into Stanley Baker in Zulu. That's what Brexit does to you.....
You haven't seen Zulu have you?
Stanley Baker is the engineer who famously holds his nerve, and stays sane to the end, when all around are cracking up.
lol
Of course I've seen it! I even know his son!
Fun fact - I had a descendent of Lt Chard in my platoon. Called Chard so must have been some kind of direct line. Gleaming soldier.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
I think you are reinforcing my point. We are a nation state with a very long history. The EU is not and does not. The EU is a club, we are not. The EU still has problems deciding what it is for.
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
If I was the BBC, I would be asking how they can have 9.5m "subscribers" on for the BBC News YouTube, but most of their videos struggle to get more than 100k views, many low 10ks. For YouTube that is just pathetic for even medium sized channels, let alone one with nearly 10m "subscribers".
It perhaps suggests that people don't think their content is as world class as they like to think. Compare to somebody like Tom Scott or Wendover productions, who we like on here, 1m+ every video. And they are just one bloke with a camera / computer deciding to talk about things they find interesting.
The Queen is half-Scottish, and her line descends from the Hanoverian protestant line of the Stuarts - a Scottish royal dynasty.
Or they quite reasonably think that having a monarchy is as stupid an idea as having your country ruled by a permanent Tory overlordship that despises you.
That guy who partially cashed out will be breathing a big relief now.
Wonder if he was rooting for it? OTOH 50k richer if it won. BOTOH the loss validates the partial cash out.
We've all been there (not for the sums involved). My guess is rooting against.
Yes think I would have been - although pure financial rationality says you want it to win.
What was the story here?
Bloke did a £5 acca bet on the horses and the 1st 4 legs came in, 5th and final running today and he had the fav. Stood to get £500k if it won, zilch if it didn't. Before the race he did a deal with the bookie. Traded his £500k vs Nil position for a £300k if it won vs £250k if it lost position. It lost. He won £250k.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Yes, we used to leave all this to foreign jonnie countries lacking in taste and trying too hard to prove something. Now we've become one.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
Hmm, maybe. I just dislike childish jingoism and this smacks of it. I clearly remember the Union flag on the back of Royal Marines yomping across the Falklands, and then it being hoisted over Port Stanley and feeling proud as punch. I don't want to see said emblem squeezed into some lightweight minister's home office to show how patriotic he is.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
The most recent excellent TV show the BBC have done is The Office. That was in 2001 and 2002.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
I think you are reinforcing my point. We are a nation state with a very long history. The EU is not and does not. The EU is a club, we are not. The EU still has problems deciding what it is for.
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere
I was watching a rerun of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin the other day and he turned the picture of the Queen to the wall when he took his secretary into the bedroom lol. One could imagine Bozo doing that
I could probably watch that again. I liked it at the time.
I love old sitcoms. They are fascinating for their social history as much as anything else. I'm currently enjoying I Never Knew You Cared (Do you know this one, TSE? It's set in Sheffield). A fascinating depiction of just how limited the world used to be.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Yes, we used to leave all this to foreign jonnie countries lacking in taste and trying too hard to prove something. Now we've become one.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
Hmm, maybe. I just dislike childish jingoism and this smacks of it. I clearly remember the Union flag on the back of Royal Marines yomping across the Falklands, and then it being hoisted over Port Stanley and feeling proud as punch. I don't want to see said emblem squeezed into some lightweight minister's home office to show how patriotic he is.
That's what I mean. I did not feel as you did with the Falklands but nevertheless you do absolutely expect a few flags to come to the fore having vanquished an enemy in battle. Robert Jenrick's study? Not so much.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
The most recent excellent TV show the BBC have done is The Office. That was in 2001 and 2002.
I recently watched "Bloodlands". It was excellent. The BBC does a lot of good stuff very well. I see it a bit like the monarchy; you wouldn't design a system that way if you did it today, but what is the benefit to it's abolition? It is a bit pathetic that when a presenter makes a quip that some people with hard right views dislike, and we get Col. Blimps laying into the BBC as though it has just admitted it has sold it's soul to Vladimir Putin
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Yes, we used to leave all this to foreign jonnie countries lacking in taste and trying too hard to prove something. Now we've become one.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
Hmm, maybe. I just dislike childish jingoism and this smacks of it. I clearly remember the Union flag on the back of Royal Marines yomping across the Falklands, and then it being hoisted over Port Stanley and feeling proud as punch. I don't want to see said emblem squeezed into some lightweight minister's home office to show how patriotic he is.
That's what I mean. I did not feel as you did with the Falklands but nevertheless you do absolutely expect a few flags to come to the fore having vanquished an enemy in battle. Robert Jenrick's study? Not so much.
Curfews don't work, the only thing that works is a full "stay at home" order and hope that people listen. It saddens me that so few European politicians have learned that half measures don't work with this virus and don't work with the Kent variant.
IMO part of it was an assumption by many European politicians that the UK was simply making up the increased transmissibility of the Kent variant as some sort of justification for the terrible situation we had over December and January. We even had that over here with some commenters dismissing the effect of that and simply blaming the government for everything despite it being blatantly obvious to anyone who looked at the data that the variant caught us completely unready.
Europe is having its Boris in March 2020 moment where he refused the lockdown for two weeks too long even after seeing what was going on in Italy. These European countries have seen what happened here in December and January with a peak of 1,200 people dying per day and a very, very slow recovery until we got 10m+ people vaccinated. They chose to ignore that just as Boris did last year.
100 new scripted titles over the next three years that will “portray lives of people outside of London, for the nations”, including two long-running dramas – one from the north, one from the nations.
Sounds rather patronizing...by central decree, we need special programmes for those funny folk in the North, ee by gum, flat caps and whippets.
Surely the real issue is not whether the BBC reflects the nation, but that viewers are increasingly choosing non-British programmes on non-British services like Netflix, Disney+ and so on. That does not sound to me like a problem that is countered wth more regional production, because it seems people don't really care where the programmes come from as long as they are good. The BBC needs a plan to get a lot more money, to make a lot more high-cost programming, that makes the iPlayer competitive.
American programming is better quality, which hasn't always been the case.
The BBC needs to up its game. Not pander to regional box ticking.
The BBC can't afford to up its game - already it needs Amazon's money for a lot of it's fancier productions.
So all it can do is some regional box ticking while hoping moving outside London results in interesting program ideas that also attracts viewers.
They could afford to up its game by being smarter.
The BBC is a monolith now that is the true "Jack of All Trades" with what follows too.
The BBC should pick some good quality things to concentrate on and work on those, rather than trying to do everything.
Not so easy tho. The US streamers have blitzscaled themselves into gargantuan size, so their revenues are insane
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
The most recent excellent TV show the BBC have done is The Office. That was in 2001 and 2002.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
I think you are reinforcing my point. We are a nation state with a very long history. The EU is not and does not. The EU is a club, we are not. The EU still has problems deciding what it is for.
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere
Sturgeon is a "nationalist", so clue is there as to why she wraps herself in hers. The other two are Presidents in their respective countries, at least one of which requires it's school children to salute the flag every morning and recite a poem. Hopefully Bozo does not start this sort of nonsense here, but maybe we are heading that way.
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere ...
France is not a new country, but it's always been worried about its national identity and today it has a massive identity problem. The French are obsessed, to a quite extraordinary degree, by what they perceive as the risk to their language and culture from the English language and American economic, technological and cultural hegemony.
Their insecurity seems to have spread to the UK, except that for some as yet unexplained reason it's EU hegemony which spooks us, despite the fact that we largely shaped its economic policy and English is its principal language.
I'm with the non-flaggers on this. All these flags, except on military and commemorative occasions, are distinctly un-British.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
I think you are reinforcing my point. We are a nation state with a very long history. The EU is not and does not. The EU is a club, we are not. The EU still has problems deciding what it is for.
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere
Sturgeon is a "nationalist", so clue is there as to why she wraps herself in hers. The other two are Presidents in their respective countries, at least one of which requires it's school children to salute the flag every morning and recite a poem. Hopefully Bozo does not start this sort of nonsense here, but maybe we are heading that way.
So you think it is only in the UK where ministers or secretaries of states are seen near flags?
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
I'm trying not be be patronising here, but I'm surprised we're still getting this after people said the same thing about Matt Hancock.
This is a Government building. You will see frequent images of the Queen, as well as flags, in Government buildings. It's not Robert Jenrick's personal boudoir. See also police stations.
I think it is a reasonable mistake that people thought it was his home. All ministers seem to be required to have a Union flag viable even if they are on a Zoom call from inside their hallway cupboard. It's fucking weird and un-British and it would be interesting to know where the instruction has come from
Yes, we used to leave all this to foreign jonnie countries lacking in taste and trying too hard to prove something. Now we've become one.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
Hmm, maybe. I just dislike childish jingoism and this smacks of it. I clearly remember the Union flag on the back of Royal Marines yomping across the Falklands, and then it being hoisted over Port Stanley and feeling proud as punch. I don't want to see said emblem squeezed into some lightweight minister's home office to show how patriotic he is.
That's a good point. Law of diminishing returns.
I dislike this proliferation of flags wherever I see it in the UK.
On my drive south I'm even seeing Yorkshire and Northumberland flags although I can't help feeling there is a bit of self-parodying fun with those to be fair.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
I think you are reinforcing my point. We are a nation state with a very long history. The EU is not and does not. The EU is a club, we are not. The EU still has problems deciding what it is for.
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere
But every other country does this. France is not known for being a new country with identity issues, they fly the flag everywhere ...
France is not a new country, but it's always been worried about its national identity and today it has a massive identity problem. The French are obsessed, to a quite extraordinary degree, by what they perceive as the risk to their language and culture from the English language and American economic, technological and cultural hegemony.
Their insecurity seems to have spread to the UK, except that for some as yet unexplained reason it's EU hegemony which spooks us, despite the fact that we largely shaped its economic policy and English is its principal language.
I'm with the non-flaggers on this. All these flags, except on military and commemorative occasions, are distinctly un-British.
Actually, I will cede that there has lately been a proliferation of Union flags on show
There are two reasons.
Firstly, Scotland. Sturgeon uses the saltire everywhere and anywhere she can. likewise the SNP govt and civil service, she is trying to brand her way to indy. It is not entirely ineffective, the UKG has noticed this and is responding in kind
Secondly, Brexit. The government wants to reassert national identity now we are independent again, and the patriotic gesture goes down well with the troops. Brexiteers like the flag, notice the ones complaining on this site are all twattish Remainers. Unsurprising
That guy who partially cashed out will be breathing a big relief now.
Wonder if he was rooting for it? OTOH 50k richer if it won. BOTOH the loss validates the partial cash out.
We've all been there (not for the sums involved). My guess is rooting against.
Yes think I would have been - although pure financial rationality says you want it to win.
What was the story here?
Bloke did a £5 acca bet on the horses and the 1st 4 legs came in, 5th and final running today and he had the fav. Stood to get £500k if it won, zilch if it didn't. Before the race he did a deal with the bookie. Traded his £500k vs Nil position for a £300k if it won vs £250k if it lost position. It lost. He won £250k.
I think the article said £322k, or about £72k more... seemed to be picked deliberately to be enough to be rooting for the win.
I have to say pretty big balls on the guy to let the fourth leg ride, which was something like £2,400 @ 25/1. He deserves it.
EMA "Safe & effective vaccine, not associated with blood clots"
Unsurprising. Now it's time for all of these idiot politicians to unblock using it and get cracking. This third wave in Europe looks absolutely disastrous.
Actually, I will cede that there has lately been a proliferation of Union flags on show
There are two reasons.
Firstly, Scotland. Sturgeon uses the saltire everywhere and anywhere she can. likewise the SNP govt and civil service, she is trying to brand her way to indy. It is not entirely ineffective, the UKG has noticed this and is responding in kind
Secondly, Brexit. The government wants to reassert national identity now we are independent again, and the patriotic gesture goes down well with the troops. Brexiteers like the flag, notice the ones complaining on this site are all twattish Remainers. Unsurprising
Yes, you are right on the two reasons, and as you imply they both indicate insecurity.
That's really pretty bad. Make a joke, sure, yay, sense of humour.
But one, it just isn't funny, it's odd.
And, two, the sneering tone? And the woman sneering at the picture of the Queen? And the nervous sneering chortles in the studio.
Fuck the BBC.
Every time something like this happens, the BBC dies a bit more. It is determined to drive itself over a cliff.
It is a bit weird though. What kind of person has a picture of the Queen on the wall?
He's not at home, he's in an office (in Whitehall?). I imagine loads of government offices have flags and pix of the Queen, it's normal.
It is also normal for politicians to appear with the flag behind them, in all nations. Sturgeon does it all the time, note. The EU has about 300 flags and motifs in every shot. France, America, they all do it.
But the one that gets sneered at is the Union Jack. They would never sneer at any other, least of all, perhaps, a Scottish or Welsh flag.
It is vastly trivial, but it is one more tiny brick in the tomb the BBC is hastily building for itself.
I'm also struck by the assumption that everyone shares their views - that anyone watching the BBC would find it laughably gauche to be associated with the union flag and/or the queen. I can imagine how you might put a case that it is. But you wouldn't expect a national broadcaster to necessarily expect its audience to start from that point of view.
Exactly. It is a brief moment, yet it is one of the purest examples of metropolitan sneering and London bubblethink that I've seen.
The BBC forgets that it is mainly watched by the middle aged and the old in the provinces. A conservative audience. It has already been abandoned by the young and urban.
So it does its best to alienate the dwindling viewers it still has? Genius.
Leaving aside the flag debate, BBC critics tend to overstate the absence of the younger audience. It's declined, but still 2.5 hours a week in the 18-34 age group, with 56% of young viewers watching it at some time during the week. (For comparison, the 55+ age group are 13 hours and 92%). iplayer watching (which in my circle is the preferred mechanism for younger people) has gone through the roof at 3.5 billion, or a programme a week for everyone in Britain of any age, including infants.
It's still a huge drop tho. When I were a lad the whole family watched the BBC, and we watched LOTS. 3 hours a day on average? Even in my 20s I watched 1-2 hours a day, average, I'd guess. Some days none but other days many hours - especially sports, news, documentaries and comedy
This probably did not change until the internet really kicked in. Now my consumption is minimal. I don't listen to BBC radio, I have largely stopped using the BBC website as it is so dumbed down
I watch quite lot of other TV. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, some Sky (sports mainly), Youtube.
But overall my TV consumption is down, in all forms, and the BBC is the most reduced.
Well I am right of centre, but I think (and have mentioned it before) that ministers having Union flags in their study or sitting room is just ridiculous. As a patriot I would say it is very un-British. I wish they would stop. By all means have them in press centres, but their study? ffs! Let people from banana republics wrap themselves in flags (and English and Scottish nationalists if they must), but British ministers need to be a bit more grown up. The breakfast presenter (Charlie State?) just said what a number of us think. I am not from the "metropolitan elite", far from it. Well done Charlie.
No comment on the EU teleconferences where there seems to be a competition amongst the participants about who can have the most EU flags in their office/study?
If I recall correctly you are not a great fan of the EU, so it is perhaps surprising you think that we should follow their lead on this. Maybe I am old fashioned, but I was brought up with the notion that if you are confident of something you didn't feel the need to "wear it on your sleeve".
Actually, I will cede that there has lately been a proliferation of Union flags on show
There are two reasons.
Firstly, Scotland. Sturgeon uses the saltire everywhere and anywhere she can. likewise the SNP govt and civil service, she is trying to brand her way to indy. It is not entirely ineffective, the UKG has noticed this and is responding in kind
Secondly, Brexit. The government wants to reassert national identity now we are independent again, and the patriotic gesture goes down well with the troops. Brexiteers like the flag, notice the ones complaining on this site are all twattish Remainers. Unsurprising
Yes, you are right on the two reasons, and as you imply they both indicate insecurity.
In Scotland, it's necessary to indicate which services are administered by which government.
Comments
I just get the impression large parts of the BBC doesn't really understand its audience.
That said, anyone listening to popmaster on today will have been slightly taken aback by the very atypically Radio 2 contestant who described herself as living with 'my husband, and also my other partner ... we're very Mormon-esque'. You know these people exist, but it is a surprise to hear them popping up on the Ken Bruce show.
https://twitter.com/EMA_News/status/1372566715868020738?s=20
One tiny example. There has been a conflict in Syria for 10 years and it is terrible. The BBC is better at reporting that individuals caught up in this are, unsurprisingly, battered, bruised, traumatised, injured and dead as a consequence than reporting who are the forces engaged, what are they doing, how are they led, which other forces back them, what are their tactics, how are they armed, what is the progress of which group, what are their aims - in other words factual reporting on events in the world. This is the thing they are conspicuously resourced and trusted to do and they are failing.
The BBC gets, what, $7bn a year. A lot of money, but with that it has to do everything, the websites, dozens of radio stations, news, (some sport), all the TV channels, various other things like orchestras etc
Netflix's annual revenue in 2019 was TWENTY-FIVE billion dollars. Four times the size of the BBC (and growing fast and further under lockdown). With that, all it has to do is make TV drama, comedy and documentaries. That's it.
God knows how much Apple. Amazon and Disney can plough in, and earn, in time.
This is why Netflix can spend £10m on an episode of drama like The Crown, and it is vastly better than almost anything the BBC pumps out. Netflix gets the best of everything, from actors to directors to writers.
I fear the time has passed when the BBC were able, if they ever were, to compete with this
https://talksport.com/radioplayer/live/talksport2.html
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-56251835
They're certainly fiendish in the EU. Able to centrally dictate their will to the supplicant member states so that Italy alone does something. And Belgium does the polar opposite. Presumably just to confuse poor idiots like me who for some bizarre reason consider sovereign states acting unilaterally in their own perceived sovereign interests to be sovereign.
"Even the sanest posters are turning into a famously sane person in a film, that's what Brexit does to you"
Er, OK
Instead it is them trying to be in everything as you mentioned that is the problem.
He's been desperate to find any evidence to give the Indians not out.
All I did was take the first vaccinations already given, and shift the number forward (as it were) 84 rows in Excel. Bit crude but gives you an answer that is probably good to +-10%
Coming soon ... Brass Tacks!
Detective Inspector Barry Brass and his gorgeous pouting sidekick DC Toni Tacks solve the worst crimes that Hartlepool can offer using good old fashioned commonsense.
No minorities. No wheelchairs. All female characters either sluts or grannies.
People think "sports rights" and think of hundreds of millions paid in auctions for Champions League and Premiership football rights. Football will go on Amazon or BT Sport despite not getting the same numbers of eyeballs because there is big money on offer and fans will follow the games even if it means switching broadband provider and signing up for Prime.
Most sports just aren't like that (indeed sub-Premiership football famously isn't like that - ask ITV Digital). Minority sports are desperate for access to mass market outlets, while many involved in mid-level sports like rugby and cricket debate whether they should be placing a much higher value on eyeballs and lower on cash payments for the long term future of those sports.
I don't know, but you might well find some of these rights effectively subsidise the broadcaster to show them rather than the other way around. And of course there is a case for the BBC carrying content for a niche audience that is otherwise under-served by the Corporation.
Such as this umpire is an utter Pascal Gaüzère.
What is surprising, is that the BBC online content isn't more interlinked and indexed..
But the main point was they are trying to be jack of all trades. The BBC have no expertise in cage fighter and it shows. And there is no need for them to be involved, its not an "underserved" sport again like Netball, as BT already provides the coverage to top tier of the sport, plus you can access more via UFC paid channel.
Its screams some committee said wells what's popular with the da yuff, cage fighting and e-sports, well we need to get involved...anybody know anything about it....room of upper middle class middled aged folks...lots of shrugs....result they buy rights for stuff nobody really cares about.
If it just did Strictly and Enders posh people would abandon it. If they closed the radio stations millions would be angry and nix their licence fee direct debit.
So the BBC has to spread itself thinly to justify its "unique" nationwide, poll tax funding.
I believe you've said this before, the only future for the BBC is as some kind of subscription service, with a lot of streaming. I can't see any other way forward
That is what it is for.
Canada did.
Bring back British exceptionalism, I say. Least this bit of it.
https://twitter.com/DarrenEuronews/status/1372573457230266368
This, THIS is a flag
https://twitter.com/EC_AVService/status/1370297830733139968?s=20
For the UK government to obsess over the Union flag indicates we are not gaining confidence but losing it. Why is Nadime Zahawi squeezing a flag in front of his curtains each time he appears. Who has told him to do this?
It perhaps suggests that people don't think their content is as world class as they like to think. Compare to somebody like Tom Scott or Wendover productions, who we like on here, 1m+ every video. And they are just one bloke with a camera / computer deciding to talk about things they find interesting.
Books are professional, or can be, but not really UK or government-specific. So a flag and/or head of state portrait might seem the best choice.
Anyway, I am off. Play nicely, kids.
https://twitter.com/NewsAlertUK_/status/1372267495634124810?s=20
The USA
https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1371117668812652545?s=20
Sturgeon has the saltire behind her on CHRISTMAS CARDS
https://twitter.com/ikisnick/status/1371902776725401603?s=20
IMO part of it was an assumption by many European politicians that the UK was simply making up the increased transmissibility of the Kent variant as some sort of justification for the terrible situation we had over December and January. We even had that over here with some commenters dismissing the effect of that and simply blaming the government for everything despite it being blatantly obvious to anyone who looked at the data that the variant caught us completely unready.
Europe is having its Boris in March 2020 moment where he refused the lockdown for two weeks too long even after seeing what was going on in Italy. These European countries have seen what happened here in December and January with a peak of 1,200 people dying per day and a very, very slow recovery until we got 10m+ people vaccinated. They chose to ignore that just as Boris did last year.
A "longlist" of 1 imposed by Keith
A non local Candidate
As MP broke the Labour whip 7 times
Each time to vote for a 2nd Referendum
Hartlepool one of most BREXITy Constituencies
Oh well
https://labourlist.org/2021/03/exclusive-labour-draws-up-longlist-of-one-candidate-for-hartlepool-selection/
And it's a stupid idea for Paul as I don't think he's going to win.
Worse its going to cost Labour the Cleveland PCC role as well.
Their insecurity seems to have spread to the UK, except that for some as yet unexplained reason it's EU hegemony which spooks us, despite the fact that we largely shaped its economic policy and English is its principal language.
I'm with the non-flaggers on this. All these flags, except on military and commemorative occasions, are distinctly un-British.
I dislike this proliferation of flags wherever I see it in the UK.
On my drive south I'm even seeing Yorkshire and Northumberland flags although I can't help feeling there is a bit of self-parodying fun with those to be fair.
https://twitter.com/pongosapien/status/1372576633576652803?s=20
I thought we were special.
Trying to find something serious to watch, ideally which doesn't involve a rotting corpse unearthed in the first five minutes.
Moves like this are just politically tone deaf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYmP02SIQNI
There are two reasons.
Firstly, Scotland. Sturgeon uses the saltire everywhere and anywhere she can. likewise the SNP govt and civil service, she is trying to brand her way to indy. It is not entirely ineffective, the UKG has noticed this and is responding in kind
Secondly, Brexit. The government wants to reassert national identity now we are independent again, and the patriotic gesture goes down well with the troops. Brexiteers like the flag, notice the ones complaining on this site are all twattish Remainers. Unsurprising
I have to say pretty big balls on the guy to let the fourth leg ride, which was something like £2,400 @ 25/1. He deserves it.
https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1372557774232682502