Tag Archives: BBC

What is public service broadcasting?

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Public Service BroadcastingAs a pro­fessor with a back­ground in pub­lic ser­vice broad­cast­ing (PSB), I’m often asked — What exactly is pub­lic ser­vice broadcasting?

Take a pop­u­lar pro­gramme like Neigh­bours. From 1986 to 2008 it appeared on the BBC and was an import­ant piece of PSB, pop­u­lar with view­ers, and val­ued for its air­ing of gritty but uni­ver­sal human themes played out in an Anti­podean setting.

Alas, in Feb­ru­ary of last year it moved to Five, and became a piece of com­mer­cial, schedule-filling tat that appealed to the low­est com­mon denom­in­ator. Con­tinue read­ing →

The Newsnight dilemma

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NewsnightJim Gray, formerly of News­night, presides over Chan­nel 4 News. And Google’s Peter Bar­ron formerly of News­night, formerly of Chan­nel 4 News, formerly of News­night leaves an empty editor’s chair. Wouldn’t Gray be the best per­son to fill it?

And the fact that Gray would not for one moment take that ser­i­ously, tells you everything you need to know about which is the bet­ter job in telly. Con­tinue read­ing →

‘Propaganda’ on the Beeb

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Over at the BBC, Nic­ola Meyr­ick steps up to defend Ana­lysis from 7 August 2008, Al-Qaeda’s Enemy Within, against the claim from a doc­u­ment leaked to the Guard­ian that sug­ges­ted the pro­gramme was inspired by a gov­ern­ment inform­a­tion unit. Con­tinue read­ing →