Is the worm turning on the BBC?
The Commentator
Has the nation finally had enough of BBC bias?
Is the worm turning?
Correspondents to Radio 4's Feedback have taken exception to Jeremy Hardy’s Jeremy Hardy Speaks to The Nation. Clearly music to Hardy's ears, if not to those who would deny the BBC's evident left-wing bias, one of a number of complaints was broadcast thus:
“This programme appears to be a diatribe of Jeremy Hardy’s prejudiced extreme left wing views. It wasn’t clever and it certainly wasn’t funny. The BBC is a non-political organisation and yet it is paying for broadcasting what appeared to be a party political broadcast for the Communist Party”.
Indeed. But this wasn't offence being taken; this was a complaint about quality.
Fortunately Hardy's show happened to be on R4 at time of writing. Billed as 'a series of debates', Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation is no such thing, more a rant with skits, in this case about being a man in the 21st Century. One segment, delivered by a cast member, was quite funny, but the rest was one excuse after another to shoehorn in, what ex-lefty Ben Elton used to call, alittlebiddapolitics.
It does all become a bit predictable and one even finds oneself mouthing punch-lines as they are delivered. But Hardy seems to have been ploughing this particularly witless furrow for an awfully long time, and in reading, somewhat negative, reviews of his act from five years ago – by The Guardian no less – little has changed. And why should it, when the licence-fee payer has been paying for Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation for 20 years?
One can only summise that the relative laziness of BBC producers, who continue to indulge Hardy, means the man has no incentive to actually come up with a new angle to his schtick. That, or up until now, the BBC has ignored any complaints of left-wing bias on R4.
Hardy's been around long enough to have 'improved' by now, but, like Phill Jupitus, Jo Brand, and so many others of their ilk, they just grow fatter on the BBC-panel-show-gravy-train, despite most of them now being roundly recognized, by weary viewers and listeners alike, as being marginally less funny than a slightly sozzled dinner party guest.
Of course complaints about BBC leftism are part of this nation's fabric, so much so that it has been admitted by a previous Director General and the current Chairman. What is interesting is that sections of the BBC and right-leaning press have lately given these complaints legs.
If one is to trust in the Mail's peerless ability to read the pulse of middle England, there are many who feel, having paid the piper, they are listening to some other bugger's tune. The Feedback complaints really do bear the hallmark of an audience that had simply had enough of the bias, and enough of the tedium.
For me, that happened one Saturday morning about two years ago. Radio 4 had always been Saturday morning’s background noise, but on that particular morning, listening to The Now Show followed by Any Questions really felt like being force-fed some Spartist's wet dream.
From The Now Show's feeble gibes about The Tories, Cameron, Osborne being posh, Thatcher being gaga, and Marcus bloody Brigstocke bleating on about Global Warming, to the subsequent Any Questions being dominated by the usual union-mobilised audience of braying teachers and sundry public sector workers, bussed-in to distort audience bias to breaking point. I know how Angry of East Sheen felt. But I was more bored than angry, and just stopped listening.
But then again, it might have been The News Quiz, that morning, rather than The Now Show, they both consist of 30 minutes of patchy satire, and the weakness of much of the material betrays levels of complacency that we are increasingly finding out passes for the norm at the BBC. Like Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, both these shows have been going for decades and yet, seemingly, at no point have one of the BBC's legion of millionaire managers ever said, 'Surely we can do better than this?'
A look at the list of regular panellists on The News Quiz – or guests on The Now Show for that matter – reads like an Oxbridge Marxism society reunion. Indeed of the current regular panellists on The News Quiz only Francis Wheen can be conceivably described as 'not of the left'. The rest are either of the left, and work primarily for the BBC and The Guardian, or are flat-out, SWP mentalists like Hardy and Mark Steel.
In fact, of the 50-odd names associated with the show over the years, barely 10 percent are ostensibly not lefties, and most of them are Tory MPs, past or present.
On Feedback, a producer called Caroline Raphael bemoaned the lack of right wing comedians, missing the point completely, that the complaint is about balance. “They don't come through” she moans feebly, when you just know, seeking out 'right wing comedians' is not how she or her ilk are spending their evenings.
The reasoning seems to be: because there are 'no right wing comedians' ergo the only political comedy comes from the left. Surely, if there are no right wing comedians, then in the interest of balance, Jeremy Hardy, Marcus Brigstocke et al. ought to be ditched. It's not as if the nation as a whole is going to notice...
Absolutely not, according to Ms. Raphael on Feedback,
emboldened to spout self-serving drivel about attaining the balance
required by the remit. You really have to listen to her argument it to
believe it.
This is the BBC in action: a feeble denial that it can't find the talent required to deliver balance, followed by a vehement abrogation of responsibility for the failing of the talent she and her team are required by remit to deliver. BBC management writ large.
One might ask Ms. Raphael, if the only political jokes her team can come up with have to be at the expense of the right or the coalition government, to follow the remit and dump them all. My God, if they can't regularly lampoon the likes of Miliband, Balls, Harman and the ghastly Eagle sisters, not to mention classic grotesques like Tom Watson and George 'the gift that keeps on giving' Galloway, then they really are in the wrong job.
I don't know Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's politics, but they produced a cracking take-down of Question Time, savagely lampooning every aspect of the show: audiences, panel, locations even the lame question at the end. So it can be done.
But it's not just about political bias. Stewart Lee has shown you can keep upping your game while keeping your political credentials intact. Interesting that he avoids panel shows like the plague. And while Armando Iannucci could hardly be described as hiding his leftism, The Thick of It shows political satire at its funniest, precisely because it is at its most even-handed. Have I Got News For You still washes its face.
The fact is virtually all comedians and actors are lefties, but happily most leave their politics at home. 'Funny' is key.
Alas, when chief lefty and eco-psycho Richard Curtis stopped being funny and came up with Comic Relief, the BBC ensured it became part of the national psyche and comedians, by association to the cause, are tarred as activists for one sort of social policy or other, as defined by Curtis and his highly-paid Comic Relief executives (£130K+pa since you ask, and £45K for a Climate Change Officer). Once again the schedules are cleared for Curtis' political vanity, and (insert failing comedian here)'s career. Asking the BBC not to be quite so left wing is a bit like asking the Pope to be not quite so…whatever.
But the poor old viewer doesn't really come into it. One would think commissioning editors saw the car crash that was The 10 O’Clock Show and realised that even C4 audiences are not predisposed to sub-student hectoring from millionaire, tax-dodging, left-leaning celebrities.
And it's not just comedy bias that has piqued the nationals. On the BBC's Eastleigh-edition of Question Time, an audience member described UKIP's policy of immigration as 'disgusting'. It quickly turned out, not least of all on twitter, the woman concerned was a Labour party activist and had tweeted prior to her appearance that she was going to give the 'disgusting UKIP woman', Diane James (widely acknowledged to have been the most assured candidate, by a country mile), what for.
At the time, Dimbleby floundered, and it was very much of the Harry & Paul sketch. But it took Melanie Phillips to see this spiteful creature for what she was, and slapped her down with universal support. The, somewhat late, Mail take-up of the story at least revealed the poor lamb was relying on Mum to fend off the subsequent, presumably Daily Mail, media attention. But the point was made and Question Time, with its socialist editor, briefly became a parody of itself.
Question Time this week was a modest affair, but when a particularly inspirational Asian businessman demanded tariff assistance he was greeted by silence. Amazing. Question Time needs a total revamp and to rid itself of its public sector employee audience in its entirety.
And that may be the common problem. The live audiences for all these programmes – never more than a few hundred – are easy to formulate. For example, why are so many Any Questions set in schools and colleges where unionised teachers and lecturers can mobilise a braying left wing lobby? The fact that ogres like George Galloway are so lauded on Question Time, tells you all you need to know.
Of course, there is only one openly 'right wing' popular programme on the BBC.
It is, naturally, widely reviled by the left – although many celebrity lefties are thrilled to appear on it. There is barely any political content aside from a sense of anti-political correctness. It is a man's programme that embraces women and women love it back. It is also the only BBC programme on which you will hear a hint of climate scepticism. The left hate it so because they know the people love it. And they do. It is exported globally and has made worldwide stars of its laughably unhip hosts. To be fair, it, too, occasionally shows signs of creakiness, no more so than in its last series, but then kicks again and reminds us what the BBC is for.
That programme is Top Gear. And, thanks to its phenomenal success, the BBC can indulge 20 years of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, The Now Show, The News Quiz. And Marcus Brigstocke.
Quite why the BBC cannot understand the juxtaposition of the duty to its audience and the essence of its remit by indulging for so long ostensibly tired programming simply because the left wing face fits, is a mystery.
Why the licence fee payer allows it, even more so.
Jonathan Bracey-Gibbon is a freelance journalist who over the past 15 years has written for The Times, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Sunday Express
This is the BBC in action: a feeble denial that it can't find the talent required to deliver balance, followed by a vehement abrogation of responsibility for the failing of the talent she and her team are required by remit to deliver. BBC management writ large.
One might ask Ms. Raphael, if the only political jokes her team can come up with have to be at the expense of the right or the coalition government, to follow the remit and dump them all. My God, if they can't regularly lampoon the likes of Miliband, Balls, Harman and the ghastly Eagle sisters, not to mention classic grotesques like Tom Watson and George 'the gift that keeps on giving' Galloway, then they really are in the wrong job.
I don't know Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse's politics, but they produced a cracking take-down of Question Time, savagely lampooning every aspect of the show: audiences, panel, locations even the lame question at the end. So it can be done.
But it's not just about political bias. Stewart Lee has shown you can keep upping your game while keeping your political credentials intact. Interesting that he avoids panel shows like the plague. And while Armando Iannucci could hardly be described as hiding his leftism, The Thick of It shows political satire at its funniest, precisely because it is at its most even-handed. Have I Got News For You still washes its face.
The fact is virtually all comedians and actors are lefties, but happily most leave their politics at home. 'Funny' is key.
Alas, when chief lefty and eco-psycho Richard Curtis stopped being funny and came up with Comic Relief, the BBC ensured it became part of the national psyche and comedians, by association to the cause, are tarred as activists for one sort of social policy or other, as defined by Curtis and his highly-paid Comic Relief executives (£130K+pa since you ask, and £45K for a Climate Change Officer). Once again the schedules are cleared for Curtis' political vanity, and (insert failing comedian here)'s career. Asking the BBC not to be quite so left wing is a bit like asking the Pope to be not quite so…whatever.
But the poor old viewer doesn't really come into it. One would think commissioning editors saw the car crash that was The 10 O’Clock Show and realised that even C4 audiences are not predisposed to sub-student hectoring from millionaire, tax-dodging, left-leaning celebrities.
And it's not just comedy bias that has piqued the nationals. On the BBC's Eastleigh-edition of Question Time, an audience member described UKIP's policy of immigration as 'disgusting'. It quickly turned out, not least of all on twitter, the woman concerned was a Labour party activist and had tweeted prior to her appearance that she was going to give the 'disgusting UKIP woman', Diane James (widely acknowledged to have been the most assured candidate, by a country mile), what for.
At the time, Dimbleby floundered, and it was very much of the Harry & Paul sketch. But it took Melanie Phillips to see this spiteful creature for what she was, and slapped her down with universal support. The, somewhat late, Mail take-up of the story at least revealed the poor lamb was relying on Mum to fend off the subsequent, presumably Daily Mail, media attention. But the point was made and Question Time, with its socialist editor, briefly became a parody of itself.
Question Time this week was a modest affair, but when a particularly inspirational Asian businessman demanded tariff assistance he was greeted by silence. Amazing. Question Time needs a total revamp and to rid itself of its public sector employee audience in its entirety.
And that may be the common problem. The live audiences for all these programmes – never more than a few hundred – are easy to formulate. For example, why are so many Any Questions set in schools and colleges where unionised teachers and lecturers can mobilise a braying left wing lobby? The fact that ogres like George Galloway are so lauded on Question Time, tells you all you need to know.
Of course, there is only one openly 'right wing' popular programme on the BBC.
It is, naturally, widely reviled by the left – although many celebrity lefties are thrilled to appear on it. There is barely any political content aside from a sense of anti-political correctness. It is a man's programme that embraces women and women love it back. It is also the only BBC programme on which you will hear a hint of climate scepticism. The left hate it so because they know the people love it. And they do. It is exported globally and has made worldwide stars of its laughably unhip hosts. To be fair, it, too, occasionally shows signs of creakiness, no more so than in its last series, but then kicks again and reminds us what the BBC is for.
That programme is Top Gear. And, thanks to its phenomenal success, the BBC can indulge 20 years of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation, The Now Show, The News Quiz. And Marcus Brigstocke.
Quite why the BBC cannot understand the juxtaposition of the duty to its audience and the essence of its remit by indulging for so long ostensibly tired programming simply because the left wing face fits, is a mystery.
Why the licence fee payer allows it, even more so.
Jonathan Bracey-Gibbon is a freelance journalist who over the past 15 years has written for The Times, the Financial Times, The Sunday Times and Sunday Express
Labels: Britain, Communication, Entertainment, News Media
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, March 17, 2013
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