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EXPRESS COMMENT

BROADCASTERS MUST STOP CHEATING US ALL

Saturday May 10,2008

Comment Speech Bubble Have your say(9)

For a few hours the high-ups at the BBC might have enjoyed the latest scandal to hit ITV.

Ant and Dec got the top gong at the British Comedy Awards when it ought to have gone to Catherine Tate.

And Ant and Dec’s own show, Saturday Night Takeaway, was found to have wasted £8million of viewers’ money in a fraudulent telephone poll.

But yesterday the BBC – no stranger to scandals of this type – admitted it had failed to pass on £106,000 which should have gone to charity from viewers’ calls to phone lines for such programmes as Eurovision: Making Your Mind Up.

What next? How many more examples of cynical wrongdoing will be dragged into the open in the coming months? Surely no one can have any faith in anything that appears on TV.

It’s some years since the television industry gave up making decent dramas or serious documentaries. Its main purpose now is providing “reality TV” in various guises. But the sad fact is that it is more of a con trick than anything approaching reality.

And the reason why these deceptions take place? Because there is a tremendous arrogance in public life these days.

The BBC is there to serve the viewers and listeners, not fleece them. Yet that has been forgotten by the bloated, patronising and self-important types who think that they can behave as they like and that they will never be held accountable.

If any trust is to be restored between public and broadcasters, it is surely time for some heads to roll.

SCARY LICENSE FEE ADS

16.05.08, 12:23am

Yes, I have noticed how threatoning they are. We know where you live! They know if you gave your name and address when you bought a TV set.

When I trusted the BBC I knew it was important for them to be well funded with out the need for every program to be 'popular'. They can afford to make excellent programs just because...

However after all that David Kelly related sackings I nolonger trust them and don't see why I would give money to people so they can lie to me better.

• Posted by: Wayland • Report Comment

BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING US

12.05.08, 8:37am

Anyone else see that creepy advert for the TV licence "you cannot get away with it......we have you on the database"
And the car tax one "we have the power to CRUSH your car" NuLab think 1984 was an instruction manual, not a chilling warning. Just when did a free proud nation become sheeple?

• Posted by: redwhiteandblue • Report Comment

TV LICENCE POLICE STATE

12.05.08, 8:17am

One cannot help but contrast the ruthless efficiency with which the authorities pursue any householder without a TV licence with their apparent indifference towards illegal immigrants who can disappear here, get free NHS treatment, send their children to our schools etc? Perhaps its time to get the army of snoopers and detector vans doing a proper detection job - redirect them to immigration control.

• Posted by: panadero • Report Comment

REUBENMOHAWALI

10.05.08, 10:05pm

"A post by Veltro205 stated: "I don't even use the BBC for anything". I wonder why Veltro205 is paying the TV license fee?

It is well cemented in the vaults of TV licensing that I have NEVER held a TV license - AND NEVER WILL. I refuse to pay for something that is forced upon me".

ReubenMohawali
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Good for you Reuben, but no matter how much I disagree with the licence fee (it stinks), I will stay within the law until something better comes along, ie they scrap this insidious 'tax' and replace it with something fairer (a pay per view service or advertisement-based). I'd just be likely the one to get caught.

The BBC (Blair/Browns Broadcasting Corporation) is now nothing better than a mouthpiece for NuLabour to spread their skewed, hippy, multicultural politically correct propaganda. Along with NuLab, the BBC have completely decimated this nations national, historical and cultural identity.

And I know I'm equally as guilty by paying the licence tax, but you see, at least I won't be waiting for the knock on the door.

• Posted by: Veltro205 • Report Comment

LICENCE FEE, COMPULSORY TAX, MUST GO

10.05.08, 9:50pm

The BBC is arrogant, complacent, left-winged biased to an amazing degree and I support if by my licence as we all have to do. As long as it has the money from a tax on everyone who has a television set, it will never change. THE EXPRESS is an excellent newspaper. If everyone who wanted to read any newspaper had to pay a licence fee to the express, then its high standards would soon go down.

• Posted by: voter • Report Comment