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The War Against the BBC: How an Unprecedented Combination of Hostile Forces Is Destroying Britain’s Greatest Cultural Institution and Why You Should Care
There's a war on against the BBC. It is under threat as never before. And if we lose it, we won't get it back.
The BBC is our most important cultural institution, our best-value entertainment provider, and the global face of Britain. It's our most trusted news source in a world of divisive disinformation. But it is facing relentless attacks by powerful commercial and political enemies, including deep funding cuts - much deeper than most people realise - with imminent further cuts threatened. This book busts the myths about the BBC and shows us how we can save it, before it's too late.
The BBC is our most important cultural institution, our best-value entertainment provider, and the global face of Britain. It's our most trusted news source in a world of divisive disinformation. But it is facing relentless attacks by powerful commercial and political enemies, including deep funding cuts - much deeper than most people realise - with imminent further cuts threatened. This book busts the myths about the BBC and shows us how we can save it, before it's too late.
- GenresNonfictionPolitics
503 pages, Paperback
Published November 19, 2020
11 people are currently reading
136 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
November 28, 2020
I’m not one for conspiracy theories, but that the far right , and to a lesser degree the left, have long had it in for the BBC is obvious. This book , while not hiding from the BBC’s faults, offers a robust defence.
There is much useful myth busting data about the stories we are constantly fed regarding institutional bias, inefficiency and loss of trust and reach. There is cogent analysis of the way attacks on the BBC have often been rooted in our politicians relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the Americanising crusades of Farage and Cummings, and half truths and untruths peddled by right wing newspapers. Not to mention the row over the ending of feee licences for OAP’s, a Government decision for which the BBC was left to take the flak. Netflix, often held up as the arch comparator, is shown as sitting on debt due to failed and abandoned projects ( the authors don’t verify their source on this so I don’t know if it’s true ) and of basing some BBC hits such Bodyguard off as their own in some countries, which is more verifiable . On the subject of Bodyguard, I was amused by the story of one right wing website slamming it for “ unrealistically” showing women and ethnic minorities in positions of power when at the time we had a female PM and Moslem ministers ( and now Hindus also). Who’s the fantasist here?
The book is not blind to the Beeb’s faults . We see flawed coverage of general strikes, and the cases of Saville, Andrew Sachs Cliff Richard and others. Saville is acknowledged as a tricky case as despite some evidence being at hand, much of it only came out later, and if the BBC is complicit ( which is of course not an excuse) his charities and the Thatcherites who lionised him are too.
The book could have said more about the BBC’s great cultural legacy, the opportunities given to young people in the arts by BBC young musician etc and the Proms, it’s sport etc. Etc. The authors are open to the replacement of the licence fee by the German model - which could be one of many lost Brexit ironies if we adopt this. But the case for the retention of a public broadcaster in the face of commercial and political opposition is clearly made . It’s been accused of cherry picking data, and this may be true, but it’s thesis holds water overall.
There is much useful myth busting data about the stories we are constantly fed regarding institutional bias, inefficiency and loss of trust and reach. There is cogent analysis of the way attacks on the BBC have often been rooted in our politicians relationship with Rupert Murdoch and the Americanising crusades of Farage and Cummings, and half truths and untruths peddled by right wing newspapers. Not to mention the row over the ending of feee licences for OAP’s, a Government decision for which the BBC was left to take the flak. Netflix, often held up as the arch comparator, is shown as sitting on debt due to failed and abandoned projects ( the authors don’t verify their source on this so I don’t know if it’s true ) and of basing some BBC hits such Bodyguard off as their own in some countries, which is more verifiable . On the subject of Bodyguard, I was amused by the story of one right wing website slamming it for “ unrealistically” showing women and ethnic minorities in positions of power when at the time we had a female PM and Moslem ministers ( and now Hindus also). Who’s the fantasist here?
The book is not blind to the Beeb’s faults . We see flawed coverage of general strikes, and the cases of Saville, Andrew Sachs Cliff Richard and others. Saville is acknowledged as a tricky case as despite some evidence being at hand, much of it only came out later, and if the BBC is complicit ( which is of course not an excuse) his charities and the Thatcherites who lionised him are too.
The book could have said more about the BBC’s great cultural legacy, the opportunities given to young people in the arts by BBC young musician etc and the Proms, it’s sport etc. Etc. The authors are open to the replacement of the licence fee by the German model - which could be one of many lost Brexit ironies if we adopt this. But the case for the retention of a public broadcaster in the face of commercial and political opposition is clearly made . It’s been accused of cherry picking data, and this may be true, but it’s thesis holds water overall.
maybe
October 24, 2020A forthcoming book, 'The War Against the BBC' by Patrick Barwise & Peter York, uncovers the far-right, often US-influenced origins of the anti-BBC campaign. It explodes the claims you often see on social media that people no longer trust it & are turning away from it in large numbers.
October 24, 2022
This book was an absolute slog to get through, which has therefore left me with very little energy now it has come time to leave a review. Suffice to say, this book, though very dry, presents a detailed defence of the BBC and it is well worth a read.
November 27, 2020
Elsewhere on Goodreads, I have reviewed Robin Aitken's latest critique of the BBC. This book seems to be an unadmitted response, although the authors invent a nebulous anti-BBC elite. Patrick Barwise, an emeritus professor of management at London Business School, and Peter York, a management consultant and journalist, argue that the BBC’s mission is (in order) to inform, educate, and entertain. Their elitism is revealed by their support for public funding as insulation from the same populace it is supposed to be informing and educating. Yet they claim that BBC is good for competition.
Their political bias is revealed by their repeated characterization of the BBC’s critics as “right-wingers,” competitors, and “free market economists.” Most bizarrely, they refer to a “metropolitan illiberal elite.” And they allude to an American conspiracy, although their target is the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch.
Their intellectual hypocrisy is revealed every time they cherry-pick the data. For instance, they claim that the BBC’s renewed rhetoric about impartiality under a sceptical Conservative Party disproves the BBC’s political bias. They dismiss News-Watch as right-wing without disproving its empiricism. They dismiss research into the public service failures of BBC Radio 5 Live as not peer-reviewed or authored by an expert on broadcasting, but these are ridiculously high standards in this field. In fact, the author (Professor Tim Luckhurst) is an expert: he worked for the BBC before teaching journalism.
In any case, Barwise and York do not follow these standards themselves. The ultimate betrayal of their intellectual pretensions is the length of the book: more than 500 pages in paperback form, thanks to repetitiveness and rhetoric as cover for lack of clear evidence.
Their political bias is revealed by their repeated characterization of the BBC’s critics as “right-wingers,” competitors, and “free market economists.” Most bizarrely, they refer to a “metropolitan illiberal elite.” And they allude to an American conspiracy, although their target is the Australian-born Rupert Murdoch.
Their intellectual hypocrisy is revealed every time they cherry-pick the data. For instance, they claim that the BBC’s renewed rhetoric about impartiality under a sceptical Conservative Party disproves the BBC’s political bias. They dismiss News-Watch as right-wing without disproving its empiricism. They dismiss research into the public service failures of BBC Radio 5 Live as not peer-reviewed or authored by an expert on broadcasting, but these are ridiculously high standards in this field. In fact, the author (Professor Tim Luckhurst) is an expert: he worked for the BBC before teaching journalism.
In any case, Barwise and York do not follow these standards themselves. The ultimate betrayal of their intellectual pretensions is the length of the book: more than 500 pages in paperback form, thanks to repetitiveness and rhetoric as cover for lack of clear evidence.
December 25, 2020
The book of 2020 and a stark warning of what Auntie Beeb's 2021 could look like if we aren't very careful.
April 3, 2023
INFORM, EDUCATE AND ENTERTAIN
There is and never has been a TV network/media service which comes anywhere near as close to the breadth and depth of quality, diversity and reach as the BBC. It really is in a class of its own. An outstanding institution which has informed, educated and entertained much of the planet for over a century.
The Conservative government in cahoots with the British right wing media and various corporate think tanks, and even with a little help from the Labour party, have embarked upon an intense and sustained campaign, spending a phenomenal amount of time, money and resources doing their best to weaken, undermine, discredit and dismantle this institute, in order to furnish themselves with more power and profit.
The facts remain, when this was published in 2020, the cost of a TV license amounts to 43 pence a day, or £3.03 a week, for that fee everyone in the household gets unlimited access to six main TV channels, 13 regional TV news programmes, 10 national and 40 local radio programmes, a wide range of online services, including the iPlayer and Sounds app, BBC Three and BBC Online. Households in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive additional services. These are all free at point of use with those with a current TV license.
Of course like any institution the BBC is not without its flaws and problems. Most of them have been declared with glee by a delighted right wing media. The major one being the Jimmy Savile scandal, but let’s not forget the BBC didn’t have a monopoly on Savile or his behaviour, there is a long and troubling list of people and institutions which went to great lengths to support, empower and reward Savile, not least the NHS, (where he actually committed most of his crimes), Murdoch’s media, “The Daily Mail”, Margaret Thatcher, the Tory government and of course the current king of England and his royal family who awarded Savile with an OBE and a knighthood whilst he was systematically sexually abusing vulnerable women and children .
This book throws up some interesting dilemmas, such as Patriotism v Nationalism and the silent majority illusion, false balance and shows many of the tactics and ploys used for years against the BBC. The likes of the government feigning concern for the welfare of over 75s by insisting that the BBC should be subsidising the cost, someone makes the brilliant point, “We’re curious to know when the government, using the same logic, plans to force the energy companies to take over the cost of winter fuel payments for the elderly – about £2 billion per annum.”
In the current media climate they are faced with so many heavyweight competitors like Netflix, Amazon etc, companies who can shift tax burdens offshore and are relatively lightly regulated compared to the BBC which pays all its taxes and has to answer to multiple regulators. Due to the nature of its funding and reliance on the Charter etc, the BBC is held up to far higher standards than its competitors. It’s seen as fair game too, and is constantly subjected to a level of scrutiny and transparency that no other media outlet is, thus rendering it far more vulnerable to attack from jealous competitors with blatant ulterior motives, often under the guise of public welfare or fairness.
Ultimately the BBC is constantly subject to daily and vitriolic attacks from incredibly rich and powerful interests hiding behind crass media campaigns, political figures, countless astroturf movements and focus groups, but it doesn’t take much digging to see that these are just the same greedy, awful people who want a world of less regulation, less tax, less, preferably no competition and more profit for themselves and their shareholders.
In the wrong hands this account could have been a dry and tedious affair, but this reads really nicely and reveals the terrifying scale of attack the BBC remains under. The current Conservative government possibly remains their biggest threat, as they continue to threaten the BBC and cut their funding and raid their profits to use for other, unrelated projects. The BBC like the NHS is one of the most vital and enduring British institutions and unless the public remain vigilant, and stop voting in multi-millionaire lying, cheating robbers then it is in real danger of being consigned to the past.
There is and never has been a TV network/media service which comes anywhere near as close to the breadth and depth of quality, diversity and reach as the BBC. It really is in a class of its own. An outstanding institution which has informed, educated and entertained much of the planet for over a century.
The Conservative government in cahoots with the British right wing media and various corporate think tanks, and even with a little help from the Labour party, have embarked upon an intense and sustained campaign, spending a phenomenal amount of time, money and resources doing their best to weaken, undermine, discredit and dismantle this institute, in order to furnish themselves with more power and profit.
The facts remain, when this was published in 2020, the cost of a TV license amounts to 43 pence a day, or £3.03 a week, for that fee everyone in the household gets unlimited access to six main TV channels, 13 regional TV news programmes, 10 national and 40 local radio programmes, a wide range of online services, including the iPlayer and Sounds app, BBC Three and BBC Online. Households in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive additional services. These are all free at point of use with those with a current TV license.
Of course like any institution the BBC is not without its flaws and problems. Most of them have been declared with glee by a delighted right wing media. The major one being the Jimmy Savile scandal, but let’s not forget the BBC didn’t have a monopoly on Savile or his behaviour, there is a long and troubling list of people and institutions which went to great lengths to support, empower and reward Savile, not least the NHS, (where he actually committed most of his crimes), Murdoch’s media, “The Daily Mail”, Margaret Thatcher, the Tory government and of course the current king of England and his royal family who awarded Savile with an OBE and a knighthood whilst he was systematically sexually abusing vulnerable women and children .
This book throws up some interesting dilemmas, such as Patriotism v Nationalism and the silent majority illusion, false balance and shows many of the tactics and ploys used for years against the BBC. The likes of the government feigning concern for the welfare of over 75s by insisting that the BBC should be subsidising the cost, someone makes the brilliant point, “We’re curious to know when the government, using the same logic, plans to force the energy companies to take over the cost of winter fuel payments for the elderly – about £2 billion per annum.”
In the current media climate they are faced with so many heavyweight competitors like Netflix, Amazon etc, companies who can shift tax burdens offshore and are relatively lightly regulated compared to the BBC which pays all its taxes and has to answer to multiple regulators. Due to the nature of its funding and reliance on the Charter etc, the BBC is held up to far higher standards than its competitors. It’s seen as fair game too, and is constantly subjected to a level of scrutiny and transparency that no other media outlet is, thus rendering it far more vulnerable to attack from jealous competitors with blatant ulterior motives, often under the guise of public welfare or fairness.
Ultimately the BBC is constantly subject to daily and vitriolic attacks from incredibly rich and powerful interests hiding behind crass media campaigns, political figures, countless astroturf movements and focus groups, but it doesn’t take much digging to see that these are just the same greedy, awful people who want a world of less regulation, less tax, less, preferably no competition and more profit for themselves and their shareholders.
In the wrong hands this account could have been a dry and tedious affair, but this reads really nicely and reveals the terrifying scale of attack the BBC remains under. The current Conservative government possibly remains their biggest threat, as they continue to threaten the BBC and cut their funding and raid their profits to use for other, unrelated projects. The BBC like the NHS is one of the most vital and enduring British institutions and unless the public remain vigilant, and stop voting in multi-millionaire lying, cheating robbers then it is in real danger of being consigned to the past.
June 27, 2023
This is an excellent debunking of many of the criticisms of the BBC from its (largely) right wing critics. Those critics are highly organised and funded by various shadowy interests who would rather see a rampant privately owned media landscape than anything approaching accountability or regulation. That’s not to say that the BBC doesn’t get things wrong - witness the Jimmy Saville affair for one. The authors of this book take an unashamedly full-frontal defensive position when it comes to the Beeb. Including on allegations of bias. While bias is always notoriously difficult to prove with data, I don’t think there can be any doubt that the left has been sinned against much more that the right as a result of the BBC’s jaundiced coverage. As the author and academic Tom Mills has pointed out in his writings, when all’s said and done, the BBC is an organ of the establishment and those studying it need to understand that in order to see why it does what it does and in whose interests it operates. Notwithstanding that, The War Against the BBC is still a good read with much ammunition contained in its pages to counter those siren voices on the right who would see it destroyed if they got their way.
October 25, 2022
This book is so well researched and informed. It taps into all the crucial debates around the future scale, scope and funding of our national broadcaster; it’s importance in bringing audiences together and educating, informing and entertaining in a world of fake news and SVoD subscriptions; and representing the UK to the world. It is accessible and engaging and I would urge anyone with an interest in broadcasting, and democracy, to give it a go!
September 5, 2023
Absolute nonsense. Good riddance to the BBC, despite billions of pounds in revenue they show the same old poor quality shows until audiences know scripts word perfect. Perhaps if they paid presenters, actors, and outsourced content producers less they could create some fresh content.
How hard is it to read an autocue?
Not at all - YouTube is awash with people producing similar quality content for fun.
Radio content is just as poor.
How hard is it to read an autocue?
Not at all - YouTube is awash with people producing similar quality content for fun.
Radio content is just as poor.
December 3, 2020
It is an important defence of the BBC which also recognises its many flaws.
It makes you realise that while we all bash it without the BBC the UK would be a lesser place
I have to admit to having worked with Paddy and Peter on this book - my specialist topic was where the BBC have got it wrong - Chapter 12 - well worth reading!
It makes you realise that while we all bash it without the BBC the UK would be a lesser place
I have to admit to having worked with Paddy and Peter on this book - my specialist topic was where the BBC have got it wrong - Chapter 12 - well worth reading!
January 4, 2022
Absolutely excellent, very detailed, rebuttal of all the various accusations against the BBC along with a good description of the various attacks on the Beeb, by whom and their motives. Thoroughly recommended.
April 22, 2022
It's obviously something of a 'dry' read - but it really does provide a clear, impartial view of the BBC, ultimately revealing that for all its flaws, it really is essential and needs to be protected.
December 18, 2021
Very important data and content but poorly written. Needed better structure with less chapters.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews