Hands Off Our Bbc

Hi,

I would like to take this opportunity to urge you to sign my petition to keep the BBC the way it is on the eve of the closure of the public consultation process on the future of the BBC by the DCMS (Department for Culture, Media and Sport).

See my case for urging the DCMS not to make widespread changes to the BBC when its Royal Charter is renewed in 2006 and sign the petition and also leave any comments you wish here:

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/handsoffbbc/

The results will be handed to the DCMS before the deadline of March 31, 2004.

Thank you for your time. Please urge your friends and fellow BBC supporters to also sign the petition.

I don't think people in Scotland and N Ireland would agree with you, as they are hoping for complete independence from BBC London.

They ought to have complete independence from London (says I!).

Except, you see, these superficially anti-imperialist modernists at the BBC, who would axe the Globe as a despicable symbol of cultural tyranny and elitism, would naturally expect the Scots, Irish and Welsh to subjugate themselves to London for the good of British Broadcasting.

Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are more important than the English regions, because there are greater cultural distinctions and differences that should be recognised by a decentralised BBC. At the very least one of the BBC's channels, say BBC1 or BBC2, should be almost entirely regional in its output (like France3 is). Furthermore, the BBC should move some of its administrative offices out of London and to places like Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh/Glasgow simply because stable and good government jobs shouldn't be crammed into London exclusively. Can't accounts receivable clerks work away from the production studios in an age where the Internet and electronic communications makes it possible for American companies to outsource tax preparation services to India? I agree very much with this point. For the last 75 years the BBC has been organised under a concept of grand centralisation which no longer lends itself to value for money or to forward thinking. Furthermore, over these years the Irish, Welsh and Scottish cultures have had to play second-fiddle to English culture as they are expressed on television. Wales waited until 1982 for S4C, and before that it was necessary for the Welsh to content themselves with sporadic Welsh-language programming on the BBC (and never, ever in prime time). And what about viewers in Northern Ireland who had to contend with a BBC National News that was more interested in reporting on the latest IRA bombing incident than in stressing the complexity of the dispute and showing how it affected normal people in their day-to-day lives.

What utter, total and despicable irony!

The French language Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (the SRC) is independent of English broadcasting, although both report to the same board of directors. Just as there's a Canadian Broadcasting Centre in Toronto, there's the Masion Radio-Canada in Montreal. The BBC might consider doing this.