BBC News Mandela Coverage

No, it is actually exactly the same. here's why.

You pay your licence fee, to TV Licencing, a company set up by government to administrate the licence fee and ensure the money goes into a separate pot from the Treasury. The BBC then take the money from that pot to spend on making programmes

You don't pay the BBC directly.

Your shopping bill is paid to the supermarkets or shops that you make your purchases at. They pay other commercial companies for the products they buy in, but some of that money gets spent on advertising for those shops on commercial broadcasters.

You don't pay commercial broadcasters directly, just like you don't pay the BBC directly, but through another organisation.

Under EU Law it clashes with the competition laws. as it has an unfair advantage on other broadcasters... and i'm not Anti BBC, i have a love/hate relationship lol, love the shows, hate their biased liberal news. (in my opinion) And i'm just stating that the Licence fee is out of date & people should have a choice if they want to pay or not... and im not using this as a stick to beat the BBC as ive stated in previous posts this is about the bad BBC News coverage of the storms and the extensive coverage of Mandela's death.

If it's a law, it;s not illegal. An illegal law does not exist.

Out of date, well it maybe out of date, but Ireland have shown the possibility for updating such laws to reflect the modern reality, and you really don't expect that any government of any political persuasion is really going to abolish the licence fee, not when it generates over £3blln of revenue.

It's simply not going to happen.

I hope it doesn't happen, i just think they need a change in management and need to stop spending so much when others are struggling. i do believe it could make more from going commercial but that's not up to me!

No, this is a basic, bog standard, right wing rant about the BBC that goes like this, 'I pay my damn licence fee, therefore the BBC should do exactly what I want them to do, and to hell with everybody else.'

Newsflash: There are 63 million other people in this country, most of them under 75 pay their licence fee too, so they have as much claim to want the BBC to reflect their views as you do.

And your claim of a liberal news agenda, frankly is straight out of the Fox News/Daily Mail playbook, so basically, you've just invalidated your own argument, as you have demonstrated that you have zero connection with facts, and zero connection with reality. But thank you for playing. Next.

Cue the anti-your sense of judgement comments. OK the BBC isn't always impartial sometimes it leans to the left, sometimes it leans to the right. Take Newsnight that leans to the left but that's just because it's an intellectual show (Not me who believes left wing politics is more intellectual than right wing politics. I have Academic Reports that back me up on this). However Question Time seems to often replace the moderately Right Wing Liberal Democrats with the Extreme Right UKIP and like BBC National Bulletins seems to suck Nigel Farage and his party off to an disproportionate amount for the fact that the UKIP has no MPs or power in the UK where as the Green Party, who are rarely on, actually have a Democratically Elected MP who seems to receive as much negative press from the Beeb as from the Daily Mail which can't be impartial. In fact the Question Time Panel is like this Cultural Person (usually left), Labour (CENTRE), Tory (RIGHT), Columnist (Usually RIGHT (DT/DM)) and UKIP (EXTREME RIGHT). Look at that and tell me the BBC is biased towards the left. OK in the 70s and 80s I would accept the BBC was left-biased but now The BBC is so afraid of the Daily Hate Mail that it now bends for to the right than someone who has just had there right leg blown off - to paraphrase Charlie Brooker.

ITV is very right wing - partly because it is part of a Capitalist System and relies heavily on Capitalist Corporations to fund it and so always leans in there favour. In fact ITV only exists because of the Tories.

Also saying you pay a huge amount of money for the BBC is ridiculous the license fee is £147 and was it £2.20 the Head of News was saying people pay for the actual News Department of the BBC. So for those tiny amounts of money the BBC offers better value for money than most other sources. The BBC offers fantastic value for money and should have more freedom to do what it wants (Also just for those people who don't actually know The BBC's 'constitution' actually says that it is allowed to criticise the Government)

So basically you're talking a load of rubbish? OK.

Such laws don't apply to statutory corporations; not only that, but I think any specifics you could give of the supposed abuse would be spurious at best.

I'm not getting into politics as that is just pointless because everyone has an opinion and a view, I'm not saying mines right I'm just saying that's my view, so why don't we all pipe down and get back on topic, jeez! And Imo the bbc is more left wing in its news coverage and we don't need some pompous acedemic report to tell us the bbc isnt impartial you just have to watch any news broadcast to see that. and I don't want the beeb to do what I want I just feel that the UK storms should've had more coverage than the amount of coverage Mandela got, 8 hours... Seriously?

And did you really use the term 'news flash' wow I didn't know we was on the set of Mean Girls :/

Sorry the weak and feable BBC has an unfair advantage. Thanks to Murdoch and his evil empire which includes BSkyB (47%) the BBC has the least fair advantage. If Sky were allowed to BBC One would be channel 683 on the EPG. How does it have an unfair advantage.

DO NOT say that the BBC News Department has a liberal agenda, when it so doesn't. The 3 things that infuriate me most in this world are UKIP, the Daily Mail and people who are ignorant enough to say that the BBC has a liberal bias when if you look at the evidence it doesn't. It sucks up to the Right especially UKIP and completely neglected to mention the paving of the way for the privatisation of the NHS in the run up to the passing of the H&SC Bill 2012. Even when it shows a bias towards Labour that isn't left wing, as currently Labour endorses Capitalist economic policies which are always right wing. (Also Tony Blair endorsed Neo-Classical (or Thatcherite) Economic Policies which are incredibly right wing). So look at what evidence there is (discounting Newsnight as that is the only news programme on the BBC with some balls left even though thanks to the Daily Mail's campaign against it is already beginning to lose them) and then tell me that the BBC has a 'liberal-left' agenda. [PS any evidence you use from the Daily Mail is automatically discounted]

I can't say I'm a fan of one-story days on the News Channel, regardless of the story. I thought the News Channel through the day was more mixed on the news agenda, and that was good because you didn't get the endless repeats and discussions on either of the two main news stories that go on and on to fill time and don't actually add value to the story. It kept the service sharp and relevant. I noticed Sky News and AJE covering other stories from time to time, too.

Of course, there is the argument that viewers can go online to get the news they want. But if that's the case, you could possibly argue: why don't viewers go online all the time and not bother with the News Channel? BBC One will have wall-to-wall coverage of big events anyway?

Having seen some of the pictures and stories from the floods on some of the regional news bulletins covering Eastern England earlier this evening and how many 10s of thousands were kept from their homes last night, I think it was right that BBC One did opt for regional news at 22:50 last night to provide a bit of a public service in these areas:
a) because coverage of Nelson Mandela's death could be found on BBC Two and the BBC News Channel during that time.
b) BBC One is the home of English Regions. There is no other way technically to accommodate opt-outs. Other EU countries do tend to have a regional tier of PSB TV, and if we had that system then there wouldn't have been a clash (i.e. Mandela on national network, Floods on the regional PSB tier) - but we don't, and it couldn't have been done.
c) There was nothing missed in the 10 minutes that BBC One was away that couldn't have waited, the nature of the news in the East was more time critical with the latest Environment Agency warnings.
d) It acted as a good signposting point for viewers in the Eastern Regions to other BBC outlets through the night.
e) Regardless of the fact that local radio can provide coverage, regional TV news during big weather events gets its highest viewing figures, showing that viewers do flock instinctively to regional TV news on such occasions, even if they don't watch much at other times - based on that fact, it was a good opportunity to signpost all those extra viewers to other BBC outlets for the night (see d)

I understand why BBC One programmes were dropped and I think it was right to make time in the schedules for extended news, but I don't think Newsnight was justified to keep on going the way it did beyond 1 hour duration, with BBC One and NC having their own coverage as well. I assume there was a queue of people at the door of Studio B desperate to get on camera to pay their tributes? However, I do think a special Newsnight programme, with some insightful reports from South Africa and the UK and studio guests to debate his legacy and his important role in African history would have been appropriate for this weekend.

Nelson Mandela: The Fight for Freedom replaces HIGNFY and Live at the Apollo on BBC One at 2100.

HIGNFY moves to 2335 after Graham Norton.