17 Oct 2007

The BBC in Trouble

So, it appears that even the world-renowned, British institution - the BBC is not exempt from government cuts, redundancies and (in my view) a resultant lowering of quality. Inevitably industrial action looks likely to follow.

In the UK, we now have to accept that our health service (NHS) is a poor version of what it was, compromising patients' health and suffering a massive increase in bureaucracy and making redundant, essential health and care workers. We have seen strikes from the civil service and, more recently from the Royal Mail. The current Labour government are determined to cut back on all public services, opting for profitability over quality of service. Individual workers and users of public services have been treated abysmally - their views and their lives are not taken into consideration.

The BBC has been at the forefront of television for decades. It has provided superb documentaries, unbiased news reportage and has retained quality in areas such as drama and film. In today's multi-channel environment, where quality is often compromised for the sake of quantity, the BBC has acted as a standard bearer of quality. The BBC has a tradition of educating the public (both TV and radio) and to lose this would be disastrous for the status of British Media and Journalism and for the general public. I have seen the quality of health and care reduce immensely since "essential" cuts and redundancies have been made in the NHS and related health providers, to "improve services" as it has been claimed. I believe that the same will occur with the BBC.

It may be argued that these cuts are to enable a strong economy in the UK. My argument is that this is a false economy, that does not consider the long-term effects of reduced quality.


Link to BBC article

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