Thursday, June 22, 2006

BBC, Take Note.

This report on the future of Canada's public broadcasting, CBC, contains a lot of ideas that should be applied to the BBC.

The CBC should stop broadcasting professional sports and eventually cut all advertising so it no longer competes with private networks, a Senate committee recommended yesterday......
....CBC-TV should be a public broadcaster that fills niches that no one else can or will fill," Ms. Fraser said after tabling the report, which called on the CBC to be realistic about its role. "Not addressing mandate and budget issues simply pushes the CBC, particularly its television services, to chase for ratings and thus to duplicate services offered by the private sector," the report concluded


There is no justification for public broadcasting other than to perform tasks that cannot be done adequately by the private sector. If one looks at the magnificent quality of the best US television dramas there is no comparison with what the turgid shows BBC are producing. In sport does anyone believe that the BBC's performance is anywhere close to matching that of SKY?
As it is the BBC spends ridiculous amounts of money for a very meagre return.