British Broader Casting, please

SallyB2
By SallyB2 Last edited 196 months ago
British Broader Casting, please
0211.BBC.jpg

Shock! Horror! The BBC has been accused of bias. Again.

The current accusation has actually been admitted if not volunteered by the (fairly) new Beeb chairman, Sir Michael Lyons.

This time it’s not been racist, or politically prejudiced, or ageist, or even sexist. It has actually been labeled londonist, if we can use our name adjectivally for once. Londonist as in London-centric, over-indulgent of Londoners, overly willing to concede that London is in fact the centre of the known universe, all too quick to highlight the general superiority of London in just about every aspect of daily life.

And they are right. Not about the superiority thing of course – we might think that but we couldn’t possibly come out and publish it on a blog-site. But Sir Michael is right in saying that the BBC is too London weighted. If Londonist lived in Manchester (in which case we’d be Mancunianist and not Londonist, but hey-ho), we’d be pretty miffed about the state of the nation’s foremost broadcasting channel. The BBC has a very well established network of regional broadcasting facilities, and the work of these could easily be expanded.

But we should also remember that the original voice of the BBC boomed out from Bush House: its history and, one suspects, fate are inextricably bound with the capital.

Piccie courtesy of Peprice’s flickr photo stream.

Last Updated 02 November 2007