The BBC Doesn’t Have Right-Wing Guests On Because the Audience Don’t Want to See Them, Says Star Presenter

Star BBC presenter Graham Norton has said that cancel culture makes it “hard to find Right-wing guests” to come on his BBC talk show, and even if you find one, “the audience probably don’t want to see them”. The presenter, who has hosted his popular late-night chat show since 2007, made the comments in an interview with the Sunday Times. The Telegraph has more.

The 59-year-old Irish presenter said that talking to people we disagree with – or even those who have been “cancelled” – in order to have fair debate, makes for more interesting television.

However, he added that it is not for him to be the “moral arbiter of the world” regarding who can appear on his celebrity chat show and that not inviting celebrities who have been “cancelled” on his show “seems just as bad” as inviting them and laughing along with them.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Norton spoke of the selection process regarding his chat show guests, in light of the BBC’s impartiality policy.

“It’s very hard to find a Right-wing guest and, if you do, the audience probably don’t want to see them,” he said.

So there you have it, folks: BBC audiences don’t want to see “Right-wing” guests. It doesn’t seem to occur to Norton that this is a self-fulfilling policy. It is also a big problem for a national broadcaster that is funded by a compulsory subscription and is supposed to be impartial.

Last month, Norton invited J.K. Rowling on the radio (not BBC radio, note) despite saying the author has “problematic” views on trans issues. Why it’s “problematic” to believe that biological sex defines male and female, and not problematic to believe a man should have access to female spaces merely on his own say-so, Norton does not explain.

He said he invited Rowling on to talk about her writing, but he “wouldn’t have her on to air her views” on the trans controversy, which is nice – and contradicts his claim to want to promote fair debates.

Despite not talking to Rowling about her views on trans issues, he said he imagined that they would disagree.

“So I wouldn’t have her on to air her views,” he said. “But she has the right to still wang on about her crime novel.

“The easiest thing would be to not have her on, but that didn’t seem right. We should talk to people that we disagree with and I would not further any cause by not having her on. She will still sell a gazillion books.

“Also, I got an insight into her when she talked about enjoying the pub brawl aspect of Twitter. I thought: ‘Oh, now I get it – you enjoy this.’”

Norton also oddly claims that cancelling someone doesn’t affect their livelihood, as they “keep working”.

Asked whether he would still invite celebrities on his BBC television show who have been “cancelled”, Norton added: “It all depends. If they really want to come on, we could navigate a way through, but what’s interesting is cancel culture is heavy on culture, but not so much on the cancel. Harvey Weinstein is in jail – he’s cancelled. But everyone else is working away. They have a quiet six months but keep working.”

Hmm, try telling that to all the people who have lost jobs and opportunities for being on the wrong side of the thought police.

Worth reading in full.

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DanClarke
DanClarke
3 years ago

The BBC Only have Left-Wing Guests On Because the Audience Want to See Them, Says Star Presenter. How about Only centre left/centre right and keep all of those paying the BBC wages happy

Free Lemming
3 years ago

If you’re still paying your license fee, but are forever enraged by BBC bias and propaganda, I’d like to know what reason you think is acceptable for continuing to fund the machine that is destroying the very fabric of a well-balanced society, and is actively engaged in promoting ‘vaccines’ which are resulting in the deaths of many people including children. If you can’t explain then just stop paying – everybody needs to do their bit.

huxleypiggles
3 years ago

The majority of people with a modicum of intelligence have no interest in the Red Top programmes put out by Norton via his “independent” ie tax fiddling production company.

Norton presents programmes suited only for the sheeple and his mindless sycophantic gibberish is exactly what they want and deserve.

By blatantly espousing his dead-end logic Norton shows himself up for the school age graduate that he represents.

Not appearing on a Graham Norton programme is hardly worth getting bothered about.

DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Not being invited on to that vacuous, gibbering idiot’s show is a badge of honour

10navigator
10navigator
3 years ago

I’ve never watched this guy for more than a few seconds. There’s something about him I find most distasteful. In fact this article outlining his views confirms my opinion of him. Grossly overpaid nonentity.

Jonathan M
Jonathan M
3 years ago
Reply to  10navigator

Grossly overpaid nonentity? Yes. How does he get away with it? Grossly overpaid homosexual nonentity. That’s how.

Covid-1984
Covid-1984
3 years ago
Reply to  10navigator

When he leaves PRAVDA…he’ll be pile driving for Wimpeys.

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

I’m inclined to believe him that it’s not the case that he’s been told by the bosses not to have them on. I think what he really means is that he can’t imagine anyone who watches his show would have right-wing views or want to see such people, probably because he doesn’t himself know any right-wing people (or none that admit to it). It’s like people’s reaction when I tell them I voted Leave and would have voted for Trump – they are stunned because they just assume I am a metropolitan liberal like them because I am not White Van Man. I think these people just think everyone who is anyone and anyone whose company they enjoy is a lefty like they are. I’ve been to social events where it’s just taken as read that referring to Trump or Le Pen or Farage as Literally Hitler is uncontroversial.

Nicholas Britton
3 years ago

Norton seems oblivious to the laughbly obvious cognitive dissonance in his comments. He’s effective,y saying that alternative views are fine as long as he and his audience agree with them. Anybody who choses to be in a BBC audience is likely to be left wing and more interested in affirming their own world view than engaging in multi-sided debate. Usual bbc claptrap from Norton. Move along. Nothing to see here.

transmissionofflame
3 years ago

I think this is excellent. Let the idiot run his mouth – it reveals how deep seated the rot is. They don’t even feel like they need to hide it any more.

RW
RW
3 years ago

The man is obviously completely correct: Nobody who believes that there’s something wrong with, say, collaterally killing children with injections which are useless to them would voluntarily be part of the BBC audience.

Monro
3 years ago

Graham Norton is a comedian

DevonBlueBoy
DevonBlueBoy
3 years ago
Reply to  Monro

There’s nothing like a good comedian and he’s nothing like a good comedian

MikeAustin
3 years ago

‘… and even if you find one, “the audience probably don’t want to see them”.’

Not an invited or selected audience by any chance?

NeilParkin
3 years ago

The problem with the definition is that the left see themselves as the ‘correct’ wing, and the further left you go the more ‘right’ you are. Anyone who is not extreme left, (or ‘correct’) is automatically ‘far right’. I was having a chat with someone the other day and slipped into politics when he described the Tories as ‘Alt-Right’ despite them following a more or less socialist agenda for the last ten years. My politics has moved from centre left to alt-right without changing my opinions wholesale. The whole definitions thing has become as meaningless.

Martin Frost
Martin Frost
3 years ago

Norton’s show is full of smug and not very funny “right on” minor celebrities. This is what passes for light entertainment at the BBC in the 2020s. I wonder how many of Parkinson’s famous guests would have found themselves classified in this way if a similar culture of woke had dominated TV and Radio in the 1970s and 80s.?

Covid-1984
Covid-1984
3 years ago

Er; Graham…….
what audience is that then?…🤣🤣🤣

Human Resource 19510203
Human Resource 19510203
3 years ago

That’s big of him.

Bellacovidonia
3 years ago

So get gay sophisticated right of centre intellectual Douglas Murray on there to give the little woke leprechaun gobshite a schooling. Graham Linehan who obviously supported the little pricks career by writing the magnificently daft Father Noel Furlong for him, would be another. There is a pattern here given that JK Rowling wrote the little ingrate privileged posh-twerps , Radcliffe Watson and Grint into memory, these lightweight vapid non entities who suppress speech all owe their fame to writers who think unlike them.