BBC Branded “Government Funded Media” on Twitter – Fueling Debate Over Licence Fee
The row over blue check marks on Twitter accounts hit the headlines last week with the removal of the New York Times’s blue tick. It appears the publication is unwilling to pay $8 a month for that privilege, as is now required.
America’s NPR has also been under pressure from Twitter. Designated “U.S. State-Affiliated Media” on Tuesday, the site then changed this to “Government Funded Media” in the face of a public backlash. This ‘softening’ of the wording was apparently a concession from Elon Musk. The same label now also appears on the profile page of PBS.
Yesterday, the social media company changed the BBC’s main Twitter profile, adding the label “Government Funded Media”, which caused quite a bit of controversy, not least because the BBC is funded by the licence fee, which is paid directly and not via the Government, although the state does threaten people who receive live television signals with prosecution if they don‘👍 pay it.
The Telegraph has the story.
The national broadcaster, which is funded principally by U.K. households through the licence fee, is one of several news outlets to receive the label [“Government Funded Media”] from the social media network over the last week.
A BBC spokesman said: “We are speaking to Twitter to resolve this issue as soon as possible. The BBC is, and always has been, independent. We are funded by the British public through the licence fee.”
The Government is responsible for setting the level of the licence fee but it is paid by households. In the 2021/2022 financial year the licence fee generated £3.8 billion.
The BBC also draws income from some commercial operations.
Worth reading in full.
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The first occasion when I heard about this was on the BBC “World Service” radio output today. No shortage of their defence against Twitter! Their main statement was that they are funded via the licence fee – but the “World Service” IS actually funded via the Foreign Office (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-radio-and-tv-12760872); they kept quiet about that on the WS programme. In any case, the licence fee is a form of taxation, in effect. Perhaps “Government influenced media” would be appropriate, or anglicisation of the good old fashioned “Pravda”!
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-funding-agreed-to-keep-bbc-world-service-on-air
13th March….The government has awarded a one-off payment of £20 million to the BBC World Service as part of the refresh of the Integrated Review.
The money is being provided to protect all 42 World Service language services over the next 2 years, support English-language broadcasting, and counter disinformation.
So by ‘counter disinformation’ …I assume they mean to promote Western, specifically UK, propaganda? Which is different to other state-affiliated propaganda because…..?…..LOL!
Exactly, and “disinformation” as determined by who exactly?
Thought so…
I remember the outcry about press freedom from the likes of the BBC when conservative outlets received similar treatment from Twitter. Oh wait no, they where quite happy to ignore it until the worm turned on them.
Ultimately all governments draw their funding from taxpayers, in the UK watching television without a license is a crime therefore Twitter is correct in referring to the BBC as Government funded media.
The licence fee is an hypothecated tax. It is a government set tax on receiving live broadcasts in the UK. The fact that it is paid directly to the BBC makes them a branch of the civil service – not somehow ‘independent’ of government. Just like any other employees of the civil service the employees of the BBC don’t have to agree with the government of the day.
The BBC tells our beloved leaders what to think and is loved by 95% of our useless MPs.
HMG pays the BBC with the population’s licence fee tax, enforced by state power. Plus big bungs (taxpayers’ money, naturally) to promote HMG’s “The Settled Science”.
Incestuous? Have not HMG realised that no-one at the BBC would not rather poke pencils in their eyes than vote Tory? So perhaps not just incestuous but abusive as well.
BBC = Main Propaganda Unit of Government.
Funded by public daft enough to pay a fee for the privilege and who have no real say in how it’s run.
Currently captured by bigpharma/green lobby/Blairite warmongers etc.
Spot on!
“I’d happily pay twice the price for my tv licence, it’s such a unique way to fund the BBC”
Said nobody, ever!
(Apart from Ms happily stupid from Milton Keynes)
If they cancelled the Licence Fee, the BBC would not exist…or if it did, it would be just another minor TV station….and the Government wouldn’t have a willing and able propaganda mouth-piece….it’s obvious really…
Or it would have to provide real, commercial advertising rather than dishing it out for free, as it were.
I’d prefer “Liars”
Government Funded Pe-do Protection with cute endangered Penguins and Zelensky Drag Story Time.
Too soon?
Ooooh, buuuurrrrn…….!!!!!😂😂😂
You might want to fact check that statement. I could be wrong but I think the way it works is that the money collected via the tv licence is paid over to the Government and then the Department for Culture, Media and Sport allocates it back with most paid to the BBC but some also paid to C4.
And my comment – and that of ebygum nearby – on the World Service cash flow.
It could be argued that that specific funding applies to the BBC WS twitter account not the main BBC account but either way, despite their protests to the contrary, the BBC are not ‘directly funded’ via the tv licence. The money is paid over to the Government who then allocate it back, therefore having the potential to influence their output.
Yes I think you are correct – C4 gets a share.
The letters confirming the funding are published on the Government website:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bbc-and-s4c-final-2022-licence-fee-settlement-letters
It’s an odd creature, the BBC. Certainly while Tories are in power they are hardly a Government propaganda unit, though that may in part be through the choice of the Tory elite who all seem like raving lefties to me. It’s certainly state-funded and ultimately controlled. It is part of the establishment, but these days it seems more like the propaganda unit for New Labour. Woke and global, new Left rather then old Left.
Preparing for the engineered ascent of PM Starmer, perhaps?
From what I can see and what I read and hear, most of the staff are lefties, and have been for years. You could see that during the 2016 US Presidential Election cycle and Brexit. They went along with Covid folly and evil because it was a collectivist project, not because it was government policy – same with “climate change”.
It’s hardly surprising; most of the broadcast media and entertainment industry are lefties.
I know nothing of NPR in the US but judging by the program titles that come up in my TV guide for PBS, PBS has been captured by the left in the same way the BBC has.
This piece by Dr Diane Perlman explains it.
https://coronawise.substack.com/p/npr-propaganda-for-progressives1
Thanks. Not surprised.
Makes for an interesting read as many of these stories made it over to Europe unchanged.
There is a middle ground, somewhere. Of course the Government wants and needs a propaganda arm. Beaverbrook was appointed minister of information in 1918, turned it down in 1939. Macmillan took the job. World Service should be an arm of the FO.
What we shouldn’t be paying for is entertainment, radio and sports coverage which private companies do better.
Then half or quarter the fee – no problem.
I don’t see why the state has any business running a news and current affairs media empire. It’s never going to be politically neutral because no news organisation is. I don’t think the state has any business even regulating media beyond obvious stuff like the spectrum. Ofcom should be abolished in its current form. The BBC has to be broken up and privatised. As long as it exists with a state endorsement it will be a major contributor to our demise.
States have always sponsored culture and there’s no reason why they shouldn’t continue doing so. It’s just that the particular culture the British state is currently sponsoring isn’t worth spending money on, as it’s in large parts just imports from the more radical US left which fit the UK (or, for that matter, any other European country) poorly.
For sure there has been a lot of what I would see as “good” state sponsored culture, but the problem will always be who decides what is “good” and those decisions will often be political, and forcing people to pay for that is IMO unhelpful.
Philip Larkin was quite happy to make a living as a librarian, not from his poetry.
In an ideal world schools and indeed the BBC itself would include courses/ programmes on looking behind the news. Who pays, who benefits.
Teach your children well.
Schools and the BBC are pretty convinced they should be the only source of truth so expecting them to teach people critical thinking is somewhat optimistic.
Certainly a decent education would include such a thing but state funded education in the UK is captured by the left and I can’t see that changing.
Let’s be optimistic. Things can change for the better, too. Reformation, counter reformation, age of enlightenment (new order?).
Could be a while.
Indeed, things will most likely swing back, eventually. After I’m dead.
The one thing that makes me a little more pessimistic is that technology allows for much more comprehensive control of a society, and this can only get worse. The more power the powerful can deploy to hold on to power, the more that power needs to be limited.
Political decisions are always political 🙂 and the BBC license fee is really just a TV tax with some added window dressing. Because of this, the BBC is also completely correctly described as Government Funded Media. It wouldn’t receive this money with a law stating that its entitled to it.
IMO, this funding structure is an anachronism dating back to the time when a majority of the people didn’t have a way to receive anything broadcasted by the BBC. By that time, it probably seemed fairer to collect this money only from people who were actually using the service. Since this (only a minority of the people have to means to receive the program) isn’t the case anymore, this pseudo-separation between the BBC tax and other taxes should be ended.
Principally, I think that public broadcasters are a good idea as the only realistic alternative is broadcasters owned by ‘private’ plutocrats like the JP Morgan guy who would then used them to further their political pet agendas, but the implementation of this idea is arguably broken. If and how it could be fixed would need to be determined.
Why do we need a state run propaganda arm when the government has direct access to us via our smart phones. A case in point would be the emergency notifications recently installed on Android and IOS. It wont be long before you wont be able to switch them off.
The only thing I ever watched the BBC was for drama and science programs, its not watch with mother any more its watch with moron.
Wasnt there an article a few days back about the fact the BBC spouted the government covid mantra because of government threats to the license fee.
The government of the day and the license fee shows that the BBC will always be under the thumb of whoever is in power and we will never be rid of the license fee.
That the BBC paid £4m (or was it more?) for a minor minor font adjustment rebrand, yet refuses to pay $8 a month for a checkmark which actually improves their ability to post abstracts and quotes of articles and establishes their authenticity through a fair and equal payment (as distinct from the prior serfs and peasants system) shows just how ideological this disgraceful bunch of activists are.
Actually it’s $8/month for individuals like you and me, but $1,000+/month for organisations (+ $50/month per employee account).
Good. That’s more like it.
From the https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/who-we-are-AB4 page (my emphasis added).
I think the BBC still receives EU funding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36149789.amp
In typical BBC fashion it doesn’t receive EU funding.
But it does.
A more truthful description would be “Government Propaganda.”
But since when has the BBC been truthful?
The BBC just don’t get it do they?. There’s a world outside of North London. Thats why the look on Richard Dimbleby’s face on Brexit night was fantastic and worth taking a look at; on YouTube. I dropped my fee after watching early Question time programmes. The BEEB must think we came over on the banana boat. Look forward to it’s demise and it can’t come soon enough.
I’m afraid Twitter is right. How can the BBC claim not to be government funded when the government sets its cost and applies laws to insist its citizens pay them.
BBC studios is a private enterprise selling programming world wide! Funded by the license fee!!??
Here’s some perspective on “our BBC”
This is the statue on the bbc building in London, carved by Eric Gill who sexual abused his two daughters and the family dog! A well respected pedophile , sorry, minor appreciator!
Pull down the statues of all those white male British Ba%^+*s like Churchill,Nelson,Wellington and Newton.
And we fund this!!