Broadcasting

Broadcasting communication is a tool used for dissemination. Dissemination is a lens—sometimes a distorting one—that tackles basic issues such as interaction, presence, and space and time on the agenda of any future communication theory in general. Dissemination focuses on the message being relayed from one main source to one large audience without the exchange of dialogue in between.

Regulating authorities

Ofcom

The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-ranging powers across the television, radio, telecoms and postal sectors. It has a statutory duty to represent the interests of citizens and consumers by promoting competition and protecting the public from harmful or offensive material. Some of the main areas Ofcom regulates are TV and radio standards, broadband and phones, video-sharing platforms online and wireless spectrum services. The regulator was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002 and received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003.

Ofcom licenses all UK commercial television and radio services in the UK. Broadcasters must comply by the terms of their licence, or risk having it revoked. Ofcom also publishes the Broadcasting Code, a series of rules which all broadcast content on television and radio must follow. On 20 June 2001, the Queen's Speech to the UK Parliament announced the creation of Ofcom. The new body, which was to replace several existing authorities, was conceived as a "super-regulator" to oversee media channels that were rapidly converging through digital transmission. On 29 December 2003, Ofcom launched, formally inheriting the duties that had previously been the responsibility of five different regulators. In July 2009, Conservative Party opposition leader David Cameron referenced Ofcom in a speech against the proliferation of quangos:

Under Cameron's subsequent premiership of the 2010 UK coalition government, the Public Bodies Act 2011 did remove or modify several of Ofcom's duties, although it did not substantially reduce Ofcom's remit. On 1 January 2016, the regulation of video on demand was transferred to Ofcom from ATVOD, the Authority for Television on Demand. The Digital Economy Act 2017 extended Ofcom's remit and powers transferring to Ofcom the regulation of the BBC, a duty previously undertaken by the BBC Trust. Following a consultation over the Online Harms White Paper published by the UK government in April 2019, the government announced in February 2020 that it intended Ofcom to have a greater role in Internet regulation to protect users from "harmful and illegal content".

Since 1 January 2021, Ofcom has defined hate speech as "all forms of expression which spread, incite, promote or justify hatred based on intolerance on the grounds of disability, ethnicity, social origin, sex, gender, gender reassignment, nationality, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation, colour, genetic features, language, political or any other opinion, membership of a national minority, property, birth or age." However, there is concern that Ofcom's broad definition of hate speech can easily result in the unjustified censorship of controversial opinions, however legitimate they might be. In June 2022, the BBC's historian, Jean Seaton, publicy said that Michael Grade "is too lazy, too old, and has too many conflicts of interest," according to The Guardian. She called his appointment as chairman a means of "bullying" the BBC.

British Broadcasting Corporation

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the world's oldest national broadcaster, and the largest broadcaster in the world by number of employees, employing over 22,000 staff in total, of whom approximately 19,000 are in public-sector broadcasting. The BBC was established under a Royal Charter (royal charters were used to create chartered companies — for-profit ventures with shareholders, used for exploration, trade, and colonisation) and operates under its Agreement with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

“So, in the interests of survival, they trained themselves to be agreeing machines instead of thinking machines. All their minds had to do was to discover what other people were thinking, and then they thought that, too.”.

Its work is funded principally by an annual television licence fee charged to all British households, companies, and organisations using any type of equipment to receive or record live television broadcasts.

“Propaganda is major component in all power systems, both secular and religious; false propaganda is a major component of unprincipled power systems. All power systems endeavor to convince their subjects that the system is good, just, beneficent and noble, as well as worthy of perpetuation and defense. The more jingoistic propaganda issued, the more suspicious one should be of its truth”.

Directors

Marmaduke James Hussey

Hussey was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Oxford, He was appointed Chairman of the BBC in 1986, upon the death of Stuart Young, enabled (claimed) due to his close connections to the ruling Conservative Party.

In his first weeks as chair of the BBC board of governors, Hussey was unsure of his power. He recounts a conversation with banker and head of the C.P.R.S. government 'think tank' Victor Rothschild just after his appointment.

“Can you fire the Director General?” enquires Rothschild

A long pause from Hussey, “I think so”.

“Well, that's all that needs to be said isn't it” Rothschild replies.

The fifth BBC Board of Governors meeting with Hussey as Chair was held at Television Centre. It was Thursday 29th January 1987. Alasdair Milne was called into Hussey's office, where he also found Joel Barnett, vice-chair, waiting. They demanded his resignation. Stunned, Milne was bounced into signing a pre-prepared statement, and was driven home.

Within three months of joining the BBC, he had forced the resignation of the Director-General, Alasdair Milne, following a series of rows in recent years between the BBC and the Conservative government. In the 1990s, Hussey fell out with Director General John Birt over his management style and Panorama's controversial interview with Diana, Princess of Wales in 1995.

Alasdair Milne

Milne had a long career at the BBC, where he was eventually promoted to Director-General, a role he maintained between July 1982 and January 1987, he was described by The Independent as “one of the most original and talented programme-makers to emerge during television's formative years”.

“I remember the blinds were drawn against the sun which was brilliant that morning. Hussey's lip trembled as he said: 'I am afraid this is going to be a very unpleasant interview. We want you to leave immediately. It's a unanimous decision of the Board.”.

In the autumn of 1986 there was the series of documentaries called Secret Society, This series of six thirty-minute investigative films by Duncan Campbell (i.e., researched and presented by him, but produced within normal BBC practice) was described as 'each illuminating a hidden truth of major public concern'.

“I moved with Sheila to have a word with the PM, who was talking to the Chief Rabbi. To my surprise, she effectively cut me dead. The very same evening, after a Board discussion on television, Alwyn Roberts dropped in to the office for a drink. Some Board members, he warned, wanted my 'head to roll' because of a Secret Society, I had no need to ask who”.

Alasdair Milne was a crucial figure in the transmission of Secret Society (the first episode focused on Secret Cabinet Committees), and it is written that without his backing none would have gone ahead. Since Alisdair's sacking, it is also written that BBC producers have lost the will to fight for controversial programmes which serve the public rather than establishment interest.

Thursday 29th January 1987 is claimed as the day public service ended at the BBC.

Danny Cohen

Cohen was born in Westminster, the son of middle-class Jewish intellectuals. He was previously the Director of BBC Television from 2013 to 2015. Before that, he was the Controller of BBC One for three years, the BBC's principal television channel in the United Kingdom and the youngest person to be appointed as controller of the channel.

In this role, Cohen oversaw the BBC's Television Networks (BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three and BBC Four) and BBC Productions — Europe's largest television production group. He also had responsibility for the BBC's feature film unit, BBC Films, and the BBC's content on its digital platform, BBC iPlayer.

“Maybe there was some kind of fiddling of the figures, by the oligarchs who ran the TV stations and who were mainly… of Jewish origin”.

Cohen’s past “entertainment achievements” include the commissioning of much degeneracy (destructive programming aimed at dismantling the white nuclear family) “shows”:

• Skins: The show depicts sixth-form pupils indulging in drink and drugs binges and idolizes dysfunctional families, eating disorders and sexual identity
• The Inbetweeners, which follows a group of socially awkward teenagers who make crude comments about girls, get drunk, and break the law
• Snog, Marry, Avoid, which depicts so-called ‘slap addicts” who are given a make-under, rather than a make-over
• Hotter than my Daughter, which features parents who think they are more attractive than their children. Such shows are typically completely pre-scripted (as in the US’s “Storage Wars” series”) but are presented as “reality” and exploit all manner of real and imagined human weaknesses.

Cohen is a “Kohen,” plural Kohanim, the most revered Jews of Judaism and of Israel. The Kohanim, as the elite of the Jews, have even more stringent proofs of pure Jewish racial descent than that of SS elite in National Socialist Germany.

“Everybody thinks that the BBC was a bloody nightmare. It wasn’t. Cohen was. The BBC was brilliant to work for until the arrival of Mr Cohen. They never really interfered at all. But he was a bloody nuisance and caused me an enormous amount of stress”.

The Pollard review into Newsnight's decision to drop an investigation into sex abuse claims against Jimmy Savile found that Cohen had not read emails that had been copied to him warning of Savile's “dark side” and which indicated there was knowledge within the BBC of the unsavoury side of Savile's character. Had he done so, “it was at least possible that further questions [on the advisability of running the Christmas 2011 tributes] would have followed”.

Anthony Reuben

Reuben the BBC’s head of Statistics, a role created in February, he claims in his Linkedin profile, specifically for him. Prior to taking over this key position, Reuben was a senior personal finance reporter at The Money Channel, a program editor at Reuters Television, Business producer at Sky News, Output editor at Financial Times Television—and did his internship at the Jerusalem Post in Israel.

Writing as “Head of Statistics” in August, Reuben authored an article for the BBC website headlined “Caution needed with Gaza casualty figures.” When he wrote the article, 1,948 Palestinians had been killed in Israel’s assault on Gaza, the majority of them men. the August article was condemned by Chris Gunness, spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestine refugees, as “an appalling piece of journalism”.

“The views which are apparent in that Israeli newspaper appear to have seeped into Reuben’s reporting for the BBC. What is more, his writing for the BBC has been quoted approvingly in other right-wing Israeli press, including Times of Israel and Ynet.”.

Despite this, Reuben still maintains a position journalist at BBC News, previously writing and broadcasting as part of the Reality Check team ahead of the EU Referendum.

Pauline Neville-Jones

Neville-Jones was appointed a BBC governor in January 1998. Her final post was as chairman of the Governors' World Service Consultative Group. Neville-Jones was chairman of the Audit Committee from 1998 until standing down from that position in September 2004 and left the BBC on 31 December 2004.

As a BBC governor, she emerged as one of the main figures in the feud between the BBC and the government in the fallout of the Hutton inquiry into the death of weapons scientist Dr David Kelly, being blamed personally by former-director general Greg Dyke for his sacking.

It emerged that Neville-Jones chairs a company providing military equipment for US Humvees and Black Hawk helicopters, both of which are used in Iraq, leading to calls for her to reconsider her position as a BBC governor. Neville-Jones is a member of the council for the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and has served as Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”.

Documents from Companies House reveals that Neville-Jones earned £133,000 in 2003 as non-executive chairman of Qinetiq (position held 2002 to 2005), the privatized research arm of the Mod (Ministry of Defence). The company's accounts also disclose that Neville-Jones owns £50,000 worth of shares in Qinetiq which are held through the controversial US fund the Carlyle Group.

MI5

From as early as the 1930s until the 1990s, MI5, the British domestic intelligence service, engaged in vetting of applicants for BBC positions, a policy designed to keep out persons deemed subversive. In 1933, BBC executive Colonel Alan Dawnay began to meet the head of MI5, Sir Vernon Kell, to informally trade information; from 1935, a formal arrangement was made wherein job applicants would be secretly vetted by MI5 for their political views (without their knowledge). The BBC took up a policy of denying any suggestion of such a relationship by the press (the existence of MI5 itself was not officially acknowledged until the Security Service Act 1989).

This relationship garnered wider public attention after an article by David Leigh and Paul Lashmar appeared in The Observer in August 1985, revealing that MI5 had been vetting appointments, running operations out of Room 105 in Broadcasting House. At the time of the exposé, the operation was being run by Ronnie Stonham. A memo from 1984 revealed that blacklisted organisations included the far-left Communist Party of Great Britain, the Socialist Workers Party, the Workers Revolutionary Party and the Militant Tendency, as well as the far-right National Front and the British National Party. An association with one of these groups could result in a denial of a job application.

In October 1985, the BBC announced that it would stop the vetting process, except for a few people in top roles, as well as those in charge of Wartime Broadcasting Service emergency broadcasting (in event of a nuclear war) and staff in the BBC World Service. In 1990, following the Security Service Act 1989, vetting was further restricted to only those responsible for wartime broadcasting and those with access to secret government information. Michael Hodder, who succeeded Stonham, had the MI5 vetting files sent to the BBC Information and Archives in Reading, Berkshire.

Controversy

The BBC has long faced accusations of liberal and left-wing bias. Accusations of a bias against the Premiership of Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party were often made against the BBC by members of that government, with Margaret Thatcher herself considering the broadcaster's news coverage to be biased and irresponsible. In 2011, Peter Sissons, a main news presenter at the BBC from 1989 to 2009, said:

“at the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.”.

Another BBC presenter, Andrew Marr, commented that:

“the BBC is not impartial or neutral. It has a liberal bias, not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.”.

In 2022, the BBC chairman, Richard Sharp, acknowledged that:

“the BBC does have a liberal bias”.

and added that:

“the institution is fighting against it”.

Paul Mason, a former Economics Editor of the BBC's Newsnight programme, criticised the BBC as "unionist" in relation to its coverage of the Scottish independence referendum campaign and said its senior employees tended to be of a "neo-liberal" point of view. The BBC was accused of propaganda by conservative journalist and author Toby Young due to what he believed to be an anti-Brexit approach, which included a day of live programming on migration.

Programming

Vicar of Dibley

The BBC has defended the Vicar of Dibley after viewers branded the first of three Christmas special episodes an 'abomination'. The criticism of the first episode, which aired on Monday, comes ahead of the controversial Black Lives Matter episode set to be released next week. The show will see Dawn French, 63, take the knee — a popular gesture taken by BLM supporters — and deliver a sermon about the movement as she plays Reverend Geraldine Granger in the hit TV show.

The scene, which airs next week, will see Geraldine speak about the murder of George Floyd by American police officers and racism as a wider issue. The controversial sketch begins with her being filmed by parishioner and farmer Owen Newitt as she emerges from her home after lockdown. She tells the audience she has been preoccupied with the 'horror show' of Mr Floyd's death and what she describes as 'this Black Lives Matter thing'. Mr Floyd, an unarmed black man, was killed in May while being arrested by police in Minneapolis, Minnesota, sparking political correctness protests around the world.

Frankie Boyle's BBC2 Show

The BBC has come under fire for giving airtime to 'Marxist' comedians who joked about 'killing whiteness' after the new Director-General vowed to take a sledgehammer to Left-wing comedy bias at the Corporation. Controversial statements about racism and 'white power' were made by comic Sophie Duker in an episode of the new series of Frankie Boyle's irreverent BBC2 panel show New World Order.

“Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home.”.

In a segment where the panellists discuss if the Black Lives Matter movement 'glosses over the complexities of a world where we all need to come together and kill whitey', Boyle played a clip of black author James Baldwin talking about 'black power' in an interview on the Dick Cavett Show in the 1970s. Responding to the clip, Duker — who has appeared on Eight Out Of Ten Cats- asserted that 'white power' and 'black power' are 'capitalist myths' that need to be dispelled, before calling 'whiteness' a 'capitalist structure'.

She then claimed that 'white power is Trump Tower' — a nod to Left-wing allegations that the US President is a racist — and jokes about 'killing whitey'. 'White power is Trump Tower', Duker said, 'but when we say we want to kill whitey, we don't really mean we want to kill whitey'. She then quips to the panellists 'we do' — to roars of laughter in the studio.

Controversies

1984: "Maggie's Militant Tendency" controversy

In January 1984 the BBC programme Panorama broadcast "Maggie's Militant Tendency" which claimed that a number of Conservative MPs including (Neil Hamilton, Harvey Proctor and Gerald Howarth) had links to far-right organisations both in Britain and on the Continent. The programme was based on an internal Conservative Party report compiled by Phil Pedley, Chairman of the Young Conservatives. Panorama confirmed its status with a senior Conservative Party vice chairman. The report was formally presented to the party in the week before the programme was aired.

During the making of the programme, attempts to contact some of the named MPs for comment were unsuccessful. (Hamilton's wife Christine later described how 'Neil and I had 'devised a method for making sure that Panorama personnel would not be in a position to say that Neil had refused to speak'.) The programme was vetted prior to transmission by the BBC's lawyers, by the Head of Currents Affairs Television, and by the Chief Assistant to the Director General, Margaret Douglas.

Two of the MPs named in the programme (Hamilton and Howarth) sued the BBC and the programme-makers. The Director-General, Alasdair Milne, reviewed the BBC's own legal advice, and that of his Chief Assistant, and declared the programme to be 'rock solid'. The Board of Governors (Chairman Stuart Young) also gave its backing for the programme to be defended in court. Stuart Young died in August 1986, two months before the libel case against Panorama came to trial.

A new chairman, Marmaduke Hussey, had been appointed, but had not formally arrived at the BBC when the trial opened on 13 October 1986. Hussey nevertheless spoke with the BBC's barrister, Charles Grey. Hussey says in his memoirs that 'Grey thought it unlikely the BBC would win.' Sir Charles Grey disputes this statement, saying that 'my junior and I both thought the case was winnable'.

The first four days of the trial were given over to opening statements from Hamilton and Howarth and their lawyers, which received wide press coverage. On the evening of the fourth day the BBC's Assistant DG Alan Protheroe informed the BBC's legal team and the named defendants that the Governors now wished to settle the case immediately. This prevented the BBC's defence from being put to the court, or known to the public. Hamilton and Howarth were each awarded £25,000 in damages. Costs amounted to £240,000. They dropped their case against Phil Pedley.

Netflix

Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple languages. Netflix is the most-subscribed video on demand streaming media service, with 260.28 million paid memberships in more than 190 countries as of January 2024. As of October 2023, Netflix is the 24th most-visited website in the world with 23.66% of its traffic coming from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 5.84% and Brazil at 5.64%.

Marc Randolph

Marc Bernays Randolph is an American tech entrepreneur, advisor and speaker. He is the cofounder and first CEO of Netflix. Randolph was born to a Jewish family in Chappaqua, New York, the eldest child of Stephen Bernays Randolph. One of Randolph's paternal great-grand uncles was psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud. Another paternal great-uncle of Randolph was Edward Bernays, an Austrian-American pioneer in the field of public relations and propaganda.