I have given up on BBC tv news. I do still sometimes listen to BBC radio to keep in touch with all the latest wokery and distortions of the economic, environmental and migration debates they go in for. Here is my take on their current leftish establishment propaganda which is losing them a big chunk of potential audience.
They believe most of what the Climate Change Committee puts out and undertake daily pieties in their net zero religion. They refuse to interview people who point out the world continues to use more fossil fuel, the UK is being deindustrialised by idiotic net zero policies, the UK has very dear energy thanks to renewables and the need for a duplicate back up system, and current heat pumps and battery cars are not the answer for most people. They buy the myth that the UK has dear energy because it prices electricity from gas.
They refuse to criticise the huge losses and bad inflation record this decade of the Bank of England. They believe the Bank is independent when it has needed Chancellor sign off and Treasury indemnity for its main monetary policies of QE and QT. They believe the lie that the Ukraine war caused our inflation when it reached 3 times target before the invasion.
They under report the mass migration and large number of illegals coming into our country, and decline to examine independently the impact that is having on public spending, housing, planning and utility provision. They seem more interested in any extremist infiltration of peaceful protests against illegal migration than in the good reasons people have to be angry about government failure.
They give plenty of interviews to pro EU people but rarely to anyone who thinks Brexit is a success and wants to use more Brexit freedoms. They buy the government’s line that we need to be closer to the EU that has a lower GDP per head than us and grows slowly, rather than closer to US policy which is delivering much higher GDP per head and faster growth. They give plenty of airtime to the 4% loss of GDP fallacy re Brexit.
The interviewers often seem to think there is a government answer to every problem. They usually fall for the idea that more public money solves problems and we only have bad public services owing to under funding. All my life UK public spending has gone up in cash and real terms ( save the Labour IMF year) and all the time the BBC reports cuts. They will not interview people who could explain why there has been a productivity collapse in the public sector and what should be done about it.
They do not promote one party, but they are far more critical of so called right wing parties whilst treating Green, Lib Dems, SNP, US Democrats and Labour better. They do not cover EU and continental problems very much at all, and never as critically as they treat Republican USA.Their audiences are left in the dark about the borrowings, cuts, slow growth, low GDP per head,high tariffs and non tariff barriers of the EU.
August 1, 2025
Good morning.
Many thanks, Sir John for an update on what is going on at Auntie.
For propaganda to work it must be consumed by those who it is intended for, and then believed. On those two metrics how does our kind host and fellow contributors feel how well Auntie is doing in this regard ?
And when you answer the question to the above correctly, you realise why we get things such as the, On line Harms Bill.
August 1, 2025
On the subject of propaganda Sir John should also note the recent development within our national broadcaster – BBC Verify. I find it amusing and frustrating that they never explain why they have elected to verify some ‘facts’ whilst ignoring others. Case in point: The photo they used of Mohammed Al-Matouq, a starving boy in Gaza with curved spine and looking very ill – no mention that boy suffers from a generic disorder and his brother looks in remarkably good shape.
August 1, 2025
Further more alk the adults seem in remarkably goid condition. The women look extremely smart considering their offsprings are starving.
August 1, 2025
+1 So did his mother. The BBC obviously didn’t question what kind of mother starves a child whilst remaining well fed herself?
August 1, 2025
Common in Africa. They all do it.
Survival demands the mother survives, she can have another child. If the mother dies the child does too.
August 1, 2025
Your second para is surely the only reason consecutive governments have not changed the geriatric funding system of this grotesque carbuncle on the body of UK media. He who pays (or controls how funds come) the piper calls the tune.
The incompetence of top management, the arrogance and occasional criminality of its news and entertainment editors and presenters, should have closed this business years ago. That the public is forced to pay for it, whether or not we use it, is tantamount to a ‘mafiosi’ extortion crime. It should be defunded immediately!
August 1, 2025
+1
August 2, 2025
Make B
The problem with the BBC is it now employees presenters with opinions, instead of reporters who outline the facts.
It manipulates the news to suit its own agenda, instead of simply reporting it.
Shame, as it used to be a trusted source of information, but not any more.
August 1, 2025
i agree.I gave up on them years ago because of these bias. Ditto Question Time
August 1, 2025
Dear Sir John, The most obviously biased part is surely BBC Verify, in the subjects it chooses to cover or ignore. Unless I am mistaken, for instance, it has never covered “Liz Truss wrecked the economy”, the most oft-repeated and largely unchallenged charge of the past few years.
August 1, 2025
Agreed. “We’ll verify what we chose to verify”
August 1, 2025
Not infrequently their verifications are inaccurate or misleading, it seems. At least, Paul Homewood regularly picks them up on in accuracies. Not having a TV/licence, and not using their website I rely on others to point such transgressions out.
August 1, 2025
ditto. However we have our sanity.
August 1, 2025
Outsider
BBC Verify Indeed, Selective investigation, on their own selected subjects and topics !
And they still make errors on too many occasions.
August 1, 2025
Well Truss was just the spark. The problems was the vast increase in debt and QE under Sunak as Chancellor, Boris and Bailey. Vast borrowing spent doing vast harm with damaging lockdowns and even more damaging and ineffective Covid “vaccines”. This bonfire was set. Truss and Kwasi just the spark at worse and even this was largely due to Bailey incompetence too. Bond rates now under anti-growth Reeves for higher then under Truss!
August 1, 2025
The world has moved on. Broadcast TV viewing is in decline. Paying a licence fee to watch TV is something many have decided they can do without.
I have no interest in soap operas, quizz shows, talent contests etc. Sport is disappearing from free to air channels.
BBC news and current affairs programmes are not held in the same esteem as they used to be.
I could still listen to the radio for free but I am not inclined to. Radio 4 ‘Today’ programme is losing listeners. Then there is the dreadful Sarah Montague on ‘The world at One’.
The big danger is if they decide to fund the BBC out of general taxation instead of a licence fee. This would force those who do not want the service to fund it anyway.
August 1, 2025
“Then there is the dreadful Sarah Montague on ‘The world at One’.”
Oh yes, I was driven to distraction by it the other day, and sent in suggestion that they call it after the subject that so obsess them and call it Gaza Daily.
August 1, 2025
Exactly they never point out that the solution proposed to reduce CO2 plant food (not that we have any need to) things like walking, cycling, public transport, wind, solar, heat-pumps, exporting our industries… do not even reduce CO2 much if at all over all. They almost never employ anyone front of Camera who is a climate realist or a pro-Brexit person, or a realist economist, or has a decent understanding of science, engineering or economics.
They constantly point out that the devil gas religion is settled fact and the 98% of scientists lie. Prof. Graham Happer has about the right take on it in his excellent videos. The vast majority of sensible and honest think it is a scam or at nest a vast exaggeration.
The BBC also pretend that renewable will create net jobs and keep energy bills lower. Actually it make them about 3 times what they should be.
August 1, 2025
The BBC also invariable support new regulations for workers and for tenants against landlords even though these usually damage worker and tenants in practice.
The BBC seem to think that vast low skilled immigration helps the economy. They think that drilling and fracking in the UK will not lower energy costs as there is an “international price” for gas and oil. Yet it is 1/3 of the price in the US.
August 1, 2025
The BBC should be restored to its 1950s output standards. Allow them to broadcast only 15-minute images of tropical fish swimming on the screen. Cut the entire remainder of their revenue and spend it on something sensible needed today, such as prison places, police recruitment, or drilling oil.
August 1, 2025
Bloke, love your comment, and I’m reminded of the beautiful and cultured presenters with charming smiles, and refined diction, so far removed from the snarling, attitude-rich poseurs of today.
The presenters, news readers, fish and test screen were therapy for the nation, bless them.
August 1, 2025
The trouble with the BBC is that we have to pay for it. The other mass media are almost as biased, but we don’t have to subscribe to them.
August 1, 2025
Indeed forced to pay for deluded propaganda. I get value from my licence overall, often with old downloads and radio 3 & 4 but still recent paying for it due to their vast & incessant one direction political bias and wrong headed views on climate alarmism, covid vaccines, landlords, car drivers, over regulation, big government, high taxes, lefty economic views, anti Trump, pro Kahn, anti car, anti small business, pro Net Harm “Vaccines”…
The Telegraph today reveals that officials working for Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, have flagged videos with “concerning narratives” to social media giants including TikTok, warning that they were “exacerbating tensions” on the streets.
Emails recovered by a US congressional committee show that civil servants have complained to tech firms about content mentioning asylum seekers, immigration and two-tier policing!
August 1, 2025
“resent paying” rather.
August 1, 2025
@Lifelogic (I agree about BBC being WOKE and all that)
Shame on your for supporting Trump. Trump is acting like a psychopath – playing Russian Roulette to the world economy with his tariffs. With 10% tariffs on the UK. So he’s an enemy to the UK as well as to the rest of the world.
August 1, 2025
I support much of what Trump is doing not everything. He is right on Net Zero, low skilled immigration levels, energy policies, lower taxes and deregulation, against wars – get the damn government out of the way please – they are the problem not the solution.
August 1, 2025
+100
August 1, 2025
Lastly, Americans chase money much more than us in Europe precisely because they have so much less in terms of CULTURE (I don’t just mean in terms of high culture but culture in general sense including social culture – and by social culture I don’t mean socialism). Money is great but it should SERVE us not the other way around.
When you (over-)focus on Trump you’re over-focusing on Conservative Politics (or Republican Politics) just being about fast money (Trump is all about the quick deal – and win/lose deals). When the economy should be built on something stronger and deeper than that. Also, that politics should be about far more than just raw economic policy. But on culture in general. More like Edmund Burke. This in itself strengthened the economy and improves productivity whilst also emphasising that there is so much more to a happy nation than quick money into the bank.
August 1, 2025
I just want to repeat: UK is best country in world to live in (and I am well travelled).
From every POV, economy, culture, having a great social life, friendly people, beautiful countryside and arts and and London and coast …. blah, blah
What is wrong with this country is very small compared to what is right about this place.
Anyone who lives here is very lucky and we ALL need to be more grateful and happy about that.
August 1, 2025
We could all say that 40 years ago.
But now you are a lone voice.
Any nation that refuses to defend its women and children can’t survive.
August 1, 2025
No way.
I’ve experienced many extraordinary (good) things in my personal life that never imagined possible.
I believe the same for my family, friends – and country (a country is traditionally an extension of one’s family and one’s family of oneself).
August 2, 2025
That’s only because all the other countries are getting far worse.
August 1, 2025
The BBC has been as you describe for years and years under both Conservative governments and Labour, so why on earth are we still expected to pay a licence fee? Why hasn’t the BBC been forced to become subscription only? I just know that Labour won’t change anything but the Tories, from 2010 to 2024, had ample time to cancel the licence fee. I can’t remember the last time I watched the BBC but it must be getting on for around ten years ago. Why should I be expected to fund it if I choose not to watch or listen to it?
August 1, 2025
Good summary. I gave up the TV licence following their (and Channel 4’s) Brexit coverage, where their biases were on full show. I sometimes get glimpses of their output in other people’s homes, and a few seconds is all it takes for some globalist, wokery or net zero to emerge, whether its news, drama or gardeners’ world.
It’s appalling and telling that no government abolishes the licence fee and tells them to compete or die. The damage they do brainwashing a large part of the nation is incalculable, but it suits all leftist Parties and the globalist blob. I see friends and relatives that don’t realise what’s going on in the world and are destined to live in the matrix.
August 1, 2025
Exactly the damage the BBC do with their blatant wrongheaded propaganda is vast.
August 1, 2025
Wanderer, good summary, thank you.
August 1, 2025
Why loosing audience – well the BBC is very boring and think they know best but are generally wrong on nearly every issue. They lecture and talk dow to audiences. Often/usually fairly anti-semitic too and they virtually never report and the vast net harms done by the Covid “vaccines”. Their fact checking service another six joke – have they fact checked Sunak’s covid vaccines are unequivocally safe misleading of the house yet?
Programmes like Question time and Any Questions rarely have even one sound person on the panel it is one at best and often none. Just five or six socialists! They are also anti-Trump and pro the appalling Sir Sadiq Kahn who has wrecked London! Also they are rather keen on suppression of free speech and we are forced to pay for their mad propaganda!
August 1, 2025
So what? ‘Politicians’ especially on the right obsessed with its alleged partisan, pro this , anti that narrative.
Yet again not on the agenda of anyone I know. Another example of an out of touch ‘Westminster’’ bubble
You seem to conveniently forget there are a vast number of rolling news, op Ed’s, pod casts etc that now challenge its once monopoly and enables me to make more choice. Maybe that has a greater influence on listener numbers than people still misty eyed about a once BBC golden age.
I haven’t watched any/much. Content for years. Abolish the watching tax and let it compete.
As for your condescending comment yesterday that I only travel to posh bits of Europe, they are not posh, they are very much day to day . Having travelled to iron curtain countries and seen their devastation, the growth/modernisation albeit supported by EU handouts should be admired, not criticised.
You should look at some of our midlands, northern towns and cities that our politicians have failed for decades before suggesting that we are better than similar parts of Europe.
August 1, 2025
I’m surprised you haven’t also mentioned the BBC’s appallingly biased daily coverage of the Gaza crisis. Occasionally they refer to an Israeli government view, but then quickly revert back to their conventional anti Israel stance, often referencing Hamas-sourced statistics by way of conclusion to their daily reports.
August 1, 2025
MPC,
The opposite is true. The BBC is pro Israel and/or frightened of its lobby.
I could give numerous examples, but they would not be published on here.
August 1, 2025
You could not give one example! Because what you claim is totally untrue.
August 1, 2025
If you read what I wrote, you would realise that my examples were deleted immediately before I posted this.
You are not very bright though!
August 1, 2025
They could balance things by interviewing Hamas and asking them awkward questions – like why don’t you free the hostages now?
Whenever they do get someone linked to that organisation, they usually just get hit by a torrent of bile, so probably not prepared to bother any more.
August 1, 2025
I gave up on BBC “News” about a decade ago. I gave up on the BBC entirely about 5 years ago. I also ignore ITV, C4 and Sky “News.”
They are just left-wing propagandists who distort the “narrative;” misrepresent the facts and lie, sometimes by omission and sometimes blatantly.
August 1, 2025
@Donna
“I gave up on BBC “News” about a decade ago” etc
That would explian why you are so ill-informed about so many issues. Particularly net zero, which is the industrial opportunity of the decade for the UK. Despite those who have recently jumped on the pro-fossil fossil fuel propaganda that infests the British media
August 1, 2025
So what form does this ‘ industrial opportunity of the decade ‘ take?
Does it mean British manufacture of solar panels and fitting by British workers, does it mean British manufacture of Grid mechanical equipment and fitting? Does it mean British manufacture of air and ground pumps and thin radiators, does it mean new uninvented methods of ground storage of CO2 and uninvented methods of electrical storage in low demand times? Does it mean British manufacture of smaller, simpler, lighter more affordable 1/2 person EVs? Does it mean finding new sources of cheaper food production in hitherto untapped areas and ways within Britisin? Does it mean developing manufacturing industries that will soak up opportunities for the 18-21 age group currently wasting time and building debts on rather pointless degrees?
I think we’d all like to have a glimpse of the possible!
Reply With current policies it means UK businesses to import solar panels, cars, batteries and turbines from China
August 1, 2025
Yes we will soon be known as ‘Net-Zero Jobs’ Britain.
August 1, 2025
Oh dear fantasy land again SG.
It is simply not economical to run a manufacturing base in this Country any more, that is why so many companies are leaving. If we had low cost energy and low taxes then perhaps things may be different, but face life as it is at the moment, our energy costs are one of the highest in the World, look at the car industry as an example, then Steel making, etc etc etc.
August 1, 2025
AI, agriculture, all manufacturing, food, transport, building materials, comstruction… all require cheap reliable energy to compete!
August 1, 2025
SG : “Particularly net zero, which is the industrial opportunity of the decade for the UK.”
Isn’t the whole point of Net Zero to net zero our CO2 emissions, firstly by de-industrialising and importing instead and then net zeroing our consumption with demand matching supply and consequently requiring the rationing of energy, heating and transport in order for demand to match the supply of chaotically intermittent renewables? Instead of watching the BBC you should read NESO’s FES 2025 report and the Absolute Zero report.
August 1, 2025
Very droll. I presume you’re on the Comedy Circuit?
August 1, 2025
If you really are interested in net zero the BBC is no place to find out about it. They regularly produce highly misleading reports, employ journalists with no expertise in energy, and simply regurgitate propaganda that accords with their own views.
Having had a career in the energy industry I have a head start in knowing what to look for and where to look and how to evaluate what I read. I go back to original sources for data, policies, rules, company accounts etc. and I read specialist publications written by real experts in their fields. I regularly read original research papers too, and do my own research. For example I had already done the work behind the Royal Society report on the need for storage in an all renewables system several years previously and included the key results in a submission I made to the BEIS Select Committee well before their work which reached similar conclusions.
August 1, 2025
Storage is absurdly energy wasteful and very expensive. Best to store as gas, coal, oil perhaps a reservoir if available and generate as needed.
August 1, 2025
Ah! yes net zero. Destroying the little remaining industry in the UK and all the jobs that go with it, at a cost running to Trillions. To save 0.0004% of global co2…………..
August 1, 2025
And reduce world temperatures by perhaps 1/10000 of a degree C or so! If millions of other things stay the same – they won’t!
August 1, 2025
Donna, I also had to give up on all those you cite.
It must be some sort of emotional allergy to the unwatchable.
Similarly, I cannot even listen for a moment to the voice of Starmer.
My trigger finger on the off switch of my remote has been honed to split-second reflex by the equally unwatchable Major, Cameron, May, Johnson, Hunt, Sunak, Maitliss, Attenborough, Bowen, Harrabin, Rowlatt, National Enquiry Commissions, etc., etc.
August 1, 2025
The public broadcasting institution was captured by the Marxist Long Marchers many decades ago. There is no balance or chance of unbiased coverage from the BBC. Most people do not watch it or listen to its endless woke advancement policies. The only reason people have a licence is not to hear the BBC view but to simply avoid being harassed by the authorities.
I have not personally watched or listened to the BBC news or current affairs propaganda for over a decade and my blood pressure is now in a healthy range.
Stop doing the things that make you unhealthy, stop listening to or watching the BBC you will be amazed how much better you feel and how much happier life is without them.
August 1, 2025
I can second that from my own experience, Rod. I stopped watching the legacy media from the beginning of the Covid psy-op, and unlike others of my acquaintance I kept calm and carried on, waiting for the insanity to finish. Now they are admitting that, yes, the lockdown measures were rather over-blown, but at the time we didn’t know what we know now. I just let that comment go, taking it they mean that they are speaking for themselves when they say that.
August 1, 2025
The BBC, like Whitehall, is based in London and mainly recruits there. London is now well over 50% immigrant or second-generation immigrant, while the rest of Britain is about 20%.
It is hardly surprising that both have ceased to share the views of the majority, and very likely resent and despise them.
August 1, 2025
It is unsurprising if the BBC takes a sympathetic view of immigration. The current chair of the BBC, Samir Shah, was born in India. His doctoral thesis was entitled “Aspects of the geographic analysis of Asian immigrants in London”. His half-brother, Mohit Bakaya, is controller of BBC radio 4. He gave an interview to the Telegraph recently in which he said the BBC reflected Britain as it is now, racially and culturally diverse. If multicultural Britain is the kind of country licence-payers want to live in, we’ve got the right people running media programmes broadcasting to it.
August 1, 2025
The dear old Beeb became the broadcasting voice of the political Left several years ago.
I rarely watch ANY of the main channels (BBC/ITV/CH4/CH5) now. I prefer to watch the alternative free TV supplied these days (NetFlix/Now/Prime/Discovery Etc.)
I still pay the BBC’s TV tax but keep thinking I should stop doing so. I guess I’m hoping government will eventually have the guts to tackle the issue.
August 1, 2025
@Old albion. You should definitely stop paying the licence fee if you don’t watch live TV.
August 1, 2025
I agree with your view John, the so called BBC News/Business Sections are now a simple propaganda channel for Socialists to push their views and ideals, and I view them less and less simply because it is absolutely clear they are working to a socialist agenda.
I now tend to view GB News to try and get some balance.
Likewise I am absolutely fed up with politicians failing to answer simple questions, so to listen to Trump and Farage (like them or not) is like a breath of fresh air, open to any questions, with unscripted and clear answers given in most cases.
August 1, 2025
The BBC has been providing free live coverage of this summer’s Test cricket series against the India team on their website. Free live highlights of each day’s play is available an hour after stumps on iPlayer
BBC R4 “Today” morning program is excellent, where one can hear Cabinet Ministers, shadow ministers, the PM doing the media round, discussing the important issues of the day. R4 has actually increased it’s listener count this year. It’s the music channels that have lost listeners, as the older presenters retire and the public gets used to their replacements
The BBC gets my licence fee. It also gets my vote. Rock on Auntie.
August 1, 2025
Please inicate the BBC website that broadcasts free TV LIVE coverage of the Test cricket currently from the Oval?
August 1, 2025
Your position as a contrarian is well presented SK. For the most part, the sane members of society do not agree with you. The BBC is past its sell by date and should be removed or replaced as subscription only from those like yourself who value its one sided presentation.
August 1, 2025
SG :
Haven’t you realised yet that it’s a waste of time listening to interviews with Parliamentarians? They’re not in charge and hence all the u-turns, unkept promises and total ineptitude. BBC R4 should be interviewing the Permanent Secretaries, the CEOs of quangos, regulators and of course judges
August 1, 2025
Report by Guido Fawkes today:
“In a busy month for TV news, the latest BARB viewing figures reveal that GB News has outpaced BBC News and Sky News on average for the whole of July. Yesterday, GB News raked in an average of 92,400 live views, while BBC News had 58,100 and Sky News only 54,900.”
https://order-order.com/2025/08/01/gb-news-beats-sky-news-and-bbc-news-across-whole-of-july/#comments
August 1, 2025
So the BBC is not providing anything for free as you demonstrate with your final sentence.
August 1, 2025
You pay a licence fee – so it’s not ‘free’.
August 1, 2025
The BBC news isn’t allowed in our house whilst I’m at home. It winds me up so much because of its biased view. It’s a globalist propaganda machine aimed at brainwashing the British people. I’d stop paying the license fee if it weren’t for my husband insisting that he wants it. It annoys me that I’m funding a TV channel that the rest of the world gets for free. And don’t get me started on how racist this company is against the white indigenous British people with their ‘ethnic minority only’ hires.
August 1, 2025
Christine, you have plumbed into my every sentiment regarding the BBC.
My wife is housebound and watches hours of TV daily, mostly historical stuff but sometimes it’s the BBC or other MSM news and I have to switch it over or I leave the room, such is my ire and detestation of the blatant bias tsunami.
My wife doesn’t object because she is fair-minded in that she has the remote to hand over more than 90% of the day and can watch whatever she likes without triggering my allergy.
August 1, 2025
Poor old Auntie BEEB. May I remind you Sir John the BBC is the state broadcasting company and within fairly subtle limits the BBC does what the government of the day wants. A more sophisticated version of Izvestia. If and when you next get into power you might try stretching the subtle limits to something more to your liking – but I don’t think that would be wise – or subtle.
May I remind you that only just over a year ago you were in power and had been for 14 years. Fourteen years in which you could have demonstrated the competitive advantage of conservative policies and come up with right wing alternatives to energy supply and economic management. But you didn’t and lost by a landslide to the current lot. To be fair the new government looks to be just as useless as you were, but that is the tragedy of our system.
May I remind you that no man (or woman or whatever) is a hero to their valet and journalists are a bit like valets. They get up close and personal and can smell and see the fear and incompetence. They seldom like or admire the politicians they interview but write according to their paymasters’ whims (and sometimes their conscience).
UK governments have long been unable to decide between the American economic model and the European model. America was once an excellent source of rich heiresses to bale our aristocracy out of financial trouble. That kind of thinking still persists in the dustier corners of Parliament. Mr Trump does not seem quite so gullible and we may get the worst of both worlds.
Reply May I remind you I was not a Minister and was critical of bad policies pursued
August 1, 2025
reply to reply…..amd may I remind you that sadly the Cabal never took any notice of your wise advice?
August 1, 2025
It’s been going on for years. Their Economics Editor on Newsnight for several years was Paul Mason who next popped up as a Labour cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn and has attempted multiple times to become a Labour MP. Hard to imagine his economic musings were unbiased.
Personally I’ve watched no TV news at all for years and don’t listen to BBC radio news either. I use a number of on-line and newspaper sources – it gives an interesting perspective on what is and isn’t news. The BBC bias is mostly through what they deem to be newsworthy – as you mention they barely cover politics in individual EU countries at all even when there are major national elections but they’ll send hundreds to cover USA elections.
August 1, 2025
Back in the days when the BBC World Service wasn’t a poor shadow of the erstwhile Radio Tirana one of my favourite programmes each week was Six Continents. They would take 2-3 stories and examine how they had been reported internationally as monitored at Caversham, with interesting variations and slants that reflected the global cocktail of geography, government and local politics and social composition.
I often do likewise now, with the Internet a great enabler for reading the foreign press, which I try to read in original languages to avoid spin by translations and editing for English speaking audiences where appropriate.
Increasingly I find I pick up individual commentators not allied to the mainstream press but with the sort of knowledge that specialist correspondents had in the past. Some of the best end up disappearing behind paywalls because they find enough readers with significant financial interest in accurate reporting and insightful analysis. Unfortunately the MSM fail to latch on to such expertise, and these days are failing because of increasing reliance on AI for assembling stories and editing them inexpertly.
We are seeing a knowledge divide based on ability to afford specialist news that takes us back to the era of coffee houses. We are also headed for a world of Samizdat with accurate news only circulated surreptitiously out of sight of authorities who do not want truth to be widely known.
August 1, 2025
Sir John
Good observations, I to gave up long ago.
Even their question time program when I see who is supposed to be the talking heads is incredibly biased. For every centre/middle ground contestant they find 3 hard left anti UK and its people candidates.
Then you have the so-called ‘verify’ is just a hard left opinion with out true facts.
It is time for it(the BBC) to go it wastes valuable air-space
August 1, 2025
The no longer employ reporters, either opinion writers, story writers or a reissue of a left wing bit of PR they have dug up somewhere. There is no or very little news on BBC News so they get to invent it.
August 1, 2025
Yes they do! I caught them out inventing a story about pollution from ships waiting near Port Said during the Evergiven blockage of the Suez Canal. The sulphurous emissions they reported were in fact from Mount Etna. I was able to demonstrate that their story was false using satellite images. They did at least issue a proper correction promptly (I did not go via complaints).
August 1, 2025
Could not agree more Sir John. The BBC have no intention of changing because they believe they are on the right side of the issues they choose to cover. Remove the compulsory licence fee and let them compete for their audience.
Had high hopes for GB News but they just do not have the budget or advertising revenue they need to upgrade their presentation. They do a reasonable job of observing impartiality but they too become unwatchable when presenters and guests talk over each other. Maybe they can’t afford the best sound system.
Fortunately there are many alternatives to the BBC online and many effective communicators on all topics the BBC brainwashers hold dear.
August 1, 2025
And that’s before you consider DEI and Patriotism.
August 1, 2025
An excellent summary. The BBC is first and foremost a propaganda organisation camouflaged as a news and entertainment broadcaster.
August 1, 2025
The BBC as described sounds very much like the Conservative party.
Auntie gets away with her various preachings because that is what the establishment thinks so they are happy to hear it broadcast.
Lord Haw Ha and all that.
August 1, 2025
So you’ve still been following the BBC news, Sir John? I find that astonishing. On the other hand, I suppose as a politician you might have wanted to be aware of the propaganda your constituents were being exposed to, so fair enough.
August 1, 2025
I used to say that Radio 4 was worth the licence fee on its own. Now I no longer listen. If I listen to the BBC at all it is to Radio 3, which for the time being is concentrating on its day job. Radio 4 has become a propaganda station. It never loses an opportunity to hector us on climate change, Black Lives Matter, women’s rights, etc., etc.. Never interview a knowledgeable male if there is a half-knowledgeable female.
August 1, 2025
Indeed but it can be amusing and educational to listen to their endless blatant lies and propaganda!
August 1, 2025
It’s worth re-reading the Daily Mail article published on 22 January 2011 under the heading ‘Left-wing bias? It’s written through the BBC’s very DNA, says Peter Sissons’. The issues you mention have been long established.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1349506/Left-wing-bias-Its-written-BBCs-DNA-says-Peter-Sissons.html?ito=email_share_article-top
August 1, 2025
I play a game with myself to see how long I can listen to the BBC before the propaganda starts. I’d say it averages about 40 seconds.
It’s such a waste of the public’s money to see the BBC ruin its reputation and lose its audience when it’s USP should have been a beacon for unbiased news. It’s probably too late now.
I see BBC news is currently trying to ignore most domestic news (nearly all of it is bad) and finding refuge in increasingly featuring foreign news.
I do not live anywhere near the Middle East, North America or Asia.
August 1, 2025
Can we please use the word “immigrant”. Birds are migrants. They fly here for the summer then fly back home for the winter (or vice versa).
August 1, 2025
We watch BBC News from time to time (as well as a few other programmes). It makes a relief from the intense GB News.
There was a good item a couple of days ago by Ed Thomas, covering the criminality that goes on in Newport, Gwent High Street with contraband cigarettes, vapes and drugs. Useful reporting, so well done on this point.
I believe the BBC is on Reform’s radar, so likely the next government will end the license fee. For the time being the transmitters need paying for, but even then the roadmap is to discontinue them and put everything onto the internet. It would be nice to no longer have to pay for Eastenders or Lineker’s salary.
August 1, 2025
Reform must be ready for a robust BBC propaganda campaign claiming that Eastenders and Come Dancing will be axed.
The first thing Reform should make clear is that these shows will still exist after the BBC’s demise.
August 1, 2025
Amazingly a large number of people watch Eastenders and Come Dancing, so they will likely continue under commercial arrangements.
August 1, 2025
Yes. Get rid of it. But we won’t as Brits are far too nostalgic about British things since particularly the English have lost sight of what our culture is if it’s not red post boxes, red arrows and the red BBC. The Scots have kilts.
August 1, 2025
I gave up on the BBC radio and TV over a year ago. As you say they are very biased, and selective as to what they broadcast. Listen to GB news and GB radio. Also. Sky news is also worth watching.
August 1, 2025
A very accurate description of this very left-centric organisation. I listen to BBC News in the car but find myself increasingly listening to Times Radio instead.
August 1, 2025
Off Topic ….will the BBC report this detail?
Taxpayers were hit with a record £47bn bill to fund public sector pensions last year.
Civil servants, doctors and teachers banked pots worth three times more than their private sector counterparts.
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) data showed contributions from public sector employers hit a record high in 2024, eclipsing those made by businesses in the private sector, which stood at £46.4bn.
This is despite the private sector employing 27.9m people, four times more than the public sector, which has just over six million employees.
Gold-plated public sector pensions offer members a guaranteed income in retirement, making them much more generous than the workplace pensions in the private sector, which provide no such guarantee and rely on stock market returns to grow their retirement pot.
Contributions by schools and hospitals are ultimately met by the taxpayer once teachers, nurses and doctors retire. The data also showed the average employee in the public sector enjoyed an average increase of £9,320 on their future pension pots – or the equivalent of a quarter of their salary – compared with £3,230 in the private sector.
August 1, 2025
The Civil Service are never going to end the way the BBC is funded and run as it is too good a propaganda machine for them. The best we can hope for is a change to the Sky model where BBC news is free-to-air but everything else is on subscription. Or perhaps just reduce the BBC to BBC News and consequently we have a much smaller licence fee to pay. At least then the licence fee won’t be paying 1m/year for a football presenter. In fact the way the BBC is funded should mean that it develops new shows and brings on new talent rather than paying big sums for successful existing shows and talent who can easily move to subscription/commercial broadcasters.
August 1, 2025
And what is more, they charge you for watching this rubbish, as well as for watching material they have made no contribution whatsoever to producing.
August 1, 2025
The BBC are a Far Left agitprop organisation. Look how hard they push the entirely false CAGW narrative, a hoax designed to destroy the democratic West’s energy and hence economy, security and democracy. If Ofcom were doing their job they would at the very least insist that the BBC allows alternative views on climate change, Net Zero and renewable energy to be aired and discussed. It is a national disgrace that a country that calls itself a democracy allows the BBC, the national broadcaster, to shut down all debate about CAGW and Net Zero. If the BBC say that leading scientists such as John Clauser the 2022 Physics Nobel prize winner or Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, or William Happer are broadcasting disinformation then why don’t they send their BBC Verify unit to interview them? Because they know that there is no climate crisis and they would be eaten alive by these scientists
August 1, 2025
I never watch TV news except occasionally GB News, for the same reasons as John. I only listen to BBC radio for as long as the 6am start of the Today program runs, the headlines, the weather and what the papers say – so I make sure I don’t miss anything important going on in the world. That’s as much of the mainstream broadcast media as I can stand.
August 1, 2025
Most tv is utter rubbish. The “drama” is nonsensical with the characters mainly shouting at each other, the sport is padded out with “experts” giving commentary endlessly, the quiz shows are unintelligent, and the news and current affairs programmes clearly biased.
Occasionally there are decent films, but most are action films with cartoon violence. In any event films are best seen at the cinema.
For news and current affairs, the Internet is the best source provided one visits a number of sites and uses common sense in separating out the dross.
August 1, 2025
“Their audiences are left in the dark about the borrowings, cuts, slow growth, low GDP per head,high tariffs and non tariff barriers of the EU.”
Yes, and left in the dark about the climate crisis hoax and the unnecessary and unilateral damage to the economy caused by its “solution”, Net Zero. And one news presenter talks to the viewers as if telling a bedtime story to 5 year olds.
August 1, 2025
And on my local BBC news they like to give the impression that all its viewers are or have been or will be suffering from mental illness.
August 1, 2025
do they recognise the symptoms among each other?
August 1, 2025
I quite agree, much to my despair as a former BBC employee.
August 1, 2025
The BBC’s bias in covering Gaza is unbelievable. They always say Israel does not allow them to report from Gaza, so they use trusted independent reporters instead. What a joke! Nothing comes out of Gaza without the approval of Hamas, and most of the so-called independent reporters are members of Hamas.
Their bias on Climate Change/ Net Zero is just as bad. They simply will not allow any opposing view, and constantly report weather as being caused by Climate Change.
BBS Verify is simply a joke, as it only deals with issues the BBC is already biased on and confirms they are right.
What a waste of fourteen years by the Conservative Governments, who could have dealt with the BBC, but chickened out.
August 1, 2025
I no longer watch or listen. Switched to Smooth Radio and GB News. I can no longer stand Question Time. It did sound like Sunak’s Tories with their favourite Tobias Ellwood and the half-French guy, so I don’t think it is just since Labour came to power.
August 1, 2025
The BBC have long been captured by a warped intellectual left, that disdains balanced debate, while seeing its purpose as a propaganda machine for its leftist, never to be questioned view, of just about everything. They seem to encourage this in its output other than news. They need to be stopped, for the simple reason that they are incapable of redirecting themselves. With an appropriate government their future and financing should be a matter of open national debate.
August 1, 2025
Non payment of the BBC licence fee should be a civil offence not criminal and why should a BBC licence be required to watch ANY live TV or Streaming that’s not the BBC…?
I’m sorry Sir John, 2 also comments off topic from me…
1. The payment of compensation for those that took out car finance and didn’t realise that the car dealer would take a commission is just wrong and potentially puts the cost on those that didn’t need over priced finance.
2. The seems to be a suggestion that Internship at the Civil Service will be reserved to “the working class” and to judge if one is working class would be based on your parents job when you were 14!!!.
What discriminatory rubbish is this. Job allocation should solely be on merit and the ability to actual do the job on offer.
August 1, 2025
The Reuters Institute for Journalism recently reported that BBC weekly audience reach for news had dropped below 50% to 47%. A few years ago it was around 70%. Moreover, its net trust score at +36% runs below the FT, ITV and Channel 4, with many remaining viewers sceptical of its output. They also reported that GBN continues to advance audience share, overtaking Sky. The younger generation increasingly rely on social media for news, which is doubtless why government seek to control that via the Online Harms Act. Older people are also turning to online sources as they abandon the BBC. Many are avoiding the news altogether, as being too biassed and often too depressing. They report younger generations often struggle to grasp news stories (huge gap in modern education – from a young age I was encouraged to read a selection of newspapers, and I recall my French oral scholarship interview age 13 asked me to comment on the Paris riots of 1968 in French of course).
August 1, 2025
BBC and 250:fact the national registry of births names male Mohammed for the second year.
England has four cities described as the most criminal in Western Europe.
Top city Bradford .I browse 250 red button over breakfast(I am Leeds-born and proud)
but never has the fact of Bradford’s total shame been reported.I won’t identify the other
three in the top 20 as ethnicity is a matter of conjecture?
August 1, 2025
Could not agree more! Have stopped watching BBC and cancelled my TV licence a year ago.
August 1, 2025
Barclays has become the second British bank to quit the Net Zero Banking Alliance. It follows HCBS’s withdrawal from the initiative on July 11
Net-zero around the world is a dead duck, just like the news from the BBC and the weather from the Met-Office
August 2, 2025
Completely agree Sir John, BBC News and Radio 4 are intensely biased frequently resulting in a distortion of domestic and international news. Their presentation lacks balance especially on issues where ‘they’ have taken ‘a position’ such Net Zero, Illegal immigration, Ukraine and two tier justice and policing. Radio 3 and Cricket especially the Test Match are worth retention even though Radio 3 presenters frequency include ‘climate’ matters is their broadcasting. BBC funding is outdated, as You Tube is significantly more popular. It’s time to remove the licence fee as the BBC has sown the seeds of their own destruction.
August 2, 2025
Why do the BBC put background ‘mood’ music on news items ?
August 3, 2025
Well said Sir
August 4, 2025
They believe most of what the Climate Change Committee puts out and undertake daily pieties in their net zero religion…
You might have mentioned that they took money from Bill Gates and USAID (was 10% of money now cut off since) etc We believe that the British taxpayer pays for the BBC whereas it gets money from leftist pressure groups who get represented in its outputs unlike us.
Reply Payments were to BBC Media Action to promote democracy and neutral media abroad.