Auntie has lost her marbles

BBC Increasing diversity.  Michaela Coel stars in, wrote and co-directed I May Destroy You

The BBC has committed £100m to increasing diversity on TV. Producing "diverse and inclusive content" amounts to little more than giving air time for minorities who represent their lifestyle/activities as mainstream.

That is a phenomenal amount of money given that in 2016 the 'Auntie' BBC announced that she needed to save £800m with around £80m of that figure coming from News.

Among the casualties is the Andrew Neil Show as part of cuts to the corporation's news operation.

This tweet sums up some of the feelings expressed after the announcement:

""Andrew Neil Show cut"; the Beeb is crackers!
@afneil is one of the best journalistic interrogators they have & shows no mercy to ANY interviewee; Left or Right. He is an expert at dismantling spin and obfuscation.
We are nearing 'journalism by Twitter"!

One might have hoped that Tim Davie, Lord Hall's replacement as the £450,000 p.a. Director-General would have heralded an opportunity to return to higher standards but he has already said "We will need to accelerate change so that we serve all our audiences in this fast-moving world. Much great work has been done, but we will continue to reform, make clear choices and stay relevant."

Relevance to society and 'more of the same - but faster' was announced by the new archbishop as the plan for the Church in Wales, now heading for obscurity.

There is no future for a public funded BBC if it continues to ape its competitors.

BBC diversity 'advertising' squeezes in as many colours, races, creeds and sexual preferences as can be mustered, highlighting minorities as if they were mainstream. The results are usually the same: murder, misery and mayhem.

Having a good laugh is a no-go area for the woke generation which continually finds offence where none was intended.

'Auntie' BBC was founded on Christian principles. Its first Director-General, Lord Reith, thought of broadcasting as a way of educating the masses. Diversity is not. Diversity is a tool for pushing specific agendas.

The commissioning editor for ethics and religion is responsible for all the BBC’s religious content, including Songs of Praise. Following the appointment of a Muslim commissioner Songs of Praise has gradually faded into the background with mixed content in shorter programmes in obscure slots.

While Christianity is often lampooned the greatest respect is demanded for Islam, a minority faith in the UK raising accusations of Islamophobia if there is any whiff of criticism of Islamic excesses.

There in little evidence of diversity in sports coverage which continues to be dominated by soccer, even screening repeats when live matches were not available due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Listing their highest paid 'stars', in 2018-19, seventy five received £150,000 with many considerably more. Why the BBC paid Gary Lineker between £1,750,000 and £1,754,999 for presenting Match of the Day, Sports Personality of the Year and World Cup is a mystery when there must be many competent soccer fanatics who would welcome the chance to magnify their passion at a fraction of the cost but diversity does not extend to elite presenters.

The BBC has plenty of money to throw around when it comes to soccer having payed £204m in 2015 to keep Match of the Day hosted by the absurdly paid Garry Lineker, negotiations are under way for the BBC to show their first ever Premier League matches live. By comparison the popular Six Nations rugby tournament is likely to go behind a Sky paywall from 2022.

Far from raising standards the BBC appears determined to drive them down developing personality cults which have allowed presenters such as Naga Munchetty and Emily Maitlis to get away with expressing their personal opinions, which are not what the licence payers are paying for, while the over-exposed Fiona Bruce has turned Question Time into the Fiona Bruce show.

'Defund the BBC' is gaining ground. As Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson wrote, "We don't want to pay for leftist propaganda, the time has come to defund the BBC!

"People don't object to great work that is truly colour-blind. What drives us mad is a 'tokenistic' agenda diversity and a leftist, anti-British groupthink imposed on viewers and listeners by a privately-educated liberal elite. The BBC boss class is as far from diverse as Mayfair is from Mablethorpe." 

Exactly!