The BBC is one the largest broadcasting company in the world, surpassing Fox, CBS and all others. It’s broadcast in more than 200 countries across the world, and reaches around 274 million households which have it available, in contrast to CNN’s 200 million households. CNN is BBC’s biggest rival in terms of viewing audiences. They employ over 28,500 people and have around £4billion available in budget per annum.
However, the BBC is often at the centre of major conflicting stories in the media. Recently, television and radio personalities Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, quit and fired respectively, due an incident involving the pair and a prank telephone call on a radio show. The two were immediately shunned for their “disgraceful behaviour”. Personally, I think that the media and the BBC have completely blown things out of proportion and exaggerated the matter. There are plenty of worse things that are shown on BBC’s shows, such as comedy sketch Little Britain, which, although some may find it funny, is often offensive and rude to particular nations or people. But the one thing that set apart the Brand and Ross incident is the fact that they targeted a specific person as their offense, rather than shows such as Little Britain which target whole people and ethnicities, which I still find wrong.
BBC’s financial plan and income is disheartening. They take in a massive £3,100.6 million in television licensing alone in the year of 2005-2006. They also take in £620.0 million from BBC Commercial Businesses and £260.2 million from the World Service, of which £239.1 million is from grants (primarily funded by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office), £15.8 m from subscriptions, and £5.3 m from other sources.
The BBC has also been at the centre of other controversies, such as BBC Wales complaining that Wales does not get enough Welsh coverage.
The BBC does not cost a lot of money. £10.54 per month is charged to each and every household in the United Kingdom that owns at least one television. The fees can sometimes be exasperating, and with the funding the BBC gets, and the money they spend, is it all really worth it? For a major corporation, the BBC has made some stupid errors over it’s lifetime, often ones that are unforgiven. I also strongly believe that Jonathan Ross should not have been fired because of his role in the prank calling incident because of the fact that it’s a comedy show. They should have been given various performing clauses and exemptions. Thus it’s not to be and a great entertainer will never be returning to the BBC. I say that the BBC should turn around it fiscal model and fire whoever’s in charge. It’s been a disgrace.
