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What really winds me up is the way they've tried to use their political influence to sabotage the BBC. James Murdoch gave a lecture to some conference or other basically claiming the BBc was too big, and didn;t allow for competition in television, and also that they provided too much on their web pages (again damaging potential competition). He even tried to pressurise Gordon Brown into anti-BBC policies (Brown refused and the Murdoch press went to town on him for several months thereafter).
I don't know if he put pressure on Blair, and the previous Conservative administration, but successive governments, including the current administration have gone out of their way to weaken the BBC.
Murdochs claiming the BBC is anti-competitive. Ridiculous. As they slowly buy up the entire frakkin world's media lol.
The BBC barely competes on the commercial side. The vast majority of its programming is stuff that just wouldn't get made if left to market forces. or if they were made they be done to a much more populist style (like science and nature documentaries for instance). The beauty of the BBC is it doesn't just have to look to the bottom line when deciding what to commission and air. The commercial broadcasters do that and for the most part they do it pretty well. Oftne making stuff that the BBC just couldn't justify making as a licence fee funded broadcaster.
Programmes like Doctor Who would never continue being made past the first dip in viewing figures. Children's and family friendly drama is a major plus for the BBC but the commercial companies don't really want any of that.
We don;t have a huge amount to offer the world these days in terms of cultural product, but the BBC is what we got.
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