There’s been a barrage of criticism today about the BBC’s blanket coverage of the McCanns leaving Portugal. The corporation’s head of news Peter Horrocks, had this to say.
“There has been a lot of criticism but there has been a large number of people turning to BBC TV because they are keen to get new information about the story,” he said.
He added that viewing for news bulletins was “one or two million up” on normal ratings, while stories on the BBC news website about Madeleine “were four or five times” more popular than others, something which he described as “unprecedented”.
Isn’t the whole point of a state-funded national broadcaster supposed to be that they’re above that kind of thinking? Horrocks is making a rod for his own back with that argument - if “viewing figures” are your only measure of quality, then why not sell off the whole thing now and you can compete with Murdoch’s empire on their level? But then it appears that ABSOLUTELY NOBODY in the BBC these days has any clear vision of what the corporation’s supposed to be about.
Victoria Derbyshire’s Five Live phone-in this morning (Monday) was an absolute disgrace. Public money was being used to stage a phone-in vote on whether or not “the McCanns still had our sympathy.” Possibly the cheapest, most sensationalist moment in the whole tawdry history of Victoria Derbyshire’s attempt to drag that morning show into the gutter - and believe me, she’s done it many a time. I’ve more or less given up listening now, and it was only by fluke I tuned in this morning. Her phone-in is the one glaring weak spot in the Five Live schedule, and her attitude when it comes to debates about the media is defensive and closed - the opposite of what Five Live is supposed to stand for.
We could have better journalism, better drama, better documentaries and better comedy on the BBC if we saved some money by a) scrapping BBC Three, and b) scrapping Victoria Derbyshire’s contract.
