My Problem With the BBC

Ok, so as promised last week in my long-winded rant about why ITV isn’t very good (I know, I know, I could have saved time just with the words: “Piers Morgan”), I would like to mention this week some of my grievances with the BBC. What I want to do first off is to say that I, under no circumstances, will be using the phrase “Is this what I pay my license fee for?” I hate people who use the phrase “Is this what I pay my license fee for?” The comedian Mitch Benn came up with a fantastic metaphor for the BBC license fee, he compared it to a bus ticket rather than a taxi. So I pay my license fee to go to Doctor Who, Would I Lie To You? and What To Do If You’re Not Like Everybody Else (iPlayer it. It’s good.), but I accept that on the way the bus/BBC has to stop off at Snog, Marry, Avoid, The One Show and any number of BBC3 sitcoms for other people to enjoy. I wont get off the bus and explore these culturally barren lands, but the advantage of the license fee acting like a bus ticket is that I could. I can jump off at one of the smaller stops in the obscure little village of BBC4 and explore.

This is my first little moan about the BBC. Rumour is currently circulating that BBC4 could have it’s budget and remit cut considerably. To be fair, I don’t watch BBC4 that much, I was scared off by an episode of Only Connect - start using the Greek alphabet and you’ve lost me. But that’s what the BBC should be doing, because it can. The unique way the BBC is funded means that they can do shows that appeal to everyone and shows that appeal to two weird philosophy nerds living on the Isle of Man. Of course the BBC shouldn’t persevere with an unpopular program, but it should be doing more to push niche programs. BBC4 is a great mix of artsy documentaries, high-brow comedy, low-brow comedy that’s good (I recommend Getting On staring Jo Brand and the excellent TwentyTwelve. Very good, but hardly prime-time BBC1 stuff), imported foreign language gems, classic concerts and some well chosen repeats. It might not be your cup of tea - and most of it isn’t mine, I might be boring but I’m not that boring - but where else are you going to find these programs other than, perhaps, Sky Arts? (My only problem with that option being how much more you have to pay for it.)

The BBC think that more money should be spent on programs for the 18-35-year-old market and are pushing programs on BBC3. That’s a good thing and definitely something the BBC should be doing, something it’s good at doing, but it’s not as important. That’s a clumsy way of making my point, but what I’m trying to say is that if Snog, Marry, Avoid wasn’t made by the BBC no doubt someone at Channel 4 or Sky Living would have picked it up, E4 would probably quite happily take Family Guy rites off BBC3’s hands and shove a break in. The likes of Being Human would have found a backer elsewhere because it is bloody brilliant. Seriously amazing. The last series finale, I mean Wow! How dark was that?! It’s right that the BBC make Being Human because they’re more likely to commission a mad idea like “a vampire, werewolf and ghost share a house in Bristol,” and let’s face it the BBC will do it better. They’re the BBC, respected around the world, they can attract the best people. But I guess I’m saying it’s more important for the BBC to make the obscure arts programs and imported Icelandic comedy because they can and no one else will. I’m not arguing that that stuff is better (nothing’s better than Being Human) but it is part of the important service that the BBC provides and that has made it a name respected around the world. Commercial television ignores that stuff for the sake of turning a profit, the BBC doesn’t have to.

That’s why last year I signed online stuff and wrote scathing tweets about the decision to cut BBC6Music, and since then I have found myself listening more and more to 6 Music because it brings me new music to test out, rather than hits from the last 30 years or the same six songs from the charts played over and over again interrupted by mad characters phoning-in to tell us what the craziest thing they’ve ever done on holiday is. I listened, for a bit, to the commercial station Absolute Radio the other day. They had a “no repeats guaranteed” policy, but when you stand out from the crowd because you don’t repeat the same songs all day, well that’s not a good state for commercial radio to be in. I’m not saying we should all rush to the sofa and watch BBC4, but it should be there for the people who want it.

Anyway, moving on. It’s slightly harder to knock the BBC than it was to criticise ITV last week, because the BBC is actually, you know, good. And this week Mock The Week, Would I Lie To You?, and QI all returned - I do love my panel shows - and of course they do Doctor Who and Torchwood. But then interestingly a comedy promoter called Noel Faulkner made the assertion that TV was killing comedy. Noel Faulkner owns a comedy club in London that is none-to-healthy thanks to the recession and names now famous for TV work refuse to come back and gig there, so his comments should be taken with a pinch of salt (as should chips by the way KFC! Please stop being stingy with the salt) but in some ways he’s right. He says that too many comedians are given TV exposure “We put too many people on TV. TV is such shite that people should be ashamed of themselves for going on.” He is of course speaking the demented cowshit of a man who can’t book Michael McIntyre to play his club anymore. TV is a good place for comedians. Comedians want to make people laugh, this way they can make the whole country laugh and increase their profile.

Where I agree with Mr Faulkner is his accusation that TV comedy is often generic. Unfortunately the BBC guide book, “How to do comedy,” has been lost in a filing cabinet drawer somewhere along with the best-before date for My Family and the instructions for how to dismantle Chris Evans. I’m getting tired of the amount of times I read that a comic I like has been given their own TV series that “boasts a mixture of stand-up and sketches,” because this invariably means that they’ve taken a stand-up whose set they like and included sketches so the stupid viewers at home don’t get bored. This is particularly noticeable in the otherwise excellent John Bishop’s Britain in which the sketches involve actors playing John and his friend’s acting out what John is saying while he says it, with any similes he uses turned into crazy visual gags. I’d honestly feel less patronised if the head of BBC light entertainment came round to my house, held my hand and explained the jokes to me slowly in words of one syllable.

Likewise, Stephen K Amos, one of my favourite comedians whose live shows are some of the best nights out I’ve had at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Night’s where I have been searching the room to see if anybody looks like a doctor because I can’t breathe from laughing. His TV show was the kind of thing that made me look around the room for a mirror to see if the corner of my mouth twitched a bit at the punch line. Rather than capturing his stand-up in a studio, he did random sketches, spoke to his “mother” which was a pre-record of him in a wig that flowed remarkably well in the obvious edit, and had needless gimmicks. I love stand-up, a lot of comedy fans do, so just give us six half hour shows of stand-up someone please! Sketches have their place, they’re called sketch shows, they’re very good. Recently BBCTwo ratings sensation (not) Stewart Lee returned with a second series of his downbeat stand-up show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle this time round without the sketches. It was one of the best series on television this year. The closest thing to genuinely original and clever stand-up I’ve seen and very very funny. How was he rewarded for this? It was on at 11:30 on a Wednesday night and the BBC didn’t think to tell anybody it was on. It’ll never be a runaway success like Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow but it distresses me to see the BBC treat good comedy this way and water down the likes of John Bishop and Stephen K Amos.

Really we have the Daily Mail to blame for this, because one time Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were rude to Manuel which knocked Osama Bin Laden down to fourth in the Axis of Evil list (Piers is still top, even if he has convinced the yanks he’s just a friendly talk show host who would never immorally fake newspaper photos and definitely didn’t do no phone-hacking). The Mail then leapt on Frankie Boyle for being vulgar and not-English. They then, with frightening speed, attacked Sandi Toksvig of The News Quiz for making the joke “The Conservative Party: Putting the N into cuts,” a mere six months after the joke was broadcast. It seems that’s how long it took them to get it (they’re gonna flip when they realise Mr Humphries was gay). It seems nobody can say anything slightly rude without the Daily Mail deciding it’s collapse of British morals and will lead to “feral youths kicking people’s heads like footballs” (true quote). Ironically, this is probably political correctness gone mad. Just as a direct appeal to the BBC, I’m afraid I have to ask you to stop being such a pussy bitch too. Stand by your programs and talent, because there’s nothing wrong with a bit of controversial comedy. If Channel 4 will stand by Frankie Boyle when he says something genuinely disgusting about Katie Price’s son – which sounded more like a Jim Davison gag – then surely the BBC could have said “We think he’s all right on Mock The Week leave him alone. We like a bit of rude humour.” As the comedian Marcus Brigstocke said, “if we had no offensive material on TV all we’d have is The One Show and where does that leave us?”

Perhaps there’d be less need for offensive comedy is the BBC remembered how to do pre-watershed sitcoms again. The answer isn’t to try and do a hundred remakes of My Family with a hundred different, less funny families. But I’ve ranted about this for too long.

Just one more thing, I bought Frasier the complete series 3 DVD box set the other day for £20. A fair price. A bargain maybe even. That’s for 8 Hours, 46minutes of TV. Every year we spend around £50-£60 on the new Doctor Who DVD box set. So if we pay £20 for 8 Hours 46 minutes of TV, then surely £145 for 43800 hours of TV is a totally awesome deal, it annoys me when people say it isn’t worth it. (365x24 x that by 5 for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3/CBBC, BBC4/Cbeebies, BBC News.

BBC3, 4, CBBC and Cbeebies are only on half a day, and I didn’t count BBC Parliament because it’s BBC parliament. I didn’t mention the radio or online stuff either). PS. That metaphor only works with DVDs. A blu-ray is about £10 more expensive and has the same number of discs, even though Blu-rays fit more on than a DVD so could be smaller, cheaper box sets. Save your money, buy DVDs.