Where your TV licence money went
The BBC is the principal tenant of MediaCityUK, based at Salford Quays, and it spent a pretty penny for this studio complex. Uniquely among the major broadcasters, the BBC does not draw revenue from commercial advertisers but is funded directly by the public from the compulsory issue of TV licences. That does not mean there is no advertising on BBC TV, in fact one endures a barrage of advertising for the BBC's own programmes and services.
I trace my antipathy to the BBC from my 1950s childhood: I loathed Listen with Mother. I did not then know the word "patronising", but patronised was how I felt as a six-year old. And when we acquired a television (rental, of course), I cared little for the stalwarts of that era, such as Richard Dimbleby, Gilbert Harding, Cliff Michelmore, Peter Dymock and Huw Wheldon - all pompous, plummy-voiced southerners to my Humberside ears. There were of course many BBC programmes that I have loved and revered (Hancock, Monty Python, the David Attenborough and Dennis Potter canons), but then all those school-marmy newsreaders, the self-proclaimed "Mission to Explain", the surfeit of Noel Edmonds, the long Jimmy Saville cover-up, and oh dear, no wonder I am on medication for high blood pressure. In the course of my recent UK visit, I watched zero minutes of television.
Where your TV licence money went
The BBC is the principal tenant of MediaCityUK, based at Salford Quays, and it spent a pretty penny for this studio complex. Uniquely among the major broadcasters, the BBC does not draw revenue from commercial advertisers but is funded directly by the public from the compulsory issue of TV licences. That does not mean there is no advertising on BBC TV, in fact one endures a barrage of advertising for the BBC's own programmes and services.
I trace my antipathy to the BBC from my 1950s childhood: I loathed Listen with Mother. I did not then know the word "patronising", but patronised was how I felt as a six-year old. And when we acquired a television (rental, of course), I cared little for the stalwarts of that era, such as Richard Dimbleby, Gilbert Harding, Cliff Michelmore, Peter Dymock and Huw Wheldon - all pompous, plummy-voiced southerners to my Humberside ears. There were of course many BBC programmes that I have loved and revered (Hancock, Monty Python, the David Attenborough and Dennis Potter canons), but then all those school-marmy newsreaders, the self-proclaimed "Mission to Explain", the surfeit of Noel Edmonds, the long Jimmy Saville cover-up, and oh dear, no wonder I am on medication for high blood pressure. In the course of my recent UK visit, I watched zero minutes of television.