Auntie-quated

It is fairly obvious that I have some 'issues' with our national broadcaster.

But even in using that term I am falling in to the same generalist's trap as many others do, somehow morphing the individual aspects and persons that are the parts and tarring all with the brush of the sum.

Of course it is much more complicated, but it is hard not to let frustrations seep through, especially when you are paying for a service you have no control over and is frankly too often working against everything you hold dear, from common sense to objectivity to efficiency to even your business... I could go on.

I don't know if it was always the same and I have just noticed abuses more of late, or if things simply have gone down the drain. It is certainly a unique institution (like the way it is funded), and a very British one at that. But is also a strange mixture, being an anachronism that has moved with the times, only in all the wrong places and directions.

In my life I have met only a few of the several tens of thousands who enjoy its multi-billion budget and use it to provide 'services' to the UK public... and beyond.

Frankly I'd say the experience has been no different to any in one's daily activities, social or business. For every delightful local reporter who was a joy to chat with and helpful, there has been one who somehow thought lobbing up in a Peugeot radio car bedecked with BBC Radio Whatever meant that the natives should have fallen down and sacrificed a virgin. For every journalist who has risked life and limb to expose a real story, there has been ... a few... who think swiping one off AP and running it by the diversity czarina is all that's required to swing a gong at a rigged awards do, and blag a better salary from executive levels too dumb or lazy to negotiate.

As with all things, we seem to be heading to a situation of extremes.

In the comfy corner is a small but totally isolated (it seems) group of folk in the upper echelons of the BBC, who think they are God's gift, and that the money that comes their way, for both programmes, paycheck and pensions, is nothing to do with those they in theory serve. The abuses are too often, and too many, to ignore. It was a nice Little number, but as other areas encroach on what was their monopoly, they seem to have decided the only thing to do is either close ranks and expand the empire even further. Sadly they have got away with it pretty much across the board, as there is, as with all 'public services', no culture of accountability. Or sense of value for money. People may bear responsibility, and the salaries to go with that, but when it comes to carrying the can...

In the other corner is an equally small, very vocal but growing (in both) minority who have just about or totally had it. I am pretty close to erring this way, but while I can empathise with much I see emanating from them, many are doing themselves, and the cause, no favours by so dogmatically calling for the crushing of this entity.

We're talking a £3B+ organisation, with tens of thousands of staff, bearing the name (and reputation) of this country far and wide. A brand that goes back decades. You are no more going to see any politician simply strike that from the balance sheet than you will PM Brown, or any successor, unhire the extra 800,000 beholden voters (ain't democracy grand?) he has put on the government payroll in the last 11 years.

But something must be done. There are simply too many reason for change, yet to almost all the best that can be said is that there has been a bunkering down, with at worst an near wilful 'Last days of the Reich' orgy of excess as those who are still on a very good gravy train decide to make the most of it while they can. Hey, what's the worst that can happen?

Well as, belts tighten and excesses and cock-ups and defensive reactions to them mount, there might well be something that starts to happen, and not in a very well managed way. The licence fee is no longer insignificant, and in deciding what one can and can't... or won't... afford might tempt some into making the powers that be face up to supporting an already rather tarnished institution or having to kick out a few rapists from jail to make an example of those not keen to fund £800k salaries from social engineering aspirants who mistake shaping news for reporting, editorial for agenda, and see no problem with not bothering to negotiate market rates with their star buddies.

A lot doesn't add up, and time is running out. Ask such as Carol Vordeman.