“The BBC is systematically failing to meet the principles of Public Service Broadcasting.”

There have been many complaints recently to the BBC about the amount of mundane programmes that are being shown on BBC 1 and BBC 2 during the day. The viewers are saying that the BBC is not following the eight key principles to Public Service Broadcasting. They say that the daytime television is turning into “a ghetto of antique and auction shows”. They should not be showing these programmes in the vast amount that they do. The schedule needs to have variety to keep the viewers entertained and engaged. It is said that there can be up to 5 hours of these programmes on a day, which goes against the key principle saying, across a weekly television schedule, programmes should cater for all interests and tastes.           

          I don’t think the BBC is following the key principles to PSB because on a day-to-day basis they are not catering for different tastes. Although I understand they cannot cater for every taste, they can include more of a variety to the schedule to encourage more viewers to watch. They are broadcasting a whole range of programmes but they are the entire same genre. This gives the viewers no choice of programme. The viewers fund the BBC through “the corpus of viewers” so therefore should have some variety too cater for a larger range of people. This defies the point of having PSB principles, as they are not being followed. The BBC is providing a service for the public and so the viewer’s opinions should be of great importance.

            There have been many loyal viewers that have taken there time to voice their opinions and concerns to the BBC’s Points of View. Therefore these views should be listened to and taken into account seeing as the BBC are there to cater to what the viewers are interested in.  One viewer has commented saying, “These cheap and nasty programmes definitely aren’t aimed at me, or if they are, they are way off target.” This shows that maybe the BBC need to reassess who their target market is for daytime television, who is actually watching the BBC at this time of day. Once they have done that, they should be able to assess what people want to watch and what will maybe bring in more viewers that don’t usually watch television at that time of day. At the moment the Television schedule lacks a huge amount of creativity. It looks like the BBC have decided to just put these programmes on to save themselves time instead of coming up with something original.

            Another point made by the viewers is that the BBC is one of the biggest PSB’s in the UK and therefore has the largest and most impressive archives. This then leaves no excuse for them to be showing the same old type of shows, when they have access to many favourite programmes which the viewers would much rather see. However the BBC have said that there are rights issues that restrict the usage of the archives and it could be cheaper just to make “new” reality shows. The schedule needs to be innovative and creative because if they are not, they are yet again not following the PSB principles. This needs to be changed to benefit the viewer, but it will also benefit the BBC.

            There was a pledge made in April by the corporations daytime controller

Liam Keelan. He said that there would be no more than two programmes of any genre shown each day. However, this pledge has not been followed through because on the BBC television schedule for today, on BBC 1 there are four programmes, all of the same concept, and they are all of the programmes that the public said they did not want to watch. Liam Keelan has not followed through his pledge and has instead returned back to the “boring, mind rotting junk”, that a large sum of the viewers do not want to see for the majority of the day. He is lowering the worth of the BBC and they are soon going to lose loyal customers to other major PSB’s, due to lack of creativity, innovation and concern.