Moffat: “Attacks on BBC Are Wrong and Ill-Conceived”

Philip Bates is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

It’s pretty clear how Steven Moffat feels about the Conservative Government’s Green Paper putting the BBC into question. In fact, it’s pretty clear that most of, if not all of, us at Kasterborous feels the same way: the BBC needs tweaking, but the current attacks on the broadcaster by the political party are completely uncalled for.

During a press tour for the Television Critics Association, Moffat has called a shrinking down of the BBC “vandalism of the worst kind” and insinuated that it’s merely a political agenda. Indeed, questions are being raised over an alleged private meeting between First Secretary of State, George Osborne and media mogul, Rupert Murdoch, just days before the Treasury imposed a £650m budget cut on the BBC – that the corporation would have to take on the responsibility of providing over-75s with a free TV license.

Moffat said:

“I think what’s going on is outrageous. It’s absolutely terrible and wrong and ill-conceived. It staggers me that we’ve got a government [that] got elected, and decided that the main problem with Britain is our national broadcasting. Does anybody think that? They must have something more important to do. The trouble is, it’s an oddity – the BBC – to say the least. It’s an extraordinary oddity that it’s so good. You don’t ordinarily have a national broadcaster that is that amazing.

“If we switch it off, we won’t know how to put it back on again, and everything will be less good. To damage that for temporary political gain is vandalism of the worst kind.

You could look at [the BBC’s] philosophy, you could look at the fact that somehow from the work of those early pioneers it became a beacon of quality – not just for Britain, but for the entire world. If we allow, basically, the Tories to turn off the people that are criticising them, which is what is happening, I can’t see how we’d get it back.”

He’s previously defended his comments in the face of those whose arguments essentially consist of “yeah, well, you would defend your employer, wouldn’t you?” Sometimes, things are more important than a current job: Moffat wouldn’t be out of work even if the Beeb did shrink. I seriously doubt Doctor Who would be in risk, same as Sherlock.

Personally, I don’t think the BBC are justifying itself enough. It’s a wonderful institution and important to the whole of Britain. But I definitely approved of them hitting back at a biased (shock, shock, horror, horror) Daily Mail article:

Story about @BBC in today's Mail missing a few crucial facts (but never let that get in the way of a good headline).

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2015

Mail story ignores basic facts like around £270m of licence fee taken to support S4C & govt projects like broadband rollout & local TV

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2015

According to Mail, prog costs don't include newsrooms, edit suites, storyline development etc without which you wouldn't have any programmes

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2015

Mail also says BBC 'pumps money' into commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. But Worldwide not funded by licence fee & makes money for UK programmes

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2015

Actually 90% of spending we control is on content, distribution & related support costs – figure is independently verified

— BBC Press Office (@bbcpress) June 15, 2015

Fantastic, right?

It’s about time the BBC let people know the good they do that isn’t advertised, including duties put upon it by the Government. A whole day’s entertainment is just 40p. That’s less than most chocolate bars…

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