I was almost quite shocked to find that the BBC was presenting something in a balanced way that is a credit to all the money they get from licenses. Although their online spend is less than a tenth of what they pour into (often poor) programmes, it is a fortune compared to most websites, highly visible, and I do feel proud when they do a decent job for a change.
The whole license fee thing is under review now. The main reason given for charging is usually an "impartial public service broadcasting" which is
External Link/Members Only. Not only is it often not impartial, it is often parochial and misleading, but the fact that it is the boss, the government, who is 'he who holdeth the purse strings', makes it undeniably hard for the government to be free of divided loyalties and the BBC to be free of fearing being leant on. Compare for instance the more open criticism by Channel 4 of the government over issues like Iraq or, on the topic of this thread,
External Link/Members Only. Laws alone are not enough to ensure the BBC's charter is adhered to: they can fulfil the seeming letter of the law by reducing every item to a "both sides" format (ignoring an even mainstream middle ground) or simply avoid reporting it at all (as they do with most world news.)* The quality of documentary filmmaking on the BBC, while occasionally quite good, is frequently abysmal, with long rambles, much background music, and about as much information in an hour as could be condensed into less than five minutes. Non-fiction also seems to fall behind: if the BBC has so much money from our taxes to make, among other things, "quality films", why is Channel 4 Britain's flagship internationally in the film world? Similarly, film lovers wanting quality foreign-language films rather than blockbusters have to look
External Link/Members Only to Channel 4. (We should remember though that Channel 4, just like the BBC, is not privately owned, yet they get away with more risqué programming.)
For most viewers, the main difference between the BBC and other channels is that it "doesn't show adverts." This is something to be proud of. Now if only the Beeb would stop spending as much time advertising its own programmes as other channels spend on outside commercials. . ..
The number of men visiting prossies is, according to
External Link/Members Only, about 1 in 10. If we take the population of the UK at 60 million that is 6,000,000. A conservative estimate of the number of women working as prossies
External Link/Members Only is about 80,000 (more if you listen to abolitionists). So about 6,080,000 people with an active interest in prostitution.
Given that that is far more than the people lobbying for or against prostitution, and a very sizeable chunk of our population, it seems to me that rather than just never-ending debates about the pros and cons, or as well them, that there is a case for programming to reflect the interests of these people. UKP and SAAFE as head of programming? Well . . .It might sound like wishful thinking, but an 11 o'clock review of the best saunas and independents, discussion of services offered, and a section for women entering the business, would be rather welcome. Standards of impartiality and a goal of serving punters (and in the women's section, maybe things like health and safety issues for prossies) would be a better criteria than paranoia over 'advertising.' Latest Adultwork fakes might even be exposed, for the good of both punters and prossies. A news item could also warn of general dangers - a sort of Crimewatch for underage or abused/forced prostitution.
*http://www.meccsa.org.uk/pdfs/policy-network/PolicyNetwork-julian-impartiality-092010.pdf
