So we are paying to be lied to!<\/p>\n It was this realisation, and the thought of some campaign against the propaganda machine that prompted the tweet you see above. This tweet encouraged the guest post you’re now going to read.<\/p>\n \u2666<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n A GUEST POST BY BRYCHAN DAVIES<\/strong><\/p>\n Jac suggests on his twitter feed a campaign of non-payment of the television licence fee in light of the now clear editorial bias of the BBC in favour of the union, regularly demonstrated in the coverage of Scottish affairs.<\/p>\n I have therefore taken time to look at how the television licence fee is spent, what happens in Wales, and what happens in the rest of Europe.<\/p>\n A two frame spreadsheet is attached.<\/p>\n In the first frame I have divided the total BBC revenue for the television licence according to population of the countries within the union. The cost of the TV licence is the same in all countries. I have then extracted from this the services provided specifically to Wales, like the two \u2018regional\u2019 radio stations, the spend on S4C and then a population proportion for English language television broadcasts, online content, and administration, where Wales is treated as a \u2018region\u2019.<\/p>\n In the second frame I have listed the television licence fee payable in other countries in Europe, including countries where the licence fee has been recently abolished.<\/p>\n \u25ca<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n WALES<\/p>\n You will notice that income from TV licences issued in Wales is \u00a3180m per year while spending on all services the BBC provide to Wales is \u00a3240m per year. Some would argue that this is a subsidy of \u00a360m per year. Those who are hostile to the Welsh language would argue that this is S4C (\u00a376m per year) but for this to be true, all Welsh speakers have four eyes and are able to consume both English and Welsh content simultaneously. Previously only \u00a370m of S4C revenues was not funded by the BBC and directly funded from direct taxation via the Whitehall department of Media and Sport, prior to that all of S4C was funded by DCMS.<\/p>\n The issue with \u2018state financed\u2019 content is that if it costs \u00a310m to make a content series this does not change, whether 3m people consume it or 55m people consume it. Only commercially financed content has a ‘break-even’ point in terms of viewers.<\/p>\n \u25ca<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n DEVOLUTION<\/p>\n Plaid Cymru argue that \u2018broadcasting should be devolved\u2019. If this happened and the full array of BBC content currently available in Wales was to be maintained, the licence fee in Wales would need to increase from \u00a3147pa to \u00a3200pa or the shortfall financed through the block grant.<\/p>\n \u25ca<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n INDEPENDENCE<\/p>\n The reality is that the BBC is a unionist institution and while the population are fed a steady stream of \u2018Eastenders bake a cake on Countryfile while Dancing in Coronation Street\u2019, content which could alternatively be provided by commercial broadcasting on Sky, ITV, C4, C5, and others. What comes with the BBC, it\u2019s USP, is a \u2018unionist\u2019 news service and content which in the last few years are broadcast as \u2018Great British Bake-Offs\u2019, an obsession with World War One documentaries and empire nostalgia dressed up as \u2018lifestyle\u2019 and \u2018heritage\u2019.<\/p>\n \u25ca<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n CONCLUSION<\/p>\n A true Welsh nationalist would have to ague for the abolition of the television licence fee, and that any BBC content imported and consumed from England be on the basis of commercial subscription, as applies in the Irish Republic. This would also mean that Wales only content would either be financed by\u2026<\/p>\n commercial activity only<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the effects of making BBC imports a subscription pack is that more people consume content on other commercially available transmissions. This would result in a massive increase in the value of commercial sales advertising on Welsh channels.<\/p>\n from a much lower Wales only licence fee<\/strong><\/p>\n To fund the \u00a376m for a Welsh language channel, a Wales News channel in the English language at \u00a320m with entertainment content purchased globally, the 18m of Radio Cymru and the \u00a320m for Radio Wales giving a \u00a3100pa Welsh licence fee.<\/p>\n direct government grant for this from general taxation of \u00a3134m<\/strong><\/p>\n Radio Wales can be based in the existing facility in Swansea, Radio Cymru can be based in the existing facility in Bangor and the English language TV channel can be housed in the new S4C facility in Carmarthen giving greater capacity utilisation. The most difficult issue in any of these options is having to demolish that new building currently squatting outside Cardiff Central railway station, where a bus\/tram interchange should be or selling it off to fund transition costs.<\/p>\n \u2666 end\u00a0\u2666<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Jac adds . . .\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n Since the poisonings of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia on March 4th the BBC has slavishly toed the official line that it was Putin what done it. The nerve agent involved was quickly identified and attributed to Putin’s henchmen. Following the attack the USA and other countries fell into line and expelled Russian diplomats. It unfolded so neatly that it looked almost choreographed.<\/p>\n The BBC is still telling us<\/a> that, “The British government says a military-grade Novichok nerve agent of a type developed by Russia was used in the attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia”<\/em>. So who in the British Government has the expertise to identify nerve agents – David Davis, Boris Johnson, Gavin Williamson?<\/p>\n In matters like this the experts are to be found at Porton Down, the UK’s centre for chemical and biological warfare. On April 3rd Porton Down’s chief executive, Gary Aitkenhead, told us they could not prove that the agent used to poison the Skripals had come from Russia<\/a>. (Given that Aitkenhead is Scottish maybe it’s only a matter of time before the Daily Mail<\/em> attacks him for being a ‘Sturgeon stooge’.)<\/p>\n This announcement clearly undermined the UK government’s case against Russia. Which is almost certainly why the BBC’s main Six O’Clock News programme on April 3rd ignored it entirely, and led with the important story of a 96-year-old man going into hospital for a hip operation.<\/p>\n Folks, we have a serious problem on our hands. We are paying to be lied to. Either they stop lying or we must stop paying.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being lied to. Obviously, when it’s your children, or grandchildren, you often suppress a smile before putting them straight. But when it’s a corporate body as powerful and influential as the British Broadcasting Corporation, then it’s an entirely different matter. For this is a source of … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/jacothenorth.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/BBC-tweet.png\")
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