BBC

There is a strike at the BBC today, thousands of workers have walked out in protest against job cuts. Like any public institution the BBC is funded through taxation, in this case in the form of the licensing fee. The act of charging a license fee has made it possible for the BBC to produce non-commercially viable programming without the interruption of adverts. There is a question, however, over whether the programs are actually not commercially viable. Many of the programs supposedly unable to be paid for via adverts are now shown on cable TV channels as repeats, channels that receive no public funding at all. It is also entirely possible to receive commercial free programming; subscription channels (such as HBO) have been achieving this for years. So is there really a place for a publicly funded network? Personally I doubt it, but more importantly, the property rights of people should override this anyway, people should be free to own and operate their televisions without the need for government licensing. Now back to the strike, if job cuts are necessary then they should happen. People are paying for the jobs whether they gain and benefit from them or not (i.e. whether they watch the BBC or not) and they should not be kept for the sake of it. The main problem stems from sentiment like this “The BBC is a unifying British institution which acts as the nation's conscience” from Mike Smallwood, national officer of Amicus, do we not have our own consciences anymore, can we no longer decide between right and wrong? No, we must pay the government to tell us what to think.