SLR: TV licences are an act of cruelty – just look at the SABC, BBC

The first time I was harassed by the TV licence inspectorate in South Africa I didn’t actually own a television or have one in my flat to watch. The assumption was that because I had bought my first home, I must have a television – and so my name popped up on the radar of TV licence dodgers. I received letters of demand, and more letters of demand, with penalties to pay and various threats from aggressive debt collectors and warnings that a bad consumer credit rating was imminent. It got stressful, and no-one would fix the problem on the other end of the telephone line. I only solved the issue when I moved into a house with someone who had a TV licence. I’ve had friends, too, who have had letters of demand for their deceased parents, long after they were returned to the soil in a coffin, from SABC licence fee collectors. In Britain, too, licence fees are much hated. It’s an extra tax that has ensured that BBC television reporters earn vastly higher salaries than the British Prime Minister, which would perhaps be understandable if they were doing anything out-of-the-ordinary from their peers on pay TV news channels. Simon Lincoln Reader reckons TV licences are going to die in the foreseeable future. Whew! – Jackie Cameron

Why should we sponsor attempts to brainwash ourselves?

By Simon Lincoln Reader*

If there was one moment that captured the impunity of the Zuma error, it occurred in late September 2016, at one of the SABC’s atriums in Auckland Park. Journalists had assembled for an announcement – some foolishly hoping the resignation of the entire board and a grovelling apology. They should have known better: at that moment Hlaudi Motsoeneng pimp-walked in, wearing a fedora, right arm swinging in a straight line, accompanied by assorted fugitives and bandits loyal to the error. “I have not been fired,” Hlaudi remarked into the microphone, “Actually, I’ve been (sort of) promoted”.

Owning an SABC licence was suddenly an act of cruelty, but an essential one that would enable us to observe the depths to which organisation would descend in the name of political influence. Without any money the SABC would cease devouring itself, at the time a spectacle far more entertaining than the stuff it produced.

**

Here in Britain, it is virtually certain that non-payment of the annual BBC licence, bloated to GBP157.50 from April this year, will be decriminalised soon, something predictably interpreted as “Trumpian” by Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s critics, most of whom haven’t noticed or would rather ignore the fact that he’s a social liberal. This will be the end of the BBC in its current form, given that it absorbs the majority of its operating costs from this poncy medium of extortion.

The Corporation’s existence is underwritten by Royal Charter, renewed in 2017. On page 3 of the Charter, some of its conditions and purposes are revealed: the BBC must be impartial on reporting, and balanced on representation.

**

Whereas the SABC under Hlaudi resembled some kind of Jonestown adventure, the BBC is more sinister, like the role of the Stasi in Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s masterpiece, ‘The Lives of Others’. Employees of the SABC have been bullied and intimidated into partisan propaganda – no such thing has ever happened to the BBC. On the contrary, the BBC’s own employees decide what is best – what the public should hear, and more importantly, how they should think.

Take the latest example: a man called Piers Wenger, Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning (a job title from East Germany if ever there was one) is promoting the idea that the BBC adapts the race of characters in its shows, something called “imaginative casting”. “Imaginative casting” will see classic works featuring black people shoe-horned into roles that were white (at the time of publishing, whenever that was) – the idea being that if the works are fiction, Mr. Wenger can fiction them up a little more, so as to reflect (what they feel is) the changing complexion of wider society.

I make two bets here: first, that not a single black person was asked what they thought during the conception of this hare-brained caper and, second, that no black person will ever be cast in the roles of Uriah Heep, Shylock, Lady McBeth, Iago or Ebeneezer Scrooge.

**

I have one of the happiest homes and offices in London and indeed the country – because of moratoriums I have placed upon the BBC and Channel 4 News.

The incident that got the BBC its final warning occurred some months ago and involved an extraordinary encounter on one of its programmes.

The subject was knife crime in London, and to discuss this, the BBC had invited i) a social worker, ii) a charity worker, iii) an anti-austerity campaigner and iv) a member of the Labour Party. All condemned the Conservative government, all complained of systemic racism but most importantly, all agreed with each other on every single point: there was no talk of family, in spite of the presence of a social worker, no talk of education, in spite of the presence of a politician, and no mention of the public safety issue. All of its charter obligations torched in less than 15 minutes.

But the incident that got the BBC banned was its attitude to business.

**

The BBC hates business and entrepreneurs, and would probably consider someone like Mr. Wenger more a “businessman” than someone who has started a double glazing business from the boot of their car. It does however enjoy blob and swindle economics, and frequently invites onto its platforms over-qualified, sneering, tax-obsessed profiles who always get their predictions wrong. Even at its most ludicrous, the SABC was never hostile to small business in the way the BBC is.

As little as twenty years from now there’ll be no such thing as a TV licence. The follies of the age will be documented in archives and museums. For whatever reasons, there could never be balance or fair representation from a state broadcaster.

• Simon Lincoln Reader works and lives in London. You can follow him on Medium.