Esteemed British broadcaster The BBC has found itself in the center of severe cutbacks and a potential political nightmare.
The Sunday Times reported over the weekend that the U.K. government was planning to replace the annual BBC license fee with a subscription service, in the process selling off most of the corporation’s radio channels (aside from Radio 3 and Radio 4), reduce the number of television channels from the existing ten, and scale back the BBC website.
However, major members of the ruling Conservative party have now come out to speak against these suggestions with members saying they won’t be supporting any such proposition. In December last year it emerged that the U.K. government was considering decriminalizing non-payment of the BBC’s annual license fee which is set to rise by £3 ($3.90) to £157.50 ($205) from April.
A petition, set up on campaigning website 38 Degrees says: “Our BBC is a world-leading public service. The way that it is funded means that it’s independent of government and corporate pressure. At a time when fake news can spread like wildfire and when so much is at stake, this is a dangerous attack on democracy. We need to protect the BBC from this political attack. The Prime Minister has already tried to ban journalists he doesn’t like from No. 10 briefings. Now, he and his close advisers are going after our public broadcasters. This is a move straight out of Donald Trump’s playbook.”
Source: Variety
