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http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl >> News and Comment >> Attenborough: "BBC's sails need to be trimmed" http://www.ex-bbc.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1294267170 Message started by Administrator on Jan 5^th, 2011, 10:40pm

Title: Attenborough: "BBC's sails need to be trimmed"
Post by Administrator on Jan 5^th, 2011, 10:40pm

This is from the "New Statesman" via "The Guardian".

Veteran presenter says in New Statesman interview that corporation has 'strayed from the straight and narrow'

Sir David Attenborough has claimed that the BBC needs to be 'refocused'.

Sir David Attenborough, the face of the BBC's landmark natural history programming, has said the corporation's "sails need to be trimmed" and that it has "strayed from the straight and narrow".

Attenborough, presenter of major BBC natural history series including Life and Planet Earth, added that the corporation was "crucially important" to society, but it "needs to be refocused".

In an interview for this week's edition of the New Statesman, the former BBC channel director also warned that the broadcaster would be "gone in a decade" if it was stripped off its licence fee funding.

"I think the BBC has strayed from the straight and narrow on a number of courses at the moment. The sails need to be trimmed and [it] needs to be refocused," Attenborough said.

"But it is crucially important in our society and [represents] the highest aspirations of our society. I'm appalled anybody thinks otherwise."

In an apparent warning to the government, which in October negotiated a hasty licence fee settlement that will see the BBC's income cut by 16% in real terms, Attenborough said: "If you remove the licence fee, [the BBC] would be gone in a decade, finished."

Attenborough has spent more than 50 years at the BBC, and is credited with bringing colour television to BBC2 in 1967 while he was channel controller. In 1969, he became director of programming across BBC television, before leaving four years later to take up programme making again.

"It was very nice for me running a network for a few years, in the sense that it was very flattering for one's ego. But it's not much fun," he told the New Statesman.

Asked what he would be doing if he were back behind a desk at the corporation, Attenborough jested: "Resigning, I think."

Title: Re: Attenborough: "BBC's sails need to be trimmed"
Post by F.M. on Jan 7^th, 2011, 12:34pm

First off may I say that I admire Mr Attenborough as a broadcaster.
However I do not agree with his comments on this occasion and I think that using phrases like 'trimming the sails' sends out the wrong message.
It’s no secret that the viewing public are very much against paying a licence fee and would rather settle for expensive satellite channels, peppered with commercial breaks and sub standard American imported programmes.
In my opinion these comments can only damage the relationship the BBC has with its viewers & listeners.
This time around the licence fee has been well and truly carved up.
Any more top slicing will inevitably result in shows such as ‘Life on Earth’ being put in serious jeopardy!
David Attenborough will soon be hanging up his hiking boots & comments like his will only ruin it for future ‘Attenborogh-esq’ presenters.
Leave the political rhetoric well alone David and let the BBC do what it’s best at, making good quality programmes.