Trouble for Auntie: Testing times at the BBC
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 21 September 2021
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It's been an intense year for the BBC: budget cuts, a series of staff departures and redundancies, accusations of bias… and now, it has a hawkish new culture secretary to contend with. Plus, just around the corner, a new deal with the government over the licence fee is widely expected to shrink budgets further. How will the BBC look and sound for future generations?
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Transcript
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| 1:07.8 | The BBC's director general has struggled to settle into his role since taking over in September |
| 1:13.8 | 2020. His job is just constant far fighting. I mean, that's how he seats his role. His friend |
| 1:19.8 | said he feels like he opens Pandora's box every day and only the bad stuff ever comes out. |
| 1:25.9 | In the last couple of weeks alone, BBC bosses have had to come to terms with the implications |
| 1:30.5 | of a cabinet reshuffle, high-profile resignations and that constant battering of bias accusations. |
| 1:37.9 | It's an intense time for the UK's public broadcaster. These add to that low rumble in the background, |
| 1:44.3 | like the hum of the BBC's home service, only far less reassuring. The low rumble is budget cuts. |
| 1:51.8 | A new deal with the government over the license fee is just around the corner. |
| 1:56.3 | It strikes me that BBC has a habit of lurching from one crisis to another. |
| 2:00.8 | You're listening to stories of our times, from the Times and Sunday Times. |
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