The BBC is the last soldier still trying to fight a war that everyone else knows has already ended. After YouTube beat the BBC in Barb’s monthly audience figures for the first time, panicked ‘BBC insiders’ insist to the Times this morning that the broadcaster “continues to comfortably dominate” YouTube in more long-form content. Everything is fine, nothing to see here…
According to Barb, YouTube reached 51.9 million viewers in the UK last month, over a million more than the BBC on 50.8 million. That’s also far ahead of ITV. Even taking the BBC bigwigs’ preferred statistic points to an obvious trend: the broadcaster’s average 15-minute reach was 47 million in 2025 compared to 40.8 million for YouTube. That figure will only trend in one direction…
The BBC will stagger on with its unsustainable model for a while longer; under Labour there is next to zero chance of the licence fee being scrapped, even as millions refuse to pay it. But it is clearly an analogue product in a digital world…
The BBC has filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the corporation in south Florida. One aim of which is to stop the discovery process before it begins…
The BBC’s lawyers argue there is a jurisdictional issue:
“This defamation case arises out of a documentary that defendants the British Broadcasting Corporation (“the BBC”) … did not create in Florida, produce in Florida or air in Florida… This court lacks personal jurisdiction over them [the defendants] and plaintiff fails to state claims for defamation or violations of the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act.”
They additionally claim the defamation claim is too weak and the President “also failed to plead, and will not be able to prove, that the program caused him any cognisable injury… As plaintiff failed to plead actual damages, claiming only vague ‘harm to his professional and occupational interests,’ his claim fails.” If these pre-moves fail the BBC is likely to be forced to settle…
The BBC’s ‘on the ground’ piece for the Christmas junior doctors’ strike is based almost entirely on uncritical quotes from two BMA officials who are not named as such. This is the award-winning journalism you pay for on pain of prosecution…
Yesterday’s article in the South of England section was titled “I am sleep-deprived, overworked and deserve more” and carried quotes from three people, one of whom was the chief executive of the Royal Berkshire NHS Trust in Reading. The only two junior doctors consulted were called Heather Gunn and Matt Bilton. Gunn said “I do not want to be strike, I want to be at work helping my colleagues. Unfortunately the reality is that many doctors like myself face the prospect of not having a job”…
Bilton said “The government… put an offer this past week but it was too little, too late, and so unfortunately we have no alternative.” Nice line that, wonder who came up with it…
Nowhere in the piece does the BBC care to mention that Gunn is deputy chairman of the BMA’s South Central Regional Council and Matt Bilton is longtime Chairman of the BMA’s Thames Valley Regional Resident Doctors Committee. Pop that piece in the bin would you darling…
Lisa Nandy has launched the BBC’s Charter Review and shied away from any attempt to fundamentally reform the BBC’s funding model. Are you surprised…
“As the licence fee is a tried and tested public funding model, we are not considering replacing it with alternative forms of public funding, such as a new tax on households, funding through general taxation, or introducing a levy on the revenues of streaming services to fund the BBC…
We will consider the potential for reforming the licence fee alongside broader reform options, as set out throughout this chapter, which could support households with the cost of living. This will include looking at options to support the BBC to generate more commercial revenue and operate more efficiently to provide a sustainable long-term funding model for the BBC at the lowest possible cost for households.
At this stage the government is keeping an open mind on activities/services for which households could be required to hold a TV licence. We are seeking to understand the public’s views on the principle of reforming the licence fee, including how those views might be impacted were the cost of the licence fee to change and/or the role and scale of the BBC was altered.”
Too bad for all the single mothers currently facing criminal prosecution for non-payment…
The Trump administration has finally filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC over the spliced Panorama documentary footage. The apology did not work…
The lawsuit has been filed overnight in south Florida, where it argues Americans were likely to have seen the doctored footage of Trump’s 2021 speech:
“The Panorama Documentary’s publicity, coupled with significant increases in VPN usage in Florida since its debut, establishes the immense likelihood that citizens of Florida accessed the Documentary before the BBC had it removed”.
Seeing as the documentary came out a week before the 2024 presidential election Team Trump say it was “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the vote. Trump is seeking $5 billion for defamation and for breaching Florida’s deceptive and unfair trade practices act. The BBC has taken only one of those and has therefore halved the total damage claim to $5 billion for its headline…
A blistering attack on the BBC from Nigel Farage just now:
“I think, to frame a question around the leader of Reform’s relationship with Hitler, which is how she framed it, was despicable, disgusting, beyond belief. Are you surprised that half a million people every year refuse to pay the license fee? Let me say this to you. The double standards and hypocrisy of the BBC are absolutely astonishing… I’m sick to death of the double standards and hypocrisy above all of your organisation and what happened on the Today programme this morning was an absolute disgrace. I’m done with you, until you apologise I’m not speaking to you.”
A total boycott unless the BBC apologises…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”