The Spectator

Waste of the day

Reading the BBC Trust’s 65-page report justifying the exclusion of atheists and humanist commentary from Radio 4’s Thought for the Day, a two-minute religious slot whose main purpose is to persuade a recalcitrant nation to get out of bed, drives home the point that BBC bureaucracy is now beyond redemption.

issue 21 November 2009

Having been reprimanded by the broadcasting regulator Ofcom for a clutch of on-air errors, this report is just the most recent evidence that the Corporation is now form-filling when it should be programme-making. At times it is as if the viewers are receiving a service that incorporates all that is undesirable: a costly administration unable to stop the broadcasting of abuse but successfully stifling genuine creativity.

Programme-makers have already protested: Stephen Poliakoff has stated that the BBC is suffering a ‘crisis of confidence’, presided over by a clutch of ‘Kafkaesque committees’. Their dramatists have even been sent to learn about ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’.

Such absurdity can only be stemmed by a common-sense approach to the regulations.

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