The Beeb

[NeonLX]

What do youse people think of the BBC News Hour? An independent lefty radio station here runs this program in the afternoons. I listened to it for about half of an hour last night. My impression was that it is sounding a whole lot like NPR does here in the U.S. Maybe I just caught it at the wrong time?

[slimmouse]

The BBC needs re - acronimming to the E.I.A

The entire deal is an audio-visual collage of the Empire In Action.

It's nothing so much to do with what they tell you. Instead it's almost always about what they dont tell you, or try to prevent you from discovering

Though some of the nature and sports programmes are ok.

[82_28]

I've always had a hunch that to liberal American ears anything spoken in a British accent is acceptable and to be trusted. However, I've come to distrust this leap of faith as carte blanche of being legitimate. I live in a fairly international city and you very rarely hear any variation of an English accent. Scottish, Irish, Australian, South African for sure, but English/British, nope. In all my years of working with the public I cannot recall one English accent -- in all of its variegated forms.

Another thing is one time I was in London and was on "the tube" and me and my friend didn't know where we were going. So we asked this girl across from us for directions. In fact everyone in that car leapt up to help. It was weird. She then asked where we were from. We said Denver in Colorado. She couldn't believe we were from America. She'd never encountered Americans who spoke like us she said. I have no idea what that means, but I've always thought it to be a kind of "feed back loop" in accents. West coasters (in the US) literally have no accent, yet we prefer our documentaries and shit like that to be in British-ese it seems like.

[slimmouse]

I've always had a hunch that to liberal American ears anything spoken in a British accent is acceptable and to be trusted. However, I've come to distrust this leap of faith as carte blanche of being legitimate. I live in a fairly international city and you very rarely hear any variation of an English accent. Scottish, Irish, Australian, South African for sure, but English/British, nope. In all my years of working with the public I cannot recall one English accent -- in all of its variegated forms.

Another thing is one time I was in London and was on "the tube" and me and my friend didn't know where we were going. So we asked this girl across from us for directions. In fact everyone in that car leapt up to help. It was weird. She then asked where we were from. We said Denver in Colorado. She couldn't believe we were from America. She'd never encountered Americans who spoke like us she said. I have no idea what that means, but I've always thought it to be a kind of "feed back loop" in accents. West coasters (in the US) literally have no accent, yet we prefer our documentaries and shit like that to be in British-ese it seems like.

Interesting that it has this cosy kind of appeal to it for you too 82-28.

I thought it was just us regular Brits of the alternative thought patterns that would readily recognise how cosily informative it all sounds

[slimmouse]

Hey Neon,

Please excuse my self indulgent ignorance.

What did you make of it ?

[NeonLX]

I think you nailed it. They spent a lot of time raising the BOOGA BOOGA about IS(IS) and "Jihadis" and other stuff that you Brits and we Yanks should be very, very afraid of. They seem to more or less cheerlead the "war on terror", much like our corporate-owned media do. Even our "public" radio is beholden to corporate sponsorship, and the shrinking public component is constantly being targeted for elimination. The implicit threat is that the NPR "news" shows better be careful what they tell us. So our main outlets are at best cautious about what they report, and at worst, blatant propaganda mouthpieces.

[Wombaticus Rex]

It's all Fox News, just aimed at different demographics. BBC caters to a higher vocabulary, but the only real difference on the menu is presentation -- it's still the same truck making deliveries in the back.

Worth noting that if RT is problematic due to Putin's worldview, the BBC is owned and operated by a royal family full of pedophiles and murderers. Murdoch himself is a rather tame creature by comparison; he at least has the virtue of contending for his fortune in a free market rather than forcing his subjects to foot the bill for their own brainwashing.

[BrandonD]

I've always had a hunch that to liberal American ears anything spoken in a British accent is acceptable and to be trusted.

This is definitely the case, it is a subtle tactic that I've noticed even in right-wing news. I think it's because - at least in the past before news in the western world became universally homogenized - foreign news services were generally allowed to speak more frankly and objectively about US news stories. They could mention the elephant in the room that would generally be ignored by US news. So I think it just became this subconscious thing that British accents telling the news are more trustworthy.

[Iamwhomiam]

I dunno. I listen to bbc over NPR (New England Public Radio). They dominate some US npr affiliate stations after normal broadcast hours (6am to 1am or thereabout), throughout the late evening and early morning hours.

But I see them more like the British version of Radio Free America, for the American market. I am astonished how cold and rude some hosts are to their many prominent subjects they interview via telephone or skype all across the world

If I get bored with c2c during the night, I switch over to NPR, but I believe one host is an Indian woman and another is an African male.

And then I fall asleep.

[Elvis]

Yeah, I fall asleep to the dulcet tones of BBC announcers coming out my bedside radio; a local NPR affiliate carries it 1am to 5am. Come to think of it, they also air it at 6pm, and recently added it in the afternoon. An Oxford accent always assured me that I was getting some real news -- world news with a capital dubya.

There's one woman, can't recall her name, who gets a regular 'feature essay' kind of op-ed, and I can't stand her. ACK!

The guest on C2C has to be really special for me to bother tuning in at all. The form of assault known as AM radio commercials tend to drive me off anyway.

[semper occultus]

….to a domestic audience I would say the BBC is basically the apotheoses of the middle-class oxbridge/metropolitan “establishment” ( media branch ), elitist, nepotistic, condescending & supercilious to a fault despite its impeccable liberal-leftish-wing political affectations, living in big houses in Hampstead and increasingly divorced from the real world of zero-hours contracts and stagnating living standards with lavish publically funded salaries, pensions and juicy “trebles-all-round” payoffs if you do happen to have to carry the can for anything fucking-up…..eg over the Savile case……so is now largely suffering from the same public bad odour & contempt as the general political class…


….otoh it does retain its air of polished professionalism, has e.g. given a platform to the likes of Greg Palast…& I have to say the only real controversy that I ever seem to notice getting kicked up is some of its Middle East correspondents getting into trouble for supposedly pro-Palestinian bias…


…….however there are actually two "BBC's".....the BBC World Service...which I think maybe what is being referred to by fellow posters here…..was a slightly odd "shadow BBC" based at Bush House……which is quite an interesting venue in itself :

The building was commissioned, designed and originally owned by American individuals and companies. Irving T. Bush gained approval for his plans for the building in 1919, which was planned as a major new trade centre…..

The building's opening ceremony was performed by Lord Balfour, Lord President of the Council, on 4 July 1925. It included the unveiling of two statues at the entrance made by American artist Malvina Hoffman. The statues symbolise Anglo-American friendship and the building bears the inscription "To the friendship of English speaking peoples".

…..it made no real effort to advertise its programmes to a domestic audience & was always entirely funded by the Foreign Office, whilst the “domestic” BBC was – as Wombat says, funded by the licence fee….

All these arrangements have slammed into a brick wall labelled austerity….and the parallel structure is now recently being dismantled, so the news operation has been merged with domestic BBC, and the funding now coming out of the BBC’s own licence fee …which itself is now under something of a threat from certain of its more “market-orientated” enemies… who would love to abolish it..much as they hate all the other non-marketised relics of UK plc which haven’t yet been corporatised, like the NHS….

…interesting about the accents though, its long been said here that the Scottish accent is the most trusted, be interesting to see if the recent independence upheavals have somehow damaged the “brand”….whilst people here get the impression that the british accent is seen as short-hand for cheesy hollywood villainy…

[82_28]

Here's a question since we're on the subject:

Why does all British programming (PBS carries a lot of it in the states) have a different, what would you call it, film quality? Like the TV shows and stuff have a visually different "feel", like shutter rate or something. Nordic could probably answer that. In fact, I don't know quite how to phrase it. I'm sure we've all noticed it. Even without the "accents" and shit, you can always tell something is from Britian and not produced in the US. Canadian TV tends to have this same style as well.

[semper occultus]

...something to do with PAL vs NTSC tv systems...?

http://ihffilm.com/videostandard.html

[Iamwhomiam]

Yes, semper, the BBC world service. We also get CBC coverage, including Q, which had been my only reference to Gomessy. I was surprised when someone posted a pic of him; far more creepy than imagined.

And I'm sure our audience is of the same economic status - comfortable enough to be untouched by most issues they cover, middle class rubber-necking. Here though, every few months it's begging, "Give us your money and we'll give you more of the same to distract you from noticing how pathetic and boring your life is."

C2C is a sporadic thing, really. And I've rarely been interested in paying much attention to the guests or their topics. But every once in awhile...

It's a Fox affiliate station and they begin their broadcast day at 5am, the grating voice greeting me wakes me immediately and with a gdamit, off it goes! and I go back to nodding.

So to go ot, but I should add I was turned on to Art Bell in '97 or '98 by a most interesting older gentleman whom I met in a tavern where I would occasionally go after work for a brandy. At that time he was 87, perhaps 88. I asked his age and he told me, but cannot recall more exactly. And he still engaged in competitive roller dancing. He was brilliant, alive and eccentric. My favorite kind of people!

I had told him about my time working on advanced top secret aircraft and about my inventing a tool that shortened construction time and then he shared a bit of his experience working in research.

He had been a solid state physicist working with GE and was involved in the development of the first solid state transistors. I asked him what set him on the trail to looking into the chosen materials to create the transistor. His response was immediate and without a word - he reached into his vest pocket and pulled out a piece of paper and a pen. He tore it in half and wrote quickly and then slid it over to me, with a twinkle in his eye.

The manner in which he did this was a bit odd, like someone in high school cupping his hand to cover up what he was writing so another couldn't see, and this caused me to respond similarly, secreting the note in my palm and holding it close to read it, and the slid it into my pocket without saying anything else, but "Oh, I see."

He had written only "The Day After Roswell - Phil. Corso" followed by "Art Bell - Coast to Coast"

Though I had heard of Art Bell and his show earlier, I had never listened to C2C. I never did tune in until after reading here and found once again the small note he wrote me, "The Day After Roswell, Phil. Corso." Which made me kinda sad I hadn't listened sooner.

[Twyla LaSarc]

I think you nailed it. They spent a lot of time raising the BOOGA BOOGA about IS(IS) and "Jihadis" and other stuff that you Brits and we Yanks should be very, very afraid of. They seem to more or less cheerlead the "war on terror", much like our corporate-owned media do. Even our "public" radio is beholden to corporate sponsorship, and the shrinking public component is constantly being targeted for elimination. The implicit threat is that the NPR "news" shows better be careful what they tell us. So our main outlets are at best cautious about what they report, and at worst, blatant propaganda mouthpieces.

Yeah, I've been exposed to NPR a bit lately and it is the same scare stuff as any other outlet but delivered in that friendly, reassuring voice that spells veracity to people who mistake that tone for intellectual depth. I could see a British accent doing a lot to add legitimacy to the same rot for a similar bunch of listeners.

IIRC, Even things we remember fondly like Nova were sponsored by oil companies back in the day.