When I was presenting the news on BBC1 in the 1980s I firmly believed that the Beeb was the best broadcasting outlet in the world and the channel of choice for quality.
It had strength in depth throughout its range of content — from my own bailiwick of news and current affairs through drama, comedy, entertainment and sport.
It was (almost) a pleasure to pay the annual licence fee back then. Today, however, paying that fee galls me to the quick.
Jan Leeming pictured presenting the news for the BBC in the 1980s
Why should I stump up, given the corporation’s endless diet of repeats, soaps, cookery programmes and cheap-to-make, fly-on-the-wall ‘documentaries’? (And before anyone jumps on it, yes, I did take part in ITV’s ‘I’m A Celebrity . . . Get Me Out Of Here!’ openly admitting I did so for the fee in order to boost my pathetic pension.)
On top of that, there’s the disastrous decision to dispense with the lyrics of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory at the Last Night Of The Proms this year. Why is the BBC so in thrall to the woke minority while ignoring the wishes of so many of its loyal regulars like me? Have we suddenly become snowflakes?
The short answer is no, of course. We do not all take offence at the first mention of patriotism or Empire, which is what the corporation implies with its changes to the Proms. As Andrew Neil tweeted: ‘If Britannia had not ruled the waves there would never have been a Royal Navy strong enough to abolish the slave trade.’
And if the BBC is so intent on dumbing down and recycling its output in a chase for ratings, why can’t it at least repeat its best programmes?
I could watch David Attenborough forever, for example. As well as so many of the classic comedy series of yesteryear.
But then many of them are now considered politically incorrect.
Take It Ain’t Half Hot Mum. My father adored it even though my family is Anglo-Indian not far back in our ancestry. My great, great grandparents were mixed race from Madras but that didn’t stop me laughing like a drain through episode after episode. In the same way, many Germans apparently loved ‘Allo ‘Allo!
My concern is the way we are all being infantilised, treated as if we can’t cope with anything that anyone might find offensive.
On top of that, there’s the disastrous decision to dispense with the lyrics of Rule, Britannia! and Land Of Hope And Glory at the Last Night Of The Proms this year
Surely the perception of whether a programme goes too far in pandering to stereotypes or patronising minorities is in the eye and mind of the beholder? Treating the population like children by sanitising everything, suppressing debate, and ‘no-platforming’ is extremely damaging.
But there are other issues that I despair of, too.
Given my current affairs background, I am often asked my opinion of BBC Television’s news programmes. Frankly I prefer to get my news fix from Classic FM these days.
On radio, at least you get the bald facts without endless opinions from specialists. Do these experts who so confidently predict future events all really have a crystal ball?
Meanwhile, the settings in which BBC TV presenters and their guests enjoy their exchanges are beginning to resemble the flight deck of the Starship Enterprise. Is the news any better delivered from a hugely expensive set?
And there’s so much of it! In the age of rolling 24-hour coverage of the day’s events, I find the constant repetition of the news, much of it bad, very depressing.
It’s for all the reasons I’ve outlined — and I haven’t even got on to the challenge it faces from behemoths such as Netflix and Amazon — that I believe the BBC is at its lowest ebb in living memory.
Which is why it couldn’t have chosen a worse time to end the policy of free TV licences to 3.7 million of the over-75s and to spend £100 million on an extremely aggressive campaign to force these pensioners, many of them poor and some with TV as their only company, to pay up. Last year a private contractor called Capita received £59.9 million from TV Licensing to collect the fees and only the other day it emerged that it is now being paid an extra £38 million, so it can hire 800 new staff to send out letters to pensioners and chase up those who fail to pay.
Capita was widely criticised in 2017 for using aggressive door-to-door tactics. Appointing what is effectively a debt-collection agency to intimidate pensioners at such a vast cost is a mammoth misstep by the BBC and one that I fear will only further alienate its audience.
Wouldn’t a compromise be to use this money to offer the over-75s half-price licences, or to provide free licences to the over-80s? The £100 million contract with the BBC would pay for 635,000 licences for older people.
Last week, I allowed my indignation to get the better of me when I took to Twitter to post the following: ‘Ouch — have just forked out £157.50 for a TV licence when I watch very little terrestrial television — won’t bother next year.’
At the time, I wasn’t aware that it was a tax on watching television in general, not just the BBC, which seems a little unjust to say the least. So — infuriatingly — I will be forced to pay the licence fee next year because I really don’t want to be hauled off to prison.
I have been heartened, though, to see the pluck shown by some of the outraged old-timers hit by the BBC’s withdrawal of free licences.
The pressure group Silver Voices is waging a campaign against the move. It says it is not advocating non-payment by the over-75s but is urging all over-60s to ‘gum up’ and disrupt the BBC’s payment system, by cancelling direct debits and paying monthly via cheque or postal order instead.
It has even mischievously suggested writing cheques in Cornish or Gaelic, ‘forgetting’ to date or sign cheques and making out cheques for amounts slightly higher or lower than the precise fee. Not a bad idea — I might consider it myself in the future!
Funnily enough, I did pay my last licence fee by cheque, not as a gesture of revolt but because I resent giving away details which can be hijacked by fraudsters. I have had to change both my cards several times already this year after being alerted to suspicious activity by my admirably scrupulous credit and debit card issuers.
I’ve also lost count of the number of threatening emails I have received demanding I pay for my licence. I binned them knowing I was up to date with payments but there are probably a large number of frightened old people who were scared stiff by such threats.
Many, however, are made of sterner stuff. I was impressed to read about a battalion of redoubtable female licence-fee refuseniks in the Mail earlier this month.
Grandmother Ivy Siegfried, 82, from Greenock, said: ‘The BBC are targeting the elderly because they know they will be afraid.
It was (almost) a pleasure to pay the annual licence fee back then. Today, however, paying that fee galls me to the quick
‘Many pensioners will feel threatened by the prospect of someone coming to their door for money and the BBC know they will pay.
‘Well, I’m not frightened. I’m not afraid to go to court or prison if I have to and I have quite a number of friends who feel the same, they are with me on this.
‘If I go to prison I will get three meals a day and free TV in there anyway! The BBC should stop paying the big wages of the likes of Gary Lineker and his football cronies, instead of going for us.
‘They need to start listening. If we all take a stand then there is no way they could take everyone to court, they can’t take us all on.’
Ivy Siegfried and all the other doughty licence-fee warriors out there making a stand on behalf of elderly TV watchers deserve our admiration.
As for the BBC, if someone like me — who has nothing but its best interests at heart — feels so disenchanted about its output and behaviour, they should be very worried. Because imagine what millions of other viewers who are far less sympathetic towards the corporation, must feel.