Oscar Wilde once wrote: “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.” But W1A, the BBC’s new let’s-all-laugh-at-ourselves observational comedy, has shown art can be quickly left behind, following…
After a campaign involving over 150 MPs to add an amendment to the Deregulation Bill, the government has announced that it is to review the possibility of decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee…
So: Noel Edmonds – television game show host, helicopter pilot, spiritualist and anti-wind energy campaigner – wants to get his hands on the BBC. The broadcaster, he says, is hopelessly un-business-like…
Called to give evidence of possible BBC bias in coverage of the Scottish referendum campaign to the Scottish Parliament’s education and culture committee on 11 March, I prompted gasps from more than one…
Brian McNair, Queensland University of Technology et Adam Swift, Queensland University of Technology
The Abbott government is preparing to cut funding to the ABC. The end of the Australia Network in its present form is one saving already flagged by communications minister Malcolm Turnbull. And while the…
Connoisseurs of TV advertising may recall the commercial for Florette salad. Agricultural gangs conduct menacing stand-offs while chanting the names of their preferred leaf. “Lollo rosso!” one group taunt…
If the current media debate about the future of the BBC is anything to go by, the corporation seems to be facing the gravest crisis of its 92-year history. Indeed, this week a book with the title: “Is…
The Oscars were a triumph for racial diversity. For the first time, a film with a black director won Best Picture, and Lupita Nyong'O won best supporting actress. And black British talent is currently…
Critics of the BBC argue that it distorts the UK’s media market, making it hard for commercial competitors to prosper and meet consumers’ needs. Their view is that viewers would be better served if the…
Tomorrow will see the opening salvos in a debate that will determine the BBC’s future. At the Oxford Media Convention, Tony Hall will mount a strenuous defence of the BBC licence fee – and address the…
The third season of the BBC’s Sherlock opens with a bang and gives us Derren Brown, Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock in an action hero window smash, followed by an insouciant hair tousle and a Hollywood…
Much commentary about the news media foresees the disintegration and dissolution of the mainstream monoliths – both TV networks and mass-circulation newspapers – which dominated the public sphere in the…
For all its extraordinary impact, the Jimmy Savile scandal has not unfolded in an exceptional way. The media and justice systems’ treatment of the affair is only the latest example of a relatively new…
The current stoush between the ABC and the government sees two competing perspectives on the role of public service media in play. The Coalition, on the one hand, regards the ABC as duty bound to serve…
“Unedifying” was the label the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee gave to the spectacle of some of the BBC’s most senior figures - past and present - squabbling over who knew what about big redundancy…
Welcome to Hard Evidence, a series of articles that looks at what the data say about some of the trickiest public policy questions we face. Academic experts will delve into the available research evidence…
The ABC’s 50-year TV partnership with the BBC is at breaking point after a landmark deal between the British broadcaster and pay TV provider Foxtel was announced last week. Under the new deal Foxtel will…
With the year’s end tantalisingly close, Australia awaits the announcement of the Federal government’s terms of reference for the national Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual…
As the BBC considers splitting the role of its chief executive and editor-in-chief, should the ABC give serious thought to adopting a similar model? The ongoing turmoil at the BBC over an ever widening…
To get one Newsnight story about child abuse wrong could be regarded as an unfortunate lapse of editorial management by the BBC. To mess up two such stories in quick succession is much more than careless…