![]() Even 50 years ago, director-general Hugh Greene called it “the universal Aunt Sally of our day”. The rise of streaming, funding cuts and a 'hostile prime minister' make the BBC's current predicament particularly graveĪt the same time, it is a punchbag of limitless utility, so large that even the clumsiest blow will land. The BBC is still, to quote the old Radio 1 slogan, the nation’s favourite. Nineteen out of the 25 most-watched programmes of the last decade were broadcast on BBC One. It remains by far the most trusted source of impartial news. In 2015, 99% of households used at least one BBC service at least once every week. This book’s value lies in its steady accumulation of myth-busting data. The BBC, Barwise and York claim in this staunch defence of the corporation, is “the whole British nation in all its untidy variety and, at the same time, one of its glories”. ![]() Other candidates are in play, but “Rule, Britannia!”, if nothing else, will be safe in the next chair’s hands. After Moore bowed out, attention turned to Sir Robbie Gibb, who went straight from heading BBC Westminster to working for Theresa May and is currently raising funds for the new right-leaning channel GB News. Meanwhile the government floated Charles Moore, a man with no broadcasting experience who once appeared in court for not paying the licence fee, to be the next chair of the BBC. Here was a classic soufflé of an outrage, whipped up from the flimsiest ingredients, which enabled newspapers and ministers to wave the flag in the face of the BBC’s incoming director-general Tim Davie for several days. P atrick Barwise and Peter York must be miffed that the phantom controversy in August over patriotic songs at the Last Night of the Proms came too late to feature in their new book.
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