In the early days of Sky, when Rupert Murdoch had more or less bet the house on the new broadcaster succeeding, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun carried so many “news” items that were blatant plugs for Sky that Private Eye magazine ran a series called “I-Sky” (geddit?!?). There was no shortage of material. And the Eye might want to resurrect the feature, after Tony Parsons’ latest column.
“WATCH OUT BEEB Sky’s Sophy Ridge bagging the PM’s New Year interview isn’t just girl power – it’s a snub to the Brexit-bashing BBC … The interview would once have routinely gone to Andrew Marr at the BBC” is the headline, followed by “THERE is a new sofa in town from today, occupied by Sky’s rising star Sophy Ridge and her new politics show”. This is not just an opinion column, is it, Murdoch goons?
Parsons pretends that he is making a point about attitudes to the EU. He isn’t. After the obligatory “As we negotiate our difficult divorce from Brussels, this is a healthy development for our national debate … Marr, Peston and Ridge are all fine broadcasters and highly accomplished inter-viewers … Any one of them would have given the PM a good grilling”, comes the cheap and evidence-free BBC bashing.
“May has also chosen Sky above the BBC, a decision that has reportedly resulted in mouth-foaming fury within Broadcasting House”. It’s New Broadcasting House, Tone, and you just made that up. But do go on. “The BBC has had this snub coming to them for the corporation now reeks with an undisguised, unapologetic and increasingly hysterical bias against Brexit”. You just made that up, too. Habit forming, isn’t it?
“I have many friends at the BBC”. Are some of them brown or black? Any migrants? “None of them voted for Brexit”. Ah, THOSE kinds of friends. “I doubt if there is even one person within the BBC who voted for our country to leave the European Union”. Who was banging on about others being “hysterical”? And then comes another blatant Sky plug.
“Andrew Marr - a good guy, a fine journalist [and damned with faint praise] - is paying the price for the BBC’s grotesque bigotry against Brexit … But good luck to Sky’s Sophy Ridge … I have no doubt she will ask the PM all the hard questions she would have been asked at the BBC … The question that 17.4million of us should ask is this - why do we continue to pay a licence fee of £145.50 to the BBC when the corporation openly despises us?”
Is a Corporation capable of despising all those people? Is it bigoted? QTWTAIN. Parsons is, as so often, writing to the order of his masters, and inventing the abuse to suit. The editorial line is clear: the BBC getting it in the neck is routine, but now Sky must be talked up. Shun those who despise you, come to the Murdoch mafiosi’s cash cow. After all, it’s only £264 a year - plus all the potential add-ons. Ker-ching!
Tony Parsons’ column should be reclassified as “advertorial”. And have the HMV logo included in its heading. After all, that originally stood for His Master’s Voice.
[And a word in your shell-like, Tone: you could try harder with your press regulation item than recycle what Rod Liddle already wrote. You are getting paid for it, remember]
Hip-replacement young gunslinger, eh? He even made Julie Burchill look good by comparison.
ReplyDeleteWhat a twat. Spiralling out of control out on the edge of some distant something-or-other.
ReplyDeleteA consolation for the rest of us though. At least he will refuse any further invites to be on Question Time. Because he's a man of principle, right.
Advertorial? Lavatorial more like. And to think this deferential lackey used to be counted as a punk hero!
ReplyDeleteLet's face it, the REAL reason that Ms May chose Ms Ridge was because her advisors knew that she would get a much easier ride from her and the deferential Sky News team than from the much more incisive Peston and Marr, plus if she did c*ck up then the audience is so much smaller (see your later comment) then it could be so much more easily "spun" away.
ReplyDelete'The question that 17.4million of us should ask is this - why do we continue to pay a licence fee of £145.50 to the BBC when the corporation openly despises us?'
ReplyDeleteErr, don't then. It's not compulsory. I, for example, disagree with much of what is printed in The Sun. I therefore don't buy it. Simple really.
It despises us so openly that it takes our money and in return gives us several channels of broadly high quality programming (and BBC1) along with multiple national and regional radio stations and an extensive website, and investment in many high quality films. On the other hand, £260 a year to Sky gives me James Corden kissing Jamie Redknapp's backside and Game of Thrones a few hours before it's all on YouTube anyway.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed that someone can get Sky for £260 a year, I thought it cost at least £40 a month by now for a package but I digress. The TV licence is far better value and we usually watch a lot of stuff that would be on Freeview in any case via Virgin - broadband is handy though but no effing way am I paying a premium for Sky and a large number of shows with once-great actors collecting pensions.
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff Tim
Smelling Bull
I would love to see every F1 race live and hear Johnny Herbert, Damon Hill & Martin Brundle, but for the price Sky charge I'd rather go out and dig the garden.
ReplyDelete