"BBC4 is emerging as one of the prospective casualties of the corporation's plans to find 20% of cost savings, with the scope of the channel expected to be scaled back."Whilst this is only a rumour - no formal announcement has yet been made by the Beeb - I feel that these reports are a cause for great concern. BBC Four remains the only television channel provided by the public-funded broadcaster to provide consistently high-quality, high-brow entertainment. When it was first launched in 2002, the slogan for BBC Four was "Everybody Needs a Place to Think." Nearly a decade on, the channel remains a kind of sanctuary for those looking for intellectually stimulating programming - something we seem to see less and less of in other areas of television, unfortunately.
The Big Brother/X-Factor reality-TV disease has taken over large swathes of the market, including the BBC's own flagship channels. For proof of this, we need look no further than "The Voice", a new singing competition being brought to BBC One to compete with the The X-Factor. How much has the BBC paid for this import? £22 million for two years. And according to some sources, this astronomical figure does not include wages for those who will appear on the show. When you consider that the whole of BBC One's output costs £1.1 billion per year, against BBC Four's annual cost of just £50 million, you wonder if the BBC are looking in the right places to make their "efficiency savings".
I love the BBC - I think it is an amazing organisation completely worthy of the license fee we pay for it. I listen to a lot of it's radio output (on BBC3, 4 and 5 Live) and I enjoy many aspects of its television programming too (everything from EastEnders to the Proms). But I really want it to remain committed to providing high-quality entertainment, across all styles and genres, and not for it to simply 'dumb down' for the sake of viewing figures. It needs to stand apart from its commercial rivals, who have no obligation to provide programming for all tastes.
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