I felt sorry for the BBC this morning. For months they have been attacked by MPs and the media for being all too powerful, and were asked to scale back their operations to give commercial organisations a chance to compete.
So they've announced a number of cutbacks including closing a couple of stations, and suddenly they're berated for doing so!
Maybe they should offer BBC 6 and the Asian Channel to commercial organisations to continue running them, rather than simply closing them down. Or maybe that would be interpreted as providing a state funded start up corporation (hmmm.... reminiscent of BT, O2, British Gas, National Grid, etc. etc.)
Last night a number of MPs stepped forward to say that closing BBC 6 was a travesty, and the BBC should leave the station alone. One can only speculate whether these MPs knew the writing was on the wall, and they simply joined the side of the public to scrounge a few more votes later this year.
One of the changes at the BBC that I disagree with is continuing Children's BBC for a further two hours to 9pm. Kids need sleep, and TV (at least in my house) is the enemy of going-to-bed. I would imagine that the daily 7pm 'shutdown' is a signal to thousands of children across the country to get off the sofa and go upstairs to bed.
