‘The Establishment is Dragging its Feet’: Third Think BBC Too Woke, Half Say Not Good Value for Money

LONDON, ENGLAND - 20 JUNE: Protesters listen to speakers in Parliament Square during a Bla
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Victoria Friedman

More than one-third of Britons think that the BBC is “too woke”, with more than half believing it is not value for money, the findings coming as a wave of pensioners reportedly refuse to pay licence fees.

The results of the Savanta ComRes poll, commissioned by the Defund the BBC campaign and seen by Breitbart London, found that 34 per cent of those surveyed thought that the broadcaster focused too heavily on “woke” — leftist progressive and otherwise ‘social justice’ — issues.

Nearly one-half, 47 per cent, of those polled also said that the broadcaster has too much of a London-centric view, ignoring the tone of the rest of the country.

While more than half, 51 per cent, of those polled said that the BBC, which is funded by a mandatory tax for watching live television, was not good value for money, with a third describing it as “very bad value”.

In exclusive comments to Breitbart London, Defund the BBC’s campaign director Rebecca Ryan said: “Half of Britons do not believe the licence fee is worth the money and 75 per cent want it decriminalised and yet the government thinks that it is OK to proceed with business as usual?

“The establishment is dragging its feet but in the meantime, people up and down the country are taking matters into their own hands to defund the BBC having realised that on-demand TV is more flexible and better value anyway.”

The Defund the BBC campaign came to prominence in the Summer of 2020, when during the height of the Black Lives Matter protests the BBC described one violent protest, which saw at least 27 police officers injured, as “largely peaceful”.

The BBC also came under fire as it attempted to censor Last Night of the Proms favourites “Rule, Britannia!” and “Land of Hope and Glory”, allegedly to appease the Marxist BLM activists. However, the woke virtue signalling backfired with a paltry five per cent of Britons agreeing that the pieces should be cancelled, with the BBC eventually reversing its decision and performing the songs in full.

In September, the BBC’s new director-general, Tim Davie, had said that the BBC required an urgent overhaul to ensure it “serves and represents every part of this country”. However, under Davie’s leadership, the BBC has aired educational programmes aimed at young children, such as where a teacher claimed that “there are over 100 if not more gender identities”.

The BBC also continues to be caught up in the grips of the recent woke trend of British broadcasters to add trigger warnings to barely years-old television programmes and movies, allegedly for depictions or language which are now considered offensive.

Last month, the BBC added a trigger warning to the U.S. sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion show — which originally aired in 2020. While in September, the broadcaster also put a trigger warning on the 1990s/early 2000s preschool favourite Brum because it “may reflect the language and attitude of the time”. The programme is about the adventures of a small yellow car.

The broadcaster is also under fire for refusing to shift on the demand for over-75s to pay in full the licence fee. However, a report from last month claimed three-quarters of a million seniors had not paid the tax.

It is the law that anyone in the UK who watches or records live television or watches or streams programmes live on an online television service — including  YouTube, Amazon Prime Video, Now TV, or ITV Hub — has to have a television licence, which funds the BBC. The TV tax currently costs £157.50 for a colour set and will go up to £159 next month. Those who do not pay could be prosecuted and fined up to £1,000.

Meanwhile the BBC is also losing another core older audience, as according to an Ofcom report from November, support from over-55s had fallen.

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