Word: reith
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...other measures the director general would announce the following day. These would include a paring back of the BBC's much-vaunted news-gathering operation. How, Paxman wondered, could such a move be in line with the BBC's public-service mission, defined by its first director general Lord Reith, to "inform, educate and entertain." "Let me give you a list of the distinctive programs the BBC is making," said Paxman, his voice laden with sarcasm. "Help Me Anthea - I'm Infested. Is that the sort of program the BBC should continue making? My Man Boobs and Me. How about...
...mass audiences, which tend to eschew high culture and serious factual programming. Populism has the upper hand. "If you look at the history of the BBC, it is the history of a very slow retreat from the public-service remit, as if gradually the grass is growing over Lord Reith's grave," says Greenslade...
...Reith may well be spinning under the grass, but the BBC isn't alone in its travails. Britain's Serious Fraud Office may review documents obtained from the U.K. communications regulator, Ofcom, in relation to its decision to fine the breakfast TV company GM.TV. In September, the regulator imposed a penalty of some $4 million on GM.TV for encouraging viewers to dial premium-rate phone lines to enter competitions after winners had already been picked. ITV has admitted to similar practices. "Television is at a low point," says Graham Stuart, director of independent production company So Television...
...game shows. Norton "is paid a lot of money by the BBC," says Stuart, but "what we're doing here is show business and everything relies on a small number of talented people who are stars. They're the reason people will switch on." He adds: "If Lord Reith, a cranky old Presbyterian, could use the entertainment word, then other people should be able...
...mess, the new government's fixers appeared to relish the task of taking money away from universities, welfare recipients and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Taxpayers' assets were passed on for sale to merchant bankers, government debt was shredded, and a shareholder democracy was born. When Workplace Relations Minister Peter Reith launched an assault on the waterfront unions, there was a certain bloodlust. In pursuing a new tax system, with its 10% goods and services tax, a diligent and obstinate Treasurer Peter Costello lost his youth and much of his spark. Howard's way may have been austere and divisive, especially...