The story of the BBC is in many ways a sad one, an institution that was once on the cutting edge of drama, comedy and even technology now languishing as dated, increasingly irrelevant and profoundly out of touch with modern society. Alongside the likes of YouTube or HBO, the BBC is a bit like seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury hanging out at a West End nightclub. I was a kid when Saturday night BBC was pulling in 10m viewers so maybe a better analogy would be that it’s like going to a school reunion and finding out that the cool kid that once painted a swear-word on the headteacher’s car is now a clerk for the local council and driving a 17yo Daewoo that some damned kid had scrawled a swear-word across. For the record, that’s not me, I drive a Mazda, and the last time I was at a town hall it was to see a tribute act of UB40. They were called WD40, started out rusty but got better as the evening went on. I digress though, I said “millions” of viewers and to give you a scale of how things have changed, the once mocked show Noel’s House Party used to bring in over 15m viewers on a Saturday night. Even Harry & Meghan’s interview couldn’t beat that kind of ratings number, although perhaps they could have invited on Mr Blobby and discussed how a senior royal made disparaging remarks about his garish colour-scheme. Let’s look at Saturday night tv this week, 15m is probably more viewers than all the networks combined will get and if you’re looking at the BBC, more people will probably tune in to watch the Netflix shareholder meeting, let alone the tv programs Netflix are actually producing.

The BBC once produced produced good tv though, everything from I Claudius to Fawlty Towers to Blue Peter and in 1980 when they broadcast live footage of the Iranian Embassy siege, the idea to was to broadcast the breaking news, not to then provide a platform for the Labour party to somehow blame the siege on NHS spending cuts. I always think it’s very telling that the BBC are always trying to cut back on religious programming but they don’t half enjoy commissioning programs that prominently feature the NHS. I can’t believe Casualty is still going although maybe they’re waiting for one of the patients to finally get to the top of the waiting list for a new hip. Public services funded by high taxesx are seemingly the one true religion to many people who work at the BBC, other than praying to pictures of the blessed lady Greta Thunberg. Although admittedly it probably does save a lot of carbon emissions when people see Greta’s face on the news headlines and turn off their tv set, and most of the shows on BBC 4 are recycled, “doing their part” I guess

In the 1990s the BBC comedy zone on Friday Night was a golden age: several hours worth of fantastic writing like the Fast Show, Red Dwarf, Shooting Stars, Bottom, The League of Gentlemen, one after the other, whereas this Friday there is one show on offer, Mrs Brown’s Boys which is not funny but does feature a man wearing a dress so I guess the idea is if not to entertain then to at least inform and educate the public, to reinforce their outlandish belief that a 65yo Irishman dressing up as a lady is a perfectly normal thing. What is not a normal thing of course is a television license that costs 3 times as much as a gun license. What next? Perhaps a “sock license” where you have to pay an extra £100 in order to have colour.

The education - or lets be honest and call it propaganda - thing is really where the crux of it all lies, the idea that the prime objective for the BBC is to fulfil a self-appointed role as a social engineer. To try to fix a society that they see as flawed and racist and obsessed with ridiculous things like earning money or trying to afford a nicer house or a second car. Those things should be restricted to those who’ve earned money the correct way, like by commissioning televisions programs. Perhaps shows like a 21st century version of Charles Dickens’ Christmas Carol where Ebineezer renounces his old ways and becomes transgender. Or how about a big period drama like Tolstoy except that the actors portraying 19th century Russia are all Afro-Caribbean and in the last episode maybe the Tsar decides to abolish university tuition fees. What about a remake of Only Fools And Horses where Delboy opens the door of a newly arrived shipping container and finds a family of illegal migrants inside and the series reveals itself to be gritty drama about racial politics in Peckham and how Rodney, far from being a loveable plonker is instead portrayed as a brutal imperialist who reads the Daily Mail and doesn’t listed to anyway podcasts and he goes to the sort of pubs where they serve food on a plate rather than on a piece of slate roof. I’ll call that show “Only Fools and Trojan Horses” and sell the rights for £10k if anyone out there is interested.

The current situation was best summed up when the actor Idris Elba was recently criticised for not being black enough in the show Luther. Further questioning revealed that the BBC execs thought that the show was flawed and that he should have mostly ethnic friends and been seen to mostly eat jerk chicken. That in itself is a profoundly racist set of lazy assumptions to make and yet it came from Miranda Wayland - the BBC’s diversity chief. Imagine a world where a conservative cabinet minister had made that sort of societal commentary and you quickly realise that the rules are as far apart as if you compared the Saudi Arabian Sharia rules with the set of drinking rules my old student bar had posted on the wall back in the day. Admittedly, that is not quite as far apart as the two sets of rules that dictate how many genders there are. Either several dozen, or sometimes just two if Radio4 is talking about a gender pay gap or the BBC is promoting women’s football, largely owing to it being a lot more affordable to buy the rights to. I just think if you have more genders than there are types of Kit-Kat then we’re in trouble as a society and what’s that joke, that genders are a bit like twin towers: there used to be two of them but now it’s a touchy subject.

Anyway, I’ve been ranting for long enough so I’ll just close in saying that the archive that is the internet is a wonderful thing these days, and that I no longer watch nor pay for the BBC these days. If you are wanting to see some of your old politically incorrect stars, most are still touring, and after the cruise industry recovers you might even get to see a show for free on your way to Greece. Thinking about it, actually if I was on a ferry or cruise I’d rather go take my chances in the Covid infested bar than risk going to see the likes of Rolf Harris or Dave Lee Travis do a lunchtime matinee. I remember back in the day when the judge remarked “There’s some grey walls and bars on the windows. Can you guess what it is yet Rolf?”