BBC contributed to Diana's death

Do they still send those white vans with detection equipment round?!

 

Definitely up there with the shittiest of journalism by Bashir though IMHO.
First preying on somebody known to be in a very vulnerable mental state and then banging on about how good it was and using it as a platform to build his own life whilst being culpable in helping to ruin somebody else's.
Made worse by the half arsed 'investigation' that the BBC made into it later.

 

Always thought they were dummies to scare folk?

 

I heard of people having their door knocked on and making up all manner of excuses (only watch videos, only watch ITV, the telly is only there to stand my pot plants on etc). But the whole lot could easily have been urban legend!

 

Its undoubtedly true that doors were knocked on but I thought the vans were just to start the scare

 

Its going to be interesting tomorrow to see the front pages of the usual suspect newspapers blaming the BBC for hounding the "Peoples Princess" to death while they all engaged in exactly the same activities themselves.

 

I blame the BBC for Diana's death - its obvious. Then again I blame the BBC for the pandemic, global warming, world poverty and the Arab-Israeli conflict. Lord Reith were a reight nob!

 

There are, and never were, any TV detector vans. Well, not quite true: the BBC have, over the years, made some mock ups for propaganda purposes. They've taken publicity shots of these to make people believe they've got them and have even driven them round a bit so it's possible some people might have seen them but they didn't contain any equipment that detected you watching TV (other than the eyes of the people in the van who can see through your window).

Over 95% of people watch TV. Why would you need a van full of gear to detect that? If an address doesn't have a TV licence they'll begin a postal campaign of increasingly threatening letters ordering you to get a licence. They'll send folk round to your house, who may turn up in a van, but it's just a van. And they will prosecute, but they won't produce any evidence from TV detection equipment because there are and never were any TV detector vans just people who saw you watching TV.

 

You need a licence to watch the TV/ bbc ? ha ha , haven't had one for years, too many not paying it nowadays to fully enforce it, hence not had one for about 8 years and only one knock on the door

 

I suspect this is correct. The license people turned up at my auntie's house saying they'd detected a TV in the house. The van was parked right outside. My auntie didn't have a TV license. She was however blind so listened to the radio instead. Having some goons turn up at the door threatening court action based on lies was a pleasant experience.

I never liked the way they enforced the license or how they implemented it, e.g. targeting students to demand they all have a license each in a shared house. The funds would surely be better to be taken directly from taxes. As you say, almost everyone uses the BBC, now more than ever with the online presence, so take it from the collective coffers.

I will repeat though. For any one who wants the BBC to become commercial, be very careful what you wish for. Free-to-air commercial television in Australia is unwatchable. Without the BBC providing a baseline the number of adverts would go through the roof. Forget a few minutes of adverts every quarter of an hour. Welcome six minutes of adverts every ten minutes, four minutes of content in between.

 

A used to live in shared accom wi a turk, ad go to his he'd be watchin turkish tv, every 5 mins maybe even less adverts unbearable.i record most things cos i cant stand adverts most people must do the same or soon will do adverts are on the way out it'll soon be pop ups on your tv.

 

Agreed. I've always appreciated the BBC but tv in countries without it is bloody awful. Constant ad breaks, half hour shows that last about 20 mins. Pathetic content. Just dreadful.

 

To be fair that sounds a lot more logical than James Bond vans with space age equipment for detection of TV signals (BBC only).

 

Even worse, the warning advert for the TV licensing used to show people in the back of the van not only detecting the signal but watching what you were watching on their screens. Imagine the privacy and rights issues surrounding that. No wonder sales of aluminium foil skyrocketed.

 

The bbc and the journos in this country are scum, all of them, nothing will come before a headline, certainly not something as unimportant as ethics, they,re not called the gutter press for nothing....

 

Agreed. I don't watch much tv, but in recent months I've spent many a happy hour watching Ceebeebies with my grandson (who we childmind 3 days a week). The quality of programmes is exceptional, a wide range of fun-packed, stimulating shows, and all based around learning and development. The commercial alternatives are, frankly, dross - and riddled with adverts designed to pressure parents into coughing up for the latest toys.

Give me "Hey Dugee" and "Messy Goes To Okido" any day of the week.

 

The theory was, it could detect the emissions from your tv - and with the old cathode ray tubes that was theoretically possible. This is probably much less likely now, even with advances in detection technology - how could you tell the difference between a flat-screen TV and a flat-screen monitor?

 

They’re not ‘all’ called the gutter press.

 

True. Some of them live in the sewers.

 

Proper investigative journalism is an absolute necessity to stop us becoming a dictatorship by default. It’s a cornerstone of civilisation.

Unfortunately in these days of social media, that simple truth is getting lost amongst the footballisation of politics and the democratisation of knowledge.