Britnat Broadcasting Company

[Saorsa1]

Newsnet

BBC Set to Ditch Glasgow Commonwealth Games
Friday, 08 October 2010 22:33


It has been reported that the BBC is planning to pull out of a deal to broadcast the 2014 Commonwealth Games that are to be held in Glasgow.

According to The Scotsman newspaper the London based broadcaster is reluctant to pay the costs of providing the broadcasting equipment from its Pacific Quay HQ in Glasgow needed to cover the event.

It is understood that the BBC have cited ‘financial pressures’ as the reason for abandoning the Glasgow Games as it looks to provide value for money to licence payers.

Questions will surely be asked about the BBC’s commitment to Scotland given that the broadcaster recently spent £ millions on its coverage of the recent world cup, including a £1 million spend on a special glass studio for its pundits.

Recently the BBC has been criticised for:

*
£1/4 million on a studio for the Euro Championships in Vienna in 2008 because the one that had been provided did not have a backdrop of the city.
*
The cost of broadcasting the Glastonbury music festival in 2009 after it sent over 400 staff to the event.
*
Spending over £2 billion on new studio headquarters around the UK.
*
The redevelopment of Broadcasting House which is five years late, and at a cost of £1.05 billion is £110 million over budget.

The decision to pull out of the Glasgow games will now leave organisers with a financial headache. The estimated costs of televising the event has been put at £30 million, and the TV rights are likely to be worth less than £20 million.

Gordon Arthur, spokesperson for the Glasgow Games has said that the organisers would put the contract out to tender in the hope of finding a broadcaster capable of televising a major sporting event.

[Saorsa1]

The Britnat Broadcasting Company takes a dump on Scotland as usual.

If the games had been in London they would have spent a fortune to be there.

[Crofter]

How can you justify millions being spent on the “Glasgow Games” when another Glasgow resident is whining about cuts to the health service, orchestras, and benefits, and claiming that spending on such things is money squandered? Please explain to him that culture and sport, and even the media, are also important, and create thousands of jobs.

Glasgow says it wants those games, it says they can afford it. I say let them have the games, let them pay for them and let them keep any benefits or profits the city gains from them.

If the BBC don’t want to cover the event surely there is enough expertise in Scotland to confiscate their equipment presently on Scottish soil, set up our own camera crews etc, sell the programmes to one or more of the many other channels in this country and throughout the world.

Perhaps you could organise the non payment of TV licences and have all those journalists and commentators sacked that you disapprove of.

Are you going to let them get away with it, let them walk all over you as usual? The BBC is a public company after all, you are the public, you have rights and powers, use them.

One thing’s for sure, whining on about it on here where most those who read your comments can’t help themselves, far less you, won’t solve anything.

The seat of power in Scotland is right there amongst you, closer to you than to me, sort them out. Or are you waiting for the Highlanders to get you out of the mire as usual? Those days have gone. We’ve been tamed now, neutered even.

[wullie m]

More pearls of wisdom from the Alabama Big Mouth, firstly, when the games were planned the US banks hadn't set about wrecking the wests banking system. This Glasgow resident isn't whining (that's your department) about anything, he is merely pointing out that next year everything gets squeezed big time, no matter who is in Westminster. We are committed to the Games and the cash has largely already been spent, the taxpayer will find the rest. Any funds available for Scotland, will have the health service, police, transport , etc' as priorities, including the subsidised ferries to the Isles. Culture will, alas, be well down the queue.
One would think that your undoubted talents might be better spent in pointing out the shortcomings of the US economy, and I'm sure you have no shortage if dying languages of your own, requiring funds.

[Crofter]

Wullie,

If you had properly understood my comments you would have realised that I have nothing against the games being held in Glasgow, and said nothing to indicate that they should be abandoned, cut, or anything else.

I suggested that resisting those who would have it otherwise rests with yourselves, who live there.

I also pointed out that I also am quite within my rights to pull up people such as you who would interfere with and advocate curtailing the things I hold dear, that could have repercussions on my part of the world. I am committed to defending the Gaelic language and culture with as much, if not more, enthusiasm as you would seek to defend matters relating to your own city.

What’s wrong with that, or is it only people like you, the big Glasgow man with his Highland croft, who are entitled to everything and the rest of us just have to lump it?

If you wish to spout about economics get your fact right first. Public spending in Scotland depends on the money that the Edinburgh parliament receives from the Westminster parliament. The amount of money is determined by the level of public spending in England.

The party who advocated maintaining a high level of public spending, led by two Scotsmen in the most senior roles, have been thrown out. You and your ilk, and the Scottish Parliament are now busy rubbishing those two men, who, when you think about it, were advocating policies more in Scotland’s interest than in England’s. Every penny now being cut from English public expenditure is going to have an adverse effect on Scotland. Talk about cutting your nose to spite your face.

In 1979 the SNP, with their political shenanigans, delayed devolution by 20 years and imposed Margeret Thatcher on Scotland. They are now repeating the same mistake, albeit with different players. And there you are, proclaiming their right to do it.

We are told that the cuts have to be made in order to bring down the deficit and pay back what we borrowed. The banks from which we borrowed are charging higher and higher interest rates on those loans, they are showing higher profits now than they were 2 years ago, and their share values creeping up. Bonuses are set to be higher than ever this year. Those are banks we are supposed to part own. The rich are getting richer at the rate of 2% - 3% per a year. Why should those issues be addressed when the poor sods of the working classes are fighting each other over the bones that they choose to throw in our direction.

The US government is instigating huge public spending programmes as a way of sorting out their economy, the opposite to what is happening in this country. If this works then any improvement will have beneficial effects on UK and EU economies. The UK approach is destined to bring misery to millions, whatever happens anywhere else. The poor dumb-ass population of Lowland Scotland will suffer more than most as usual.

Conditions and standards of living in the Highlands and Islands actually improved under Thatcher and Major. Another fact that might stick in your craw.

[Saorsa1]

Originally Posted by Crofter

If you had properly understood my comments you would have realised that I...

was commenting on how unimportant Scotland is in the eyes of the BBC (to which the Scottish Licence fee is paid by TV viewers in Scotland) whereas had the games been held in London they would be there, no doubt about it.

That is actually the point the article is making.

[Saorsa1]

Originally Posted by Crofter

Conditions and standards of living in the Highlands and Islands actually improved under Thatcher and Major. Another fact that might stick in your craw.

Compared to what?

Improved over 3 hundred years of total neglect.

'Compared to', is a rather pointless worthless statement to make about anything.

Bush is better than Clinton, Clinton still allowed the water companies to let the Americans drink a minimum amount of arsenic in their water supply.

Labour was better than Thatcher to most Scots but compared to what?

Compared to 300 years of Britnat, London-centred government.

Compared to is pointless. The highlands and islands have been left to rot for the best part of this century.

Danny Alexander is announcing that the Highlands and Islands should have fair petrol prices, a policy the SNP has had for decades...


Compared to the Britnats, the SNP cares far more for Scotland. Thatcher butt-f****d Scotland during the 80s and used our oil to pay for her political screw-ups.

You say the Highlands and Islands were better off under Thatcher... my response is, 'Compared to what... the rest of the Britnats who entirely ignored their existance?'