THE CULL BBC3 CAMPAIGN

Join the campaign, sign the petition, and together let’s take on Television Centre and all its cant!

John Stuart Mill was right – push-pin isn’t as good as poetry. And funnily enough, neither’s 2 Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps. And the same goes for Nicola Roberts: The Truth About Tanning. And even Hotter Than My Daughter.

Why shouldn’t we want rid of public service broadcasting that’s devoid of any worthwhile public service whatsoever?

Should the purpose of the BBC really be to produce such debasing trash?

How do you feel about your money paying for a programme that’s essentially a beauty contest/sexual rivalry between a mother and her daughter?

To sign the petition, leave your name and where you’re from in the Comments box below.

Comrades, ya vas lyublyu.

Currer

PS If you’re new to The Currer Ball, here’s the original article that inspired the campaign:

The campaign to cull BBC3 starts here!

Good news this week. And by good news I don’t mean the kind that’s dished out by Russell Howard on BBC3. I’ve recently been told that Russell Howard’s Good News is in fact insightful socio-political commentary for the sophisticated and progressive youth audience of contemporary Britain. But of course! And here’s me thinking it’s just a dressed up, re-hashed, poor man’s You’ve Been Framed, YouTube clip after YouTube clip accompanied by Howard’s heard-it-all-before, yet somehow so uniquely humourless, annotations. I’m almost embarrassed to say it now, but I honestly used to think that Russell Howard’s Good News was a great advert for eye-gauging. But I can see clearly now. The rain has gone. Nothing to worry about. Because it’s all good news and insightful socio-political commentary. In-between some web footage of a black Labrador doing the moonwalk.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘Currer, you’re just jealous. Howard’s doing quite nicely for himself, thank you very much. But what about you? It’s been a quiet few months, hasn’t it? You’re like a bird that can’t fly. That just skulks about on the barren soil of WordPress, scratching itself. Don’t fret about Howard. Take a look in the mirror, Currer. Try spreading those wings.’

And you know what? You’re right. I’ll admit it: I am jealous of Howard. Profoundly jealous. No doubt about it. But that being said, it doesn’t alter the absolute fact that Russell Howard’s Good News makes The One Show look like a pensive engagement in high culture. Or Live At Studio Five like broadcasting gold.

By the way, for those of you who’ve never seen Russell Howard’s Good News, just consider for a second what a poor man’s You’ve Been Framed might look like. The mind boggles.

Anyway, apologies for the rant. Where were we? Oh, yeah: the good news. The BBC’s finally decided to slim down its rather portly portfolio. 2 digital radio stations (the Asian Network and 6Music) and about half of the BBC’s Byzantine website are closing down.

Hardly swingeing cuts then. More like gesture-politics actually. The annual spend on those 2 radio stations is about £5 million apiece – in other words, a rounding error for any one of the BBC’s on-going and over-budget building projects. The suspicion is that the BBC’s pre-empting the post-election prospect of a new Tory government rocking up to Television Centre and demanding a root-and-branch second look at how the BBC spends our money.

But the problem here isn’t so much the politics behind the cuts. Or that the cuts don’t go nearly far enough. Because there’s another much bigger issue at stake. And it’s this: why on earth didn’t the BBC use this opportunity to cull BBC3, probably the worst channel on British television? How egregious does the quality of its programming have to plunge for BBC3 to cease transmission? Of how infinitesimally little worth does BBC3 have to get before its execs figure out what any license fee payer with half a brain realised after series 1, episode 1 of 2 Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps? i.e. that BBC3’s at least 95 percent woeful and a prostitution of tax payers money.

Let me give you an idea of what I’m talking about. Here’s just a flavour of BBC3’s ‘output’ – to use the industry jargon – over the last few months. Brace yourselves:

Most Annoying People; Most Annoying People: 2009 Cutdowns (you’ve got to question whether Most Annoying People merited a spin off show); Cannabis: Britain’s Secret Farms; Eastenders: The Greatest Cliffhangers; Horne And Corden (it’s rumoured that this priceless double act’s split up – if that spares us the misfortune of a second series, I certainly hope so); Hotter Than My Daughter (regrettably, I’m not joking); Coming of Age (sounds quite profound, doesn’t it? It’s not); Vampires: Why They Bite; Snog Marry Avoid? (answer: avoid); 2 Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps (almost incredibly now into its eighth series – quit flogging, that horse’s well and truly dead); Summer Heights High; News In 60 Seconds (beyond parody; see News 25 for my best effort); Scallywagga (another one of those hilarious sketch shows that reflects the diversity of edgy urban life); Greek Uncovered; The World’s Toughest Driving Tests (and yet, you wouldn’t have automatically thought there’s a programme to made there); This Is Jinsy; Dancing On Wheels; Young Dumb And Living Off Mum (the world’s going to hell in a BBC3 producer’s handbag); Nicola Roberts: The Truth About Tanning (a word of advice for Nicola, the red-head from Girls Aloud: don’t ever leave the band to start a solo career. Call it a hunch, but I just can’t see that working out); Last Woman Standing; The Gemma Factor; and Russell Howard’s Good News (series 2 gets going soon).

Let’s pause for a second while we consider what we’ve just heard.

Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, was on Newsnight this week. Paxo asked him why BBC3 avoided any cuts. Thompson’s reply was that BBC3’s given us Little Britain and Gavin And Stacey.

Now, maybe you don’t happen to think that Gavin And Stacey’s quite overrated, and that Little Britain’s at best average, and relies a bit too much on grating catchphrases, squeamishness, and morbidly obese nudity, to compensate for the absence of consistently good writing. Maybe you think that Gavin And Stacey and Little Britain are the best thing since bread came sliced. But even if you genuinely think that, is BBC3’s track record of 2 success stories amidst 6 years of gargantuan guff, including a show called Hotter Than My Daughter, is it really enough to justify the existence of an otherwise worthless channel?

And who says that we need BBC3 to produce good comedy anyway? Isn’t that what BBC2 used to do? Why should license fee payers need to fork out for a testing ground that’s watched almost exclusively by impressionable / already moronic teenagers? We didn’t need BBC3 for The Office or Partridge or every single other great sitcom made before 2003.

You know, I’m not one for banning things. Free country and all that. But now and again something comes along that my complete contempt for means that normal rules don’t apply. BBC3’s one of those things. Hotter Than My Daughter? Snog Marry Avoid? Young, Dumb and Living Off Mum? Can you believe that we’re actually paying for this shite? I fail to see the good news.