Yup.
Kaveh really nails it here (first time for everything I guess...)
View: https://twitter.com/skykaveh/status/1634288030658842641?
Footy broadcasting - What do we have?
- Thread starter SocrManiac
- Start date
Kaveh really nails it here (first time for everything I guess...)
View: https://twitter.com/skykaveh/status/1634288030658842641?
View: https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1634302297416118275?s=20
NEW: BBC confirms that none of their Match of the Day presenting team will do tomorrow night’s show: “We understand their position and we have decided that the programme will focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry.”
Never heard of this happening before at the BBC. But Lineker is very popular with his colleagues and has been presenting MOTD for ages. The Beeb's been under fire for a while now regarding dodgy links to the Tory party.
NEW: BBC confirms that none of their Match of the Day presenting team will do tomorrow night’s show: “We understand their position and we have decided that the programme will focus on match action without studio presentation or punditry.”
Never heard of this happening before at the BBC. But Lineker is very popular with his colleagues and has been presenting MOTD for ages. The Beeb's been under fire for a while now regarding dodgy links to the Tory party.
came to post something similar, but to point out this quote:
Why isn’t Gary Lineker presenting Match of the Day? And what’s next for the BBC? - The Athletic
As someone who watches MOTD to catch up on the days EPL highlights, I always find myself fast forwarding all the pundit back and forth between the games. I’m kind of looking forward to seeing the different format tomorrow night, my remote won’t be as busy. I’ll be curious to see what the viewing figures are. Just reading the UK press, on one side you have people claiming he is MOTD, on the other side people are saying good riddance.
Now I’m reading reports that BBC commentators MAY be boycotting the games tomorrow. I suppose the studio production crew could jump on the bandwagon as well.
I don't think BBC's position is entirely without merit. It's easy to sympathize with Lineker's position. But one issue I see is that BBC wants to protect its reputation for political neutrality and the other that if you allow Lineker to freely express a controversial position and engage in day to day politics, this opens the door for other BBC personalities to do so and you give them leverage to run roughshod over the institution. Right now, you may like what Lineker stands for, but in the future you may come to appreciate BBC's stance a bit more when it's a cacophony of voices riding on its brand name expressing whatever opinion they feel like.
I'm very much Team Lineker here. Public service broadcasting impartiality rules only bind BBC employees involved in news and current affairs content. For example, while appearing in a popular BBC sitcom during the 2000s, actress Joanna Lumley was the public face of a campaign to allow Nepalese soldiers who'd served in the British Army to settle in the UK. The beeb also used to show a politics magazine show with Diane Abbott (roughly: British AOC) and Michael Portillo (roughly: British Mitt Romney) as recurring panelists. Andrew Neil, who presented that show and was the BBC's political editor and then their top political interviewer for years, was an extremely vocal supporter of the Bush/Blair wars, and called a newspaper critical of them "The Daily Terrorist" without censure.
It frequently shows comedians who have made direct criticisms of the governments of the day. John Peel was on the radio for decades and everyone knew he was a socialist.
What seems different here is the government has come out and criticised the individual for criticising its policy, and the BBC has pulled him, which seems pretty chilling.
The BBC is not politically neutral. They say they are but they're not. You just need ot watch how Fiona Bruce Presents Question Time the flagshib BBC political show to know something is rotten in TV Centre. Nich Robinson was also a card carrying Tory and he was Chief Politcal Correspondent.
Also hoist of the Apprentice and ex Spurs Chairman Alan Sugar is not shy of puttng out a political tweet...he's a Tory too.
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They seemed to be fine with Lineker criticizing Qatar during the World Cup, but this is over the line?
