Your Letters: November 11

UNHAPPY WITH TODAY'S BBC

Once upon a time the BBC had a reputation for the excellent dramas produced on both TV and radio. It also had a first class local radio network all over the country. The sports coverage was second to none. Documentaries were always excellent too, but no longer dramas? Well many are either independently made then "bought" by the corporation. Or just bought in from abroad. Or even worse, they start off a decent series, eg The Last Kingdom, then allow a subscription channel to take it away from them.

Local Radio - it's being gutted by the 'suits and bean counters' who say its too expensive in its present form. Sport? Mass interest sports - cricket, football and rugby have all been lost because the BBC 'can't afford' to compete with subscription channels. Now documentaries are surviving, but how much if this is down to individual presenters?

The BBC advertises itself as 'Your BBC'. Poppycock, it's their BBC, paying out huge salaries to the 'talent' and executives with little, if any, thought to their customers (the viewing/listening public).

On November 6 there seemed to be only one item of news, the USA presidential election. The 10pm news seemed to be 40 minutes about the election then the weather forecast. I might be wrong but I wasn't aware of anything else on that programme. Yes I appreciate its importance, but not to the exclusion of everything else.

Yet we have to pay a sizeable amount to watch TV or risk a record and court appearance. Is it any surprise that younger people are switching away from watching anything on terrestrial television? Many older people seem keen on that idea too.

The corporation had what seemed battalions of staff all over the world, no doubt many flown there and expenses and salaries to boot, yet still puts lots of repeats and bought in programmes on their channels. It's no surprise that they say they can't fund free TV licences for over 75s, unless they're on means tested benefits. Yet pays out huge amounts to 'talent' and foreign produced programmes, never mind the seemingly endless repeats.