The BBC Explained

I don't care how much people at the BBC, or anybody else for that matter, are paid and I'm disappointed that the story has lasted quite so long in the news.
There are various points being made about the rights and wrongs of it all. I can appreciate that John Humphries and Nicky Campbell are senior figures, that Chris Evans and Lineker could earn more elsewhere and that Rachel Burden and Jane Garvey are consummate broadcasters worthy of parity with male counterparts. But the figures are just numbers, quite possibly the outcome of different negotiating skills. I can't believe Chris needs the money and, for me, being all shouty early in the morning doesn't warrant it but 9 million people tune in and like it. I'd much rather listen to Rachel.
These high earners will pay 40% in tax and spend much of the rest of it, thus keeping others in employment, and I'm not convinced it makes them any happier. On a bigger scale, I don't care how much the royal family get paid and I wouldn't even tax her majesty because that's just another ever decreasing circle of complicated paperwork.
The BBC costs 40p a day, it said on the BBC. I'm now aware that some people pay the licence fee but never, they say, never watch or listen to any of the BBC's output so they have a point that they shouldn't have to pay, if only there were a cost effective way of making sure they never saw another clip from Top of the Pops. Personally, I'm happy to pay 40p a day for Radio 3 and The Proms, with the rest as a bonus, and I don't have to watch Top Gear, Strictly Come Dancing or Doctor Who. But I don't mind that they're on because as well as the elitist feeling of cultural snobbery it allows me, they can be sold on to the rest of the world in order to pay Daniel Barenboim, Natalie Clein and the like to appear at the music festival. It's a shame, in these terms, that Clarkson was sacked because he was strangely a good investment, an odd parallel with the royal family who are differently demeaned but pay a dividend.
What is beneath all this ongoing brouhaha is, of course, a right wing plot. In a stategy that Donald Trump would admire, those who see the BBC as a leftist conspiracy, with its University Challenge, BBC4 and concerts from the Wigmore Hall, take any opportunity to undermine it and they must be delighted that the female signatories of the open letter have become unlikely sisters-in-arms against Reithian values. To them, any attempt at impartiality, balanced reporting and producing programmes of value irrespective of audience figures or advertising revenue are deeply suspect and to find feminism coming out in support of their malign campaign is a credit to just how sinister their methods are.
Their motives are there, lurking beneath these red herrings, the chronic undermining of a last remaining fine and wonderful thing. For them, ideally, we'd pay to subscribe, then again for a special event or extra channels and once we'd tune in, much of the output would be advertiements for further packages they want us to buy. I'd rather not have a Beethoven symphony interrupted by an advert for some jazz, thank you very much.
We should be glad of it, especially as once it's gone, like the branch lines on the railway, so many libraries or panel games like Gallery or Face the Music, there'll be no getting it back.