Britain doesn’t need a Fox News. The regulators must block the Murdochs’ bid
Ed Miliband
No lefty politician would like there to be a possibly rightly media outlet, would they?
Britain doesn’t need a Fox News. The regulators must block the Murdochs’ bid
Ed Miliband
No lefty politician would like there to be a possibly rightly media outlet, would they?
Fox News, which was bad enough before, has rapidly descended into cucky estrogen-fuelled nonsense since Ailes was ousted. Tucker Carlson is the only thing worth watching on there. The Murdochs, especially the sons, are absolute scum.
I suppose one could argue that at least the brainless women on Fox News UK would be more attractive than those on the BBC. But it would still do less to advance right wing thought in Britain than BBC Pidgin.
On what basis could the regulators block it?
Surely the public should decide if it needs Fox News, if nobody watches it then it will fall.
Ignoring the fitness and properness of the Murdochs, since when were broadcasting licenses granted on the basis of the sort of service e that politicians decide we need? We need Dave, shopping channels etc?
There is no “need” for close to 100% of all TV. It is provided because of “want” not “need”, and that TV that nobody “wants” disappears. Where is L!ve TV? Where is Select?
The Left are going about this all the wrong way. Let Fox/Sky merge; give Sky News a comfy duopoly alongside BBC News. Bureaucratic creep will kick in, HR will enact family-friendly policies, and the company will attract left-wing staff. Eventually the news output will begin to reflect this.
Bear in mind that much of the old Left (as with the Democrats in the U.S.) actually like big companies: they create cushy jobs, they can afford to provide decent pay & conditons, and they can fund unions. As (I think) Tim Newman said, beyond a certain size you can’t distinguish between a company and a government department. It’s the small companies that the Left hate. The Ctrl-Left should be trying to shut down independent local news sources and cosying up to behemoths like Sky.
Fox News is not right. It’s centrist. But to the Left, anything not Left is OMG ALT-RIGHT!
What Paul said.
Fox used to be the right wing channel (albeit in an establishment-friendly, neocon sort of way) but it’s moving left. They’ve still got Tucker Carlson, but the direction of travel is clear.
Rupert, love him or hate him, was pretty reliably friendly to the political Right, but his kids are taking over and they’re the usual sort of cosmopolitan billionaire pod people who are embarrassed at parties by Dad’s muck-raking populist legacy.
There’s a truism on the Right that corporations put the pursuit of profit above all else, but it’s not true at all. If it were, you wouldn’t see so much obnoxious virtue signalling, such as Tim Cook telling investors who doubt the climate change narrative to fuck off.
Guys like James Murdoch don’t need any more money. When you’re part of the hermetically sealed billionaire-CEO class, other things – such as social positioning – become important.
@Paul Rain, September 2, 2017 at 7:11 am
Gutfeld, Hannity and Judge Janene are some of the others worth watching.
More Gov’t Green Lunacy
Over 1,000 new jobs are to be created under a £1 billion programme to install solar panels on social housing across England and Wales.
£1 Million tax-payer money for each job created.
Plus more consumer subsidies for the FIT.
Utter maddness
“Rupert, love him or hate him, was pretty reliably friendly to the political Right, but his kids are taking over and they’re the usual sort of cosmopolitan billionaire pod people who are embarrassed at parties by Dad’s, cash cow, muck-raking populist legacy, that pays for their luxury lifestyle
FTFY.
The electorate made it pretty clear that they did not want their lives dictated by some gurning spastic that can’t even eat a bacon sandwich properly, so quite why the witless Miliband thinks they should listen to him re the TV channels they get to watch is not adequately explained.
Knowing Me Knowing Steve (ah-ha) has a good point.
There’s a whole thing about people who are agents of change in business. Maybe they founded it, maybe they build it up, but they are always massively undervalued in terms of their effect. They’re the punk rockers discovering the distortion pedal and deciding that prog rock albums about Arthurian legends are just fucking lame and calling Bill Grundy a dirty fucker on live TV. They don’t care about what “society” thinks. They’re going to spit in the face of “society” and make something fucking cool and the kids will love it. And these people always have this attitude, even when they get rich. They don’t care about using money to join “society” because that’s not what turns them on.
But the people who take over aren’t like that. Tim Cook was 12 years at IBM and has an MBA. That’s about as punk as Peters and Lee. And sure, Cook’s made loads of money, but most of that is just that China got richer. There’s nothing interesting with what Apple have done for 6 or 7 years. Right now, Microsoft are making more exciting new hardware than Apple is.