BBC and BBC Trust Watch

The government crusades against the BBC continue with a government commissioned report recommending that BBC censorship should be taken over by Ofcom.

The BBC Trust is flawed and should be scrapped, with governance of the corporation moving to  Ofcom, a report has concluded. David Clementi, who led the 'independent' review. Clementi, previously a deputy governor of the Bank of England, said:

The BBC Trust model is flawed. It conflates governance and regulatory functions within the Trust. The BBC should have a unitary Board charged with responsibility for meeting the obligations placed on it under the Royal Charter and Agreement, and responsibility for the interests of Licence Fee payers.

Regulatory oversight should pass wholly to Ofcom, which is already the public service regulator for the UK's broadcasting industry and has the ability to look at the BBC in the context of the market as a whole. Ofcom would be a strong regulator to match a strong BBC.

The report was  commissioned by the Government as part of the BBC Charter Review process.

Radio 4 is to broadcast a mid-morning adaptation of the seminal feminist novel, Fear of Flying , complete with strong language and sexual descriptions. The BBC said it will will not censor the swearwords or sexual content.

The BBC station will air a five-part adaptation of Fear of Flying, the 1973 novel by the feminist writer Erica Jong , next week.  The first episode, which will air on Monday at 10:45am, features a reference to finger-fucking , and there are also mentions of the zipless fuck , and descriptions of how the central character longs to be filled up with a giant prick spouting semen .

While television has a 9pm watershed, no similar restrictions apply to radio. The BBC says that Radio 4 is an adult network, that listeners will be given a series of warnings about graphic content, and that children will be back at school after half term.

Vivienne Pattison, the director of Mediawatch-UK, said:

This could be on in the kitchen, or the car. A lot of children might hear it. I don't think it is acceptable. Lots of people don't realise there is no watershed on radio, and get quite shocked.

A BBC spokesman said:

Radio 4 is an adult network and the drama slot after Woman's Hour is long established with listeners expecting it to deal with a full range of adult issues which, on occasion, and when appropriate to the situation, include a realistic reflection of strong language.

Fear of Flying is recognised as one of the most seminal, culturally significant pieces of feminist writing from the past 50 years and its broadcast will be contextualised by discussions on Woman's Hour and strong language warnings.

The BBC's governing body, the BBC Trust, has lost confidence and credibility and should be abolished , according to a British parliamentary committee report on the BBC Charter review.

The Culture, Media and Sport Committee report claims that while the BBC is an extraordinary national and global institution , it needs a radical overhaul of its governance arrangements .

On the subject of BBC censorship, the report called for a new complaints procedure that would see all complaints handled initially by the BBC itself, with both industry and editorial issues then escalated to UK TV censor Ofcom.

The chair of the committee, Jesse Norman, said:

Based on more than six months of evidence and testimony, we believe the [BBC's] current structure, including the BBC Trust, needs to be abolished. In or judgment the key functions can and should be absorbed within Ofcom, the industry regulator, with suitable changes.

  Barry Humphries , the Australian comedian best known for playing Dame Edna Everage, has mocked the BBC for refusing to let him make jokes about Jeremy Corbyn without also ridiculing David Cameron.

He claims that during talks with the BBC about a guest appearance as Dame Edna on Michael McIntyre's Christmas show, executives insisted on evenhanded mockery. He explained:

I mentioned some ideas to the BBC. I wanted to say something about Mr Corbyn and a faceless, nameless person at the BBC said, 'Then you have also have to say something about Mr Cameron.' As if there wasn't any bias at the BBC at all!

In an interview in the Radio Times he said shows such as Til Death Us Do Part , which ridiculed the racist views of main character Alf Garnett, would no longer be made by a nervous BBC:

It couldn't be done. There is a new puritanism that we are experiencing, a nervousness