Bishop Hill TVE
Nov 19, 2011 BBC Biased BBC has been looking at TVE - The Television Trust for the Environment - one of the organisations involved in the illicit sponsoring of BBC output, and profiles, in somewhat overheated fashion, its former boss, Robert Lamb.
Lamb has described some of TVE's work here.
The founding fathers at Carlton (formerly Central TV) and UNEP set up the Trust to be a broker between the public service programmers and enlightened donor agencies that still believe the issues are more important than public relations.
On the same page there is this:
Our main vehicle is the weekly Earth Report series on BBC World TV reaching 65 million homes. It is a genuinely multi-media attempt to reach the share of viewers we achieved in the 1980s through the satellite broadcasts, secondary carriage on 10 cable buyers, radio programmes to over 200 stations, actuality and quick time video on the web and a complete programme back-up service via the web, e-mail and fax. Earth Report even has its own prime-time slot on China Central TV to 300 million homes.
Earth Report could at first glance be mistaken for the Earth Reporters series that was criticised by the BBC Trust in its report on illicit sponsorship. However, I think in fact this is another series entirely. TVE's website has disappeared from the internet, but its YouTube channel is extant and the Earth Report programmes can be seen there (for example this or this). I would urge readers to look at some of these films, which are amazing - pure propaganda. The Earth Report films seem to be of an older vintage than Earth Reporters, going at least as far back as 1996, so I conclude that this is a different series to the one noted by the BBC Trust - perhaps a precursor. Either way, the extent of illicit sponsorship appears to be greater than previously thought. It is possible that the BBC has been engaged in this kind of activity for as long as fifteen years.
I'm also interested to see the content of one of these programmes ("Go With the Flow") being reproduced on the BBC website, again with no notice that this is sponsored content. In fact, it is unlikely that the BBC website is able to take sponsored content, so again the scope of the scandal is greater still.
[Updated to show that Lamb is no longer TVE's boss]
Reader Comments (7)
You'll soon discover that for the favored elite, Britannia waves the rules.
You mentioned Biased BBC Bish! Troll alert!
I remember Earth Report from my time working in China. Pure propaganda but the Chinese I talked to about it were as sceptical as most of us so.......
Bish - did you mean that BBBC profiles Lamb "in somewhat overheated fashion"? In the circs, I thought it sounded pretty reasonable.
I don't like the use of "eco-fascist". It's not necessary. I think anger tends to be counterproductive.
I've yet to see any of this kerfuffle being reported by the BBC or other tv news. Aren't they supposed to publicly confess their sins when they get caught like this?
Robin Horbury has been doing sterling work on the BBC for over a year at Biased BBC and has the advantage that he is a former BBC journalist who has worked with some of the culprits and knows the corporate cultural from the inside. Unlike most other commentators, he can't be so easily dismissed with an airy 'doesn't know what he is talking about' .
I see he has come back to defend his use of the term 'eco fascist' on the grounds that effects of the BBC's propagandising on society are ' a kind of fascism'.
As the BBC's zealots more or less openly campaign in league with extra-governmental bodies to create policy without recourse to elections, I feel he has a point. It may be an emotive term but how else should one respond to a stealthy coup d'etat?
Jorgefkazar, it seems that the British Establishment still rules the waves by waiving it's own rules!