27 February 2020
Join us
- 9am-10am, Monday 9th March
- Outside BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, London, W1A 1AA
- Signs/banners provided but feel free to bring your own to help defend the BBC from Dominic Cummings!
Would you miss not having Planet Earth? Eastenders? Match of the Day? Local radio? Doctor Who? Radio 1? Cbeebies?
That's what's at stake with the government's attacks on our BBC right now.
And now, a ‘senior source’ at No 10 said “we are not bluffing on the licence fee. We are having a consultation and we will whack it...The whole thing needs massive pruning back.”
It's Our BBC
That's why we're launching a new campaign - It's Our BBC. And we need YOUR help to launch it - with our Whack A Mole Stunt!
We’ve decided to show what this means in practice: a Whack A Mole game with Dominic Cummings and Boris Johnson harming our most beloved programmes and services, represented by YOU holding various banners and signs! We are making a huge hammer and we have Cummings and Johnson lookalikes, but we need you to hold signs of programmes and services that we’re standing up for: to show what we’re trying to save.
Bring your kids to stand up for Cbeebies, or your friends for Sherlock, The World Service, Welsh language TV, Fleabag, Match of the Day, Miranda or Children in Need - any BBC service or programme you love or depend on. We promise no real whacking will happen during the stunt! But if you let us know what service you would like to represent by commenting below, we can make a sign for you to hold.
The BBC is a national treasure, a public service we can be proud of, with world class programmes and services. We pay for it and we want it to work for everyone.
In an era of fake news, it’s a public service vital to the UK and democracy, giving us access to information and our shared culture.
If we do not defend it together, we’ll end up with nothing but Facebook and a Fox News style media, which will damage our democracy and hand yet more power to billionaire moguls.
We pay for it and we want it to work for everyone. We’re calling on the government to protect our BBC for the future.
We really hope you can join us!
Comments
David Sekers replied on Permalink
Good to hear of your plans. There are masses of young and old who share your concerns and desperately need a powerful campaign to stop the BBC being wrecked. The BBC seems to be poor at defending itself, so we/you have to step up. Good resources and clever strategies will be needed - not just stunts - in order to expose and capitalise on the huge support and goodwill to ensure the survival of the BBC. I think a key target must be MPs,
Are you ready for a really big public campaign, something more effective than petitions? and how can I help?
Alice replied on Permalink
Thanks for your comment David. This stunt was to officially launch OUR BBC, and we had 150 appearances across the media (we've written about it here https://weownit.org.uk/blog/public-wont-let-dominic-cummings-whack-bbc) so it was a great start to the campaign!
We've been building a coalition around the campaign, working closely with the New Weather Institute, Compass, the Media Reform Coalition and CLASS. We are in communication with several prominent MPs and public figures and are aiming to make as much noise and reach as many people as we can! Clive Lewis attended the launch, which was a great start. We'll be announcing our next steps over the coming weeks- for updates and information on how you can be involved, we'd recommend signing up to our mailing list if you're not already! If you are, we'll keep you in the loop.
Thanks for your support for our public broadcaster, and for sharing your feedback- we want to build a powerful campaign that the government won't be able to ignore, and so really appreciate your thoughts. We hope you'll take action with us as we continue to grow the campaign!
Best wishes,
Alice and the We Own It team
Anne Finn replied on Permalink
Have only just heard about your organisation and that it is campaigning to protect the BBC! I support you in that aim.
richard williams replied on Permalink
I'm afraid the BBC is simply not fit to be the nations public broadcaster. It's left wing bias and general anti-government stance is completely unacceptable. You simply do not understand your role.
Alice replied on Permalink
Hi Richard,
We need the BBC to transition into a broadcaster that is reflective of and accountable to us - the public. In doing so, we need a board independent of government interference with a citizens panel to give us a voice. We also need the new Director General to tackle the key issues at the BBC - making it more diverse in both staff and content, capping excessive pay, and putting a stronger emphasis on regional journalism.
The government must take this period of transition as a time to end their dangerous attacks on our BBC. They need to secure its funding for the long term and make sure the BBC stays a publicly owned and funded broadcaster.
Best wishes,
The We Own It team
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