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  • Posted April 13th, 2016
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    If the BBC advertises Tesco, why is there a licence fee?

    If the BBC advertises Tesco, why is there a licence fee?

    Just listened to a ten-minute advert for Tesco on ‘You and Yours’ on Radio 4, masquerading as news. I have some questions:

    1. If the BBC is going to advertise the corporate sector, why is the public asked to pay a licence fee? (see here)
    2. Why is the BBC allowing corporate product placement on its world news channel? (see here)
    3. Why is what Tesco are doing to make more money considered news?
    4. Why is the BBC advertising the corporate sector at all? Don’t they know that:
    • supermarkets destroy jobs and small businesses? (see here)
    • supermarkets suck money out of our communities to pay shareholders
    • supermarkets destroy farmers’ livelihoods? (see here)
    • Tesco, along with other large corporations, avoid paying their fair share of tax, so that the rest of us have to pay more than our fair share? (see here)

    I believe that the BBC does know these things, but the BBC is a state organ, and the state is corporate-controlled, and they are therefore perfectly happy to promote the corporate sector.

    BBC staff clearly don’t care about the issues above, and neither to the shoppers who were interviewed for the pro-Tesco ‘news’ piece. They were only interested in prices, and so I don’t expect them to care about or even understand the arguments that we present on this site.

    But I wonder if there’s a point at which Tesco shoppers would say ‘enough’? Or could Tesco spit-roast babies in-store, but not lose custom as long as their fizzy drinks were a penny cheaper than elsewhere?

    I haven’t mentioned the horse meat scandal because, really, if we eat cows, what’s the problem with eating horses (although they could have let people know, so they could make up their own minds)?

    Here are more concerns about Tesco.

    And here’s a local group that’s just not having it.

    what we can do:

    1. don’t shop at Tesco or any of the other corporate supermarkets except the Co-op or Waitrose (neither of them suck money from communities to pay shareholders – one is a co-operative and the other is a partnership with no external shareholders); or better still, shop at small, local shops.
    2. boycott the BBC; or better still, defenestrate the telly.

    tv-out-of-window


    The views expressed in our blog are those of the author and not necessarily lowimpact.org's


    3 Comments

    • 1Steph April 14th, 2016

      Thanks for this awareness raising article i have been appreciating what you do. I’m not sure Waitrose is a good option though i thought they were part of marks and spencer who fund the arms trade? I know coop are probably the best of a bad bunch but shopping locally is way better overall


    • 2Dave Darby April 14th, 2016

      Hi Steph. Thanks. Waitrose are part of the John Lewis Partnership – http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/about/waitrose.html, All staff are co-owners, so no external shareholders to pay. Yes, I agree that local shops are best.


    • 3johnhson April 17th, 2016

      Ha! This is nothing – guess who they pushing as a finalist in the BBC Food & Farming Future Food Award? Some artisan cheese producer? An integrated greenhouse / fish farm on Anglesey? – NO WAY

      Ladies and Gentlemen,

      Honoured Shareholders,

      Blessed Bankers

      I give you..

      McDonald’s Beef Carbon Project

      Yes, the home of the Big Mac


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