BBC and PBS

There's a station on Sky telly called PBS. Every time I look at the schedule - I've never been tempted to stay and watch a programme - I find myself thinking: this cannot be all there is to public broadcasting in the USA. Frankly, it's pathetic, a waste of air time. It's all documentaries devoted to American heroes like Billy the Kid or to ancient - very ancient - themes like dinosaurs. Not that great quality as documentaries go. And definitely not controversial.

Surely there must be a real PBS station - or more than one station - broadcasting in the USA? And in fact a quick google search throws up quite a lot of PBS stuff. They do documentaries, news and drama. I believe there are no adverts. That's good news: I've tried watching US telly and found it impossible to follow any programme since the ads seem to come on every 10 minutes, although I admit I was often distracted by ads for medication that ended with 'Ask your attending physician about these drugs.' The ads explain why so many US cop shows have a 'previously on...' section, sometimes in the middle of the show.

PBS dramas, or at least the most popular programmes, all seem to be imported from the UK. If you've seen it here on ITV or BBC - Call the Midwife, Grantchester - it's also on PBS.

But PBS is not a public broadcaster in the way that the BBC is. It lacks the depth and scale of the BBC.

Why do I mention PBS at all? Because at the weekend, I heard and read that the BBC is to be prevented by Westminster from rivalling commercial companies by scheduling, for example, a reality show against one being shown on ITV. How things have changed! Ten years ago or so, we were being told the BBC had to compete with commercial companies. And they did: out went BBC productions and in came 'outsourcing,' which - in my opinion - probably drove the price of drama productions through the roof. Well, everybody had to get a share of the profits, didn't they, rather than a salary?

And I'm not a fan of BBC Scotland. I think a lot of its documentaries are lame and tame. Its news output is frankly embarrassing. Last week we had a 7 minute report on the teatime news about how to ventilate your home. Apparently, you have to open a window. As for the political content, it concerns me that the only stand-alone profile of a Scottish politician I've ever seen on BBC Scotland was of Nicola Sturgeon. There's also no depth to political interviews. It's all about giving every representative of every party the chance to witter on about their party's principles with gey little real questioning of those principles.

In UK terms, the BBC is now no different from ITV and Sky: totally fixated on London and the south-east. Even C4 News, otherwise excellent, has a bit of bother getting its journalists north of Watford. Tonight they were in Leicester and laughing cheerfully at American broadcasters who couldn't pronounce the name of the city or find it on a map. Pots and kettles, eh folks?

Tory attempts to de-claw the BBC by banning competition are hypocritical. The Tories are supposed to be all about choice, so I have to ask why Tory politicians are so keen to stop competition between the BBC and other broadcasters.

It's well known the Tories hate the BBC, which they claim is full of left-wing, sandal-wearing, muesli munchers. I suspect this ban on competing with commercial companies might be part of a plan to reduce the reach of the BBC. Cut it back, in other words, so that it starts to resemble PBS: a niche market, rather than a national broadcaster.

I don't want to abolish the BBC or hobble it so that it can't rival commercial companies. I want to reform the BBC so that it truly represents the people who pay the TV licence. I want fewer Clarksons and Dimblebys soaking up BBC funding and more time and effort spent on representing what is happening in areas outside London.

If you think I'm exaggerating, ask yourself this: when was the last time we saw a report on UK news from Northern Ireland or Wales or the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man? Or from the north east or north west of England for that matter, unless it had to do with bad news like factories closing and jobs being lost?

But we give up our national broadcaster at our peril. Then we will be at the mercy of a US-style TV set-up. And the Kardashians will have won.