I LIKE Auntie. The BBC has looked after me over the years. It’s taken me by the hand and led me safely across the road in the form of Blue Peter. She has taken me out of short trousers and helped through adolescence with Top of the Pops. She certainly encouraged a slightly wicked adulthood, thanks to shows such as Rab C. Nesbitt, Still Game and Fleabag.

And along the way she has led us to the higher ground, with brilliant arts programming such as Loose Ends and the Media Show. (Full disclosure: her Scottish cousin even employs me episodically to throw thoughts at Shereen on Radio Scotland.)

But is our Auntie in London headed for a television care home? This week, Paisley-born political attack dog Andrew Neil announced the arrival of a new television channel, GB News.

Neil is claiming his new channel will be “the most exciting thing to happen in British television news for more than 20 years.” Now, perhaps he’s reached a little too far into the hyperbole box for that quote, but regardless, Neil’s new venture should seriously worry Auntie, an ageing, confused figure whose support hose in the form of viewers has fallen to her knees.

The number of households paying the TV licence fee has fallen to its lowest level since 2014-15, while 50% of UK households sign up to Netflix or Amazon.

Neil, meantime, will score points against the BBC for being non-representative and too 'woke', intent on virtue signalling to the point it has lost connection.

His GB News will indeed highlight the sort of issues that have caused the BBC to lose sight of its mission – such as ridiculous pay scales. Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker still picks up £1.35m. Meanwhile Radio 2 presenter Zoe Ball has been awarded a million pounds a year pay rise, despite losing a million listeners.

In a world of fast-rising unemployment and a Covid climate of hopelessness, how can this ever be justified?

Recently, Question of Sport presenter, the rather dull and anodyne Sue Barker was axed, in favour of Alex Scott. A good move? Yes. It’s time to refresh the show and Scott ticks all the boxes for a light entertainment, sport-based show.

But viewers were dismayed to see Auntie had tossed out two of her big kids with the bathwater, in the form of Matt Dawson and Phil Tufnel. It was a crass decision.

The BBC has long been edgy, nicely anti-establishment, with Have I Got News summing up the questioning ethos. But how can it be taken seriously when a pundit on Frankie Boyle’s BBC 2 show talks about killing white people – and thanks to woke politics even Frankie’s tongue is stuck in the back of his head.

Don’t get me wrong. I want to see what Neil has to offer. I love the idea of robust debate. The Paisley pugilist can hold a politician’s feet to the fire so successfully the best Canniesburn surgeons won’t even consider skin grafts. Yet, he also worries me, with his climate change scepticism and his ideological assaults on the left.

But the BBC is playing into the hands of this new channel by making fundamental errors of judgement in a bid to seem connected. The immensely talented Emily Maitlis shouldn’t have editorialised when Dominic Cummings went AWOL to Durham, even though her feelings were on the money. Laura Kuenssberg seemed to show Tory leaning with her Tweet which seemed to support Cummings.

Meantime, the UK Government is poised to decriminalise the non-payment of the licence fee, effectively a kick to the back of the knee of the old lady, which could see her fall to the pavement.

Tim Davie, the new director-general of the BBC, has acknowledged the BBC may “a bit distant from some of the population.”

There is also talk that Rupert Murdoch’s News UK is planning a nightly comedic programme to rival the Mash Report. Again, this will shine a light on the BBC’s weighted wokeishness.

Ex-Telegraph editor Charles Moore is set to become the new chairman of the BBC. Paul Dacre, the former Daily Mail editor, is to be the next chairman of media regulator Ofcom.

Will that help reset the BBC? It doesn’t look good for those such as me who want to see Auntie wear the soft pink twinsets we’ve come to love. She has to move forward, but with a common sense approach and a strong resolve to tackle real social injustice.

Neil’s new channel will set a very different agenda for debate and the BBC has to take notice if it’s to survive.

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