The decisions regarding football icon Gary Lineker and Sir David Attenborough’s new nature series have taken the British Broadcasting Corporation from one crisis to another this past week.
16:29•Updated 16:31
The British broadcaster BBC has found itself in the middle of a fierce public debate after it decided to shelve the sports legend who hosted the popular Match of The Day football broadcasts by Gary Lineker. The reason was his criticism of the British Conservative government’s immigration policy on social media.
Lineker’s comments concerned the country’s interior minister Suella Braverman’s The video he posted on Twitter, where he talked about the new immigration bill. Under the law, people entering the country illegally could be removed from the country.
Lineker compared the government’s hard line and language to 1930s Nazi Germany, which infuriated Braverman and the country’s conservative press. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has named stopping migrants crossing the English Channel by boat as one of its five main goals.
Lineker’s shelving has put the BBC in a strange position. On Friday night, former football players Ian Wright and Alan Shearer announced that they would not appear in the BBC’s football magazine in solidarity with Lineker. The channel’s four match commentators also said that they felt that working on the program would not be right for them.
As a result of the refusals, the BBC announces that on Saturday the football match will be exceptionally broadcast without the discussion of the host and experts, and without commentary.
Lineker’s sacking has led many to believe that the BBC has buckled under pressure from the Conservative government. For example, the former director general of the BBC Greg Dyke has said the company has long had a policy that rules on political neutrality do not apply to hosts of entertainment programs and sports broadcasts.
– The real problem here is that the BBC has damaged its own credibility with its actions. From the outside, this looks like the BBC has bowed to government pressure, Dyke said on the BBC radio program on Saturday.
An episode of Attenborough’s nature series was blocked from being televised
On Friday, the broadcasting company’s problems deepened even more. British newspaper The Guardian (you are switching to another service) says that the BBC does not agree to portray such a legendary naturalist of Sir Richard Attenborough episodes of the upcoming series. According to the Guardian, the reason for the episode being shelved is the fear that the series’ episode about the destruction of nature will be criticized by the conservative press and politicians.
The remaining five episodes of the series will be broadcast as originally planned on BBC One in prime time. The decision has angered the creators of the program.
The BBC itself has denied that political influence or fear was the reason for withdrawing the episode. According to the company, the episode in question was not even intended for television distribution. The episode will be available to watch on the BBC streaming service. TV and streaming services reach different audiences of different ages.