http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/30/robert-peston-james-murdoch-bbcThe BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, was involved in an astonishing slanging match with James Murdoch following the News Corporation chief's speech to television executives in Edinburgh where he accused the BBC of mounting a "land grab".
Peston, like other BBC executives, was critical of Murdoch's MacTaggart lecture to the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV festival on Friday, in which the News Corp chairman and chief executive in Europe and Asia described the size and ambitions of the BBC as "chilling".
Murdoch also heavily criticised the media industry regulator, Ofcom, calling for regulation to be scaled down, and accused the government of "dithering" and failing to protect British companies from the consequences of online piracy.
At an official dinner following the speech, Murdoch and Peston ? who were sitting with the Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark and the BBC chairman, Sir Michael Lyons ? became involved in a discussion about banking deregulation which progressed to the flashpoint of whether or not the BBC was patrician, according to those who were there.
Murdoch apparently banged the table and shouted: "How dare you?" with Peston shouting back: "If you think you can get fucking angry, I can get fucking angry."
Must have been like two sheep baaing at one another ~ One with his half Australian, half American accent and the other one with his drawling attempt at sounding world weary.
Honestly do we care? The Beeb, I think we all accept, has an agenda of its own and since all political parties have at various times accused it of bias against them it would seem that actually it is not so much what they do/say as what people think they hear. Murdoch simply wants to dominate the market to increase revenue.
I noticed yesterday that although this speech of Murdoch's received coverage (headline coverage at one point) on all the BBC News Broadcasts and featured heavily on BBC Internet News there was only what amounted to virtually a passing reference on Sky News at first.
