BBC fails

I must be one of Sky News´ biggest fans. I watch it for an average of about 10 hours a day six days in the office. Now, this week has been a big news week with the death of Lady Thatcher. But at no time this week did I consider turning to BBC News 24 or even the BBC 1 news. To be honest I did watch the BBC´s programme dedicated to the parliamentary tribute to Margaret Thatcher but their line-up was poor; presented by Andrew Neil his two guests were the former Health Secretary Edwina Curie (a regular day time television guest) and Ken Livingstone, the former Mayor of London, who left the show half way through, to do some gardening. Perhaps, I should have done the same. The tributes in parliament were fantastic but the BBC coverage was poor to say the least. Unfortunately, the BBC is not going through its finest hour. Also, I have heard that their documentary on the night of Lady Thatcher´s death was awful. If the BBC can´t shine on these occasions then I think it has a serious problem especially when private channels, which are not propped up by the tax-payer, did such a fantastic job. The problem with the BBC is that it tries to sit on the fence far too much. With Lady Thatcher, you either loved her or hated her. Lady Thatcher was no fan of the BBC, she said so on many occasions. But it is a great shame that the public broadcaster has not lived up to its mandate of quality and well balanced broadcasting. Margaret Thatcher would not have been surprised.