Criticising the BBC for doing something you like: Last Night of the Proms edition

Since 1927 the BBC has organised and broadcast the Proms, a series of classical music concerts held every Summer (Henry Wood founded them in 1895)

Every year the concerts culminate with the Last Night of the Proms concert from the Royal Albert Hall. It’s broadcast on BBC One to a large audience and every year features a number of pieces including Land of Hope and Glory, Pomp and Circumstance, and Rule, Britannia!

It’s a fun night with much flag-waving and frivolity

Given how popular the event is (it’s very hard to get tickets) the BBC also organises a series of “Proms in the Park” events so more people can be involved. I’ve been myself. Great fun. So, what’s the problem?

Enter Richard Morrison, the chief music critic of The Times. He also writes a column for BBC Music Magazine. Confusingly BBC Music Magazine isn’t published by the BBC, it’s entirely seperate and owned by Immediate Media. So Richard doesn’t work for the BBC.

Richard has written a column criticising the Last Night of the Proms, specifically the music it features. Personally I don’t agree with him, but he’s entitled to his opinion and certainly knows more about classical music than most.

And so here we get to the crux of the issue; certain people have seen coverage of Richard’s column (most notably in the Daily Mail) but instead of saying they disagree with him, have opted to criticise the BBC. Strange, no?

For some reason they’re pretending that the views of a single journalist who doesn’t work for the BBC are the views of the BBC:

And boy are they angry about these views that they’re pretending the BBC holds, including this member of parliament:

Indeed they like the Last Night of the Proms so much that they think the BBC, which makes it, shouldn’t be funded:

In summary: The BBC produces the Last Night of the Proms every year and broadcasts it to millions. A Times journalist thinks the songs should change and because of that some seemingly confused individuals are attacking the BBC and saying it shouldn’t exist. Marvellous.