Noel Edmonds claims BBC is ‘sleepwalking toward destruction’ amid takeover talk
Noel Edmonds, the creative force behind Mr Blobby, gunge tanks and Deal or no Deal, has delivered a sharp rebuke to present BBC management during a stint on Newsnight – and claimed he has formed a consortium of business interests to buy-out the broadcaster.
Facing off against Jeremy Paxman Edmonds stated that he no longer paid his license-fee and dismissed the public service broadcaster as no longer fit for purpose in the YouTube age, making it an ideal candidate for takeover by the mysterious ‘Project Reith’.
Edmonds refused to divulge what figure the shadowy grouping had arrived at when putting a price on the institution but said: “We’ve run some models on what the BBC would be worth today and what it would be worth after the next round of cuts”, implying that it wasn’t much.
Identifying ‘triple problems’ of funding, ‘historic baggage’ and use as a ‘political football’ Edmonds said: “It’s not fit for purpose in the age of Apple and Microsoft, In the age of very large businesses who would love to pick over the carcass of the BBC. It’s the wrong shape.
“Ten years ago we didn’t have YouTube, we didn’t have Netflix breaking new programmes, we didn’t have iPad’s. In ten years’ time we will be getting our entertainment in a totally different way and the BBC has got to be reconfigured to be able to do that.
“It’s a patient which is now terminally ill and needs another force from outside to make it fit for the world.
“We believe the BBC is sleepwalking its way to destruction and could be lost to Britain.”