Letter: BBC dramatic cuts

From Mr Stanley Price

Sir: Further to your story, "Financial crisis halts BBC series" (21 April), I feel it cannot be emphasised sufficiently how these cuts are to be implemented almost exclusively in those departments -drama, documentary, history and education - that entitle the BBC to be considered a public service broadcaster justifying its licence fee.

It seems strange logic that any company should cut back on what it is best at - rather as though Rolls-Royce decided to concentrate on bicycles. I have just returned from the eighth European TV Festival at Reims where the BBC's Genghis Cohn won the prize for best film (I was only there because I wrote it), and Mike Rossiter's Blueprint for Genocide, also for the BBC, won the award for best documentary. All the European TV personnel I met seemed to take it for granted that the BBC usually won these awards.

It seemed unpatriotic to tell one's fellow-Europeans that top bureaucrats at the BBC are going to change all that. Still, bad reviews for some is good news for others. If you wear your baseball cap backwards, and have an IQ under 45, you are in for uninterrupted hours of happy viewing.

Yours sincerely,

STANLEY PRICE

London, N10