In March 2014 AVfM published my article on the BBC having become a job creation scheme for women, run by women (much like the NHS over recent decades).
The impact on the productivity of both organizations has been inevitable, given what is known about the differences in gender-typical work ethics, and women’s propensity for part-time working, whether or not they have children.
In the case of the BBC, we would expect to see the productivity decline reflected in an increasing number of repeats, and I therefore looked at today’s BBC television schedules, and BBC2 in particular. My newspaper guide covers a period of transmission on BBC2 from 06:20 today, to 02:30 tomorrow morning, a period of 20.16 hours.
Of this period, four films (from as early as 1951, The Lavendar Hill Mob) occupy 8.11 hours, leaving 12.05 hours for the broadcast of 16 programmes, some as old as Dad’s Army (1968-77). How many of these 16 programmes are repeats? All of them.
Never mind. The important things is that licence payers have the comfort of knowing their hard-earned money is keeping down the female unemployment rate, which has long been lower than the male unemployment rate.