Why should BBC settle out of court? It has been established Panorama had very limited play in the states. It did not seem to affect the elections one way or the other. As Nick says, it is a relatively high bar to prove malice or defamation. He does not necessarily have the Florida courts in his pocket. And the Florida courts would be hard pressed to determine if it has any jurisdiction over the BBC.
The only reason BBC might bend the knee is Trump's FCC ability to limit rebroadcast through its worldwide channel.
I noticed that in his Truth Social post Trump referred to the UK as a 'Foreign Country' - capital letters- that is 'supposed' to be one of the USA's closest allies.
Random Capitalization is a standard characteristic of Trump’s social media posting style.
Though BBC broadcast and on-demand services are only (legally) available to those with a TV licence (ie: those who have contributed to funding the BBC), the BBC can (and does) sell programmes to be broadcast on other channels - re-runs on other UK channels and channels in other nations. Selling programmes to other channels is a vital source of income, the costs of producing programming isn't covered by licence fees. If there's uncertainty within the BBC about whether this particular Panorama episode was broadcast in the US that presumably means that rights to broadcast it were sold to one or more US networks but the BBC don't know if it was actually broadcast - I can see why US networks might have bought a programme about former President Trump but then decide that when it became about President-elect Trump that it wasn't worth broadcasting.
Why should BBC settle out of court? It has been established Panorama had very limited play in the states. It did not seem to affect the elections one way or the other. As Nick says, it is a relatively high bar to prove malice or defamation. He does not necessarily have the Florida courts in his pocket. And the Florida courts would be hard pressed to determine if it has any jurisdiction over the BBC.
The only reason BBC might bend the knee is Trump's FCC ability to limit rebroadcast through its worldwide channel.
I'm not saying the BBC should settle out of court. I would hope they'd stick to their guns and with the full support of British politicians and the viewing public.
All I'm saying is that various US media outlets have chosen to settle out of court with Trump rather than rely on the US justice system.
Whether that says anything about the US courts I don't know.
I agree that it is different in the case of the BBC as they aren't based in the US.
Trump seems to have extended the issue beyond the Panorama programme and given the BBC an ultimatum that it should 'withdraw' any allegedly defamatory remarks it's supposed to have made about him throughout it's entire broadcast output. It's meant to do this by Friday.
He's doing his usual blustering and bullying thing. What bothers me is that others will ride on the back of this to damage the BBC or bend it to their particular agenda.
All I'm saying is that various US media outlets have chosen to settle out of court with Trump rather than rely on the US justice system.
Whether that says anything about the US courts I don't know.
I doubt there was a strong feeling that the courts would be against them; indeed, I’d guess the media outlets probably thought they had very good, though certainly not ironclad, chances in court. Given the First Amendment, the standard for a public official or public figure to succeed in a defamation case here is very high.
Rather, I’d suspect it says more about business decisions that in the long run it would be cheaper to settle than go through drawn-out and expensive litigation, and that settling would make the attention on them, both Trump’s attention and the public’s attention, go elsewhere. In other words, better for business for there not to be a case to start with,
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The only reason BBC might bend the knee is Trump's FCC ability to limit rebroadcast through its worldwide channel.
I'm not saying the BBC should settle out of court. I would hope they'd stick to their guns and with the full support of British politicians and the viewing public.
All I'm saying is that various US media outlets have chosen to settle out of court with Trump rather than rely on the US justice system.
Whether that says anything about the US courts I don't know.
I agree that it is different in the case of the BBC as they aren't based in the US.
Trump seems to have extended the issue beyond the Panorama programme and given the BBC an ultimatum that it should 'withdraw' any allegedly defamatory remarks it's supposed to have made about him throughout it's entire broadcast output. It's meant to do this by Friday.
He's doing his usual blustering and bullying thing. What bothers me is that others will ride on the back of this to damage the BBC or bend it to their particular agenda.
Rather, I’d suspect it says more about business decisions that in the long run it would be cheaper to settle than go through drawn-out and expensive litigation, and that settling would make the attention on them, both Trump’s attention and the public’s attention, go elsewhere. In other words, better for business for there not to be a case to start with,