British broadcasting and in particular the BBC have in recent years been hit by an apparently endless series of scandals involving the conduct of members of their front-of-camera staff.

These controversies have often involved inappropriate personal relationships which male television presenters have had with junior colleagues – in circumstances which were once perhaps seen by them as perks of their jobs, but which are now widely perceived as abuses of their power.

It's now a dozen years since the corporation was rocked – and the entire nation was shocked – by posthumous revelations as to the monstrous crimes of one BBC personality, who turned out to be guilty of serial child abuse on an almost industrial scale.

The discovery of those crimes prompted a major set of police investigations. A number of other British TV presenters – and a host of radio disc jockeys – have since been found guilty of similar offences, for which several have served custodial sentences.

But these stories have continued to dominate news headlines, as more and more cases of criminal behaviour and professional misconduct have been exposed.

In 2015, the corporation was, after issuing him with numerous warnings, eventually obliged to fire an odious individual who fronted one of its most popular shows – and one of its biggest global exports – a motoring journalist and purveyor of reactionary views, when he was accused of assaulting a colleague. That man’s continuing media career included the publication two years ago in a national tabloid newspaper of comments which were withdrawn and disavowed by that paper itself, and which were described by the UK Culture Secretary as "outrageous" and by the woman then serving as First Minister of Scotland as "deeply misogynist and just downright awful and horrible". 

Earlier this year, the BBC's highest profile news presenter – the top anchor for flagship news programming, including general election coverage and the live coverage of the Queen's funeral – resigned from the organisation and was convicted of the possession of indecent images of children.

During the rigorous police investigation of his crimes, he had so successfully managed to convince his bosses of his innocence that, although he was suspended from appearing on our screens, he not only continued to receive his highly generous salary but was even rewarded with a pay rise.

Yet again, those in positions of power and authority at the corporation promised a root-and-branch review of the BBC's culture and processes. But nothing seems to have changed. Since then, the organisation has been further shamed by reports about the conduct of some of its more powerful and prominent employees – its so-called on-screen talent – yet again.

In the autumn, we were regaled with unpleasant stories as to the ways in which two professional dancers had mistreated some of the minor celebrities whom they train in the art of ballroom dancing for one of the BBC's most popular family programmes.

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And, over the last few weeks the news has once more been filled with unsavoury stories as to the behind-the-scenes behaviour of another of its front-of-camera stars, a former greengrocer who came to present the BBC's best-known cookery competition, another one of its core entertainment shows.

Towards the end of November, allegations emerged as to his conduct towards female colleagues and contestants on these programmes. His accusers included one of the BBC's own most respected journalists. He was accused of engaging in acts of harassment, including making comments unsuited to the workplace and the inappropriate touching of women involved in his shows.

At the start of this month, he decided to set the record straight. He posted a homemade video onto Instagram in which he described his detractors as "middle class women of a certain age".

This wasn't a smart thing to do. Indeed, his defence proved about as effective as the tactics employed by Prince Andrew in his 2019 interview with the BBC's Emily Maitlis – a car crash of a performance generally regarded as an object lesson in how not to engage in public relations – a now-legendary piece of television which this year prompted both Amazon and Netflix to release their own dramatized versions of the circumstances through which the Queen's second son became a pariah to his own family and was ejected from his role as what they call a 'working royal'.

This month, the cookery presenter's own defence sparked an even greater outpouring of public anger than the original allegations that had been made against him – prompting people both young and old, women and men at all points on the socioeconomic spectrum, to brand him ageist, sexist and classist.

His argument – that the only women brave enough to go public with their complaints against him were established media figures – led some to speculate how many more women, without the luxury of such career successes behind them, might have been forced to suffer his unwanted attentions for years in silence.

That day, a quick scan through the hundred or so top responses on the platform formerly known as Twitter revealed virtually unanimous disgust at his crude attempt to justify unprofessional conduct.

In 2011, senior BBC figures had succeeded in pressuring its news department to shelve an investigation into its recently deceased star presenter (and serial child-abuser) so as not to force the cancellation of a Christmas TV extravaganza which they'd made to celebrate his life in broadcasting. This year, the BBC acted rather faster, and that particular cookery show's Christmas specials were ditched from the schedules in the hours immediately following the posting of the video of their presenter's offensive defence.

BBC News seems these days to have grown somewhat emboldened in the reporting of such horror stories about its own organisation. Indeed, the corporation's morning radio news programme two weeks ago announced, somewhat absurdly, that it had asked its own corporation to provide a representative to be interviewed live on air, but that its request had been declined.

All of this embarrassment has of course just provided more ammunition for the corporation's business rivals and ideological adversaries in the UK's right-wing press, who would like nothing better than to see the BBC being defunded and closed down.

The sad thing – for those of us who believe in the role that a robust, reliable, and respected public broadcasting service should serve as a bastion of democracy – is that, by coddling, spoiling, and pandering to its talent, and by failing to purge a culture of complacency in which power continues to allow abuse and enforce silence, the British Broadcasting Corporation has brought all these troubles upon itself. As it edges closer towards the precipice – and if it fails to act boldly to reform its own practices – it will have nobody other than itself to blame for its wholly unnecessary demise.