Notre-Dame: BBC's snub of cathedral reopening is proof it has lost its way on culture

He is just another one of the mediocre vulgarians that the BBC has promoted and protected as ‘stars’ over the years, with Jimmy Savile at the pinnacle of the genre.

Instead the BBC’s true demise is in what it fails to put on air.

Saturday saw a cultural event that captured the imagination of the world, the ceremony to mark the reopening of Notre-Dame Cathedral. It was attended by 50 world leaders and followed by a concert with an array of talented musicians including pianist Lang Lang, Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and Paris-born cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Bravo for Sky News that broadcast the whole opening ceremony live. Pictures came mainly via French TV, with just a niggling criticism that Sky could have been a bit sharper in identifying both French and international leaders aside from Donald Trump and the Prince of Wales.

However there was no mistaking the momentous significance of the occasion celebrating the rebirth of the medieval cathedral after a catastrophic fire five years ago - or the quality of the music.

The organ with 8,000 pipes - restored by 1,000 craftsmen - was a spectacular and unique musical triumph itself, three organists in turn improvising in responses to the incantations of the Archbishop of Paris.

Together with the concert that followed there can be no doubt that this was a moment in history, a cultural global happening and both events deserved to be screened in their entirety by a national broadcaster in any civilised country.

Instead BBC4 - with, ironically, its ‘primary role to reflect a range of UK and international arts, music and culture’ had a Saturday night of (very) light entertainment repeats from almost fifty years ago, and BBC2 devoted its schedule to pop music of thirty years vintage.

So while the Wallace episode for a few days merely distracted the BBC from its perpetual whingeing about its meagre £4 billion funding, the real question politicians must ask is about its neglect of the arts and its own remit.

Remarkably, not even Radio 3 had the Notre-Dame opening or concert coverage on its cultural schedule on Saturday.

BBC News will have at some point summarised the opening, no doubt focusing on the political encounters among world leaders on the Paris sidelines.

However, if the BBC is going to live off the commercial trivia of Gary Lineker, Masterchef and repeats of Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps (whatever that is) then it does not need the licence fee.

The growing number who no longer respect the BBC or indeed use its threadbare services can be relieved of the undemocratic financial charge while junk food and gambling advertisers will be delighted to support the relentlessly dumbed-down and archive-reliant schedules.

Instead the Government should directly subsidise a wide range of arts providers who are prepared to produce and broadcast local, national and international cultural events across all platforms: perhaps name that new institution the British Cultural Corporation.

Never mind the middle class of a certain age, neglecting the arts is an insult to ‘working people’ who are increasingly denied the right to be culturally engaged or challenged, and thus are robbed of the opportunity to develop higher aspirations.

Perhaps this is the real offence - the BBC’s tendency to limit the horizons of its own paying customers as with a great sneer it regularly serves them up with a certain sort of cheap, coarse personality.