Do we still think public service broadcasting matters? For those of us who do, these are worrying times. “The public service broadcasting system is undoubtedly facing an existential threat,” warns the former chair of ITV and much else, Peter Bazalgette.
ITV, he reveals, has not yet decided to reapply for a new public service broadcasting (PSB) licence because it does not know what the terms will be. He and many others await the new broadcasting bill, which, they hope, will ensure that when their services are placed on a digital platform they do not own – such as Amazon, Apple, Samsung, LG, Sky and Virgin – they will be given “prominence” and not charged ridiculous amounts. If not, says Bazalgette, ITV has plenty of non-public service broadcasting options.
Elsewhere in PSB-land there is heartening news, for it now seems unlikely that the broadcasting bill will propose privatising Channel 4. But what next? Who knows. Could someone please offer an inspiring vision of what its contribution to public service broadcasting should be in the next 40 years? I understand why independent producers opposed privatisation with such vehemence – it threatened their businesses – but what about inspiring content? Does anyone have a vision of the future to compare with that which Jeremy Isaacs, its founding chief executive, displayed all those years ago?
And then there is the BBC, the public service mothership just turned 100 years old. But what is its vision for the next decade, let alone the next century?
Two noble baronesses hit the nail on the head very forcibly in a recent House of Lords debate. “It remains unclear what the BBC wants to be, beyond being a significant player in this global media world,” said the Conservative peer Lady Stowell, chair of the communications committee, who once worked for the BBC. She wanted to know “what it will do more of… continue to do … stop doing”.
Lady (Dido) Harding, also a Conservative peer, fired a warning shot across the bows of Broadcasting House, saying, “No investment proposal should be approved without a compelling long-term vision and plan.” The implication was clear, she hadn’t seen one. But then, neither have the rest of us. It’s a creative vision thing: is there such a thing at and for the BBC ?
There is certainly a business vision, as there should be. The BBC board is now top heavy with bankers and business people. The chairman, Richard Sharp, tutored Rishi Sunak at Goldman Sachs. The corporation’s future as a big, international business is pretty secure. A commercial version of it could survive without the licence fee, but is that what we want?
Contrary to what the Daily Mail constantly argues, the BBC is now a very efficient business, not least because of the herculean efforts of its director general, Tim Davie, who, while cleverly blunting government allegations of impartiality, has been faced with a 30% cut in real spending power. With inflation rampant, further cuts are in the offing, which will follow already announced cuts in essential elements of its public service offering, including news, local radio and the World Service.
But no one voted for that. All this is happening without the people who pay for the corporation, the licence-fee payers, being consulted. The oft-used slogan “It’s your BBC” is in danger of ringing hollow.
The BBC has never been very good on consultation or accountability, as I know from my many years presenting Radio 4’s Feedback, where all too often there was little feedback. When it came to inviting executives on to the programme, the press office would often intervene, saying, “We don’t think this is the right time to say something on this subject.” I would reply that the right time was whenever the listener wanted an answer.
(There were some wonderful exceptions, such as the departing controller of Radio 3, Alan Davey, who would always come on and answer anything. He got it. Well, he had been – inside and outside the BBC – a very public servant.)
When it came to inviting presenters and producers on to Feedback, requests also had to go through the press office, and if an interview took place a press officer would usually be present, at their insistence. The good producers, and there are a lot of them, would roll their eyes at being chaperoned. And I got the impression that some press officers were a bit embarrassed by their role as “minders”.
Davie has said he is determined to improve accountability, and I am sure he is sincere, but he then presses on with his business plan – and those cuts – as though he were running a commercial business, not this much-loved, publicly owned, publicly financed institution.
Of course, someone has to take decisions, we can’t all vote on what has to go, but surely we would have a right to expect the ability to discuss priorities? For example, Radio 4 Extra may go online only, thus depriving some older listeners of a service they greatly value, while leaving them with many other, much more expensive, services they could well do without. They had no say. The BBC director of speech radio, Mohit Bakaya, says, rather mystifyingly, that the online move of 4 Extra is “not a done deal”. Maybe protests could tip the balance.
BBC Four, which originally commissioned the wonderful series Detectorists, is also to go online and become an archive channel only. Again, no consultation. BBC local radio is being decimated, despite its role in serving so many communities.
Truly, to use Bazalgette’s phrase, an existential threat, and with a new year we need new thinking: pause the BBC cuts now, postpone the debate on the privatisation of Channel 4 and ensure ITV remains a public service broadcaster, while conducting a proper cross-party inquiry into the future of the public service media and how to pay for it.
We have, by accident and design, created a landscape and a tradition of public service broadcasting in this country that is very special. We must be vigilant of it. It would be careless, not to say criminal, to let it slip away.
