The BBC braces for the fight of its life
Europe's largest broadcaster has few friends in the newly formed Tory
government in London.
By Alex Spence
Politico
13/5/15, 9:21 AM CET
http://www.politico.eu/article/the-bbc-braces-for-the-fight-of-its-life/
LONDON — A majority Conservative government was the outcome that
Europe’s largest public broadcaster dreaded most.
And Prime Minister David Cameron had not even finished announcing his
new Cabinet this week when the British press declared his government at
war with the BBC.
The appointment of John Whittingdale, a Conservative stalwart and former
adviser to Margaret Thatcher, as the minister overseeing broadcasting
policy was, to hear the UK media tell it, the opening barrage in what
will be a brutal fight about the corporation’s future over the next 18
months.
The extent of the new Culture Secretary’s hostility to the BBC was, in
some cases, comically overstated. But the stakes for the BBC are higher
than ever. The negotiations will be rough. Britain’s public broadcaster
may emerge from five years of Tory government looking drastically different.
Although the corporation is editorially independent of the British
state, it relies on the public purse for £3.7 billion (€5.1 billion) of
its £5 billion (€6.9 billion) annual budget. And it now has to wrestle
an agreement about its funding and remit for another ten years from a
party whose members frequently accuse its journalists of left-wing bias
and promised voters that there will be no increase in the £145.50
(€203,30) that they pay annually to fund the BBC.
“Tories go to war on the BBC,” thundered the front page of The Daily
Telegraph after Whittingdale’s appointment was announced. “Cameron’s
shot across the bows to the BBC,” proclaimed The Times.
The BBC, whose programming includes nine TV channels, 16 radio stations
and one of the world’s most-trafficked news websites, is fighting to
retain a universal, compulsory license fee, which it argues is the
fairest and best mechanism for funding its services.
It claims that it has already slashed around £1 billion in costs in
response to financial constraints imposed by the previous government and
warns that, without an increase in its annual public funding, the
quality of programs will suffer.
At risk, BBC executives say, is nothing short of their ability to
provide free, universally accessible journalism and entertainment that
is used, in some form or other, by around 96 percent of the UK
population every week.
Its opponents, including many in the Conservative ranks, have little
sympathy for those arguments. Some want the license fee reduced, arguing
that it is too much for struggling families to afford; others want it
scrapped entirely and replaced by voluntary subscriptions.
A group of back-benchers has been agitating for the removal of criminal
sanctions for non-payment of the fee, which the BBC says will cost it
millions of pounds a year in lost revenue by pushing up evasion rates.
The drumbeat was already growing as Cameron’s new Cabinet met for the
first time Tuesday.
Whittingdale’s elevation to their ranks was unexpected, although he is
well-qualified for the role. He served as shadow Culture Secretary twice
between 2002 and 2005 and was then chairman of the House of Commons’
influential Culture, Media and Sport committee for nearly a decade until
March. In that role, he presided over inquiries into phone hacking by
tabloid newspapers and, most recently, the future of the BBC.
His past comments about the license fee being outdated and regressive
have been held up this week as those of a hardline reformer — and
evidence of the government’s intention to radically shake up the BBC.
The truth is more nuanced. He does favor reform — but is far more
sympathetic to the BBC than many of his colleagues, according to
politicians and media executives who have known him for years.
Unlike his predecessors as Culture Secretary, Whittingdale is deeply
knowledgeable about the issues affecting the BBC and, they say, will
ensure that any reforms are carefully thought out. “It is by far the
best appointment that the government could have made,” says Claire
Enders, founder of Enders Analysis, a consultancy.
Ben Bradshaw, a Labour MP and former Culture Secretary, who served on
the Culture committee with Whittingdale until March, said: “Although his
instincts are Thatcherite, he’s always seemed to me to be prepared to
listen to the evidence. His views (on the BBC) are actually far less
hostile than some of the other utterances coming from the Conservative
back benches.”
Bradshaw added: “He’s hawkish, but he’s not ideologically or viscerally
hostile. He recognizes the value and importance of the BBC, recognizes
the value of the BBC as a British international brand and the huge,
essential contribution it makes to our creative industries as a whole.”
Whittingdale is also ideally placed because of the lengthy inquiry he
has just led at the Culture committee, observers say.
The report, published in February, was the result of consensus between
MPs from three parties, but its findings are close to Whittingdale’s own
thinking on the future structure, funding and purpose of the BBC. He
instigated the inquiry in order to influence the charter negotiations,
without knowing that he would be the minister presiding over them, and
the findings give an insight into how he is likely to approach charter
review.
It is not a radical document. Even those who staunchly support the BBC
say that it should be taken seriously; Enders describes it as an
“excellent” foundation for the charter discussions.
Despite Whittingdale’s reservations about a universal, compulsory levy,
the report urges the government not to “rush to profound changes” and
concludes that the license fee is the only realistic option for the next
few years, albeit with modifications to the way it is collected and
enforced.
However, the report does lay the ground for significant changes in
future. The committee expressed reservations about the sustainability of
a compulsory, universal levy when consumers are becoming accustomed to
paying for only the media they want to use. “I think the argument about
providing something for everyone becomes weaker, given the huge increase
in choice available elsewhere through the market,” Whittingdale told
Parliament when he introduced the document in February.
The government should, as part of this charter review, consider whether
to move the BBC to a voluntary subscription-based system further down
the line, the report said. The MPs acknowledged that implementing the
technology to block signals to users that do not choose to subscribe
(which is not currently in place in most households) will take years and
therefore could not be ready for the start of the next charter period in
2017, even if the BBC agreed to adopt a subscription model. But any
license fee settlement this time around could be made conditional on the
BBC beginning a transition to a voluntary system in a decade.
Whittingdale also may pressure the BBC to reduce the range of
programming it provides. He appears to have little patience for populist
programming such as “The Voice”, a Saturday night singing contest, and
wants the BBC instead to focus on areas that are not well-served by
privately-owned media companies. “When we looked at the scale of the
BBC — what the BBC does — we were unconvinced by the argument that it
should continue to try to provide something for everyone,” he told the
Commons in February.
Enders says: “John has taken a consistent view since 1992, when he first
started talking about public service broadcasting, that it is there as
an intervention when there is a market failure. His position has often
been misunderstood as against the BBC, the license fee or public service
broadcasting, or all three, however actually not one element of that is
right.
“He’s not against the BBC. But he does have a Thatcherite position,
which is that the license fee should only be allocated for pure public
service broadcasting that can easily be recognized as public service
broadcasting: “Wolf Hall,” regional news, Radio 4.”
The BBC would also, if Whittingdale follows his report’s
recommendations, face tougher scrutiny by outside bodies and have to
work more closely with commercial media, particularly local newspapers,
in return for its public funding.
The biggest fight will be the amount of money the BBC receives this time
around, observers say.
The Conservatives’ election manifesto promised to “freeze the license
fee, to save you money.” The BBC will be concerned that it may receive
the same amount of money but with additional responsibilities, resulting
in a cut in its budget in real terms. In 2010, the license fee was held
at £145.50 but the BBC was made to take over funding for services such
as rural broadband and local television.
If this happens again, more services and more jobs will have to go,
executives warn. They have already decided to take BBC Three, a
youth-oriented television channel, off air to save money. “If the
license fee settlement is poor, then you could see BBC Four going, you
could see a squeeze on Radio 3, maybe Radio 2,” Patrick Younge, former
chief creative officer at the BBC, says.
Sir Peter Bazalgette, a television producer and chairman of the Arts
Council, says: “I suspect the best thing they can hope for is a frozen
license fee.”
Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC’s director-general, told staff in an
e-mail Tuesday: “Quite rightly, there will be lively and robust debate
about the future of the BBC and its role in public life. We should
approach this debate with confidence. The BBC is a treasured national
asset but of course it cannot be immune to change.”
He will publish proposals in the next few months about how the BBC can
“flourish in the Internet age”, Lord Hall said. The fight is on.
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