March 16, 2006 New Mandate for the BBC: Put Entertainment First By SARAH LYALL NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/16/arts/television/16bbc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print LONDON, March 15 The last few years have been rough for the British Broadcasting Corporation. It lost a bitter fight with the government and suffered the resignation of its top two officials in 2004 over its news coverage of British intelligence leading to the Iraq war. It has reorganized itself up and down, begun to lay off thousands of workers and worried endlessly about its viability at a time when the broadcasting landscape is changing at a dizzying pace. But this week the government threw a crucial lifeline to the Beeb, as it is familiarly called, pledging that it could continue to be financed by the license fee an annual charge levied on all British television owners at least through the next decade. Presenting a so-called white paper setting out the government's plans for the corporation, Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said on Tuesday that "we are optimists about the BBC" but warned that "it cannot take its position for granted." Ms. Jowell also said that the BBC, while remaining true to its mission as a public-service broadcaster, should take care not to inflict "an overdose of worthiness" on viewers. "The BBC should continue to take fun seriously, ingraining entertainment into all its services," Ms. Jowell told the House of Commons. In a major reorganization of the way the 84-year-old corporation is run, the government also said that it would scrap the BBC board of governors, which serves as both the BBC's champion and its regulator. Under the new system, the board's responsibilities are to be split between an executive board, which will run the corporation, and a separate group, known as the BBC Trust, that will represent the license-fee payers and to which the executive will have to answer. The BBC began in 1922 as a radio-only operation. Twenty years later, it introduced its first television station, and now runs more than eight TV stations as well as dozens of radio stations; 10 of the radio stations are broadcast nationwide. The centerpiece of its international radio operation, the BBC World Service, is broadcast in 43 languages and reaches 146 million listeners a week. The white paper, the culmination of more than two years of wrangling over the BBC's future, effectively means that when the corporation's current charter expires at the end of this year it will have a new charter in place, ensuring its future through 2016. Though Parliament will have a chance to discuss the proposals, they are not subject to legislative approval and are essentially a done deal. Critics and competitors of the BBC said they were disappointed. "The white paper singularly fails to rise to the challenge the BBC now faces," Hugo Swire, the Conservative Party's culture spokesman, told Parliament. "It was supposed to provide us with a springboard to the new digital age. But it is not so much a launching pad as a holding pen." The most contentious aspect of the BBC's structure is the way it is financed, almost entirely through an annual fee levied on all owners of television sets in Britain. The system made perfect sense in the old days, when the BBC was the only game in town and everybody watched the same thing. But now most Britons have access to the Internet and to scores of cable and digital channels in addition to the BBC's programming, and the BBC's audience share has fallen drastically. The BBC's broadcast competitors who are financed through commercials argue that the license fee is antiquated and should either be scrapped or shared with other broadcasters whose programming also has a public-service requirement, like Channel Four. The license fee is currently £126.50 ($220.98) per year for owners of color television sets (people with black-and-white sets pay £42, or $73). The BBC wants an increase in the fee with a potential increase to £180 ($314) a year by 2013 but the exact level will be decided in the next few months. (The fee now generates about £3 billion, or $5.23 billion, each year for the broadcaster.) The government also said that at some point in the future it would open discussions about whether to share the license fee with other broadcasters, and would revisit the existence of the license fee itself when the next charter expires in 2016, considering, for instance, the possibility of charging a subscription fee to BBC viewers. But for now, the license fee remains a serious cause of disagreement, particularly from competitors, who argue that it gives the BBC an unfair advantage. In a statement, Charles Allen, chief executive of ITV, a commercial competitor, said, "The BBC's funding must be proportionate to its needs and should not be able to stifle competition and innovation." Meanwhile, Mr. Swire of the Conservative Party called the license fee "an example of the stealthiest of stealth taxes." "In a fast-paced digital age," he said, "with people watching television on their mobile phones, iPods, and laptops, and with the eclipse of the traditional television channel, is it credible to believe that a compulsory tax on the ownership of a television set is the right way to fund our national broadcaster for the next 10 years?" ================================ George Antunes, Political Science Dept University of Houston; Houston, TX 77204 Voice: 713-743-3923 Fax: 713-743-3927 antunes at uh dot edu Reply with a "Thank you" if you liked this post. _____________________________ MEDIANEWS mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
