BBC boss Tony Hall has outlined his vision of the BBC’s future including the idea of everyone having a personalised platform of BBC content, partly in response to the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport which has published its report on the future of the most important news media organisation in the UK – the BBC. It’s a journalistic and cultural institution with significance around the globe. Recently it has been plagued by scandals such as Savile and rows over pay and waste. But more importantly it is at a crucial phase where technological, social and global media industry changes raise questions about its form and function. This report will not decide anything, but it will shape the political debate as the BBC approaches the latest Charter Renewal deadline in 2017.
The Committee has said there should be significant change in the BBC’s funding and its governance. But look more closely and and I think that the MPs have created a fairly moderate report, perhaps the inevitable result of a collective effort made so close to an election. But even though they put off the moment for radical change they do set out a discernible and achievable path. I find little to disagree with in their conclusions (and from a personal point of view I am delighted that they cite my evidence to them at several important points).
They back a household levy to replace the licence fee at some point in the future and I think this is a good place to start. The Germans have something similar and that seems to work although as technology develops there may be other options for revenue collection in a post analogue channel world.
They also call for a new governance structure to replace the BBC Trust. The recent speech by the new Trust chair Rona Fairhead exemplified the problem with the current Trust set-up. She will be an excellent Trust chair but how can she be both the ‘voice of the public’ and ‘protect the BBC’?
Universality Challenged
More importantly perhaps, the Committee challenges the BBC’s cornerstone of universality: the idea that the BBC must do a bit of everything for everyone all the time. This is vital. No-one likes to lose the bit of the BBC they like (especially BBC managers) but until the BBC cuts certain functions then it will not prioritise its strategy and provide the resources for innovation that is needed. It has now got to the point where its size means it is not addressing market failure, it is distorting the media economy.
The committee suggests a review of the BBC’s ‘public purposes’. And it’s true, this wish-list of what the BBC must do has become so all-encompassing that the criteria are almost meaningless when used to measure the value that the BBC delivers. Unless the BBC’s is asked to think self-critically about why it exists, then it won’t think thoroughly about what it does.
By suggesting the creation of a proper board to run the BBC and a separate watchdog to oversee it, the MPs have posited a governance structure where real reform is more likely. Unleashing the National Audit Office and Ofcom would also keep up the pressure.
Serving Britain
There was a clear message that the BBC must be more diverse in its make-up and better at serving Britain as a whole including leading a rescue mission for local news. The MPs were less clear on how that kind of thing would be achieved, but that’s a job for the managers.
Likewise, they strongly backed Tony Hall’s partnership proposals but insisted they go much further in a more open and equitable way. I am delighted that they quote the wise words of a Professor Beckett from the LSE (ahem…) who suggests that opening up BBC content production more would make it more diverse, efficient and accountable:
“If more people participated in production in this way and more organisations had a stake in the BBC, then the Corporation would become more accountable and responsive.”
The timing on this around Charter Renewal is critical. The MPs have suggested that rather than go straight to another 10 year period in 2017, the BBC should only get a two year extension to allow for deeper and wider debate about options. That opens up the prospect of quite a frantic short term melee to be followed by an even more fundamental battle to define the next decade for the BBC midway through the next parliament. That makes the appointment of the next BBC DG even more important. That is all great news for those who comment on BBC politics, less happy news for BBC managers trying to get on with their long-term plans.
The MPs have gone for the St Augustine strategy: ‘make the BBC reform radically, but not just yet.’ I think that this is wise. The BBC needs the full confidence of parliament and the wider public in its vital contribution to national life and the creative economy in a world where its cultural value, its liberal, democratic ideals and its commitment to public service and quality are more important than ever. But it also needs to be pushed to unshackle itself from the turf wars, self-protectionism and under-confidence that have plagued it recently. Tony Hall has done a very good short-term job in stabilising the ship and pointing it in a sensible direction. However, what it will have to do over the next decade is to reshape itself as an organisation to suit the digital era.
[I have given my detailed view on the future of the BBC in a lengthy submission to the committee that you can read here.]
The BBC – being a national and international new & radio media and information provider for tax-payers – has to has the strong will and determination to be different and socially reflective in what programming it produces and in what news it projects both nationally and internationally.
Switching between BBC news 24 and Sky news, one wouldn’t believe that they are different broadcasters. Content is exactly the same between the two news channels. WHY IS THAT? One would expect that the BBC – given its tax-payer funded status – would be harnessing the VOICES of a more DIVERSE range of people from the public for who has tales of experiencing policy failings and the consequences of this and also holding politicians to account on this. But, instead nothing highlights such a will by the organisation to go deep within the HEART of the Community and to extract VOICES of those vulnerable, disadvantaged and TALENT amongst those who are also experiencing challenging lives. Isn’t this the HOPE that tax-payers expect from an organisation whose life depends on public taxes?
Furthermore, having hired an ex-Sky News senior individual, does this not also highlight where BBCs strategic objective have become futile?
Finally, there is so much knowledge amongst the public that many times STORIES from the public – highlighting political policy failings – DO NOT get to the fore of BBC content, they go to radio 4 – seemingly playing down what is REAL and what reflects FAILINGS within the community… and social mobility too.
Is it not the case that with any government holding onto the purse strings of the BBC, and ‘conflicts of interests’ many times being the reason for why REAL STORIES from the public are seldom given the attention they truly deserve, that the BBCs attempt to be INDEPENDENT, different than SKY news and publically objective – by going into the HEART of Communities and Understanding the REAL and TRUE extend to why FAILURE exists – that the BBC has become pointless rather than a worthy tool that HARNESSES both POTENTIAL and FAILINGS in our communities. Thus, how can we allow such an organisation to remain HEARTLESS in its Strategic objective given its failure to pursue REAL Voices?
Anyone watch the BBCs paper review at night? Why on earth has it in every way COPIED Sky news on this one? Wouldn’t we have expected the BBC to get community leaders – even Charity volunteers – to express their views on news content? Wouldn’t this be a GREAT alternative to give such VOICES a platform to be heard?
IAS2012 you’re making some good points but they’re lost in the creepy CAPITALISATION.
Charlie – I’ll look at your submission but wonder if you could summarise your views on
the news side of the BBC, apparently set up to provide independent journalism but in practice very much dependent on the BBC itself. If a person cannot serve God and Mammon, can a reporter serve Journalism and the Corporation?
Maurizio Morabito, thank you for your response to my comments.
Also, glad you understand and agree with the content of my comments. Though, a mild apology for the capital letters used to emphasise points.
With regards to the BBC journalism being independent of the BBC, I share your thoughts on this. The BBC has to do more to capitalise on the voice of the community where many appalling subject maters that reflect failings and aspirations – amid those failings – exist.
I continue to make this link between the BBC and Sky News – both 24hour channels that look exactly the same in news content and the delivery of that news. Thus, the BBC needs to become both innovative and a leader of community news – not least because I believe there lies a strong relationship and missed opportunity to captivate a community audience towards BBC news – but, to enable this its journalist need to go into the heart of the community and hold government account to their findings.
thank you IAS2012 also for not capitalising your text. I made the same observation years ago, and I’m sure many people must have recognised like us that given the nature of “Sky” and the “BBC”, there is something fundamentally wrong when the news in each are mostly the same and mostly presented the same way.
We will know BBC News has entered the XXI century when it will stop having the look and feel of a corporate product, the duration of news programmes will be variable as a blog post’s length, and as you suggest there will be a lot more done with the impressive amount of information freely produced and distributed by “the community”.
And maybe, just maybe, BBC News won’t have to worry about defending BBC the Corporation.
Maurizio, I totally agree with your comments.
Yes, we both realise the difference – or, at least the perception – between a corporate ‘private’ sector and a ‘community’ sector approach to news ‘content’ and coverage. Sadly and unforgivably, the BBC has failed to establish a firm footing of this balance and captivating an audience that can feel empowered by having their voices heard. BBC news 24 most certainly has to change! This 24hour news channel has now employed a former Sky News senior who, it could be said, has been responsible for putting the final nail in the coffin for BBC strategy, coverage and content material.
Why, on earth, do we not have ‘ordinary’ community folk and community leader on the newspaper review at night, I just don’t know. It seems like only the established newspaper editors, former ministers and MPs… and business people are the only ones allowed to have a response to newspapers or online content in this way. why?
Finally, the BBC needs to be challenged for its content and coverage. Thus, applying a more balanced approach to its network. But, it is clear to me that it simply does not want to do this.
Sorry Maurizio you’re not making any sense to me – how can the BBC journalism be independent of the BBC?
Erm…that’s my point. BBC journalism is first of all “BBC” and only as a side “journalism”. If there is a conflict between the two, the BBC will win, and journalism lose.
What I mean is that the BBC having become such a large organisation and its own centre of power, its journalism can only suffer, and has suffered already – see the Gilligan/Kelly disaster and the words of the Hutton Inquiry, damning whichever way you look at them: “the Governors should have recognised more fully than they did that their duty to protect the independence of the BBC was not incompatible with giving proper consideration to whether there was validity in the Government’s complaints”
Instead of being free to report about the world, BBC journalism has to submit to the Good of the Corporation. This looks like a supremely bad thing for a “journalistic…institution with significance around the globe”. True? False?
Would BBC journalism be any better if the News were spun out into a separate Corporation? At least, they wouldn’t have to worry about not hurting any of the myriad of non-news BBC activities.
From your written submission… “[BBC] news should retain its current ambition of being objective, impartial, balanced, factual and broad”. I’m talking as a longtime BBC listener from abroad, who only upon moving to Britain realised that BBC news is going to be subjective, partial, unbalanced, unreal and narrow, if that’s what the Corporation needs about a particular topic. I do not see it as an evil conspiracy, rather as the nature of the game with the rules as they stand.
And I see that you hit a related point – “The BBC Trust is not working well in terms of either managing the BBC or providing the public with an advocate”.
This is of course a long-standing problem with many British Institutions, where loyalty is higher in people’s minds than honesty or truthfulness.