Master of the Media
The BBC is a champion, so why doesn't it start acting like one? When Chris Smith, in his culture secretary days, first wanted to bring the BBC under Ofcom's stretching umbrella of regulation, he received a small but perfectly formed protest delegation.
When Chris Smith, in his culture secretary days, first wanted to bring the BBC under Ofcom's stretching umbrella of regulation, he received a small but perfectly formed protest delegation. Sir Christopher Bland and John Birt, chairman and director-general respectively. Back off, they said, or we both quit. Mr Smith staged a prudent retreat. The corporation knows how to influence people (if not always how to win friends).
And it still does. Who gets to rescue digital television in the wake of ITV disaster? Who gets its charter and licence fee renewed for 15 years in an almost insouciant aside from Chris Smith's successor? Who, any day now, gets the go-ahead for BBC3 so that it may sit alongside 1, 2, 4 and 24? Who (a far pettier matter, to be sure) doesn't even bother to invite the press to its annual report launch next Wednesday?
No prizes on offer. One ticked box answers all. But the consequences of this endless victory roll begin to accumulate. They include, consequentially, the death of Sir Jeremy Isaacs' Artsworld channel, a good deed for high culture in a bad world, throat slit by BBC4. Then, prospectively, there's FilmFour and E4, left high and dry by the digital fix. Channel 4 itself is suddenly uncomfortably boxed in with nowhere to go. Its film production arm is broken already, while ITV itself staggers towards a merger of desperation and then takeover by some American giant.
Meanwhile, the Beeb grows like leylandii. It's everywhere. Unstoppable, unprunable. Shutting out the light. Want to run a British-based news website like Guardian Unlimited? You can: but you're up against the BBC using licence fee money in unlimited quantities (£50m... £60m ...) with no need to produce a return. So it is, too, with magazine publishing, blessed by the magic of cross-promotion. And with 24-hour news channels (where you almost feel sorry for Sky News). And wherever you roam in radio. It is time, I think, to pause. To exercise due diligence and solemnly, carefully take stock.
Some of these points, of course, are self-serving. And all this from a newspaper group which runs websites and radio stations, among many other activities. These leylandii grows at the bottom of our garden, too. Should we feel sorry for ITV's bosses, who got digital so disastrously wrong? Or for Channel 4, who turned out some pallid movies in the end and lost the digital platform knife fight? Who weeps bitter tears when Rupert Murdoch complains about unfair competition?
Nevertheless, there's more than the screech of axes grinding here. We have spent much of the last 20 years, we admirers and defenders of the BBC, arguing that the licence fee is the best guarantee of continuing quality. We've snarled defiance at meddling politicians. We don't automatically stand and salute when Gerald Kaufman or Tim Yeo promise reforms which seem to put the entire enterprise in pawn. We are on the side of the corporation. Our trouble is different - and recent. Just the perception that the game is up; and over. That there is no threat to the BBC or to its means of funding for as far as the eye can see - especially once Greg's digital coup becomes the key to any government's plans for the analogue sale of the century.
The BBC isn't some fading player hanging on to fight another day. It's the champion. Its opponents' idiocies, plus £2.5bn of guaranteed funding through the worst media revenue recession most of us can remember, have utterly changed the dynamics of the game. And that, in turn, must change our mindset. The Beeb is the victor here, not some potential victim. What is it going to do with the spoils? The questions for the next charter renewal are changed, then. Here are a few of them.
How, with FilmFour gone, can BBC films take up the slack? Where's the ambition and the vision and professionalism that British film-makers need? The record so far is cautious and too often conservative. Why can't a powerhouse Beeb dare more and win more?
What, at last, about BBC World, that limp TV version of the radio World Service without Foreign Office funding? Why does it have to be so threadbare going on gimcrack, recycling motoring and travel shows against rather desultory newscasts? If this is Britain's answer to CNN, shouldn't we clear our throats and put some money where our conviction ought to be? And if that's not allowed under the terms of the charter, then renewal can alter the rules and put it right.
Doesn't the same apply to News 24, pottering away at the back of the new digital platform, eating home resources while foreign starves? Isn't the imposed divide of licence fee use simply stupid now? Why can the Beeb wield our money to make outfits like Sky or ITN artificially weak here at home but not use that same cash to build its news strength abroad? What's the use of being the English-speaking world's most formidable player, then not being allowed to play?
And finally, and most crucially: if the BBC is here to stay, if there's no need to rush round frenetically constructing a "comprehensive" service any longer, then where are the boundaries to be drawn? They already include a mighty net presence and the creation of a service provider. Could that make the Beeb the Yahoo or AOL of tomorrow? Could it become a multimedia entrepreneur with funding streams that never run dry, the thinking nation's own Vivendi?
A crossroads moment. Behind us the leylandii grow and nothing original or promising survives. We have the language but internationally, in movies or TV or the net, too little to show for it. Our champion is the BBC, but the BBC isn't allowed to win big for Britain. No good, Tessa. No good, Greg. Time to drive on or get out.
And it still does. Who gets to rescue digital television in the wake of ITV disaster? Who gets its charter and licence fee renewed for 15 years in an almost insouciant aside from Chris Smith's successor? Who, any day now, gets the go-ahead for BBC3 so that it may sit alongside 1, 2, 4 and 24? Who (a far pettier matter, to be sure) doesn't even bother to invite the press to its annual report launch next Wednesday?
No prizes on offer. One ticked box answers all. But the consequences of this endless victory roll begin to accumulate. They include, consequentially, the death of Sir Jeremy Isaacs' Artsworld channel, a good deed for high culture in a bad world, throat slit by BBC4. Then, prospectively, there's FilmFour and E4, left high and dry by the digital fix. Channel 4 itself is suddenly uncomfortably boxed in with nowhere to go. Its film production arm is broken already, while ITV itself staggers towards a merger of desperation and then takeover by some American giant.
Meanwhile, the Beeb grows like leylandii. It's everywhere. Unstoppable, unprunable. Shutting out the light. Want to run a British-based news website like Guardian Unlimited? You can: but you're up against the BBC using licence fee money in unlimited quantities (£50m... £60m ...) with no need to produce a return. So it is, too, with magazine publishing, blessed by the magic of cross-promotion. And with 24-hour news channels (where you almost feel sorry for Sky News). And wherever you roam in radio. It is time, I think, to pause. To exercise due diligence and solemnly, carefully take stock.
Some of these points, of course, are self-serving. And all this from a newspaper group which runs websites and radio stations, among many other activities. These leylandii grows at the bottom of our garden, too. Should we feel sorry for ITV's bosses, who got digital so disastrously wrong? Or for Channel 4, who turned out some pallid movies in the end and lost the digital platform knife fight? Who weeps bitter tears when Rupert Murdoch complains about unfair competition?
Nevertheless, there's more than the screech of axes grinding here. We have spent much of the last 20 years, we admirers and defenders of the BBC, arguing that the licence fee is the best guarantee of continuing quality. We've snarled defiance at meddling politicians. We don't automatically stand and salute when Gerald Kaufman or Tim Yeo promise reforms which seem to put the entire enterprise in pawn. We are on the side of the corporation. Our trouble is different - and recent. Just the perception that the game is up; and over. That there is no threat to the BBC or to its means of funding for as far as the eye can see - especially once Greg's digital coup becomes the key to any government's plans for the analogue sale of the century.
The BBC isn't some fading player hanging on to fight another day. It's the champion. Its opponents' idiocies, plus £2.5bn of guaranteed funding through the worst media revenue recession most of us can remember, have utterly changed the dynamics of the game. And that, in turn, must change our mindset. The Beeb is the victor here, not some potential victim. What is it going to do with the spoils? The questions for the next charter renewal are changed, then. Here are a few of them.
How, with FilmFour gone, can BBC films take up the slack? Where's the ambition and the vision and professionalism that British film-makers need? The record so far is cautious and too often conservative. Why can't a powerhouse Beeb dare more and win more?
What, at last, about BBC World, that limp TV version of the radio World Service without Foreign Office funding? Why does it have to be so threadbare going on gimcrack, recycling motoring and travel shows against rather desultory newscasts? If this is Britain's answer to CNN, shouldn't we clear our throats and put some money where our conviction ought to be? And if that's not allowed under the terms of the charter, then renewal can alter the rules and put it right.
Doesn't the same apply to News 24, pottering away at the back of the new digital platform, eating home resources while foreign starves? Isn't the imposed divide of licence fee use simply stupid now? Why can the Beeb wield our money to make outfits like Sky or ITN artificially weak here at home but not use that same cash to build its news strength abroad? What's the use of being the English-speaking world's most formidable player, then not being allowed to play?
And finally, and most crucially: if the BBC is here to stay, if there's no need to rush round frenetically constructing a "comprehensive" service any longer, then where are the boundaries to be drawn? They already include a mighty net presence and the creation of a service provider. Could that make the Beeb the Yahoo or AOL of tomorrow? Could it become a multimedia entrepreneur with funding streams that never run dry, the thinking nation's own Vivendi?
A crossroads moment. Behind us the leylandii grow and nothing original or promising survives. We have the language but internationally, in movies or TV or the net, too little to show for it. Our champion is the BBC, but the BBC isn't allowed to win big for Britain. No good, Tessa. No good, Greg. Time to drive on or get out.
Use the feedback form below to submit your comments.
Use the form below to email this article to your friends.
