A decade into the twenty first century, the BBC’s position as the sole beneficiary of public spending in broadcasting has become unsustainable. It is not simply the extraordinary largesse shown to Jonathan Ross, or the champagne and staff leaving presents paid for out of the compulsory licence fee; although these embarrassments have fuelled the perception that the corporation’s executives are out of touch with public expectations.
The BBC’s competitors to have been forced to raise their game because of a sharp fall in advertising revenues that pre-dated the current recession. But the BBC has been insulated from all this – the sole beneficiary of a steadily increasing licence fee. As a result, it has become ever more dominant.
The dangers posed by what Lord Reith described as “the brute force of the monopoly”, were vividly illustrated in October 2007, when the BBC finally bowed to pressure and axed its plan to introduce “ultra-local” news websites. The plan amounted to publicly-funded competition for local newspapers, who were already struggling to stay afloat and cope with the challenges of moving their own content online. The BBC doesn’t seem to accept that there are some things it simply shouldn’t be doing, or that when it provides a service for free, it is difficult for others to providing the same service on a for-profit basis.
The result of this “just do more” mentality has been a drop in quality and a proliferation of channels with small viewing figures. And as the BBC has bloated, it has lost focus on the reason for its existence – to provide quality content that would not otherwise be provided by the free market.
For example, the corporation spends around £125 million pounds a year on BBC3, a channel watched by less than one in four of its target audience (16 to 34 year olds). Why exactly should we be forced to pay tax for gems like Bizarre ER and Celebrity Scissorhands? Is this really what Lord Reith had in mind?
We need to find a way to keep the BBC on its toes If just 5% of licence fee income was open for other channels to bid for, it would force the BBC to consider whether programmes that it made were both of a sufficiently high quality and distinctive from what was available to viewers and listeners on other networks. And while it needs the spur of competition, the BBC itself needs a change of culture: it must regain the confidence to make quality programmes, not just chase ratings.
Neil O’Brien is Director of Policy Exchange
A full copy of the report can be found at www.policyexchange.org.uk
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