The BBC’s latest strategy report - leaked in the Times ten days ago and released last week as a result – suggests that with a General Election looming ever nearer Auntie is at last waking up and smelling the coffee.
In January this year Policy Exchange published a major report on the future of broadcasting,Changing the Channel, which argued that the BBC had become an organisation obsessed with ratings first and quality second. In many ways this is understandable – though not acceptable. In theory everyone with a television pays the licence fee, so the BBC feels it has to prove that it is delivering something for everyone to justify its existence.
As a result we see the BBC forking out huge wodges of licence fee cash to do things that fall more naturally to its commercial rivals and their audiences, and which those rivals could almost certainly deliver more cheaply. Thus it splashes out on the FA Cup and Formula 1, which attract an under 40 C1C2 audience that doesn’t naturally flick to the BBC, despite the fact that these sports would end up on ITV or Five in much the same form if the Beeb weren’t to bid. Meanwhile it ignores test match cricket – because it has enough professional older men watching already.
And it reportedly spent £5.6 million a year on hiring Jonathan Ross in competition with Channel 4 and ITV, because where Jonathan goes, the younger audiences follow. The problem here is not so much what the BBC paid, or even how loathsome you might find Jonathan Ross as an individual. The problem is the fact that the BBC was bidding in the first place.
So we should be whooping with relief that two months after our much-publicised report, the BBC appears to have taken a long hard look at its own behaviour. Its new strategy focuses on the need for the BBC to be “significantly and demonstrably more distinctive” with services like Radio 2. It will scrap two digital teen services, and allow Channel 4 to take the lead in this area. It will axe half its websites and BBC 6 Music and the Asian Network.
Yet leopards don’t change their spots overnight. The Telegraph reported last week that the Beeb plans to ramp up its spending on Strictly Come Dancing, which it runs head to head on a Saturday night with ITV’s X-Factor. And of course it’s all about ratings, ratings, ratings. The BBC is making some of the right noises in a bid to protect itself if the Government changes. But we need a little more than noise.
Anna Fazackerley is Head of Policy Exchange’s Arts and Culture Unit
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The decision to axe the Asian Network might be intended as a rod to beat us with – “we were threatened with cuts, so we cut services to ethnic minorities first”.
The decisions to axe 6 Music and the Asian Network are very poor ones. 6 Music is almost the essence of what a public service broadcaster should do – championing art forms that are not being championed and would not be championed in the commercial sector. I have blogged about this elsewhere:
http://voteskeltonforchange.blogspot.com/2010/03/6-music-should-be-saved-for-sake-of.html
Also, the BBC hasn’t splashed out on the FA Cup. The FA Cup is covered by ITV and ESPN. I would argue that the tournament and particularly the Cup Final (remember that the FA Cup Final is one of the great shared national occasions) has suffered because it has not been on the BBC.