Are we about to witness the death of public service broadcasting as we know and understand it? The recent Ofcom review appears to indicate that an end to the BBC’s monopoly on the license fee will end after 2010, which may coincide with a Cameron government.
An instinctive reaction for anyone concerned about the future of intelligent broadcasting would be to leap to the defence of the BBC’s monopoly. However it is no longer the paternalistic monolith with high public service ideals of the Reithian era. Instances of corruption, which have resulted in the corporation being fined thousands of pounds by Ofcom, indicate that the values which should be associated with a public service broadcaster have been seriously eroded.
Former director general John Birt broke up many outstanding production units within the BBC and contracted out much specialist work. The latest polling research indicates that, at best, support for the BBC and the licence fee is highly qualified. Only 33 per cent of those polled believe that the licence fee is good value for money, although 61 per cent still name BBC1 as their favourite channel. There is a vast generation gap, with young people no longer having an automatic link with the BBC. Support for the license comes from those over 65, however only a third of those surveyed agree with the BBC’s main selling point that its programmes are unavailable elsewhere.
It costs £123m per annum to collect the licence fee. David Levy from Oxford University suggests that a better alternative might be merging the cost of the license fee with the council tax, based on the assumption that every household has a television. France moved away from our licence system and saved 65 per cent of collection costs. A popular move might be top slicing the BBC’s income and collecting the licence more efficiently.
ITV under Michael Grade has fallen upon hard times and is blaming heavy regulation for its difficulties. ITV has seen its share of the advertising market drop by 40 per cent, as advertising drifts away to rival channels and digital outlets. Ofcom are about to define the choice of programmes listeners will get after 2010 using a criterion of a media market based competition between the BBC and commercial TV. It is hard to see that a competition of this kind will produce quality television and radio.
Ofcom maintains that if broadcasters like C4 and ITV have to drop their public service role for financial reasons, a serious decline could take place in broadcasting standards. Watching of the five main television channels fell by 17 per cent between 2003 and 2007, although they still account for almost two-thirds of television viewing. Among 16 to 24-year-olds, who grew up with the internet, and ethnic minority viewers the decline is much greater. Both these groups do not turn to the five main channels as their first choice for public service content.
There will be an environment of media fragmentation following digital switchover. It is suggested that if commercial television is still required to produce existing levels of public service programming, they will begin to default on their licenses. So much for the ‘License to print money’ associated with an independent television franchise. In the case of C4, its public service contribution is already under financial pressure. Ofcom suggest that public sector content could be provided by a whole range of providers outside of the BBC. It deliberately confuses the plurality of programmes listeners and viewers want, with a range of voices and perspectives that might be found outside the BBC. It fails to recognise that the production of material which meet the criteria it advocates require expensive infrastructures beyond the private sector wedded to the demands of profitability. In my view this applies equally to public service programmes made for the so-called new media.
C4 have challenged Ofcom to think out of the box on how education, information and entertainment can be served up when power rests with the consumer and not the packager. Public service broadcasting must reinvent itself. C4 points out that today’s thirtysomethings are probably the last group to share a common TV heritage. The consumer after the end of analogue will have a limitless choice of programmes. Whether a fare of Big Brother or Desperate Housewives justifies C4’s dismissal of traditional public service broadcasting as a ‘paternalistic exercise in adult education by the wing-collared classes,’ is open to question. On the other hand, C4’s chief executive Andy Duncan pays tribute to the success of public service broadcasting and the way it employs nearly two million workers and makes an invaluable contribution to our balance of trade. ‘It produces the most authoritative and trusted news service in the world,’ he says.
A Mori poll shows the BBC loosing the support of whole swaths of the population falling to just 32 per cent in social classes D and E. Armed with information of this kind a Cameron government might well decide to break up the BBC. He would have the support of the right of his party and of the Murdoch empire who would be delighted to nominally fill the gap created by the BBC’s demise. My suggestion is that BBC bosses begin to talk seriously to C4 about how they can justify the £139.50 licence fee payers are asked for every year in terms of dynamic and innovative programme making relevant to the new digitalised age. But nothing exemplifies the failure of Labour’s media policy than the fact that 19 million supporters of cricket, our summer sport, will be unable to watch next year’s Ashes series. Instead, Andy Burnham is offering Formula One racing. Can you wonder that the public is sceptical about the BBC’s ability to provide public service broadcasting?