BBC & Public Service Broadcasting Under Threat, by James Donnelly

James Donnelly, published by The Critique

https://independent.academia.edu/TheCritique

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BBC & Public Service Broadcasting Under Threat

We currently live in an era known, by-and-large, as the information age. Information is

readily available on any number of platforms. The advent of the internet, and its chameleon-

like ability to turn its hand to any kind of communication technology, has created a situation

called Convergence. The print-media, broadcasting & film industries all have competition

from a single, public-oriented and accessible form of communication.

In a time of such competition, on and off-line, worldwide financial collapse and increasing

state involvement in the affairs of public services, can Public Service Broadcasters still be

considered viable? If so, what do they have to do to stay that way? It is of utmost importance

to attempt to define Public Service Broadcasting (PSB), to give some context to the

discussion that will take place in this paper.

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation defines PSB as

„broadcasting made, financed and controlled by the public, for the public. It is neither

commercial nor state-owned, free from political interference and pressure from commercial

forces. Through PSB, citizens are informed, educated and also entertained. When guaranteed

with pluralism, programming diversity, editorial independence, appropriate funding,

accountability and transparency, public service broadcasting can serve as a cornerstone of

democracy‟ (UNESCO, 2002).


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The Asian-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development goes on to say that

'PSB is not a simple transaction that requires viewers and listeners to pay a license fee to

sustain it. In this transactional relationship, they expect the PSB to produce more than just

quality programmes. They would want a more meaningful engagement not only as audiences

but also as citizens, as members of communities, and as individuals' (AIBD, 2010). With these

definitions in mind, I'll begin to dig into the issues that surround PSB, concentrating on the

BBC, as it is universally recognised as a Public Service Broadcaster.

Civic Responsibility to the viewer(s) is of utmost importance to PSB, with remits in

Education and Information universal to the concept of PSB itself. The first Director-General

of the BBC, John Reith's mantra of 'Inform, Educate and Entertain' is an attempt to inform the

citizenship of a territory, as an informed public is a democratic public. Current affairs

programmes take precedent, and for Broadcasters, like the BBC, are mainstays of their

programming rostrum (Reith, cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

This 'informing' relationship usually focusses on economics, domestic & international politics

and, within the BBC at least, attempts to inform viewers of economics and politics on a local

and/or regional level. For this to work it is incredibly important for a Broadcaster working

within a PSB remit, to keep independence from the governmental branch of the state, which I

will discuss later in this paper. Former secretary for Culture, Media and Sport, Tessa Jowell

said that the BBC is “truly a public good which, despite everything, continues to provide

high-quality journalism, factual programming and drama' and goes onto say that BBC, as a

PSB, keeps 'production values higher in the commercial sector than if it didn't exist' (Jowell,

cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).


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Jowell suggests that by its mere existence, a PSB can create a high-tide mark for

programming, thanks to its special status as an Institution of Public Service. Without the

incursion of the marketplace onto a PSB, it has more freedom and financial support to create

quality programming. Mark Thompson, former Director-General (DG), suggested that one the

most important roles of the BBC, as a PSB, was to 'analyse and scrutinise the policy and

politics' of the country (BBC.co.uk, 2010). This is to say that real 'informing' cannot take

place without a healthy amount of cynicism in the Institution of governance, to allow a 'truth'

to be weeded out for the viewer(s).

In the 2006 BBC's Charter, a declaration of the corporations‟ public purposes included

'sustaining citizenship and civil society', but another element concentrates on 'stimulating

creativity'. This would seem to fall under the header of 'entertain'. (OpenDemocracy, 2013).

Many of the BBC's attempts to entertain have come under some scrutiny. Increased

competition from non-terrestrial sources has put the BBC under some strain to compete in the

world of broadcast entertainment. Arguably, one of the biggest successes of BBC Three's

programming has been the importation of FOX's 'American Dad' & 'Family Guy' animated

sitcoms.

BBC Three has a chequered history with its original programming, with cheap populist reality

shows like 'Snog, Marry, Avoid' and 'Sun, Sex and Suspicious Parents' staying, whilst others

disappear into the ether. The creation of two new channels BBC Three and BBC Four, under

Greg Dyke, stratified programming types into channels rather than scheduled slots. BBC

Three was described as “a mixed genre, entertainment-led youth channel”, and BBC Four as

“a channel for culture, science and ideas” (Born, 2005, pg. 482).


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This suggests a dichotomy of Entertainment vs. Education. Before niche channels appeared,

scheduling took its toll on serious programming. When large amounts of viewers tuned in,

entertainment was the 'safe bet'. It was assumed that the general populus would only find

entertainment, not educational programming, palatable on a large scale. Driver states that 'It is

a contemptuous and commercialised view of humanity which divides audiences

into...“serious” and “pop”. We have different needs in different moods, situations and stages

of life' (Driver, 1965, cited in Wedell, 1968).

So, what is important to Public Service Broadcasters?

When Greg Dyke was installed as DG, he stated that he wanted 'brave' and 'investigative'

journalism, unlike his predecessor, John Birt who believed in a 'centralised' and 'weighted

accuracy' to the BBC's journalism (Born, 2005). Dyke believed in taking risks and was known

for his scepticism surrounding the Iraq War, which eventually led to end of his tenure as DG.

Dyke also proclaimed the need for 'intelligent, mediated journalism' in a 'post-9/11 world'

(Born, 2005, p 482).

Referring back to the 2006 Charter, it states that those working for the BBC should “know

and adhere to ethical/editorial policies” concentrating on “Ethics and integrity” with no

“needless or careless offense or distress” (OpenDemocracy, 2013). Barnett suggests that “ any

public interest broadcaster should be twofold” primarily, as far as “party policy issues are

concerned,...give a fair account of the arguments of all sides”, “to have a duty to find out what

is true” and “report this without fear or favour...and establish whether a story has integrity”

(Barnett, OpenDemocracy, 2012).


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So, what are the main challenges that Public Service Broadcasters face in the modern age?

One potential challenge to any public service is the management structure. Dyke heavily

criticised the overt bureaucracy of the BBC, Born describes John Birt's management style as

“…responsible for eroding the BBC‟s creativity” and that it “…impacted on the BBC‟s

capacity for programme-making” and Dyke pushed for creativity instead of bureaucracy

(Born, 2005).

Dyke believed that the bureaucratic nature of Public Bodies often happened due to a fear of

risk-taking. Public Bodies gain intense scrutiny from the public, and when they do right by

the viewer, it's taken as default or as he describes it “the reward for taking the right decision is

usually silence” (OpenDemocracy.net, 2012). He goes onto say that bureaucracy typically

goes hand-in-hand with inefficiency. When he asked how much was spent on Overhead for

the company he was shocked to find it was 26%, before he left he got it down to 16%, looking

to get that percentage down to single digits (OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

Within the bureaucracy of the BBC, is the BBC Trust, a 12-member governing body. Looking

at the background of the Trust is an intriguing spectacle. The career backgrounds of the Trust

range from economy, banking, security and includes a foreign policy advisor; part of a foreign

policy double team with the former Governor of Hong Kong. The newest incarnation of the

Trust increased its roster, to include six members with experience of the arts, culture,

journalism and film.

This strange mixture of business and pleasure, in a non-executive day-to-day management

structure, is apparently meant to "bring objectivity, experience and expertise - gained over


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successful careers - to the board, which would assist the executive directors in deciding how

best to run the BBC" (Fowler, 2005, cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012). Michael Sandel

refers to the inclusion of big businessmen and women as "market-mimicking governance".

Trustees Patten, Fry & Taverne gain money directly from the finance industry. Dan Hind

suggests that the BBC, like many PSBroadcasters, '…has been urged to adopt best practice

from the private sector', ergo it reflects "enterprise culture". Its management and its output

then reflect that pressure (OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

However, this is deemed preferable to TF1's current management system by Ockert. France's

TF1 PSB channel was bought by a civil engineering company. Ockert characterises their

attitude towards the management of TF1 as 'no reason why a TV station should be run

differently from a pipes factory‟ and their ethical code as „Kill the enemy, the competition, the

weak‟ (Ockert, 1998, cited in Franklin, 2005).

She goes onto characterise such non-creative executive control as a 'new breed' which have

quantitative goals, but no qualitative standards. Ergo, as financial success becomes the main

priority, more popular shows are bought in. Making original content is comparatively

expensive, with high risk on return. So, with a deregulated system, more channels play

identical programming with identical schedules. Choice of channel has multiplied in the

information age, but diversity is largely absent.

However, PSB's are not completely safe in their regulated world of charters and licensing.

With a series of crisis points, the BBC are in a tender position. Trust in the British political

institutions is low, especially after the Iraq War, whilst trust in the BBC remained high.


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However, with the intense unveiling that Jimmy Saville, a BBC icon and tributee, was a

prolific sex offender, trust in the BBC was shaken. Then the BBC suggested that Conservative

peer Lord McAlpine was a paedophile, long a contentious accusation to be thrown at anyone.

However, it wasn't always this way.

When the internet placed itself as a major player in the world of information communication

and accessible media, the BBC instigated an expansion into the World Wide Web. Propagated

by Birt and carried on by his successor, the BBC became a new animal. No longer bound to

the Television, the BBC paved the way for Broadcast in the digital area. Just as the public had

more access to the BBC, the BBC had greater access to the public. External forces saw this

rise, errors in editorial practice and withdrawal symptoms after Dyke's last payslip, and saw

their target.

One of the main external forces with ill-will was private-sector competition.

With the advent of digital television, many companies saw a new way to capitalise. This

included Public service Broadcasters like ITV and Channel 4 increasing their reach to new

demographics, and with new content. Private-sector giants like BSkyB also looked to gain

massive investment from digital TV, but also a new host of competitors. One of these

competitors was the BBC. The BBC's pilgrimage to digital TV, boasted their entire catalogue

of radio stations, digital TV stations and interactive features; niche and populist.

The list of possible BBC channels and radio stations that can be received via digital TV is

extensive, not including twelve non-PSB commercial channels owned by the BBC (e.g. Gold,

Watch & Dave). The Murdochs (Rupert and his son James) have long levied claims of


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monopolisation and elitism within the BBC. Defending Sky's arguably populist programming

and reliance on bought shows, Rupert Murdoch said that the BBC believed that „People could

not be trusted to watch what they wanted to watch, so that it had to be controlled by like-

minded people who knew what was good for us‟ (Murdoch, cited in Franklin, 2005).

Murdoch seems to suggest that the BBC, as a PSB is undemocratic and enforces an ideology

onto the viewer. He goes onto suggest a level of elitism within the BBC saying, “I am

suspicious of elites, including the British Broadcasting elite, which argue for special

privileges and favours because they are supposed to be in the public interest as a whole”.

Murdoch enthuses that he has “never heard a convincing definition of what Public-service

television really is”. It is worth noting that Reith's own views weren't too dissimilar from this

description. He felt that “few people knew what they wanted” and “what was good for them”.

However, he justified this by deciding that the BBC “should be just ahead of the centre point

of public taste”, to make the programming “Challenging and elevating” (Rudin, 2011).

James Murdoch agrees with his father, using terms such as “Orwellian”, “Chilling” and

“Sinister” to describe the BBC's PSB status. Italian newspaper Il Giornale agrees, launching

the “Enough With The License Fee” campaign. Mark Thompson lists Spiegel, Bild, the

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung & the Flemish paper De Standaard as having damning

headlines about Public Service Broadcasting and License Fees. These include “Why not put a

bomb under them?” and “Abolish it” (BBC.co.uk, 2010).

But why the damning media campaigns from the Print Media? The BBC doesn't have a

widely circulated print product; because of convergence. The convergence of information has


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had a huge impact of the broadcasting industry, positive and negative. But another institution

has had to handle the new, popular, public-oriented, self-sufficient and self-regulated forms of

information communication, the Government.

Public Service Broadcasting by its own definition demands independence from the

government. Each charter must be ratified after a lengthy discussion about the 'future of

television'. After that, it is no longer affected by direct political will for 10 years. It is then

granted freedom of editorial policy and management strategies. The government hold ultimate

power however, and can choose to override the charter at any time, but this method hasn't be

utilised in 80 years. Instead, they wait until the next charter review. The financial support

divvied to the BBC is also protected for years to protect it from political will.(Thompson,

2010, cited in BBC.co.uk, 2010).

It is worth noting, however, that the current Conservative-Liberal Coalition government has

frozen the BBC's licence fee for six years. With current inflation levels, the BBC's spending

power would decrease to 40%, leading to the BBC cutting 20% of their spending over a few

years (OpenDemocracy, 2012). Part of the government's apparent distaste for the BBC may

have something to do with the BBC's attitude to political institutions at the start of the 21st

century. The BBC mirrored the mood of the people, with statistics suggesting that trust in

political institutions was at 13% (BBC.co.uk, 2010). Dyke's probing journalistic policies and

light cynicism was a trademark of the corporation, but this is a much more recent approach.

Kampfner suggests that the BBC was 'muzzling journalism and deliberately avoiding giving

offence to the Government and the Establishment‟. Some analysis of the BBC's reporting of


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British Military operations has some interesting outcomes. Mills references the lack of

coverage for the Disasters Emergency Committee‟s Gaza Appeal, leading to a journalists‟

beration by Tony Benn (Kampfner, 2005, cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

A study, commissioned by the BBC, found that it used more government sources than any

other PSB Broadcaster, and less independent sources. A leaked email from a BBC Director of

News stated that it was „important we have someone to articulate the Bush/Blair line‟

(Sambrook, cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012). As programming was attracting the more

'extreme anti-war views'. Reith himself was chasing the seat of Viceroy of India, and Nichols

states Reith‟s leadership caused the BBC to become a „willing, even evangelical, propagandist

of empire‟(Nicholas, 2003, cited in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

Reith's successor, Frederick Ogilvy, wanted to make the BBC a 'fully effective instrument of

war' and had conscientious objectors within the corporation fired (Mansell, 1982, cited in

OpenDemocracy.net, 2012). BBC's Eastern Europe Service head, Hugh Greene, was head of

Propaganda for Gen. Harold Briggs' 'ruthless counter-insurgency campaign' in Malaya. This

was before he became one of the most respect DG's at the BBC (Greene, 1969, cited in

OpenDemocracy.net, 2012). Adamthwaite states that the BBC was actively involved in 'an

official counter-campaign against critics of nuclear war‟ (Adamthwaite, 1993, cited in

OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

Senior Figures within the corporation believed the it's reporting of the war had been

''…concerned with government statements and policy', and that the most intense questioning

of government defense policy came from a Teacher, Diana Gould, who was a phone-in viewer


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to a live Programme featuring then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Broadbent, 1985, cited

in OpenDemocracy.net, 2012).

In the midst of the First Gulf War, a BBC documentary was made about British companies

helping Saddam Hussein build a 'supergun'. This programme was cancelled two times. When

aired, DG Duke Hussey assured the Conservatives that '…the producer of the programme had

been told that if he did it again or anything like it, he would be fired and that was it.‟ It is

worth noting that Hussey had been placed personally by Thatcher. Hussey was under

instruction to 'Sort Out' the BBC, which Thatcher publicly dismissed as 'Out of control'.

(Grade, cited in Frank, 2005).

This relationship changed dramatically when the UK went to war in Iraq, citing 45 minute

launch capability of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) as justification. On John

Humphry's radio show, journalist Andrew Gilligan suggested that the New Labour

government knew that the 45 minute estimation was wrong. It was also suggested that

potential lies had been told on a governmental level. The Blair government had issues with

the BBC's contrariness and this had galvanised the BBC into a rebellious denier. The Hutton

enquiry later acquitted the Blair government of any guilt and the BBC shrunk away, losing

Dyke in the process.

The BBC, now more sheepish and risk averse than before struggle in a world where everyone

is seemingly against them. But many believe there is one group of people who still care for

the BBC, and will happily share the burden. That group is the Public. It appears that a good

course of action would be to involve the public on a personal, democratic and pluralist basis,


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as UNESCO defines a PSB, therefore shifting from the PSB-as-transaction concept of the

BBC. Involve the public, as they did so well in the onset of convergence, and the public will

involve the BBC.


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BBC & Public Service Broadcasting Under Threat, by James Donnelly

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