Is it your BBC?
With Charter renewal due, digital disruption causing chaos and the licence fee called into question, the Corporation is at a crossroads. But which way do you want it to go?
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- Tom Loxley
We need to talk about the BBC. A digital revolution is rapidly transforming the television and radio landscape, and out of this flux new challenges constantly emerge. Earlier this year the UK’s official ratings body, Barb, revealed that YouTube had overtaken the Corporation in audience reach for the first time. That’s momentous news if the BBC wishes to remain a national broadcaster that caters to all of Britain.
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Moreover, it must do so in a country where political opinion is deeply polarised. Each passing week sees a new row about impartiality, threatening the BBC’s long-standing reputation as a trusted voice at the heart of the national conversation.
Newly-appointed BBC Director General, Matt Brittin. Carl Court/Getty Images
On top of all that, the licence fee is under threat. A new Charter that settles future funding is being negotiated with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and is due to be delivered by the Government next year. The fee that has funded the BBC for more than a century is increasingly seen as outmoded in an age of subscription TV. And it certainly struggles to cover the costs of the BBC – consequently, the Corporation is currently looking to make £500 million of savings over the next two years in order to make ends meet. When he began work last month, the new director-general, Matt Brittin, had barely put his feet under his desk before announcing that the BBC faced “tough choices”.
But what should those choices be? Barely a day goes by without someone somewhere offering their views on the BBC. But what about the viewers and listeners? People like you? When did you last have your say?
Hundreds of people wrote in... There is love, passion, irritation
When Tim Davie resigned last year after the row about Panorama’s editing of a Donald Trump speech, Radio Times ran an appeal for your views. We asked how you felt about the BBC. Did it have a future in the digital age? How should it be paid for? What did you love about it – and what wouldn’t you miss? And to tell us plainly whether you trusted it any more.
Hundreds of people wrote in and what emerged was an extraordinary picture of the relationship between the BBC and its viewers and listeners. In this cache of correspondence there is love, passion, irritation, principles, a confidence that the BBC is part of our British life from morning until night. It’s hard to see this level of involvement, need, pride, fury and, indeed, trust in any other relationship within our society – apart from the NHS, obviously.
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For decades the BBC enjoyed a rather cosy characterisation as “Auntie”. To many that description may feel out of date. But it remains remarkably appropriate in one way. The picture Radio Times readers paint suggests the BBC is like that relative we all know, the one who entertains and informs us, who can be relied on to be there when we need them, who might embarrass and possibly bore us on occasion, but above all else is part of the family – and whose demise we would mourn enormously.
Authors
Tom Loxley
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