Do you remember voting for the destruction of the BBC? Perhaps, if you were one of the 36.9% who elected the Conservative Party, then you did know exactly what you were voting for. If you were one of the 36.9% and find yourself surprised that one of our finest institutions is being broken up, then what were you thinking about?
The Sunday Times today announces that the BBC has been told to “stop chasing viewers” and to concentrate on its public service remit. All well and good, you might think, but what does that actually mean in practice? I think the Sunday Times, which will have almost certainly gleaned its information from government “sources”, knows exactly what is going to happen and seeing the headline you could almost see its owner Rupert Murdoch grinning to himself at the corporations demise.
You see, the BBC goes against the grain for the Tory Party. It is not privately owned, it is paid for by a compulsory tax, it has been, until recently, fiercely independent and trusted by the public. All that is changing.
During the election campaign, David Cameron said he was going to close down the BBC. Some people brushed it off as being a joke, but subsequent events have shown it to be anything but a joke. No one can seriously express the view that during the recent election campaign the BBC was anything other than a mouthpiece of the Conservative Party, and to only a slightly lesser extent of Ukip. It gave Cameron and Farage in particular the easiest of easy rides and I could barely distinguish its editorial line from that of the Daily Mail. But it’s after the election the Tories have shown their true colours.
George Osborne, in his emergency budget, thrust the BBC into the political arena by stealing some 20% of its income to pay for TV licences for pensioners. A cynical act by a cynical man and one that will severely weaken its ability to provide a full range of services. And then we have the new Culture Secretary, John Whittingdale, who is a Murdoch man through and through, regarding the licence fee as “worse than the Poll Tax”, which is really saying something from a Thatcherite loyalist. Today we have the next step: the BBC should stop chasing viewers. What can this mean?
What is means is the government doesn’t want the BBC to make any entertainment shows at all. You cannot separate an entertainment show like EastEnders and one like Casualty because without viewers they would not exist. Shows like Strictly attract huge numbers of viewers but the argument is going to be – mark my words – that commercial and pay TV companies could make these type of shows instead. And they probably could make them too, albeit riddled with endless ad breaks. You can bet your bottom dollar that Rupert Murdoch would love to put the top BBC shows on his shows behind a paywall, just like he has steadily done accumulating a near monopoly of our major sports.
And don’t just think this attack will be on TV. The vultures will come knocking for the radio shows too. The argument will be that commercial radio stations are faced with the unfair advantage of trying to compete with entertainment stations like Radio 1 and, particularly, Radio 2. Where, they will argue, is the public service in Popmaster or Steve Wright in the Afternoon? Set them free in the markets.
George Osborne wants the BBC to stop making its website so good. It’s unfair competition against the press of this country. Yeah right, George. For all its recently acquired right of centre news bias, there are still broadcasters on the station who do not toe the line. Nicky Campbell, James Naughtie, Victoria Derbyshire – these are not broadcasters who fear the political paymasters, but there are plenty who do. Osborne is terrified that people might be able to see another side to the debate. You certainly won’t see one in our horrendously skewed and not very free press.
And what about BBC local radio? Does it really have any kind of future at all? My local station is BBC Radio Bristol. It once represented a proud beacon of local radio, with local voices who understood the area and attracted a loyal audience who regarded those voices as friends. Now, not least because of the abysmal track record of the happily now departed managing editor Tim Pemberton, the daytime schedule is largely a mish-mash of generic broadcasters, clunking formulaic programming, the home to safe, unchallenging golden oldie music and no clear direction at all, broadcasting largely to the over 75s with their free TV licences. Couldn’t commercial radio do better than that? Well, yes it could, actually, but then the BBC could make a serious attempt to restore local radio to something like the local radio that it used to be. There are at least two generations of listeners who would not dream of listening to Radio Bristol. There are younger, hungrier local broadcasters out there, just waiting for a chance.
So what is this “public service remit” the government keeps banging on about? It can mean anything what you want it to mean. My interpretation is that they want the BBC to stick to bog standard news, the odd documentary and that will be it. Get rid of the main radio stations and return the BBC to what it used to do in the 1960s. The Home Service (Radio 4), the Third Programme (Radio 3) and the Light Programme (a prehistoric version of Radio 2). Actually, get rid of the Third Programme too. Classic FM can provide the classical music.
I regard public service broadcasting as critical to our civilised way of life. I believe the BBC should provide a full range of programmes from EastEnders, through Strictly all the way to David Attenborough, the greatest public service broadcaster – actually the best broadcaster, full stop – that the world has ever seen. I want to be entertained by Radio 2, informed by Radio 5 and to listen to the eclectic music mix of 6 Music. I want to see and hear the major sporting events because they enrich our lives and inspire our children.
The BBC, after the NHS, is our finest institution, the envy of the world. Go abroad and tell me otherwise. And it costs peanuts, especially compared to the extortionate subscription of Rupert Murdoch’s channels. We should not be looking at ways to slim down the BBC, we should be looking at ways of sustaining and improving it, making it better, offering still more choice. It can be even better.
The written press, the Mail, the Sun, the Times, the Express, the Star, hates the BBC for political and commercial reasons. And if the Tories thought they could get away with it, they’d close it tomorrow. But enough of us still love and treasure the BBC, despite the lies and propaganda of the Murdoch press.
I see a country becoming more than ever an elective dictatorship, where our lives are increasingly owned and controlled by huge corporations as governments flog off our assets to the highest bidder. The BBC is the last bastion of media independence and freedom, even though it has cowed in recent years to the demands of the government and lost, unwittingly or otherwise, much of its editorial independence and objectivity. That could be down to fear, the fear that David Cameron wasn’t joking when he threatened to close down the BBC. I’m as sure as I can be that he wasn’t joking and the way he will kill it off is by stealth, by starving it of funds and limiting its worth and purpose. After all, he owes an awful lot to Murdoch and co. What better way of repaying him for his support than by closing down the finest broadcasting corporation in the world?
