Against a dire backdrop, some better news for the BBC
The Culture Secretary can huff and puff with his Charter Review, but some decisions look like they are now being made above him.
The tide seems to be turning in favour of the BBC at last – despite the best efforts of Culture Secretary John Whittingdale.
The move runs all the way from terrible to merely bad and is happening largely because the decisions are being taken higher up the food chain than a Culture Secretary who has in the past spoken of his dislike of the licence fee and distaste for the scale of the BBC’s intervention in the market.
One clue came in a little-noticed but significant article in The Times earlier this month, which said that Number 10 and Lord Tony Hall, the BBC director-general, had reached an informal agreement that the Corporation would not face any further cuts.
Whittingdale can huff and puff with his Charter Review but above his head the understanding is that the licence fee, frozen at £145.50 for the past six years – a cut of 16 per cent in real terms – will rise in line with inflation.
Inflation is not exactly running riot at the moment but at least, if The Times is right, the BBC will be protected if the rate of inflation were to increase again.
Naturally, as this was relatively good news for the BBC it appeared on page 31 of The Times. If the news had been bleaker it might just have received rather more prominence.
There are still concerns about whether the “informal agreement” on further cuts covers the present activities of the BBC as well as the end to the licence fee freeze. But at least it’s a small step in the right direction.
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A rather larger step came this week with the news on page 49 of the Government’s Strategic Defence Review of more money for the World Service to increase its television and online output and expand services in North Korea, Russian speaking areas, the Middle East and Africa. The deployment of soft power.
World Service head Fran Unsworth has in the past welcomed the fact that her funding now all comes out of the licence fee and the perception of greater independence from government that conveyed. She was reluctant to have to dip into the government pot again.
But needs must, as BBC finances take a 10 per cent shave from the deal on free licence fees for the over-75s and further financial problems arising from the freeloaders watching recorded BBC programmes for free via the iPlayer.
In such circumstances £34 million between 2016-2017 and £85 million a year from 2017-18 for the World Service is not to be sneezed at given the increasing competition in the international news arena.
As for Whittingdale, the attacks and question marks increase, some of them more polite than others.
A former Culture Secretary, speaking in private conversation recently described Whittingdale’s performance as dreadful and the work of “a back-bencher who had been dispatched into the top job.”
Whittingdale really distinguished himself at the Royal Television Society’s Cambridge convention in the summer by questioning whether the BBC and ITV should run their main evening news bulletins at 10pm.
In short, it is none of his business.
He moved on from scheduling to commissioning advice by suggesting it was wrong for the BBC to outbid ITV for The Voice only to be contradicted by staff of The Voice who said the BBC had not outbid ITV but they had chosen the Corporation because of its vision for developing the programme.
Now that ITV really has outbid the BBC to take control of the programme The Voice can now at least be officially deleted as an issue in Charter Review.
Whittingdale seems to be pushing the privatisation of Channel 4, while initially, disgracefully, denying it was a subject that was being debated at all.
The put-down from the Channel 4 chairman Lord Terry Burns was polite but a put-down nonetheless.
The former senior Treasury mandarin suggested the Government’s plans were of little financial benefit and the Treasury was not really interested because they already had an enormous number of assets available for sale.
“It’s very difficult to see what the financial benefit is for the Government, whereas it is possible to see some of the harm that could be created for the whole creative sector in the UK,” concluded Lord Burns.
The implication is that any attempt to privatise Channel 4 would be plain silly and something being driven mainly by Whittingdale’s free market dogma.
The Tories created Channel 4 and could yet destroy it.
The turning of the tide in the direction of the BBC, however modest, still should not be taken for granted. The financial realities facing the BBC are still harsh and counter-productive in terms of the Corporation’s contribution to the entire UK creative economy.
Part of that reality hit home last week when Lord Hall announced £150 million cuts in staff and programme savings to compensate for the “iPlayer” loophole, which the Government has promised to tackle. It might be easier said than done now that significant numbers have found a legal way to watch BBC programmes without paying via catch-up TV.
The words from Lord Hall were sombre and the harbinger of further cuts to services to come.
“Cuts to budgets for programmes and services are unavoidable. No director-general wants to announce reduced spending on services that the public love. This is very tough, but the BBC’s financial position means there is no alternative,” Lord Hall insisted.
BBC Online is losing 5 per cent of its £210 million budget and BBC News has to cut £5 million despite trying to follow the audience for news wherever its goes, particularly on mobile.
There would be serious cuts to the rights budgets for minority sports and reductions in layers of management, something that should have been tackled years ago.
The BBC is unable to campaign for itself but all those interested in promoting the health of the UK creative industries should campaign against any attempts to diminish the BBC. It would be in their self-interest to do so.