The real villain in the latest BBC fracas

A BBC Charter ban on Saturday Strictly? Illogical rubbish, says Snoddy

Raymond Snoddy examines how the Government is bowing to pressure from vested interests to significantly diminish the BBC

Strictly speaking no Culture Secretary has spoken so much nonsense as John Whittingdale.

First there was the suggestion that the BBC might have to move its main Ten O’Clock news bulletin so that it doesn’t compete with ITN.

Never mind that it was ITV which vacated the 10pm slot to create “News at When?”

The real problem is that the BBC routinely gets double the audience of ITN however much is spent on re-launches or lovable new presenters.

Then at the weekend Whittingdale, or one of his senior press officers speaking on his behalf, excelled even his exceptional standards. The suggestion was that next week’s White paper on the BBC would prevent the Corporation scheduling its popular weekend programmes such as Strictly Come Dancing against ITV’s X Factor.

Naturally, the Sunday Times, the Mail on Sunday and the Sunday Telegraph should, with variants, come up with precisely the same story attributing it to “senior government sources.”

Obviously the Mail on Sunday was the most aggressive with its headline: “BBC Charter Ban on Saturday Strictly.”

While running the same story, the Sunday Times was a little more nuanced.

According to the paper, Whittingdale will stop short of ordering the Corporation to move Strictly or BBC News at Ten. But the White Paper due on 12 May will indicate that the BBC has been over-aggressive in its search for ratings, particularly at the weekends.

Under the proposals commercial broadcasters will be able to complain to Ofcom if “the Corporation deliberately seeks to hurt their viewing figures.”
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This is such a multi-layered pile of illogical rubbish it is difficult to know where to begin.

First, no Culture Secretary – any Culture Secretary – should have the right in a democracy to tell, or try to influence by bullying, its right to schedule programmes when it chooses.

The notion that the BBC could get in regulatory trouble for scheduling its most popular programmes in prime time at the weekend when audiences want to relax is bizarre.

In the age of the iPlayer and catch-up television such scheduling issues have lost most of their sting. Most of those who want to watch competing programmes can easily do so.

As a free marketeer it is really strange that Whittingdale, whose social life is so adventurous that he cannot have much time to watch television, would want to try to hobble competition.

How dare the BBC make programmes that people actually want to watch when they want to watch them!

Lord Patten, Tory grandee and former chairman of the BBC Trust, denounced the Whittingdale plans as “ridiculous” and on a previous occasion memorably described the Culture Secretary as “a teenage ideologue.”

The real villain here is ITV which has whinged to Whittingdale and sought regulatory intervention because it is unable to beat the BBC in a head-to-head contest in either news or weekend entertainment.

Even the argument that ITV, which makes a profit of around £800 million a year, is losing money because of the popularity of Strictly and its scheduling is suspect.

Programmes such as the X-Factor still attract by far the largest audience on commercial television – the mass audience that advertisers most desire – and the effect of the BBC, which does not carry ads, on the ITV rate card is probably marginal.

The notion that the BBC should be prevented from “deliberately hurting” ITV’s ratings, whatever that means, is laughable.

Broadcasters compete against each other and the currency, whether for public or private broadcasters, is viewers. In the BBC’s case a universal service for a universal audience is the justification for a universal licence fee.

As Lord Puttnam put it at the weekend, the Government is bowing to pressure from vested interests to significantly diminish the BBC.

The row over Strictly, however ludicrous, may actually be a smokescreen to disguise the fact that the more anti-BBC Whittingdale wishes may have been reined in by Chancellor George Osborne.

It looks as if the Corporation is to get an 11-year extension of its Royal Charter protecting the BBC until 2028.

There is an implicit threat of a mid-term review because of the fast-moving nature of technology. This could amount to a disruptive, fundamental Charter review, or more likely a more harmless Ofcom review of the state of public service broadcasting and of the BBC in particular.

The White Paper will require careful reading to see precisely what Whittingdale is trying to slip into legislation.

By far the greatest threat Whittingdale, and possibly Osborne, pose to the British broadcasting system is actually the threat to privatise Channel 4.

Very few think this is a good idea beyond the ranks of those who hope to benefit from it financially – as a new book out next month, What Price Channel 4?, will demonstrate.

Whittingdale has tried to imply that the privatisation threat has largely come from the Treasury and has little to do with him.

Clearly he is being less than frank and his denials should not be believed.

Last week the Culture Secretary told the House of Lords Select Committee that “there is an argument that Channel 4 would have a stronger future if it had a private sector partner with deep pockets.”

A decision, he said, would not be taken until after discussions were complete on the renewal of the BBC’s Royal Charter but that the aim would not be about raising money for the Treasury but “about trying to find a model to sustain Channel 4.”

Here again Whittingdale descends into nonsense.

There is absolutely no threat to the existence of Channel 4. It has a surplus of more than £100 million and all the signs are that it can sustain itself in its current form at least throughout the length of the extended BBC Royal Charter.

As David Abraham, chief executive of Channel 4 says, privatisation is “a solution looking for a problem.”

Even the broadcaster David Elstein, an arch Channel 4 privatiser, has accepted that there is no current threat to the viability of the Channel 4 business.

There is some hope for Channel 4. John Whittingdale, a Brexit fan, could be swept away by a Remain vote on 23 June.

But then the battle to keep Channel 4 in public ownership might have to be waged against a strengthened George Osborne.