BBC To Increase Programme Spend By £61 Million

The BBC has announced plans to increase its overall programme spend by £61 million, with £21 million being invested in BBC Television.

In the BBC’s Statements of Programme Policy for 2005/2006, the Board of Governors outlined the operations plans to fulfil its public promise to inform, educate and entertain.

Michael Grade, BBC chairman revealed that over the next year, the BBC would begin to introduce a system of service licences. Grade said: “Taken with the Statements of Programme Policy, these new service licences for each BBC service will further improve transparency and accountability to licence fee payers.”

Grade continued: “The Governors will monitor the BBC’s performance and, informed by our dialogue with the public, we will publish our assessment in next year’s Annual Report and Accounts.”

Over recent months, the BBC’s Director-General, Mark Thompson, has outlined his vision for the BBC’s creative future and promised that this strategy will ensure future investment is prioritised on content that marks the BBC as distinctive and delivers maximum public value.

According to Thompson the £61 million increase in programme spend will be spent on enriching the summer schedule, increasing the amount of drama and comedy and, on BBC1, beginning to reduce the number of repeats in peak time.

Thompson said: “Over the coming year, we will offer a range of television, radio, and new media services, each underpinning the BBC’s unique public service remit and delivering public value.”

At the beginning of last month, culture secretary Tessa Jowell unveiled radical plans for change at the BBC, with proposals that the Corporation’s governors be replaced with a new “BBC Trust”, while the licence fee continues to provide funding for another ten years (see Governors Axed As BBC Charter Renewed For 10 Years).

Jowell also proposed a 10-year charter, running from 1 January 2007 until 31 December 2016 to give the BBC and viewers more “stability” during the switchover to digital-only TV. However, alternative methods of funding will be investigated, opening the way for a subscription-based system to be in place before the end of the next charter period.