Sir Michael Lyons speaks out about the BBC’s strategic review

The BBC’s chairman Sir Michael Lyons has responded to last week’s press reports that the BBC is to cut half its web pages and close two digital radio stations.

In a statement, Lyons said the proposals follow a “full-scale review of the BBC’s strategy, to decide what the future direction of the corporation ought to be.”

Last week’s reports suggest that the BBC will announce plans to close 6 Music and Asian Network, cut spending on US imports, shrink its online offering by 50%, introduce a cap on sports rights spending and dispose of the BBC Trust’s British magazine operation.

Lyons said the review, which has been conducted by BBC staff but put to the BBC Trust for approval, has focused on addressing the concerns of audiences and re-shaping the BBC, to ensure it “delivers genuinely distinctive content, serves all audiences across the UK and provides value for money for licence fee payers”.

He claims the BBC needs to have “the same clarity of purpose around a public service mission that existed when it was created in 1922, and to give it the confidence it needs to pursue and fulfil that mission more rigorously”.

Lyons confirmed that the BBC will shortly be publishing the proposals, “to find out what licence fee payers think of them and to test opinions and reactions to them from outside the BBC”, something which he says in consistent with the Trust’s approach of basing its work on the views of licence fee payers.

“A major driver behind this review is the fact that both audiences and industry have raised concerns about whether the BBC should focus more sharply on its public service mission,” Lyons said.  “And we want to ensure that the BBC spreads licence fee money only as far as it can go to deliver quality content and that it asks the public for no more money than it needs to do this.

“Aligned with this, we are conscious of the fact that digital switchover is two years away and that we are at a point where the so-called digital future really has become the digital present.

“The Trust wants a better understanding of what the seismic changes taking place in the media industry mean for the BBC, so that we can determine how the BBC can most effectively focus on its core public mission in a rapidly changing world. The strategic review will give us that understanding and shape the future course of the BBC accordingly.”