Hytner Criticises Dyke For Misuse Of The Licence Fee

Jim Hytner, commercial director of ITV, has criticised the BBC for losing sight of its public service remit and has accused the Corporation’s director general, Greg Dyke, of using the licence fee in an “irresponsible, almost criminal” way.

Speaking in a purely personal capacity at this year’s Media Question Time event, Hytner, who is just weeks away from launching ITV’s most radical face lift in fifty years, criticised the increasingly populist nature of the BBC saying: “Greg Dyke wants to beat the commercial sector at all costs and this has clouded his judgement on his public service remit.”

Hytner lambasted the BBC for its fiercely-competitive approach to programming and criticised Dyke for focusing too heavily on ratings. He said that introducing a fifth weekly episode of Eastenders, targeting expensive dramas on ITV with expensive dramas on the BBC and spending millions of pounds of licence fee payers’ money on Fame Academy serves no public service interest at all.

Hytner acknowledged that ITV had failed to compete effectively with the BBC over the last 18 months and said that the collapse of ITV Digital has forced the Network to realise the importance of its core product. He said the only way to match the BBC is with spend and “we’re going to match the bastards” in 2003.

Ed Straw, media partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, was quick to come to the defence of the BBC, saying that the Corporation is “doing a damn good job at present”. He acknowledged that Greg Dyke has made some slightly questionable moves, but said: “The only reason to exist for the BBC is [to produce] great programmes. Once you don’t have great programmes there is no public service remit per se that can justify your existence.”

The panellists agreed that the BBC is becoming increasingly commercially focussed and Hytner emphasised that the only way to “control” the Corporation is to bring it under the remit of the Government’s proposed catch-all regulator. He said: “The [BBC’s] Governors are in the pocket of Greg Dyke and are just lame ducks that need to be brought under Ofcom.”

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