George Osborne demands change … and the BBC simply obeys
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Version 0 of 1. The great and good of superior broadcasting are alarmed, distressed, defiant. It’s “scandalous,” says Diane Coyle, ex-BBC Trust deputy chair. “It’s deeply shocking,” says John Birt. “It’s awful,” says Chris Patten. “It’s a millstone,” glooms Melvyn Bragg. There’s not a former D-G in sight who has anything good to say about the latest Whitehall mincing of the licence fee – or a past or present BBC trustee either. Indeed, Rona Fairhead, the current chair and once a favoured contributor to George Osborne’s Treasury deliberations, seems as miffed as anyone, while Sir Christopher Bland and Sir Michael Lyons sing transparency’s descant at the back of the chorus. Mud, mud, inglorious mud … Related: The BBC is perfectly set up for future challenges | Tony Hall Yet, of course, a buoyant chancellor of the exchequer can insouciantly swat such wailings away. For isn’t the BBC itself “happy” with a settlement that asks it to fund and run free licences for the over-75s? Hear Lord Hall take to the airwaves and the comment pages of the Observer to hail this “strong deal” which offers “financial stability”. No point in the BBC’s natural fan club moaning over George’s quick coup. The “victim” is standing tall and saying what a good negotiating job he’s done. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/12/bbc-perfectly-set-up-future-challenges So this isn’t another example of sharp politicians hacking lumps out of the great British punchbag. This, much more distressingly, may be the moment where the entire ancestral debate begins to fade away. For here we seem to see the bosses of Portland Place settle before push or shove, almost like co-conspirators in some phoney wrestling match. Just look at the few covert days around 5 June, when Osborne revealed all to Andrew Marr. One moment an expensive consultant’s report finds the BBC a model of public sector efficiency; the next Hall wants hundreds of middle managers out of the door. One moment doom looms because decriminalising the licence fee will cost £200m and lead to swingeing programme cuts, according to Danny Cohen, head of TV; the next, £700m has gone to the over-75s but Danny’s on Newsnight hailing a great deal – while, mysteriously, that decriminalised £200m slides into future negotiations, almost (very fishily) as though it had ceased to matter. The £150m black hole over iPlayer and playback-watching is a monster problem at the very time it’s being solved as George and Tony trade. This, distressingly, may be the moment where the entire ancestral debate begins to fade away Where’s the gain in such a mystic melee? Stability and certainty, according to Hall. But any vestige of stability will only last for five years anyway once a new government gets to work on licence fee change; and nothing whatsoever is certain about tying fee levels to the prices index. Soaring inflation could and would destroy that link in a trice. The fee has become a tax, in hock to Treasury wishes and circumstance changes. Charter security based on established governance regimes has precious little to offer any longer. After all, the Trust is on its way out, to be replaced by whatever John Whittingdale and Hall can agree on. Why bother to consult it about licence fee budgets, you might say in their place? It’s dead meat. The future is all about what the BBC’s executive board and Whitehall can contrive among themselves. So there’s scant reason, surely, to keep blaming passing chancellors and culture secretaries as though they were the baleful core of the problem. They aren’t. They are ordinary politicians doing what ordinary politicians do: probing, finding weak spots. The real trouble is that the BBC, our BBC, isn’t battling for its independence now. You could, just about, explain away Mark Thompson’s World Service deal in the economic furnace of five years ago. But there’s absolutely no comparison with Osborne’s feline version of austerity delivered last Wednesday. There was and is no crisis in the media world, except for a BBC that seems to have lost the confidence to join open argument over open policy. No charter renewal, on this showing, will put passable autonomy back in place. No sub-royal flummery will keep politicians at bay. That depended on an iron resolve, which has rusted over. The BBC is a vital part of Britain’s social mix. Of course it needs to change with changing times and technologies. Of course Osborne is right to fret over “imperial” ambitions and wonder where the borders of future state broadcasting should henceforth be drawn. And of course this selfsame lack of clarity is one reason why broadcasters and politicians increasingly wheel and deal in a world where demarcation lines can be drawn in private, far from the three-ring circuses of transparency, openness and due diligence. But let’s hope ordinary journalists and producers on the studio floor are made of sterner stuff. Let’s hope stability can mean more than getting by over the next few years – and that certainty involves a certain gritty resolve to fight vital corners. Let’s hope the news channel isn’t a first sacrifice with more to come. But any recovery of élan, any attempt to stake out firm new ground, can’t depend henceforth on a warm chorus of outside support. That pass was sold when the Department of Work and Pensions saw its revised, fee-assisted bottom line and smiled. Nifty transfer, QED. Tony Hall and his closest advisers have taken some horrid knocks. They’re talking a good fight now, bristling resolve: the sad question, though, asks whether this isn’t too little, too late. |