Managed decline is not an option. Now the government must be bold

Today’s report from the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee on the BBC Charter Review is a serious piece of work. Over six months the Committee took 98 written submissions and heard eight sessions of oral evidence, from writers and podcasters to the BBC’s Chair and Director-General and the Secretary of State.

Its central message is the right one. The BBC “must not be abandoned to managed decline.” We could not agree more. The Committee describes this Charter Review as a fork in the road. One path leads to a smaller, weaker BBC that slowly stops mattering. The other leads to an ambitious BBC, properly funded and fit to compete with the global giants. Parliament has now said clearly which path it wants.

We were pleased to submit evidence to the inquiry, and our chair Pat Younge appeared before the Committee in May. It is gratifying to see so many of our arguments reflected in the report. These include a permanent Charter, an end to political appointments to the BBC Board, and the World Service returned to government funding. They also include a new public purpose for technology and iPlayer opened up as a shared home for public service content.

Above all, the Committee took seriously the threat Pat set out. Six men now own most of the platforms through which we find, share and consume information, along with the data and the algorithms that decide what we see. None of them is British. As Pat told the Committee, the BBC is the only organisation at scale that gives this country any resilience against “a data environment that we no longer control.”

Funding: right diagnosis, wrong remedy

We agree with the Committee that the current licence fee is unsustainable. It is tied to live television in an age when most of what we watch is neither live nor on a television.

But the Committee proposes widening the licence fee while cutting what each household pays. That is unwise and unnecessary. Government is asking the BBC to do more, in the nations and regions, in skills, in technology and in defending our information environment. At the same time the BBC is making painful cuts to balance its books before the current Charter ends: £500 million in savings and around 2,000 jobs. It has lost well over a billion pounds of licence fee income in the last decade. Any new money from a wider base should rebuild what has been lost, not disappear in a token reduction most households would barely notice.

We also agree that the government should not have ruled out a household levy (which funds public service broadcasting in Germany,) and urge them to keep an open mind on it as a potential future model for funding the BBC. When it responds to its consultation on the Green Paper, the government should also set out the level of interest it received in a household levy. Our view remains that the fairest and most sustainable way forward is a universal licence fee, paid by every household with a device capable of displaying video. It closes the fairness gap and builds on a system the public already understands. And it keeps the direct link between the BBC and the people who pay for it.

One message from Parliament

Today’s report does not stand alone. Last month the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee urged government to be “bold, confident and unapologetic” about the BBC’s future funding. Earlier this year the Foreign Affairs Committee set out how hostile states are working to corrupt our information environment, and the vital role the World Service plays in countering them.

The message across all three is the same. Government must be bold in building an ambitious, sustainable future for the BBC and for the wider public service ecosystem around it. It must resist lobbying from platforms and interests that do not put the public interest and accountability at the heart of how we get our news and information. That means public service content given proper prominence across all the large online platforms, backed by law, not left to voluntary deals.

We were encouraged by what Lisa Nandy and Ian Murray said this week at Labour conference. They understand what is at stake. The Secretary of State has already committed to ending “the bizarre situation” in which the BBC ceases to exist if a new Charter is not agreed in time. She has also said she wants political appointments removed from the BBC Board. We look forward to the White Papers expected before the end of the year.

What you can do

There is no further public consultation planned. But this debate is not over, and your voice still counts.

Write to your MP. Tell them why the BBC and public service media matter to you, and that you expect them to back a bold, brave approach from the government.

And talk to your friends and family. Thanks to the algorithmic bubbles many of us now live in, they may not know this debate is happening at all.

If you’d like to here more from us, get in touch via email: contact@britishbroadcastingchallenge.com