The front page of the Express this morning (I know but it got my attention) reads ‘Bloodbath at the BBC’ and that they undertand that the BBC is going to get a ‘new none executive chairman’ who is going to be the one responsible for making the ‘cuts’ that are needed.  The Governments needs to mind what they do with the BBC now as any drastic change could damage a very careful relationship that we enjoy with other world broadcasters and news. The issue is not that the BBC is to big but that their commercial rivals have failed in their bids to produce anything of worth and challenge Auntie.

The selling of BBC Worldwide would have long reaching ramifications for not only the broader survival of the BBC but also the BBC’s commercial role across the world.  If you take three of their shows, Top Gear, Dr Who, and Dancing with the Stars (its global name) BBC Worldwide produce these shows, set the rates, and redistribute that money back into UK film, programmes, and radio.

Your BBC

No other country gets the BBC interms of benefits and quality of programming and for the government to step in now and think that a way it can try and clear some of its deficit would be to start chopping up the BBC seems worrying and wrong.  The BBC is, and has been since its inception, owned by the people of the BBC.  Though regulated in some ad-hoc fashion through its Royal Charter the BBC is, and should always be, independent.  This independence has been challenged since Gulf War 2 and the Blair/Campbell belief that they should have full control of ‘the messages’ getting out to the UK people (and thus the world) about the war and dossiers.

The government won that battle and since then the BBC has been treading on eggshells too afraid to upset anyone even if that ‘anyone’ is the government.

One of the other benefits that seems to be lost on the new regime is that by the BBC owning and running BBC Worldwide they are best suited at getting more productions brought to the UK.  Though their producers role in the HBO TV Classic ‘Band of Brothers’ was small producers and TV networks and cable channels around the world know that nobody will argue that the BBC brings with it a unquestionable amount of experience, ethics, and commitment to TV, Radio, Online, News, and a broader creative agenda.

Figures for BBC Radio’s stations has increased whilst their commercial rivals have decreased.  But because of that the new government thinks that the best thing to do is to sell rather than question weather or not the commercial sector is bringing the type of radio and TV (including news) to the UK audience.  It would be to cheap and easy to blame the BBC for getting to big.  This is a company that we, as TV Licence Fee payers, own.  And with that WE should be allowed to see something that is such a representation of who we are as a nation be seen by the world as one of the best media corporations, and its recent awards at the Sony Radio Awards clearly illustrate that the BBC Radio is doing its job.

Commercial Vs BBC

Another aspect that the government has hinted at and the BBC DG Mark Thompson picked up on was the limiting of buying foreign shows like ‘Mad Men’, ‘The Wire’, and ‘Heroes’.  This, in my view, would be disastrous for the UK audience as well as for the reputation of the BBC at being a worldwide player in the TV industry.  Though the ‘Wire’ is quite old and has had a few cycles on US and UK commercial channels when the BBC brought it to BBC Two it was seen as a coop for the channel and brought one of the US hit TV shows to a terrestrial channel.

Same to with their outbidding of the Sci-fi channel to get the exclusive UK rights to show Heroes from season 2, this increased the viewership from 450,000 to 3.7 million (the 450,000 viewers for Sci-Fi was 4x higher than their usual viewers).  If the BBC was not a world player and did not have the reputation it has then I doubt other networks around the world would take it as seriously as it does. And it’s also very important to add that if the BBC reduces the amount of foreign shows it buys then so to would they which would mean that the likes of ‘The Inbetweeners’, ‘Skins’, and ‘Top Gear’ would not find a US market.  This will have a ripple affect for the whole of the UK TV industry which, from a commercial perspective, is already slightly buckling.

So what are the commercial stations doing with their channels, what are they spending money on, and why are the losing viewers?  You only have to look at Channel Four to get a understanding of what they are doing wrong.  ’Big Brother’ has cost them in excess of £100 million to show in the UK yet though it dominates thousands of hours during the summer, taking over the whole of the E4 and almost all the column inches of The Star and The Sun, the show only attracts about 3-8 million viewers a year.

Channel Five is almost all American shows and owned by RTL Group in Germany.  The RTL Group also producers a great proportion of UK shows through Fremantlemedia (X-Factor and the UK version of The Apprentice – BBC Co-producers). Though large RTL Group is 2nd in terms of size to the BBC.  This could be another example of what could happen if the UK media market continues to be bought by outside parties, will it limit the potential of growth and creative ingenuity in the UK?

Online – iPlayer and Beyond

The BBC has also said that it was going to scale back its websites and at a cost of £180 million a year you would be right in thinking that this is a lot of money to spend on websites.  And this again seems like people trying to justify their ends by talking big numbers that will make people go ‘that’s not fair…too much is being “wasted”…’.  Though when you think of the types of shows on TV and Radio, education sites, presenter information, and the BBC vast archive, £180 million seems to be worth it.

Take for example the BBC’s award winning iPlayer which has in the short life it’s had become one of the most useful catch up services for UK television viewers and radio listeners. This initiative has set the bar on what media companies need to do in order to ensure they provide services that their audience needs. iPlayer is a BBC created entity which means the licence fee has gone to directly producing a platform that allows for BBC Radio and TV to be seen again.

In its first year, 2008, growth continued at an impressive rate. By April, the iPlayer accounted for around five percent of all UK traffic, and had approximately five million page views per day by June. In December, it was announced that more than 180 million programmes have been watched on iPlayer since its release. During the BAFTAs in May, the iPlayer won the “Interactive Innovation Service/Platform” Award, beating Channel 4′s ‘Big Art Mob’ and the Bebo ‘Open Media Platform’. The streaming of programmes forms the lions share of the success, outnumbering downloads eight to one in January 2008, and 97:3 in October 2009. (Source Wikipedia)

Charity

What will happen to Children in Need and Comic Relief?  The BBC is able to offset these broadcast paying for it and ensuring that ALL the funds raised goes to these charities.  This is done by the work BBC Worldwide does in bringing revenue to the corporation from the sale of shows.  If BBC Worldwide is sold I have two questions, the first is will the BBC get that money (as in will WE as the owners of BBC Worldwide get that money reinvested into UK shows?  And the second is more obvious, will the BBC be able to afford doing these biannual events?

The Future

There is no certainty that the BBC is going to survive the cuts that the new government is suggesting. The money that they are planning on making from possible selling of BBC Worldwide is more than likely going to go the government and not the BBC. Last year James Murdoch said that the only way the industry can survive is through ‘profit’ and that the BBC challenges the commercial sector and should be broken up (MGEITF 2009).  In August Mark Thompson, DG of the BBC, is going to be delivering this years MacTaggart Lecture as part of the 2010 Media Guardian Edinburgh International Television Festival.

Last year was a hard year for the BBC and we at The New Current are not going to apologise for being very firm supporters of the BBC and what they have brought and do bring to British Broadcasting.  It was an inevitability that James Murdoch’s MacTaggart Lecture was going to be controversial and in the wake of this the BBC has faced increased hostility from their commercial rivals with very few people actually asking those who pay for it what they think.

Profit, James Murdoch stated, was the only cure for the state of the media facing the UK and it was unfair (as seemed to be the tone oft he whole MGEITF seemed to be) that the BBC in particular was able to do what it does.  Since the debate at the festival the BBC has, in reality, gone from strength to strength.  Yet now, faced with political pressure, the BBC is curbing down on its operations, clipping the wings of its award winning websites, handing over programmes to Channel Four (in age demographics), and even radio stations, BBC Radio 6 & Asian Networks, are facing possible closure.

Already there are campaigns to Save The BBC and by the time the festival takes place at the end of August it will be interesting to see just how much change the BBC has gone through and whether the British people are going to be happy with that

Over the next few weeks and months we are going to be providing more insight into last years MGEITF some of the features from the many debates that took place as well as what the BBC Means To YOU.  This is going to be a hard time for the BBC a head and this years MacTaggart Lecture could not be given by a more qualified person to not only give the insight into the direction the BBC is heading but also he thoughts on last years lecture.