What should the next BBC Chair do?
The application for chair of the BBC will open shortly. Former Labour MP Derek Wyatt offers his thoughts on what the new chair should do.
First, hats off to Defund the BBC for their successful campaign to stop the BBC criminalising those, especially single mothers, who have not paid their licence fee and were thus put in prison and separated from their children. Just for £157.50. Let's also agree that those who are on the maximum state support, pay just £53 (the cost of black and white) whatever their age. Would it be beyond the wit of the technical team at the BBC to find a solution to switch off their signal for non-payment? Presumably, by 2030 the BBC will be more a streaming service by then anyway?
Though I have tried by asking the National Audit Office how they make sense of the current annual accounts – as they have gently explained to me – that is not what they do. It is impossible to understand them. They have been deliberately prepared so no-one can fully understand simply things like: How much does BBC 1 cost? How about Radio 3? What about the Drama department and so on. We do not now how many News employs nor do we know how they amortise their costs across the whole of the Beeb. This is our money and we should as licence fee payers receive an annual report but for reasons that are not obvious, we are forgotten once we've paid up. We have no access; no-one represent us. Not Ofcom , not the Government, not the BBC Board; no-one. This needs remedying.
Radio is now almost forgotten by the BBC. It needs a new shared owner who has had experience in selling advertising. After 2030, or even tomorrow, BBC Radio would be allowed to sell advertising on Radio 1, Radio 2 and Radio Five Live to pay for all its national stations. BBC Radio would be managed by C4 in a new entity called BB/C4.
BBC Local Radio stations would be closed and instead a new entity called BB/C Community whereby any organisation could come forward and put up the case to Ofcom for a station (as they do now). Once approved, each and every station would receive up to £100,000 a year (but matched) to help with their running costs and be able to employ two or three local people. Radio would no longer receive funding from the Licence Fee.
Television would be split up. The parliaments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would receive per capita all of the licence fees their own populations pay for. And they would decide how they would create new and dynamic stations largely streamed I suspect. We might be able to persuade them to pay into a central fund for News, dramas and documentaries and I accept that my thinking on this is both a work in progress, bureaucratic and possibly flaky but all three parliaments could decide to raise funds by taxation, by advertising or subscription. But let them decide. Let's be a bit grown up and stop telling them that we in London know best. BB/C4 (old C4) will see C4 moving its offering into the BBC ambit (and not being privatised) with C4/1 becoming a new online channel also run by C4 to rival Netflix, Apple and Prime with all of the BBC archive at their disposal and some of the licence fee.
BBC England is much harder to fathom given there is no English parliament (yet). But let us be brave and allow our major cities the chance to create a properly funded BBC City entity not just for for London, Manchester and Leeds but also for Truro, Exeter, Ipswich and Lincoln. Let a thousand city television stations bloom. Let some of them share programming but without a licence fee which has been held centrally, so far our City stations have been starved of funds. Let us be generous and allow some of these to fail too.
BBC Television would consist of BBC 1 and BBC 2 and would create two new channels: BBCE and BBBS. BBC1 and 2 could take sponsorship for programming but not advertising. BBCE would be a zoom schools platform- providing free downloaded text books, papers, videos, net sources, thousands of 90 second films of our best teachers for each and every subject so the poorest schools could access simply the best. Between 1700-1900 it would operate an 0800 Homework Club where children stuck or in difficulty or just needing small things explained could ting into teachers (possibly retired) who could help them. If we can book our own X-ray appointments online we can book helpful.teachers.co.uk. We could probably make this work at the weekends too. BBBS would be another zoom platform for sport connecting every team, having coaching outets, providing nutrition programmes, the latest regimes, history of sport, the Olympic Channel; the whole caboodle. We're inventive we can do something and dare I suggest, it could be world-beating. The BBC as structured has simply missed the boat again and again. So BBCE and BBCS would be run by groups who'd like to run it. They might be a combination of current staff inside the Beeb linking up with others outside; they might not.
BBC Online or whatever it should be called (YouK?) should be put out to tender to and run by British based organisations and be funded initially by the licence fee but should be stand alone within three years. Let's see what is out there. BBCC Online is already Byzantine its offerings.
This leaves BBC World Service and BBC World; and the orchestras. The regional orchestras will have to find local funding and we must be kind here and supportive. But we might also have rap, punk, jazz, blues and kids music groups too. WE need a huge music initiative for all of us. BBC WS and W will need to merge with the British Council into one soft power centre of excellence. This will be opposed but after Brexit we will be a lesser country and we need to upgrade our soft power which has to be world class; seriously we need a new centre to include our universities, our incredible museums et al. So we need to upgrade the BBC World Service which should be funded entirely by the Foreign Office but separate from it as the British Council. Is, but has been in drift mode for a decade. We need to sharpen up and properly fund these two fantastics organisations. This also needs more work.
Lots to do then. It could be huge fun.
