The free press must not be sacrificed to protect BBC as public trust in this ‘national institution’ dwindles
All the commercial media world wants is a level playing field, not one tilted even more in the BBC’s favour
Stop raiding the Quality Street, switch off Netflix and close down YouTube for a moment. Anyone fancy being Director General of the BBC?
At over half a million a year, most of us would think that was worth the grief to succeed Tim Davie, but with challenges mounting by the day, the head-hunters might have to earn their corn for once.
Donald Trump’s lawsuit is the immediate headline grabber, and while I’m no expert in the American legal system, it could be a very costly business just to have the case thrown out. Going all the way to a full trial could cost millions and the president has an impressive record of winning seemingly shaky cases against large media organisations.
Perhaps the BBC should just offer another effusive apology and a dollar in damages; after all, the dodgy Panorama documentary video edit has already cost Davie and BBC News chief executive Deborah Turness their jobs, so all that’s at issue is the level of reputational damage (none) and compensation.
Defending the indefensible
The judge might award a bit more than a buck, but all the principles in the world don’t get away from the fact that the BBC royally screwed up, as it did with the Hamas-Gaza documentary and, the cost of a prolonged defence just burns up licence fee-payers’ money.
Sir Keir Starmer might be right to let the BBC sort it out itself, but the implications of vast legal expense incurred in defending the indefensible are critical now the BBC is entering the final stages of the Charter renewal process as the number of people buying a TV licence tumbles by over 200,000 a year.
According to Ofcom’s annual BBC report published last month, in the past decade its share of adults’ claimed media time has fallen from 36 per cent to 22. As licence fee revenue is static, going from £3.7 billion to £3.8bn, inflation means that represents a drop of about £1.2bn, which puts President Trump’s claim for £7.5bn into perspective.
But it wouldn’t be the first time the BBC has lost millions fighting a high-profile court case, with Sir Cliff Richard suing for breach of privacy after it used a helicopter in 2014 to film police crawling all over his mansion looking for non-existent evidence of an unfounded claim about an alleged sex assault. Standing up for principles resulted in the BBC paying Sir Cliff £2 million in costs and £210,000 damages, and over £300,000 to cover some of South Yorkshire Police’s costs.
Pragmatism over principle
We in the commercial news sector have long had to accept that pragmatism often trumps principle when it comes to legal battles, and fighting the Trump action risks having to hand over embarrassing messages between high-profile journalists and news executives slagging off the president, and the court raking over the coals of the BBC’s many recent scandals.
But the Trump action will pass. Charter renewal, however, has implications for the whole of the British media landscape which go way beyond how the corporation funds itself for the decade after 2027. Despite the decline in the number of licence-fee payers – a quarter of adults no longer watch live television regularly − the BBC is still a media behemoth, with Ofcom research estimating that 83 per cent of UK adults use BBC services every week.
Therefore, there has been understandable horror in commercial media circles at the UK Government’s suggestion it could consider helping the BBC grow its commercial revenues as part of a more sustainable financial future.
Advertising market issues
In a news market already reeling from the drain of advertising revenue to the tech giants – industry forecasts expect around 87 per cent of the £44bn UK advertising market in 2025-26 will go to pure online platforms like Google and Meta – a beast the size of the BBC empowered to seize a chunk of what’s left would be catastrophic for news publishing which has only 2.5 per cent of the cake.
There are no easy answers, and at a local level the furore over changes at Radio Scotland and the replacement of long-running late-night music shows with two hours of easy-listening pop classics is symptomatic of the perpetual instinct to chase audiences to justify the licence fee.
Critics, like the 300 leading Scottish musicians, writers and arts organisations who this week signed an open letter calling for a halt to the plans, justifiably argue the licence fee exists to give emerging artists and niche genres otherwise unviable platforms.
It has long been a concern that the BBC can’t see an emerging media market without using the licence fee as a pretext for muscling in – “because our audiences demand it” say their executives – even if those markets are already well served.
The last thing other media organisations need is the green light from government to go further to compensate for dwindling licence-fee revenue. Why does Scotland need a publicly funded middle-of-the-road music platform when you can tune into Smooth or Absolute? And wait for the furore over the BBC’s loss of the Commonwealth Games to TNT.
As writer and social commentator Darren McGarvey put it this week, “public funding is meant to protect the BBC from the excesses of commercialism, not bankroll a poor imitation of it”.
Whatever the Charter process produces, someone will be unhappy, but it would be unacceptable if other businesses were sacrificed on the altar of protecting a national institution which fewer people use, and of which a growing number are increasingly mistrustful.
All the commercial media world wants is a level playing field, not one tilted even more in the BBC’s favour, and for Auntie to recognise the parameters of true public service broadcasting.
Now, what’s on Radio 3? I guess that job application can wait…
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