Why You Should Give A Shit About the BBC White Paper

The telly Baftas are normally a nothing-ey affair. Watching them on TV is a bit like being forced to go to some dreadfully posh dinner party where you have to make small talk with costume drama enthusiasts. Every year, Dame Judi Dench and Sir David Attenborough dutifully go and collect their awards with minimal pomp while Graham Norton makes well-meaning but limp gags that prove that Brits are still a long way off mastering the comedic art of roasting celebrities.

But Sunday’s ceremony took a rather more sombre and political tone as stars lined-up to defend the BBC and criticise the government. At times, it felt more like a Parliament Square demo than a back-patting awards bash.

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Everyone piled in. Actors Mark Rylance and James Nesbitt took shots at the government. Ian Hislop said Have I Got News For You can only skewer those in power, and the BBC itself, because of the corporation’s independence. Peter Kosminsky, director of Wolf Hall, went in hardest, comparing the government to a totalitarian regime. He said:

“The BBC is a public broadcaster independent of government, not a state broadcaster like they have in those bastions of democracy, Russia or North Korea. All of this is under threat right now, make no mistake… the secretary of state is telling the BBC when to schedule main news bulletins, what programmes it should make and what programmes it shouldn’t. This is really scary stuff, folks, not something I thought I’d see in my lifetime in this country.”

In fact, the awards so vigorously celebrated the BBC’s independence and impartiality that the BBC had to cut sections of the speeches in its broadcast of the awards, many believe, because their impartiality prevented them from appearing too in favour of themselves.

But why the fuss? Was it just a luvvies’ revolt, or should it bother shmucks like you and me who just watch Masterchef on iPlayer?

There are actually two huge processes going on that will change how things in the British media will work forever. One is to do with the BBC and one to do with Channel 4. They are separate issues, but they are both being led by culture secretary John Whittingdale. If things pan out the way he wants, we could soon have a very different media, and a very different culture in the UK.

Let’s start with the BBC. You may remember that when the coalition government was elected in 2010, they quickly hammered out a new funding deal with the BBC that froze the licence fee for seven years and forced the BBC to take on around £340 million of extra funding commitments. That deal, which was described as lacking openness and transparency by many, led to BBC Three moving online. When the new Tory government were elected in 2015, George Osborne lumbered the corporation with the £750 million cost of paying the licence fee for the over 75s, reducing the BBC’s total budget by about a fifth. These changes are already being felt, in ways big and small. The news department has announced cuts of more than 1000 jobs, with more to come. Boundary pushing small-audience shows like Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle, which was cancelled this week, have struggled the most. In a lengthy post on his website, Lee explains that the channel liked his show, but just don’t have the budget to make non-scripted comedy anymore.

So now a new licence fee agreement needs to be made and this time the government want to impose more than funding cuts. In a few days, the culture secretary John Whittingdale will release a white paper making recommendations for a total overhaul of the way the BBC is run. We don’t know the full details, but many leaks suggest a few near-certainties:

The BBC will be forced to share the licence fee with other independent producers, even if they are making shows for other channels. In theory this could mean that a company could get licence fee cash to make a programme, then get paid again by selling that show on to Sky, for example. Essentially this is just another way of cutting the budget without cutting the budget.
The pay of the BBC’s top talent will be publicly revealed. This is likely to create a public outcry when licence fee payers see how much they’re shelling out for big names, and this will make it difficult for the BBC to hire and retain new talent. Imagine how hard it would be for Evan Davis, say, to quiz MPs over expenses, or someone on the poverty line about foodbanks, when everyone knows how much he earns. “Fuck you Evan” could become a popular new catchphrase.
The organisation that regulated the BBC, the independent BBC Trust, will be abolished. There will be a new BBC board with a chair and deputy chair appointed directly by the government. They will, in turn, appoint the majority of other members. This, potentially, is the biggest change proposed – it would mean the people who safeguard the editorial independence of the BBC from the interference of the government, would themselves be appointed by the government. Imagine how that would play out, for example, when there are complaints that the BBC is biased against the government. And don’t think the government would search out non-partisan figures with a background in independent journalism – Whittingdale’s favoured appointee is Archie Norman, a former Tory cabinet minister and current chair of ITV.

These changes are not arbitrary or symbolic. The mere threat of this white paper influences almost every decision at the corporation, as it becomes scared of upsetting a government that holds its future in the balance. Noticed how there’s less of a sting in BBC political comedy of late? Or how the public service value of every show you watch feels painfully hammered home? Look at the fucking state of BBC Music Day, a community event that includes an event called “Take It To The Bridge”. According to the press release:

There will be musical collaborations on over 40 bridges around the UK – from large iconic bridges, such as the Tees Transporter Bridge in Middlesbrough, to smaller and quirkier bridges, like Bishop Bridge in Norwich and Tadcaster Bridge in Yorkshire. There will be performances from BBC Introducing acts, and local community groups and choirs. BBC Local Radio stations will be broadcasting live from the bridges throughout the day.

You have to question whether this is a result of a corporation which knows that big risks, particularly with regards to public opinion, could seal its fate.

It’s worth mentioning that the BBC is probably in need of serious reform at a time when Netflix and Amazon are often making more innovative and more popular shows, particularly for young people. It has to ask difficult question of itself. Are black and Asian communities best served by ethnically segregated radio stations, 1Xtra and the Asian Network, or is there something to be said for a broad church Radio 1 that serves all communities while bringing niche genres to a bigger audience? Did it need to buy The Voice format only to watch the show struggle for years before losing it to ITV when they could have been attempting to make their own formats?

Some of these issues will be addressed in the government’s white paper and it may make some useful recommendations. The problem is that these changes lure the BBC into a trap. Right now the BBC is hugely popular. If it become more niche and less populist, then it follows that less people will value it. And so, in a few years’ time, the government can point to falling viewers and reduced public enthusiasm as a reason to privatise it further. That is the long-term government strategy: cut on the one hand, narrow the scope on the other, until the BBC is a husk the public don’t want anyway.

To Channel 4, currently a publicly owned broadcaster which makes money through advertising but has a strict public service remit demanding that it make innovative programmes and serve minority communities. All profits are returned to the business. A different model to the BBC, and arguably just as effective.

John Whittingdale has said the company would be better off in private hands and has already drawn up plans to sell the broadcaster to a private company. The government think they could make a billion from it, but an independent report said they’d be lucky to get half that. It also said that such a move would have “an overwhelmingly negative” impact on the creative industries. This has not reduced Whittingdale’s zeal for the plan.

If you want evidence of what can happen to a broadcaster when it loses its independence and public service remit, just flick a few channels down to ITV. ITV used to have a large number of public service commitments and was run as network of independent regional producers. There was a time, not that long ago, where ITV would screen educational programmes for schools in the slot currently occupied by The Jeremy Kyle Show and opera in the slot currently occupied by Phillip Schofield’s hypnosis gameshow Now You’re Back In The Room. They had a huge commitment to documentary and world-class drama and were seen as better than the BBC in many respects. But as a result of deregulation in the 1980s and 1990s, ITV plc became a single company, responsible only to its shareholders. Now it is the station we now know today, making game shows, soaps and reality TV for huge audiences, while rarely showing any innovation or quality. At last night’s Baftas it won just two awards, and one of those was for Keith Lemon.

You may well be thinking that none of this matters, because you don’t watch traditional TV anyway. As long as you can still Netflix and chill, why would you care about Whittingdale and cuts? But these changes will be far-reaching, affecting everything from The Today Programme to Match of the Day, Glastonbury coverage to Louis Theroux documentaries. What’s being a proposed will profoundly alter the quality of discourse in this country.

The USA, where almost no factual or current affairs programmes are shown in primetime, is the second least-informed country in the world. It was beaten to first place by Italy, which has a low-regulation private media owned in large part by former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. In both countries, people still look to the BBC as a broadcaster of record.

This is, of course, just a white paper which is yet to be published. There will be further consultation and it’s quite likely that such high levels of discontent, as seen at the Baftas, will lead to Whittingdale being made a scapegoat. He may go in the next reshuffle, but as is often Cameron’s way, the minister takes a hit while the plans will continue. By the 2020 Baftas, Keith Lemon could be winning every award.

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