on media


We need to act now to save the BBC


The corporation is in ministers’ sights, says Raymond Snoddy Then there were the allegations of


T


he trouble with the BBC is that when the time comes for difficult decisions to be taken, it is never


entirely straightforward. When BBC Three was turned into


BBC III and taken off the air as a broadcast channel – one of the first in the world to go online only – it was dressed up as a way to find absent younger viewers. It was that in part, but the channel lost enormous visibility as a result and the main motivation for the move was to cut costs. It would have been better if the BBC


had come clean about that. When outgoing BBC director general


Lord Tony Hall negotiated the current royal charter, he declared it a great deal overall. It was not. The best that could be said


of it was that it might just have been the best deal possible in difficult political circumstances. It contained the time bomb that is


about to go off this year – the BBC’s accepting, under duress, responsibility for free licences for the over 75s. Wisely, the BBC exercised its right not to continue free licences for all over 75s, which would have cost £750 million a year rising to £1 billion by the end of the decade. Instead the corporation agreed to fund free licences for those over 75 on pension support at a cost of around £250 million a year. And it is that bill and the need to


make other savings that lie at the heart of the reason why 450 jobs are going to be lost at BBC news and current affairs, including the closure of the Victoria Derbyshire programme on television.


At least £80 million has to be saved by 2022 and that, inevitably, will mean 450 jobs will be lost. Once again, it is being partly dressed up as an act of modernisation, a move towards reaching younger viewers, many of whom have deserted traditional broadcast news for online and mobile, for YouTube and Instagram. Yes but. While there has always been room for reducing duplication at the BBC, are fewer journalists, programmes and stories really the answer to a significant problem? Better by far to acknowledge the


primary truth – cost cutting – and direct the blame at those responsible: a bullying Conservative government and, to a lesser extent, BBC top management and members of the then BBC Trust who probably acquiesced too much.


The loss of so many good people at


BBC news is painful and, alas, things are almost certainly going to get worse – perhaps much worse. Over the years, governments of all political persuasions have fallen out with the BBC, particularly during general election campaigns. But, until now, there has been nothing like the oafish behaviour of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his extraordinary chief adviser Dominic Cummings, a long-term opponent of the BBC and its licence fee. The list of attacks on broadcasters is


frightening – from the ban on ministers appearing on the Today programme to threats that Channel 4’s licence could be reviewed after the channel used a block of ice to replace the missing Johnson at the leaders’ climate change debate.


“ ”


bias against the BBC for its Brexit and general election coverage and aggressive reaction to Andrew Neil when he fought back against Johnson’s failure to turn up for his election interview.


These things could pass but the


evidence of underlying malice is more substantial and dangerous. Johnson said the BBC should ‘cough up’ the money for the free licences without any apparent knowledge or interest in the implications. He then added, completely inaccurately, that the BBC had agreed to pay. Johnson wants to look at the


decriminalisation of the licence fee, something that looks reasonable but would actually be deeply damaging. A previous Conservative government


The list of attacks on broadcasters is frightening – from the ban on ministers appearing on the Today programme to threats to Channel 4’s licence


appointed David Perry QC in 2015 to investigate and he found the current system was, overall, in the public interest. Decriminalisation would increase evasion and the BBC estimates the bill would be 200 million a year. It is the threat to the licence fee,


which is now under formal consultation, that is most alarming. Could Johnson use his large majority to try to overturn a royal charter agreement protecting the licence fee until 2027 and bring in a subscription system? Would he dare to use the mid-term


review in 2022 – the BBC’s anniversary year – to go for a crowd-pleasing licence fee cut? Be warned: there has never been a


Conservative government like this one, and the fight to save the BBC from its clutches should start now.


theJournalist | 19


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