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Plans made to defend BBC as licence fee freeze announced
Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, told MPs on the public
accounts committee that he had not been officially forewarned about the announcement, which had been partly presaged by tweets from the culture secretary. He warned the MPs that the loss of the licence fee could lead to excessive cuts to the BBC’s content and could damage democracy and the economy. He said: “I worry that if we dismantle this, I honestly think we will be doing a disservice, not just to our culture and democracy, but to the economic health of our cultural industries.” He noted that Britain’s cultural industries grew at four times
the rate of the overall economy before Covid and were vital in providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. He also warned the committee that money for the BBC
THE NUJ is preparing to lobby MPs and make the case for public service broadcasting after the government suddenly announced plans to freeze the BBC’s licence fee for the next two years and to end the licence fee altogether in 2027. The plan was outlined by culture secretary Nadine Dorries amid the controversy over the Downing Street partygate revelations. The union’s national executive council agreed a motion to
support members working at the BBC and to encourage the corporation’s management to be robust in defending the broadcaster from threats from the government.
World Service and the local democracy reporting scheme could not be ringfenced and that the corporation would have to cut costs. He said he had agreed through ‘gritted teeth’ to the total sum of the new licence fee settlement. “There’s no version of events where the World Service is not an important part of the BBC. It’s whether we’re investing the full £254 million from the UK licence fee money [into] it. That’s the only debate.” In the past, BBC World Service funding has been ringfenced
in government negotiations, but the latest settlement so far only commits to put ‘significant investment’ into the service.
Pay victory in Turkey
JOURNALISTS at BBC Turkey’s Istanbul bureau have won pay improvements after staging a two-week strike in protest at how their salaries had been eroded by soaring inflation. Staff won an annual pay increase of 32 per cent, private health insurance
for their families, daily lunch vouchers worth 60 Turkish lira and 1,200 lira towards glasses or contact lenses. The journalists took action after
months of negotiations with management had resulted in the offer of a 20 per cent pay rise. The Turkish
Statistical Institute put inflation at 36 per cent in 2021, although economists have put it as high as 82 per cent. The strikers said: “The motivation and morale given by the strike will encourage colleagues experiencing lack of security, low wages and poor working conditions in the media sector to unite and fight under the union’s roof.”
inbrief...
TIMES RADIO SEES AUDIENCE DECLINE Times Radio’s audience fell by more than a fifth quarter-on-quarter, according to the latest RAJAR radio listening figures. The national digital station, which is owned by News UK, reached a weekly audience of 502,000 people in the final quarter of 2021 a drop of 21 per cent. News UK said the average weekly listening time had increased to 6.2 hours per person from 5.5 hours which it said showed loyalty.
#HEARTUNIONS – SHOW YOU CARE Join the NUJ in the annual #heartunions initiative to raise awareness of unions and their work. It runs over February 14-20. You can get involved online by following @nujofficial and using #heartunions #heartNUJ on social media. If you have a good union story, email
campaigns@nuj.org.uk.
LOSSES GROW TO £8.5M AT TORTOISE Losses at slow news group Tortoise have increased. In accounts for the year to December 2020, it recorded a loss to date of £8.5 million compared with a loss to date of £5.4 million in 2019. Tortoise was launched four years ago by former Times editor and BBC director of news James Harding.
Archant put up for sale
ARCHANT, which publishes titles including the Eastern Daily Press and London’s Ham & High Express, is up for sale. This comes only 18 months
after the Norwich-based publisher was sold to a private equity group. Rcapital bought Archant in
August 2020 after the publisher launched a search for extra investment, having suffered a sharp decline in income during the pandemic.
National World, which owns JPIMedia, Newsquest and Reach, have all being touted as potential buyers. Archant once owned
anti-Brexit weekly the New European. During RCapital’s ownership, it sold the New European to a consortium including former New York Times chief and BBC director general Mark Thompson and ex-Financial Times editor Lionel Barber.
Assange goes to supreme court
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has won the right to ask the Supreme Court to
consider his extradition to the US to stand trial on espionage charges. The charges relate to his publication of leaked government information in the Iran and Afghan war logs in 2010. A high court’s ruling, which allowed him to
appeal its decision that Assange could be sent to the US, called on the Supreme Court to
‘expedite consideration’ but the timescale is unknown. He has spent nearly three years in Belmarsh Prison. Before his arrest, he took refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy for seven years.
theJournalist | 03
JEFF MORGAN 08 / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
NUJ
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