This blog accidentally got deleted, so I’ve re-pasted it here.
Media regulator Ofcom’s 2008 proposals of the BBC subsidising rival media organisations with a possibility of £150m being offered to commercial channels’ regional news output and children’s television programmes is becoming a reality ahead of the 2012 Digital Britain switchover.
Those proposals have since been transformed to government plans issued by John Whittingdale, the chairman of the House of Commons culture, media and sport select committee, who asked last Thursday whether the BBC should now slice £130m of the £3.6bn licence fee to help fund ITV regional news and children’s television.
After Whittingdale met with BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, who rejected the ideas proposed by the government’s Digital Britain report saying ‘It is entirely appropriate that the BBC Trust makes it clear that top-slicing is not in the interest of licence fee payers’ and that it is a decision for parliament to make, the BBC’s stance is reluctant to open up the market to a competitive media.
The Centre for Journalism’s Professor Tim Luckhurst, interviewed by the BBC last month, however said there is a risk of ‘market distortion’ by the British Broadcasting Corporation – which was founded in 1927 with John Reith as its general manager – if they did not help fund commercial and regional programming.
While newspapers are suffering with job cuts and meagre investment amidst the recession and are reliant upon advertising revenue, there is a case for organisations like the BBC to help rival broadcasters and those in the media industry in turbulent times.
But should the BBC be forced to hand its rivals a glossy incentive? Why not invest in their own news and current affairs output by top-slicing the enormous wages the BBC’s own staff receive?
Last Tuesday the BBC’s annual report published the salaries of its staff including entertainment host Jonathan Ross – who earns an £18m three year contract – Carrie Gracie, earning £92,000 to anchor a TV news service and the BBC director-general Mark Thompson earning £834,000 a year.
These figures illustrate how money could be better spent in the interest of the licence fee payer for fresh current affairs, dramas/entertainment and sport output by the BBC.
However in response to these figures, for the sake of diversity and a creative media then, helping rival media companies may be a sensible option. But is it because of the controversial licence fee that this automatically means the BBC should fund others, like ITV?
Organisations including the UK’s media and entertainment trade union, the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatre Union (BECTU) suggested last week that instead, Sky and Virgin should have levies imposed on their output, because they have no public service obligations.
Furthermore the BECTU also criticised Ofcom amidst ITV’s ‘slow retreat’ from their own obligations by reducing regional news output and later being unable to fund it.
So, why then, should the BBC or anyone else for that matter, be forced to pay for a company who have effectively caused their own downfall? When ITV Digital launched in 2001 and monopolised sports broadcasting on traditionally terrestrial channels – with the former ONdigital brand ceasing in 2002 – did they rush to help other terrestrial broadcasters and share sports output?
While the BBC have a lot to answer for to the licence payer in terms of the extortionate salaries that are paid to their executives and popular entertainment figures like Ross, Graham Norton and Sir Terry Wogan, where should the line be drawn with market distortion? What would ITV do if they were in the same situation as the BBC? Or have the BBC simply become embroiled in this because of the necessity to help encourage media diversity in troubled times when the BBC receives gross wealth from the public which could in many people’s view be better spent on a competitive media market?
In my view, enforcing the BBC to fund local newspapers and help them hold power to account, is essential. In essence, the BBC should top-slice their biggest stars’ salaries and spend it on their news output, which due to its consistent captioning, vision and sound – presenter cue – howlers and stodgy, tedious news agenda, it is left trailing miserably behind Sky News. Furthermore I would like to see the licence fee being spent on the BBC, as intended, for the BBC, to maintain its news and current affairs production.
But whether rival broadcasting corporations like ITV should gain such gifts because of the whole principle of the BBC’s licence fee is open to debate.
Even amidst consumer spending reluctance during the recession, surely ITV could still gain enough money to fund their output through commercial advertising revenue and help develop their news and children’s programming output in the process? Or would they contribute to their downfall again as they did when they were unable to fund their own regional news output and thereafter suddenly demand handouts?
So ask yourselves, should the BBC be forced to pay handouts to ITV for its regional news and children’s programming amidst its own enormous licence fee gained from the public? Or should it just concentrate on top-slicing its highest paid staff’s wages and enhance its own news, current affairs and entertainment output justifying the licence fee by becoming a successful media model and simultaneously fund local, regional newspapers who really do need the BBC’s help rather than ITV media executives.
The BBC has the fat cats and so does ITV. But why should either benefit? Media diversity is all well and good but the BBC and ITV fat cats know it’s a dog-eat-dog media world out there and that you might be forced to look after your own instead of helping your rivals.
What do you think? Perhaps I’ve got this completely wrong and am missing the point :S? What’s your view?
