THE LICENCE FEE STILL GIVES VIEWERS GOOD VALUE FOR MONEY
WILEDING THE KNIFE: BBC's Sir Michael Lyons
By Jimmy Young
THE BBC is respected worldwide as a pillar of the British Establishment so when it comes under attack it behoves us all to sit up straight and pay attention.
I worked for the BBC for 53 years and anyone who has been around Broadcasting House for that long knows that the BBC is a huge organisation that has spread its wings across vast areas of the media.
This has often been done to good effect but the corporation has sometimes been accused of using its power, and public money, in a ruthless drive to dominate the media, prompting the question: “How big should the BBC be?”
Politicians, particularly the Conservatives, are now pointedly asking that question and the answer, delivered by Sir Michael Lyons, chairman of the BBC, appears to be: “Not as big as it is at present.” Last week Sir Michael announced plans that include shutting the radio stations 6 Music and the Asian Network,as well as halving the size of the BBC website.
Sir Michael left himself an escape route as far as the 6 Music station is concerned.
More than 140,000 people have joined a Facebook campaign to save it and Sir Michael says it could get a stay of execution if the public and commercial rivals call for it to stay.
Director-general Mark Thompson admitted that the BBC should be “far more explicit than it has been about what it will not do” and promised a £300million capon sports rights and a 20 per cent cut to the £100million spent on foreign programmes.
Despite this, 52 per cent of those surveyed for a YouGov poll after the announcement said the cuts didn’t go far enough.
If these events arouse your fears that the BBC is in catastrophic and terminal retreat, you should promptly move in to Michael Winner mode and “calm down, dears”. Top-level BBC bosses may seem like a load of old buffers and they may sometimes agree to a temporary tactical retreat but they’ve seen off government attacks before and I don’t doubt that they will robustly confront any moves they see as attempts to intimidate them.
There is, however, one interesting development and it concerns the BBC licence fee.
Whenever the subject came up for discussion on my radio programme the overwhelming verdict was that listeners were happy to pay it but these days that has changed dramatically. The YouGov poll revealed that only 28 per cent now believe the £142.50 licence fee is worth the money.
So it seems there may be serious doubts about continuing the tradition of the BBC as a publicly-funded corporation but at 39p a day I still believe the licence fee represents good value for money. If others want the BBC to replace the licence with a different method of funding they should openly argue their case. Personally I’m happy to see the BBC continue as a publicly-funded corporation.
