Don’t let President Trump cloud the real debate about the BBC. Of course, his demand for damages of no less than $5bn has dominated our thinking about the corporation over the past few weeks, as has its cause. But let’s get this into perspective. This was a serious own goal and journalists make mistakes. Salvation in this case would have been a line of script between the clips, or once a mistake had been discovered, a very speedy public acknowledgment. Now, though, the BBC is right not to yield on this. It has apologised. And, unlike other broadcasters and institutions in the United States, it doesn’t need the president’s support. This is a chance to demonstrate the BBC’s independence. Fight on.
But we must not let this cloud the debate here about the sort of BBC we all want and need, and I hope that is what dominates our conversation in the coming crucial year. The government’s green paper, published in December, starts off with a reminder of what, despite all its travails, the BBC delivers for the country. “It’s not just a broadcaster,” says the introduction, “it’s also a national institution … if it did not already exist, we would have to invent it.” The secretary of state, Lisa Nandy, is even more forthright: “I believe the BBC, alongside the NHS, is one of the two most important institutions in our country. While one is fundamental to the health of our people, the other is fundamental to the health of our democracy.” Seeing the BBC not just as a media organisation, but as a cultural organisation helping to define who we are is crucial to next year’s debate about what we want the BBC to be. It should be seen as part of our social infrastructure.
I think people understand the importance of the BBC to our democracy in providing high-quality, accurate and impartial news. It remains the nation’s most widely used and trusted source of news. It is often the place where people go to check whether something is true or not. And of course globally, we all benefit from the BBC’s news services now reaching about 453 million people each week. This is an example of this country’s soft power which needs to be built on and not, as at present, diminished.
But what is less understood – or possibly even believed in – is the BBC’s role as the nation’s storyteller. The streamers do drama, people often say to me, so why do we need a BBC. Well, I’ve been as glued to Slow Horses, Down Cemetery Road or Adolescence as the next person. But the truth is that what the streamers like Netflix, Apple or Amazon are commissioning is content that will work on an international scale. And the total number of hours they make about the UK is not in the tens of thousands that the public service broadcasters produce. It’s interesting that audiences continue to spend more time watching BBC TV/iPlayer on average per week per person then they spend with Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime combined. In the first quarter of this year, the BBC had five out of the 10 most watched programmes in the UK across all broadcasters and streamers. ITV had three and Netflix two. And that’s why the idea of public service broadcasting still matters.
I watched the immensely powerful documentary Our Girls – The Southport Families on BBC1, about the three girls murdered in the dreadful attack last year, illustrating the immense courage the families have shown coping with their grief, but also their desire to build something lasting out of the horror. I don’t believe it would have been made by a streamer. You could say the same of Ludwig or the Liverpool-based This City Is Ours. And the drama team on BBC Radio 4 – so often taken for granted and relatively unsung – commissions writers old and new on a massive scale to tell the stories that tell us who we are.
When I was working for the BBC, we would shy away from the argument that the organisation was also a defence against market failure. Nowadays I think that should be part of why the BBC exists. There are certain genres of programmes that are not ever going to be internationally successful but reflect who we are. Programmes about religion, the arts, music, or shows that reflect who we are in a more gentle way, like Countryfile or The Repair Shop. And I lost count of the number of parents who told me how much they valued British content for their children either as toddlers with CBeebies or later as teenagers with Bitesize. And then, of course, there are those moments that bring us all together, from the Cenotaph to Westminster Abbey to the Olympics.
The BBC gives cultural definition to more specific communities too. When I was running the BBC, I talked to the people at Radio Cumbria, for example, who told me how their work helped define a community that is geographically very widespread, especially at times of crisis. These local services, whether in small areas or serving the nations, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, at their best report the stories that matter to their audiences and celebrate the characteristics that make them what they are. Taking this forward is an important role for the BBC.
All in all, the BBC is the largest producer of stories about our isles, the people, the places, the communities that make up this diverse and creative nation. Of course, that has a value. The BBC is the largest single investor in UK-made programming, contributing about £4.9bn to the UK economy each year, half of which is spent outside London.
But an even bigger question is how and where our culture is defined. In the end, the only broadcasting organisations that will reflect the UK as its primary purpose are the BBC and Channel 4. Next year, the debate about the BBC charter will rightly encompass funding, governance, reaching new audiences and a host of other issues. But let’s not lose this idea of media as culture.
Let’s enjoy what the streamers are offering. But let’s make sure we also have a properly funded BBC that reflects and celebrates who we are in all our rich diversity. And that in these divided times, we ensure that great programmes and services that inform, entertain and educate are available to all, whoever they are, wherever they live.