Politics
Saving the BBC
Scarcely a day has passed since May 1979 when Mrs Thatcher's Government has not been indicted for 'hurting the poorest people in our society'. On Tuesday, for in- stance, Mr Neil Kinnock accused Mr John Biffen (deputising for the Prime Minister) of having decided in Cabinet the week before to reduce supplementary benefit by between 50 pence and one pound for people receiving £36 per week. Perhaps the Government is now so used to such attacks that it has despaired of doing anything about them. If so, it is a pity, because although it is true that Labour's remedies would actually make the poor poorer, it is also true that too many people in Britain, under this Government, have too little money. Here, then, is a suggestion which would save 18 million people a pound a week in a way so conspicuous that it would be worth a few hundred thousand votes if introduced at the right moment. Abolish the television licence fee.
Now that television is thought to be a necessity and not a luxury, more and more people on the Left argue that it should be free to old age pensioners and other needy. Conservatives understandably resist a large extra expense which would cause resent- ment and cheating and would require a good deal of administration; but if the cry grows, they will once again be made to look hard and unfeeling. By abolishing the licence fee, you preempt political op- ponents, and please all fee-payers rather than only the minority which is exempted. And you cost the Government nothing.
So simple is the idea and so attractive the result that one wonders why any govern- ment with an instinct for survival (i.e. every government) has not jumped at it. The answer, apart from the usual grim deter- mination of administrators to cling to whatever methods they already have, is the semi-sacred nature of the BBC. We all know, or at least, we keep being told, that the BBC is a service without peer in the world, one of the proudest examples of that great British innovation of the 20th century — the institution set up by the Government, but kept at 'arms length' from it.
But abolishing the licence fee does not entail abolishing the BBC. In the early days of television, it would have been possible to argue that the two were inseparable, since any other method of financing the BBC would have compromised its authority and quality. But in the early 1950s, it was decid- ed that the BBC was sufficiently strong to sustain a commercial rival, and ITV came into being. Since then, ITV has profited so much from the BBC's noble example (and profited so much in the more worldly sense as well) that it has come to replicate and now to surpass the best features of the Cor- poration. In the 1960s, it was common to say grandly that one's television didn't 'get' ITV and that one didn't mind because it was all such rubbish. Today, ITV drama and documentary surpass their rivals, as do major serials, and in Sir Alistair Burnet, ITN has found a far grander figure to tell us what is going on than anyone on the other side. ITV carries advertisements to pay for itself, but their content and subject matter is controlled, and people have quietly given up arguing that the quality of programmes suffers as a result of the ads. The history of the ITV shows that advertising and good television can go together.
Indeed, we are now reaching the stage when the licence fee system is undermining the BBC. In his autobiography (Split Screen, Hamish Hamilton, £12.00), which, it must be admitted, ranks with the memoirs of Sir Basil Smallpeice in the can't-pick-it-up league, Sir Ian Trethowan, the former BBC Director-General, points out that in his 14 years as DG Lord Reith never once had to ask for a licence fee in- crease; in Sir Ian's five, he asked three times. In short, almost all the BBC's deal- ings with governments are now conditioned by the need to get more money out of them. Governments are therefore more and more tempted to interfere.
Still more serious, the licence fee increase is never going to be anything like big enough to give the BBC the money it needs to keep pace with its rivals. There is always a good political reason for not increasing it at all, so any rise is bound to be less than the BBC would like. And there is no incen- tive for the Corporation to control its restrictive practices (vast camera crews and so on), since any sign that the BBC could cut its costs would be taken by government to mean that it could survive within its ex- isting income. The BBC is not merely somewhat straitened: it is falling back all the time. As it does so, it becomes more bit- ter and introspective and less and less capable of retaining talent. Something must be done to save it, and that something can only be done by the Government.
One of the difficulties surrounding public policy towards broadcasting is that, because it involves all those tricky issues that no one else likes very much — children, morals, free expression — it comes under the Home Office, a department noted for its determin- ed lack of imagination. It would really be better if, as used to happen, the BBC were handled by some sort of minister for com- munications. Today it would come under the Department of Trade and Industry, which is at present engaged in taking far more recalcitrant industries than broad- casting into commercial management. Perhaps the best thing, though it asks a great deal of departmental loyalty, would be for Mr Leon Brittan and Mr Norman Tebbit to work together on the job.
Whoever were in charge, his aim would be to preserve the safeguards, balance and standards of the BBC while altering its structure and financial base. It might well prove that the Corporation itself;, — the Board of Governors, with its Chairman — could remain. Like the IBA, the Board would have the power to stop particular programmes being shown (something which it almost never does at present), and to oversee the general conduct of the entire network. Its most time-consuming and detailed task would be to award the fran- chises which, again like ITV, would be parcelled out in regions, but the majority of whose output would be broadcast uniform- ly across the nation. News would be pro- duced by a national company, perhaps owned by all the franchise holders. An objection that will obviously be made is that there will not be the advertising to sustain the programmes. Yet the reason the commercial companies first became in- terested in a fourth channel was to ac- , comodate the vast advertising demands. Channel Four at first failed to get advertis- ing, but this was only because it showed programmes which no one wanted to watch. Now even Channel Four makes money. A BBC looking for custom would be offering roughly half of the most famous names and programmes in British television ready-made: it would therefore get it. Besides, the more genuine competition which will be produced by the changed form of `cluopoly' will force both ITV and the BBC to cut costs.
And what of radio? At present, radio gets its money through the television licence, and so is the despised partner. There is no need to keep television and radio together. Radio's franchises could also be sold and 'quality', such as Radio
Three, could either be sold as an inalienable part of an otherwise lucrative proposition or compulsorily supported by levies from all the franchising companies. Indeed, the External Services of the BBC, at present constantly persecuted by the Treasury because they are paid for direct by the Foreign Office, could be secured by a similar levy. Perhaps the whole experiment should begin with radio, which is smaller scale and technically less complicated than television. Any government playing with proposals of this sort will be called ill-informed, rash and, that word behind which one can always scent a vested interest, uncivilised. But it does seem silly that so many of us are spending £46 a year paying for a great In- stitution in such a way that it becomes weaker all the time. There are high- al:Id low-minded political reasons for `privatis- ing' the BBC. Politicians generally like that combination because the former conceal the latter.
Charles Moore
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