CLEANSING THE AUGEAN STUDIOS
the reassertion of gubernatorial
power at the BBC DOUGLAS Hurd, the Home Secretary, has argued all along that what was wrong with the BBC was the board of governors' failure to act as a coherent body. Theore- tically, since the BBC has a royal charter — like the old East India Company — the governors have all the power, and the director-general is merely one of their servants. In practice, all power was dele- gated to him, and the governors, a shape- less collection of disparates and incompati- bles, were merely hauled in to give him Public backing when he got into trouble. That has been happening increasingly often in recent years and clearly something had to be done. A great measure of power had to be transferred back to where it constitutionally belonged: to the gov- ernors. The choice of Dukey Hussey as chairman emanated from No 10, but he has effectively carried out Hurd's policy. With the help of Lord Barnett, another sensible and decent man, he has quickly welded the board into a team and enabled them to act decisively to impose their collective will.
There was no need for a devious plan to oust Alasdair Milne. The truth is, so many things were going wrong at the BBC that the top executive obviously had to go. The cumulative scandals of the BBC were as serious, ceteris paribus, as those in the City, but whereas in the City tumbrils were rolling and heads filling up the baskets, at the BBC everyone was sitting tight in their Jobs. Calamitous mistakes were being made not because of considered decisions at the top but because of their absence, a general lack of supervision, and an unwil- h. ngness to punish when delegated author- ity was abused. It was perfectly obvious that to put Duncan Campbell, whose repu- tation is notorious, in charge of a six-part series on defence, was certain to land the BBC in trouble. How, then, was this allowed to happen? Even more serious was the fatal stunt on the Late, Late Breakfast Show, for here the whole concept of the Programme was incompatible with the nature of 'the best broadcasting service in the world'. The BBC should simply not transmit programmes of this kind. In every ease where standards collapsed — the lies of The Monocled Mutineer, the libels of 'Thatcher's Militant Tendency', the bul- lying of Rough Justice being only three examples — control from the top was lacking. Milne was a victim of his own lack of leadership.
The governors have now reasserted con- trol and they must never again relax it. From now on they must insist that policy guidelines on standards of conduct are followed in the spirit and in the letter, and that the BBC's own character is strictly observed. But, though Hussey and Barnett will now be extremely active and watchful in their roles, the governors (while holding all the ultimate power) cannot actually run the BBC. There is clearly a case for separating the editorial and administrative functions. The creation of the all-powerful director-general occurred because John Reith, an engineer, had to set up the physical structure of broadcasting, as well as direct the output. Today, with 28,000 employees, multiple radio and television channels and, not least, a rapidly develop- ing technology, requiring constant short- and long-term decisions, the role is beyond the capacity of any journalist I have ever heard of — at least one with genuine journalistic and creative gifts.
What is required, in the first place, is a Chief Executive, an administrator- businessman, with a proven record of running a substantial television company. There is no one in the BBC with these qualifications and clearly the governors will have to go into the private sector. The whole financial and constitutional future of the BBC is in question for, assuming that Conservatives win the election, they will certainly procede to de-regulate broadcast- ing. We do not know yet how drastic the changes will be, but the BBC must accept that, within the comparatively near future, it may be obliged to earn its own living, dispense with its monopoly privileges, and meet radically increased competition. The main task of such a top administrator should be to draw up urgent plans to meet these challenges.
If such a position is created, the tradi- tional functions of the director-general can be narrowed down to his core-role as editor-in-chief of what are, in effect, a series of electronic newspapers and maga- zines. Most outsiders think the BBC is too big for one editorial boss to control. They would like to see radio split from televi- sion, and possibly further sub-divisions. But relieving the D-G of managerial func- tions would at least be a start to tackling the problem of size, and would enable him to concentrate on the business of supervi- sion and standard-raising which is plainly what the BBC output most needs at present. I hesitate to use the term Augean Stables. Augean Studios, perhaps? At any rate there is much cleansing to be done.
The Left, as was to be expected, are boosting the claims of Jeremy Isaacs. A similar campaign got him the job as the first boss of Channel 4. He comes from the same programme-making background as Milne, though he has the commercial rather than the BBC imprint and consider- ably more originality. I suspect he would get the BBC into at least as much trouble as Milne. He believes in opinionated prog- ramme making (with a leaning to radical- ism) and will be just as willing to give programme makers their freedom to edi- torialise. The Media Monitoring Report on 1985-86 showed that, while Channel 4 was not quite as bad as BBC 2, some of its series have a poor political record. Thus more than 65 per cent of Diverse Reports were judged biased, 46.2 per cent to the Left, 19.2 per cent to the Right. Almost half (45.5 per cent) of the Union World items monitored showed a left-wing bias. Most significant of all, I think, was the series Greece: the Hidden War, actually made by STV but shown on Channel 4, roundly condemned by the experts for its pro-Communist bias and inaccuracies. The storm which greeted it seems to have caught Isaacs completely by surprise. His offer to put on a 'balancing' programme (i.e. one with a contrary bias) suggested he did not understand the nature of the error, since what those who complained wanted was not bias of any kind but simply the objective (and easily ascertained) truth. Isaacs has never fully accepted that the enormous power wielded by television, operating under duopoly privilege, im- poses an absolute moral duty on control- lers to eliminate tendentious material.
The most important work the BBC does, and the section of its output by which it is ultimately judged both professionally and ethically, is the gathering and presenting of news. If the director-general's job is to be concentrated on his editor-in-chief func- tion, as it should be, then the governors should be looking for a newsman. The editor of ITN, David Nicholas, is thus a strong candidate, for ITN has established itself as the leading television news system in Europe and, so far as I know, has never had its objectivity and accuracy impugned by serious critics. But, whoever is chosen, the mandate from the governors must be a restoration of the BBC's traditional fair- mindedness and political balance.
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