Broadcasting
Clattering BBC train
Paul Johnson
The BBC, that sturdy mendicant of the British cultural scene, is getting out its begging-bowl again. The last licence-fee agreement with the Government, signed for three years under the benevolent Willie Whitelaw regime, is running out. Things may be more difficult this time. Willie (`Quivering Jelly') Whitelaw loved the BBC and the BBC loved Willie. I recall that jolly occasion when he starred on their Desert Island Discs show and picked as his favourite tune 'Run, Rabbit, Run!', which might be termed the theme-song of the Wets. But Willie has now been wafted into what Disraeli termed the Elysian Fields, and his Home Office job is held by the less well- disposed Leon Brittan. Brittan's junior minister responsible for broadcasting, Douglas Hurd, has already given a much- publicised briefing in which he hinted that BBC standards were slipping and that the Corporation would have to work harder for its money.
Both the BBC's Director-General, Alasdair Milne, and its Managing Director of TV, Aubrey Singer, have sprung to its defence publicly, and their case can be briefly stated. The last time the licence fee was raised (to £46), the figure was 8 per cent less than what the BBC regarded as essential to maintain its operation. With the fee fixed for a three-year period, the last year (granted inflation) is inevitably the worst. The financial imbalance between BBC and ITV is now very great, and growing. This year, says Singer, the BBC is spending about £520 million on its TV services. ITV's net advertising revenue will be over £800 million. Next year it is expected to rise to £1,000 million, so the gap will widen. ITV only has to run a two-channel TV service. The BBC, with a smaller revenue, has to maintain this, plus 12 regional centres, four radio networks and 30 local radio stations.
All this may be true, but of course it begs a number of key questions. If the BBC is overburdened, why has it never asked the Government to relieve it of some of its responsibilities? Why, on the contrary, is it constantly branching out into new areas? The BBC top brass have always resisted suggestions to split radio from TV or to privatise bits of its sprawling conglomerate. Indeed, it has all the typical characteristics of a bureaucratic empire: inability to ad- minister all its possessions properly, com- bined with a fierce unwillingness to relin- quish any of them. It has never made any serious effort to achieve the economies of scale which might go some way to justify its size; it is notorious for duplication. In many ways it is like local government: too many desk-men, department bosses, 'controllers' and the like; too few people who actually fill the air-time. And, as Max Hastings has recently pointed out in the Standard, the BBC always awards more power, conse- quence and pay to the desk-men as opposed to the air-men.
This is one reason why the BBC gets such poor value for its money. The arguments of BBC apologists who draw the connection between income and quality are confused, even contradictory. On the one hand, Milne says the BBC cannot afford to make expen- sive quality series like The Jewel in the Crown. On the other, Singer claims it pro- duces the top quality in every field: 'the best of foreign programmes, the best of enter- tainment, the best of news, the best of education... a pacemaker for British television in all its programming forms'. Milne echoes this by saying that ITV always waits for the BBC to pioneer. But beggars can't be boasters. Moreover, even well- disposed viewers are no longer prepared to concede the BBC's blanket claims to superiority. They know that ITV often beats the BBC even in its traditionally strong areas. Nor can the BBC claim that it always disposes of its resources with a view to maintaining its quality role. I am not just thinking of its purchase of a second-rate popular series like The Thorn Birds. How much money, for instance, is the BBC spen- ding on Breakfast TV? Who asked it to allocate scarce resources to compete in what was known in advance to be a thin market. Might not this be classified as a spoiling operation? In my view the BBC would have solved most of its troubles if ten years ago it had taken the plunge and sold air-time. It would now be earning its way in the world and might even be able to put away its begging" bowl for good — or at least could afford to rattle it less often. As it is, advertising revenue is pouring out of ITV's ears, s° that it can almost disregard its monstrous parasite, Channel 4. But the BBC has always resolutely declined to soil its hands with advertising. Part of its motive is sheer, old-fashioned snobbery: commercial TV is `trade', fit only for salesman-types catering for an audience of proles. In some ways the BBC is still incorrigibly upper-middle-class' exuding that cultural and social superiority so characteristic of the Bloomsbury era in which it was born. But ideology comes into it too. The BBC leadership simply does not believe in the market. It will not admit that ordinary people will ever pay for quality of their own free will. Its commitment to sub' sidised culture is just as fanatical as the hard Left's attachment to nationalised in' dustry. Indeed, Milne had the nerve recent' ly to deny that 'any new theatrical ideas would come to fruition' without public sub" sidy. Clearly such Bourbon arrogance and blindness will not please a government CO mitted to restoring market forces an recently re-elected with a huge majority; The attitude of most Tory MPs to the BO' is not, in my judgment, doctrinaire. They don't mind putting up with a publielY; financed service so long as they can fee; proud of it, like the Royal Ballet. That, am quite sure, is Mrs Thatcher's view. But the BBC is asking for trouble if it con" pounds its declining reputation for quality and its growing reputation for anti-British views with tendentious programmes abonl the Tories themselves. I don't want to On: ment in detail about the recent Panorafrl; programme because many aspects of it aft. now subject to litigation, but a reading ° the transcript leaves one in no doubt ah°aI its political bias. The BBC Charter is designed to prevent the Corporation getting involved editorially in current political COl; troversy and for very good reason. If vast oblige anyone who receives broadcast transmissions to pay a hefty tax, the relit; pient of that tax cannot be allowed to h°1 contentious political views. The anal, with union dues and the political levy is (34 vious. There are about 12 million 1°", voters in Britain and 1,250,000 actual .1.°fIci Party members. If the BBC deliberately Ile, unfairly attacks their party, they Will mand the right to 'contract out'. The BB
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devotes far too much air-time to Polite much of it opinionated. I dare say Mil"
and Singer agree with me, but there seems to be nothing they can do about it. There are hundreds of people with high-sounding titles in the Corporation hierarchy, but when one asks Beaverbrook's famous ques- tion, 'Who's in charge of the clattering train?', answer comes there none. Messrs Milne and Singer may punch the tickets or even make an occasional announcement over the tannoy, but no one is actually sit- ting in the driver's cabin as the old caboose puffs its way towards oblivion.
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