| Has the BBC earned your licence fee? |
| Posted: August 16th, 2003 |
| By:
Colin Coates |
 |
The BBC recently published
its annual report detailing everything they have been up to in the
past year, how much they spent on it and what their plans are for
next year. The annual report is made available to us because we as
licence fee payers have the right to know where our money is being
spent. Based on the quality and choice of programming over the past
year do you think the BBC has earned your licence fee? |
The people from the BEEB are hailing this year
as one of their best in its 80-year history as the nations flag-bearing
network media organisation.
 In
terms of giving their image a much-need boost and bolstering their
media offering they are right. Over the past 18 months the BBC has
launched more national services than they did during their first eight
decades of the corporation, including an array of digital TV channels,
digital radio stations and nation-wide training workshops to develop
and harvest British production skills and talent.
Despite not making much of an improvement on their national viewing
figures in comparison to last year the Corporation has gained millions
of more viewers across the world thanks to the rise in the use of
digital and cable TV.
The Corporation's web site BBCi has
also gone from strength to strength and is now the world's sixth most
visited web site. However, the BBCi has come under attack and close
scrutiny of late with officials demanding the BBC explain how the
£100m a year that gets pumped into the site is a worthwhile investment.
As for the quality of their programming, the Corporation claims it
has been a year of great programmes, such as The Gathering Storm,
The Life of Mammals, The Lost Prince, Great Britons and countless
others.
According to their UK viewing figures the public don't seem to think
their programmes have been any better than last year, which leaves
you with the question; Were the programmes just as good or bad as
last year's offering for the BEEB? Because they certainly weren't
any better if the figures are to be believed.
The Corporation has also courted quite a bit of controversy over the
past few years in regard to their commercial operations. The BBC is
supposed to be a non-profit organisation should be free of commercial
interests and political bias.
 Weather
they are truly free of political bias is questionable but as for steering
clear of commercial interests it is clear that they haven't. Yes BBC
programmes may be free of commercial adverts and infomercials but
a proportion of our licence fee goes directly into commercial activities.
BBC Worldwide Ltd and BBC Ventures Group Ltd operate subsidiary companies
that are supposed to maximise the commercial value of the BBC's content
assets, media services and facilities. In short, sell programmes paid
for by the licence fee to media companies throughout the world.
The profits from the sale of content assets is pumped back into the
BBC but jointly they sold 40,000 hours of programmes but only raised
£150m of the £2b they spent operations last year, which begs the question
whether the BBC should be indulging in commercial activities at all.
In the words of Gavyn Davies, Chairman BBC Board of Governors: "One
objective will never change. It is no accident that the organisation
is named the British Broadcasting Corporation. As foreign influences
threaten to become harder for the commercial sector to resist, it
will be even more important for the BBC to uphold the standard of
indigenous programming in the nation whose name we proudly bear. It
is a challenge which we relish, and are ready to meet."
So why then do they spend so much time and effort on their international
commercial operations? Could the money and effort better serve us
the licence fee payer better if they focused all their energy on Britain?
BBC Worldwide television channels reach 550m homes, with BBC America
now the second-fastest growing US cable channel.
That would sound great if the BBC were a commercial operation but
is it the British licence fee payer's place or duty to pay for TV
programmes for the rest of the world? There are only 25m homes in
the UK who pay for the BBC yet our money is being spent on entertaining
20 times that amount of people in distant lands where the sun doesn't
set. Is that the mandate we have given the BBC?
Speaking of commercial operations, what has the media monopoly that
the BBC possesses done to the rest of our commercial media companies?
There is no licence fee for them. Every penny they have has been made
by them and not handed to them on a silver plate regardless of whether
we like or want their service.
Could it be the BBC's fault that the nation's favourite sport football
is now a pay-per-view broadcast event because Sky TV is desperate
to keep up with a force that has got it all?
The BBC has a 40% share of viewing and listening figures from around
the UK but every week it manages to reach 90% of the population. That
means there is a 60% margin for the rest of the commercial broadcasters
to fight over. To put it into perspective the rest of the commercial
broadcasters are companies like Channel 4, ITV, Channel 5, at least
10 other cable stations and more than 100 regional radio stations.
The BBC's web site BBCi swallows around £100m a year of licence fee
money. That means every commercial web site in this country including
this one is effectively paying it's competitor a sum of money every
year and the same goes for all the other media organisations in the
country.
Is the BBC compatible with capitalism or desirable in a democracy?
It's probably not but if you ask me whether there is a need for an
unbiased, commercially free and editorially independent media organisation
dedicated to the UK, I would say there probably is.
The fact of the matter is the BBC is here to stay, at least for the
foreseeable future and the best barometer to judge whether the BBC
is something we all want and need is to ask ourselves whether they
have earned their licence fee.
The annual colour TV licence currently costs £116 or £38.50 if you're
still living in the dark ages and own a black and white TV. Even the
blind have to pay the licence fee but they get it for half the price.
So before you cough up for your next licence fee just ask yourself
whether the BBC has earned your hard-earned cash and if you don't
think they have you can visit their site BBCi
and tell them about it. |
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