tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/john-whittingdale-16871/articlesJohn Whittingdale – The Conversation2017-07-19T16:02:55Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811982017-07-19T16:02:55Z2017-07-19T16:02:55ZUnveiling BBC talent’s pay is a deliberate attempt to undermine a great British institution<p>Anyone who seriously believes that a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37365718">government dictat</a> obliging the BBC to reveal salaries of its top talent was genuinely driven by concerns about accountability should look carefully at those who champion the cause. </p>
<p><a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/reports/pdf/annex_annual_report_201617.pdf">The report</a> which <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-40653861">details the salaries</a> of those high profile presenters, newsreaders and journalists who earn over £150,000 will prompt wholly predictable denunciations in the columns of the right wing press about overpaid luvvies being subsidised by licence payers. </p>
<p>They will be illustrated with choice quotes from the usual political suspects whose loathing for the BBC is just about exceeded by their contempt for supporters of the European Union. </p>
<p>They are the same publishers, politicians and critics who for decades have used any excuse to rail against an institution <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/01/4-percent-agree-ofcom-regulate-bbc">held in deep affection</a> by the vast majority of licence payers and commanding huge admiration around the world. For newspapers like The Sun, Daily Mail and Telegraph, there is barely disguised commercial self-interest in wanting the most trusted and popular purveyor of free journalism scaled back to insignificance. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"887687668758347776"}"></div></p>
<p>For the right wing of the Conservative Party, there is a deep ideological conviction that private is always better than public, and only the market can deliver value – not to mention a passionate belief in the BBC’s left-wing bias, despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-beeb-the-bias-and-the-bashing-45661">clear evidence</a> to the contrary. </p>
<p>For politicians across the spectrum, there is the discomfort of being interrogated by the likes of Eddie Mair and John Humphrys. This is a measure foisted on the BBC by its enemies, and has nothing whatsoever to do with holding the corporation to account for public expenditure.</p>
<p>Consider for a moment the real argument about transparency and accountability. It is eminently reasonable that licence fee payers should have information about high earners, escalating costs, and gender, age or minority inequalities. But it is perfectly possible to achieve all of those objectives with anonymous data which do not identify specific individuals. </p>
<p>Yes, there is a gender pay gap – which Tony Hall has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jul/19/evans-lineker-bbc-top-earners-only-two-women-among-best-paid-stars">pledged to eradicate</a>. He and the BBC will rightly be held accountable for that commitment, as they will for ensuring that overall top earners’ pay goes down rather than up. But we really do not need to know how much Laura Kuenssberg earns to make sure the BBC exercises proper stewardship over our money.</p>
<p>Now consider the real damage that these disclosures could inflict. </p>
<p>Competitors will be gleefully scouring BBC salaries for precise information on how they might lure away top talent. That in turn will inflate talent salaries across the board. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, the BBC becomes a less attractive place for star presenters who may not enjoy having details of their pay plastered all over the tabloid press. So the BBC starts to lose some of its popular presenters, which is then reflected in ratings, which is then used by BBC detractors to attack a universal payment. The BBC becomes diminished.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, BBC journalists interrogating politicians on, say, their expenses or austerity policies, will be challenged about their own salaries. That would be fine if <em>all</em> journalistic salaries were published – without discrimination between commercial and public sector, print or broadcast. But this puts the BBC at a significant disadvantage when compared to their colleagues at ITV, Channel 4, Sky or in the printed press. </p>
<h2>BBC trust</h2>
<p>The rest of the world looks to the BBC as a trusted, independent source of information, when investment in journalism is being undermined by the major tech companies. Yet one of the BBC’s most cherished characteristics – its independence – is being undermined by a government determined to do the bidding of the corporation’s longstanding enemies.</p>
<p>If any more evidence is needed of how we got here, just consider the history of the new BBC Charter which brought today’s disclosures. The former culture secretary, John Whittingdale – long wedded to the notion of a smaller, market-gap BBC – pushed for a disclosure threshold of £150,000. But after personal intervention by then prime minister David Cameron, the BBC White Paper published last year set the minimum at £450,000. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xIKOYy0N7kw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Then came the referendum, Cameron’s demise and Theresa May’s elevation. In September last year, just before <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/29/theresa-may-meeting-rupert-murdoch-times-sun">May visited Rupert Murdoch</a> in New York, her new culture secretary <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37365718">Karen Bradley announced</a> that the threshold would, after all, be £150,000. Cue much rejoicing among those newspapers and columnists who had done so much to assist Mrs May’s rapid rise to the top. </p>
<p>At last year’s Edinburgh TV festival, ITV’s programmes chief Kevin Lygo <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/publishing-bbc-star-pay-would-be-a-waste-of-time-2016-8">called the proposal</a> “mean-spirited”. Tony Hall has said that it will “not make it easier for the BBC to retain the talent the public love”. Conservative peer and one of the most experienced broadcasters and talent impresarios in the country, Michael Grade, has called it “disgraceful”. </p>
<p>The BBC, the talent and licence payers will all lose out. It is a wholly unnecessary and spiteful idea born simply out of political expedience.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The political and commercial motives behind revealing stars’ salaries.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/594972016-05-17T12:59:44Z2016-05-17T12:59:44ZThe BBC’s biggest problem? The public has no control over it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/122848/original/image-20160517-9484-z532rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Your turn.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/zapthedingbat/3231146485/in/photolist-5Vwtha-h3RAcd-hC9CaG-6bPVME-hC9q5C-aofgTA-du2hFR-BtcWbK-C2jCo3-5X789N-mJGX8i-fFT6iA-cpPNn-79y3Qt-79x7zc-79x5Vz-9AaUXB-duJmox-hC8jct-4FJw3Z-6Ko5V-e5imc5-cB6HZm-9XfoFJ-5X733Y-hCaX12-5X6NEm-dDYoUa-88LRqb-daZzjS-kg4t9L-e5iwgh-e9a6Fa-duqPJu-e5iddj-hC9BN6-e6iBeT-e5irSo-h3Rpom-e5dZXV-mo6pY2-e5iqwL-95Hukv-cpMT1-95rJdC-cpPmG-e5hMCW-aBDVhY-cpRmf-cpQ4T">Sam Greenhalgh</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>To the relief of many in the BBC, the proposals in the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-bbc-for-the-future-a-broadcaster-of-distinction">white paper</a> appear relatively modest compared to what <a href="https://theconversation.com/bbc-white-paper-the-worst-has-not-come-to-pass-but-the-leash-is-tightening-59282">many expected</a>. If voices on the right had their way, the government would have scrapped the licence fee and effectively ended the BBC’s special status as a public broadcasting service with state funding. Instead it might have <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b07b9j1v/this-week-12052016">ended up as</a> a subscription-based competitor to Netflix. </p>
<p>From the left, too, the BBC has been under attack – this time for its <a href="https://www.rt.com/uk/315723-corbyn-petition-bbc-bias/">perceived establishment prejudice</a> against the Labour leadership under Jeremy Corbyn and <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/john-robertson/bbc-bias-and-scots-referendum-new-report">against the</a> Yes side in the Scottish independence referendum. Yet the BBC remains <a href="http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/aboutthebbc/insidethebbc/howwework/reports/pdf/bbc_report_trust_and_impartiality_jun_2015.pdf">stubbornly popular</a> with the public – just like the UK’s other great national public institution, <a href="http://www.health.org.uk/blog/wisdom-crowd-what-do-people-think-about-nhs">the NHS</a>. That may well have protected it from the direst predictions about the white paper. It certainly cannot be taken for granted in future, however. </p>
<p>The BBC has always defended its cherished “independence” and looks uneasy about the new proposal for almost 50% of its board to be appointed by the government. A response is that at least the government has some kind of democratic mandate. One remarkable truth about the corporation is that the British public is rarely considered in the debate. Never mind that it pays for the BBC to be its servant. </p>
<h2>Whose Auntie?</h2>
<p>Because the BBC was constituted at arm’s length from government, it has always enjoyed a certain autonomy. But this also made it a creature of the “great and the good”, personified by its founder <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/historyofthebbc/research/culture/reith-1">Lord Reith</a> and his paternalist values. It betrayed a lack of trust in “the masses” by the social elites that ran the British Empire. </p>
<p>The BBC nonetheless developed an independent public-service ethos in the more tightly regulated national-media era of the 1950s and 1960s. This is arguably the root of its enduring popularity, and lives on through the likes of Radio 3, Radio 4 and the Asian Network. Yet imposing all this without consulting the public always smacks of metropolitian elitism. </p>
<p>The BBC’s public service is also a long way from what it was. Since at least the days of John Birt’s very market-oriented director generalship in the 1990s, the corporation has been <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/3563180/BBC-must-restore-its-values-if-it-is-to-survive.html">regularly accused</a> of losing this ethos. In the scramble for mass-market ratings in the fragmented TV world of the 21st century, it produces much less critical and innovative programming than it used to. It is hard to compare today’s fare with the heyday of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0165592/">Play For Today</a> and prime-time slots for landmark documentaries and fearless current affairs coverage. </p>
<p>Complaints about the BBC apeing its competitors and invading the natural space of the private sector are another long-running theme. There has been <a href="https://inews.co.uk/essentials/culture/television/bbc-studios-lose-crown-jewels-like-strictly-come-dancing/">much talk about</a> removing prime-time giants like Strictly Come Dancing, and most recently the BBC <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/may/17/online-recipes-off-the-menu-of-slimmed-down-bbc">has announced</a> it will take down most recipes from its website to placate its critics. </p>
<p>So will the public continue to stay onside to protect all this? The lack of trust in the public that was built into the BBC’s foundations is now being reciprocated by a growing public hostility to the political and media classes on the back of <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7029940.stm">television fakery</a>, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15686679">Leveson</a>, Iraq, the financial crisis, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20026910">Jimmy Savile</a> and all the rest. The cultural gap between the elites that run the corporation and the public that funds it may lead to a loss of support in future. </p>
<p>This might be aided by the long campaign by anti-BBC cheerleaders such as Rupert Murdoch, and the corporation’s evident difficulties with diversity. The sight of Scottish independence supporters <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/yes-voters-are-blaming-the-bbc-for-losing-them-the-referendu?utm_term=.yvXNaNM6lW#.auv1J1W3qz">cancelling their licence fees</a> two years ago to protest the BBC’s coverage of the referendum shows the risks. And there is a new danger to public-service broadcasting in the white paper: the BBC will come under the control of broadcasting watchdog Ofcom – a <a href="http://www.ofcom.org.uk/about/what-is-ofcom/">creature whose</a> “principal duty is to further the interests of citizens and of consumers, where appropriate by promoting competition”.</p>
<h2>Democratising the corporation</h2>
<p>A radical answer would be to use the process for renewing the BBC’s Royal Charter in December to do away with elite appointment and have a democratically elected BBC Trust instead. Drawing on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/corbyn-public-ownership-push-reflects-what-is-happening-all-round-the-world-47652">experience of</a> newer and more representative forms of public ownership outside the UK, changing the governance structure could ensure that both consumers and the BBC’s other great neglected constituency – its workers – are properly represented.</p>
<p>A possible model could be to have one third of the board elected by licence payers; one third by the workforce; and the remaining third by government appointment. To ensure adequate geographical diversity, the government section might also include appointees from local and regional government. You would have fewer City grandees and more members of the general public and representatives from the UK’s regions. They could redetermine the corporation’s mission statement and values and bring a much more diverse range of experiences and knowledge.</p>
<p>The BBC would still have its independence and operational autonomy and be funded by the licence fee, but those who pay for it would now have proper ownership. The director general could still be a professional appointee with the right kind of managerial experience of running television and media enterprises. </p>
<p>Who knows if it would transform the corporation’s current output. I suspect you would see the BBC moving away from the increasingly narrow profit-driven commercial interests that characterise the corporate media, but either way the public would have helped choose. Look at what happened when the BBC <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jul/05/bbc-6-music-saved">listened</a> to the Save 6 Music campaign and imagine that public representation being right at the heart of the corporation. </p>
<p>A democratic mandate would finally make it harder for future governments to undermine the BBC or remove the licence fee, and harder for the likes of Murdoch to criticise it – thereby helping to guarantee its independence. We live in an era where viewers vote constantly in reality TV shows. It is time we extended it to the people who oversee the BBC itself.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59497/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Cumbers receives funding from ESRC for a current research project 'Transforming Public Policy through Economic Democracy'.</span></em></p>If you want to safeguard the licence fee and shore up public-service content, time to introduce democracy to the BBC.Andrew Cumbers, Professor of Regional Political Economy, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/588122016-05-09T06:25:51Z2016-05-09T06:25:51ZFour ways John Whittingdale could wreck the BBC<p>Is John Whittingdale the most hostile politician ever to have responsibility for the BBC? When a senior Telegraph journalist called his appointment as culture secretary “<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11596235/David-Cameron-reshuffles-government-live.html">an effective declaration of war</a>” on the BBC, some of us thought it excessive.</p>
<p>But the BBC <a href="https://theconversation.com/inside-the-bizarre-logic-of-the-bbc-review-44814">Green Paper published in 2015</a>, and the leaks and comments that have followed, suggest otherwise. At the end of April <a href="http://www.varsity.co.uk/news/10176">Whittingdale “joked”</a> to Cambridge University Conservative Association: “If we don’t renew [the Charter], it may be that the BBC will cease to exist, which is occasionally a tempting prospect.” He can barely conceal his disdain for an institution which is held in awe around the world.</p>
<p>May 12 sees the publication of the White Paper which will determine the basis of the next BBC Charter. It will dictate what sort of BBC programmes, BBC journalism and BBC online services are produced – not just for the next 10 years, but well beyond. It has been written by Whittingdale and his closest advisers, none of whom hold any particular affection for the institution. It does not have to be endorsed in parliament, although both houses will hold debates. Parliament cannot save Britain’s public broadcaster. </p>
<p>In the meantime, even the mild-mannered Sir David Attenborough has been moved to warn the government not to play “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/may/03/david-attenborough-warns-against-playing-fast-and-loose-bbc">fast and loose</a>” with the nation’s public broadcaster.</p>
<p>So what might be the weapons of choice for this full-frontal assault? How will this small band of ideologues seek to overcome the massive public, parliamentary and international support for the BBC and diminish it? Selective leaks in government-friendly newspapers over the past few weeks suggest at least four.</p>
<h2>1. Reduce scope</h2>
<p>As information about the White Paper was leaked to the press in the run-up to publication, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3567477/BBC-faces-charter-ban-Saturday-Strictly-New-plans-stop-Corporation-entering-primetime-ratings-wars-ITV.html">headlines in several newspapers</a> known to have an anti-BBC agenda described with barely concealed glee how the BBC would face a “ban” on scheduling popular entertainment programmes in direct competition with rivals.</p>
<p>There will be nothing as explicit. But at a meeting in parliament in February, Whittingdale <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201516/ldselect/ldcomuni/96/96.pdf">outlined his thinking</a>: the public purposes which currently define the scope of BBC activities were, he said, “too vague”; he had spoken to “a lot of people” (namely, commercial rivals) who complain that the BBC “can broadcast anything it wants”. Perhaps, he concluded, these purposes need to be more focused?</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=906&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121517/original/image-20160506-32040-1a5870.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1138&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Whittingdale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Whittingdale</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is the route through which BBC activities can easily be circumscribed. New governance arrangements are likely to follow the recommendations of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-35696657">Sir David Clementi</a>, published in early 2016, to abolish the BBC Trust. Under this plan, the trust would be replaced by a new Unitary Board which would run the BBC’s everyday activities. Regulatory oversight – ensuring the BBC sticks to charter rules – would be moved to Ofcom. </p>
<p>There is nothing to prevent this government rewriting those rules to include a brief, for example, not to schedule competitively. Those rules can include an obligation on Ofcom to investigate any formal complaint from a commercial competitor, with sanctions available to guarantee compliance.</p>
<h2>2. Reduce independence</h2>
<p>Whittingdale has suggested <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-choose-bbc-board-john-whittingdale">in an interview</a> that he sees no problem in the government appointing all but two or three of the new Unitary Board. </p>
<p>This, remember, will be the body which oversees day-to-day editorial and strategic decisions – including issues around political programming and impartiality. If the majority of these editorial decision-makers are to be ministerial appointments, we really are in the realms of a Soviet-style state broadcaster.</p>
<h2>3. Cut revenue still further</h2>
<p>Another story <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/whittingdale-in-cash-raid-on-bbc-njkrjrvgc">revealed plans</a> to earmark £100m of BBC licence fee revenue for children’s programming and local news which would be handed to commercial TV companies and rival news organisations. </p>
<p>Again, Whittingdale has previously floated this idea of contestable funding – <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/04/13/bbc-in-row-with-john-whittingdale-over-top-slicing-licence-fee-t/">top-slicing the licence fee for use elsewhere</a> – without ever contemplating the institutional damage such further loss of funding would inflict. The BBC’s own much-prized children’s channels would be bound to suffer. And the most likely beneficiaries of local news subsidies would be the big local press groups which have been closing newspapers to maintain their substantial profit margins.</p>
<h2>4. Put it on a short leash</h2>
<p>Originally, there was informal talk in government circles of a short-term five-year charter, which would have forced the BBC to go through another bout of hoop-jumping just after the next election. That threat has receded, to be replaced by another which has equal potential for damage: a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/30/bbc-faces-new-checks-into-quality-of-tv-and-radio-shows/">mid-term “review”</a>. </p>
<p>If this is no more than reporting generally on the new arrangements, it could be acceptable. More likely, however, is a root-and-branch enquiry – again, just after an election which the Conservatives would expect to win – which will scrutinise every aspect of BBC output and once again prioritise the views (and complaints) of its competitors. It would be an effective means of keeping the BBC at heel while ostensibly maintaining its independence.</p>
<p>Each of these proposals would, in their different ways, fundamentally and irrevocably undermine the BBC’s unique cultural and democratic contribution to British public life, to our creative industries and to our talent base.</p>
<p>Whittingdale has always professed to love the BBC. My fear is that he actually loves his vision of the BBC – a significantly smaller, impoverished presence within a market-driven economy where the public interest is subordinated to commercial self-interest. This week, we will discover if he is intent on inflicting his vision on the nation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The government’s White Paper is expected to reduce the scope and funding for the UK public broadcaster.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/584532016-05-03T12:56:49Z2016-05-03T12:56:49ZTop Gear: why the BBC is right to motor ahead with popular, profitable shows<p>The BBC is revving up for the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03plr2r">return of a reformed Top Gear</a>, one of its most popular and profitable programmes, with new cast of presenters. The revamped show will be broadcast more than a year after Jeremy Clarkson left following his <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/mar/25/jeremy-clarkson-top-gear-contract-bbc">verbal and physical assault</a> on a producer. A fresh start? Well, so far things have not seemingly gone well for the BBC. </p>
<p>Clarkson and his co-presenters James May and Richard Hammond have signed a three-year deal <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/jeremy-clarksons-amazon-deal-worth-6335059">worth £160m</a> with rival service Amazon Prime, providing greater competition for one of the BBC’s flagship programmes, and the real prospect of the BBC losing viewers and commercial revenue to the online insurgent. The trio’s brand of laddish banter will presumably continue, as a tried and tested product with surprising international appeal. </p>
<p>And the production of the new Top Gear has reportedly not been smooth. Lisa Park, the executive producer, departed after <a href="http://metro.co.uk/2016/02/27/top-gear-producer-lisa-clark-was-driven-away-by-control-freak-chris-evans-5721246/">reports of disagreements</a> with new presenter Chris Evans, hence his new unique title as “creative lead”. Then there was the appointment of actor Matt LeBlanc as a presenter – a decision reached apparently because of LeBlanc’s international profile, particularly in the US. LeBlanc doing a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35800187">doughnuts round the Centotaph</a> shoot, left the patriotic Evans visibly fuming. </p>
<p>Most of these stories have been pushed by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-how-biased-is-the-bbc-17028">anti-BBC press</a>, which seems to be willing the new Top Gear to fail spectacularly. While it is the personalities who dominate the headlines, these stories are much more broadly political and are fundamentally about the future of public service media in the UK.</p>
<p>In July 2015 John Whittingdale, secretary of state at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, published a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/bbc-charter-review-public-consultation">Green Paper on BBC Charter Renewal</a> a few days after having agreed with the BBC that it would no longer receive money for licence fees for the over-75s, effectively reducing BBC revenue by around 20% per annum. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/120999/original/image-20160503-19549-179o83a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Whittingdale.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He has since been accused of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-36182046">planning to “meddle”</a> with the BBC’s peak-time scheduling. The Green Paper asks whether the BBC is too big and produces too many popular programmes that could be made and shown equally well by commercial producers and broadcasters. </p>
<p>The clear implication is that if the answer to this question is “yes” then the BBC should be smaller and have a lower licence fee. In other words, the BBC in the future would be asked to do less (fewer popular, commercially viable programmes) with considerably less funding, to the benefit of commercial competitors. Opponents of such a change have argued that popular BBC programmes, such as Dr Who, Strictly Come Dancing and the Great British Bake Off, are distinctive from those produced by commercial television and encourage commercial broadcasters to up their game through providing competition. They also help to build a BBC audience for less popular programming such as current affairs, and assist in financing public service television by making profits for the commercial subsidiary of the BBC. </p>
<h2>Driving success?</h2>
<p>The Clarkson-led Top Gear was not only one of the most-watched BBC2 programmes (with an audience of around 6m in the UK) but also one of the BBC’s most profitable. The programme and its spin-offs were seen by an audience of 350m in <a href="http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2012/9/top-gear-drives-its-way-into-into-guinness-world-records-2013-edition-44693/">212 countries</a>. It generated revenue of around £50m per annum for BBC Worldwide (more than Dr Who or Strictly), which could be spent on new content.</p>
<p>The regular attacks on the new Top Gear by some of the national press should be understood, in part, as coming from newspapers with quite different political beliefs from what they perceive as a socially liberal cosmopolitan BBC, and also as media institutions with a vested financial interest in reducing the size and popularity of the BBC. Ideally, as far as most of the right-wing commercial media are concerned in the UK, the BBC should resemble public service broadcasting in the USA.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bTWcEjj0w3s?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>While such an extreme change is unlikely to occur in the UK in the short term, it is highly likely that the prominence of the BBC in the UK’s media landscape will decline over the next decade or two in the context of funding cuts and powerful new competitors such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. It may become harder and harder for the BBC to justify its licence fee, especially to younger generations. </p>
<p>One of the many problems associated with this is that <a href="http://www.unesco.org/webworld/publications/mendel/compana.html">research shows</a> that countries with strong public service broadcasters competing with strong commercial broadcasters have the most news and current affairs output, and the best informed citizens, thereby making a fundamental contribution to the quality of democratic culture. So while the new Top Gear might not be everyone’s cup of tea, we should hope that Chris Evans and Matt le Blanc go on to enjoy many series of wheelspins together. Otherwise we may all end up in reverse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/58453/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Downey does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We all need the BBC’s new version of Top Gear not to stall.John Downey, Professor of Comparative Media Analysis, Loughborough UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/578232016-04-22T09:17:20Z2016-04-22T09:17:20ZWhittingdale affair shows UK press at its most craven and hypocritical<p>Having entirely ignored <a href="https://theconversation.com/whittingdale-story-is-not-about-sex-its-all-about-power-and-who-wields-it-57761">the Whittingdale story</a> since it first became known about late in 2013, sections of the press were remarkably swift in <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3538903/DAILY-MAIL-COMMENT-Hacked-BBC-arrant-hypocrisy.html">lining up to denounce Hacked Off</a> as “conspiracy theorists” and as hypocrites for allegedly invading Whittingdale’s privacy. Neither claim is remotely valid.</p>
<p>Let’s be clear about this. The conspiracy exists only in the fevered brains of people such as <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/john-whittingdale-bbc-neil-wallis_uk_570dfbdfe4b01711c612a321">former News of the World deputy editor Neil Wallis</a> and <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3537386/BBC-Hacked-accused-rank-hypocrites-revealing-Culture-Secretary-John-Whittingdale-s-relationship-dominatrix-met-online-dating-site.html">journalists at the Mail</a>. Anyone reading <a href="https://www.byline.com/project/48/article/966">James Cusick’s exposé</a> of what has been happening over the past year or so (disclaimer: I helped to crowdfund this investigation) would realise that there is not the slightest suggestion of collusion between the four papers which at one time or another had the story. As Cusick explains, each had their own reasons for not running it.</p>
<p>When the story arrived at the Sunday People in November 2013, its parent company, the Mirror Group was still vehemently denying that the Mirror had engaged in phone hacking. Exposing Whittingdale at this point ran the risk of his retaliating by setting up a Department of Culture, Media and Sport select committee enquiry into MGN activity. <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17898029">He had chaired a similar enquiry in the case of News Group</a> – although it’s worth noting that in that case he <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17898029">voted against his own enquiry’s findings</a> that Rupert Murdoch was “unfit to run a major international company”.</p>
<p>Pictures of Whittingdale and Olivia King were next taken to the Sun. But, as DCMS chair, Whittingdale was already making <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1946b0d0-18a9-11e3-bdb6-00144feab7de,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F1946b0d0-18a9-11e3-bdb6-00144feab7de.html&_i_referer=&classification=conditional_standard&iab=barrier-app">extremely threatening noises about the BBC</a>. Why on earth would a Murdoch paper want to do the slightest thing that might endanger the position of what appeared to be an exceptionally valuable political ally?</p>
<p>According to Cusick, the editor of the Mail on Sunday, Geordie Greig, told his journalists that this was the type of political story that <a href="https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourbeeb/james-cusick/real-whittingdale-scandal-cover-up-by-press">defined great newspapers</a>, and that if the MoS backed off, it had no right to call itself a newspaper. The story was delayed by journalists’ inability to secure a comment from King, which was felt to be legally necessary after Whittingdale had apparently told her to contact the Press Complaints Commission and to demand ahead of publication that the paper show her the material that it possessed. The story was then dropped. One can only wonder why.</p>
<p>In 2014, writes Cusick, the Independent began investigating why the story hadn’t been published – particularly as Whittingdale was now a member of the cabinet. The relationship with King had ended, but there was still the outstanding matter of why Whittingdale had not declared that he and King had visited Amsterdam courtesy of MTV in the <a href="https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/standards-and-financial-interests/parliamentary-commissioner-for-standards/registers-of-interests/">Register of Members’ Interests</a>. But the Independent is a tenant of Associated Newspapers and relies on its IT services, canteen facilities, security and so on. After initially appearing interested in the project the editor, Amol Rajan, pulled the plug, without explanation, on October 20, 2015. </p>
<p>The same day both Rajan and Whittingdale spoke at the <a href="https://www.societyofeditors.org/soe-news/11-september-2015/Rusbridger-Whittingdale-Sorrell-Fairhead-Sands-MacGregor----and-a-host-of-other-top-speakers">Society of Editors’ conference</a>, at which the latter dropped the bombshell that <a href="http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/government-may-not-enforce-plan-make-publishers-pay-both-sides-libel-and-privacy-costs">he was not “persuaded”</a> by the section of the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldcomuni/135/13507.htm">Crime and Courts Act</a> which enshrines in law the Leveson recommendation that publishers who are not signed up to an officially-recognised press regulator will face the threat of exemplary damages in libel and privacy cases. Since the Independent was not signed up to such a regulator, you could argue that it would clearly benefit from such a measure not coming into operation.</p>
<h2>Time to come clean</h2>
<p>Of course, some bright spark is absolutely bound to pipe up that this is all simply conjecture. And this indeed has some truth to it, albeit only up to a point. But the conjectures can perfectly easily be disproved by those ultimately responsible for suppressing the story at the four newspapers concerned stepping forward and explaining the reasons for their actions. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=773&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118701/original/image-20160414-2657-fjimht.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=972&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mirror’s front page.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Daily Mirror</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Accusations of privacy busting from the British press are so flagrantly hypocritical that they really are beneath contempt. Remember, these are the self-same papers <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3526916/American-publication-goes-UK-injunction-report-known-celebrity-extra-marital-threesome.html">straining at the leash</a> to reveal all about a <a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/7030278/Three-in-a-bed-celebs-fear-names-will-be-leaked-on-net-after-judges-gag-Sun-on-Sunday.html">married celebrity’s private life</a>, which contain not a scintilla of public interest justification. </p>
<p>Had the British press applied its normal “standards” to Whittingdale he would have been plastered all over the front pages long ago. In particular, he is an easy target for charges of hypocrisy, which is one of the factors which make the story a matter of public interest: online dating of a dominatrix doesn’t sit exactly comfortably with membership of the Cornerstone group of Tory MPs (motto: “Faith, Flag and Family”) nor with <a href="http://www.publicwhip.org.uk/mp.php?mpn=John_Whittingdale">consistently voting against the liberalisation of Britain’s sex laws</a>.</p>
<p>But the Whittingdale affair has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with privacy. At its heart is the fact that Whittingdale put himself in a position in which he could be pressured by newspapers into refusing to enact measures – Leveson 2 and the relevant section of the Crime and Courts Act – to which they were vehemently opposed. Whether he was actually pressured, or merely felt pressured, or indeed neither, is entirely irrelevant: there is the clearest possible appearance of conflict of interest – and, in a culture which (in large parts thanks to the press, appearance is all) that is all that matters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Petley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s no ‘public interest’ in this story, say the newspapers. As if that’s stopped them before.Julian Petley, Professor of Screen Media, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/416452015-05-12T05:18:54Z2015-05-12T05:18:54ZIs the BBC safe in the hands of Britain’s new culture secretary?<p>On the face of it, John Whittingdale’s appointment as secretary of state for culture is thoroughly bad news for the BBC and those who value its cultural, democratic and economic contribution to the UK. With the current <a href="http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mediapolicyproject/2015/05/05/ge2015-why-the-bbcs-future-hangs-on-this-election/">ten-year charter due to expire next year</a> – at the same time as the freeze in the licence fee – Whittingdale will essentially determine on what basis and with what resources the BBC will continue from January 1 2017.</p>
<p>The Daily Telegraph’s chief political correspondent, Christopher Hope, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11596235/David-Cameron-reshuffles-government-live.html">described</a> his appointment as an “effective declaration of war” on the BBC while the Daily Mail’s political editor James Chapman tweeted that, while Cameron had apparently been angered by BBC election coverage: “I didn’t believe he was as cross as Whittingdale’s appointment suggests.” </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"597699171672596480"}"></div></p>
<p>If commentators from the right-wing press are agitated, the reaction from supportive civil society groups and academics borders on despair.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"597702680568532992"}"></div></p>
<p>It is not difficult to see why. Ideologically on the right of his party, Whittingdale <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/bbc/11192145/BBC-licence-fee-worse-than-poll-tax-says-John-Whittingdale.html">described</a> the licence fee last year as “worse than the poll tax” and unsustainable in the long term. The Culture, Media and Sport select committee, which he chaired, <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmcumeds/315/315.pdf">published</a> its <a href="https://theconversation.com/securing-the-bbcs-future-in-defence-of-the-universal-licence-fee-38331">report on the BBC</a> just three months ago, clearly imprinted with his personal vision for the future. Whittingdale wants a BBC which must “do less in some areas”, with a small proportion of revenue “made available for other public service content priorities” and with market impact tests to be triggered by any allegations of “crowding out” by commercial competitors. </p>
<p>Combined with replacement of the BBC Trust by a “Public Service Broadcasting Commission” with the power to redistribute revenue to other organisations, the report was a recipe for a BBC reduced to an impotent rump within ten years.</p>
<p>Moreover, Whittingdale is reported to have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015657/Phone-hacking-MP-grill-Murdochs-admits-News-Corp-links.html">historical links to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation</a>, which has long targeted the BBC – just as it does the ABC in Australia and PBS in the US – as a public sector intervention which interferes with Murdoch’s own corporate ambitions. </p>
<p>As long ago as 1996, Whittingdale resigned as parliamentary private secretary to the Conservative minister Eric Forth, having voted against his own government’s broadcasting bill because it prevented any newspaper proprietor with more than 20% of national circulation from owning a terrestrial television licence. As everyone recognised at the time, there was only one proprietor in the frame. In the immediate aftermath of the phone-hacking scandal, he <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-senior-mps-secret-links-to-murdoch-2315111.html">was revealed</a> to have been a long-standing friend of Murdoch’s key senior executive Les Hinton.</p>
<p>Ostensibly, then, a perfect storm of an antagonistic minister, a charter renewal process that must be short and sharp, a Conservative government likely to be at its most energised and least vulnerable in the first 18 months – and a right wing baying for BBC blood.</p>
<h2>Making a case</h2>
<p>There are, however, a couple of straws in the wind. During his ten years running the media and culture committee, Whittingdale was widely regarded as a fair and effective chairman. He is very familiar with the issues and is not deaf to proper arguments. <a href="http://data.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/committeeevidence.svc/evidencedocument/culture-media-and-sport-committee/future-of-the-bbc/oral/8328.html">Having given oral evidence</a> to his committee on several occasions, I can testify that – unlike one or two of his former select committee colleagues – he listens. </p>
<p>Moreover, he was clear in his comments about the future of the licence fee that he was thinking beyond the next ten years – in other words, any move towards subscription or other funding solutions would have to wait until the 2026 Charter, by which time both technology and politics will have moved on.</p>
<p>In the short term, then, Whittingdale might be open to persuasion that the BBC is indeed a unique and valuable UK asset which should be protected from the ravages of deep and immediate cuts, let alone fundamental restructuring. It will, however, require not only the marshalling of incontrovertible facts, but a well-organised civil society campaign to demonstrate that the BBC remains a <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/opi/browse/BBC">much-loved and internationally admired institution</a>. </p>
<p>To reduce its funding or start redistributing the licence fee will inevitably result in services closed and quality compromised, with profound and irreparable damage to the BBC’s long-term future. Will Whittingdale want to preside over the wilful destruction of what remains for most people – if not his own right wing – a great British institution?</p>
<p>If all else fails, perhaps we can rely on the House of Lords. According to the <a href="http://www.politics.co.uk/reference/house-of-lords-guide-to-legislation-sailsbury-convention-pol">Salisbury convention</a>, the Lords will not oppose government legislation which arises out of election manifesto promises. But while the Conservative manifesto commits to continued use of licence-fee revenue for rural broadband roll-out, it says nothing about reducing the size of the BBC, changing its constitutional structure or introducing contestable funding. </p>
<p>If the new culture secretary is really intent on returning to his ideological roots and inflicting terminal damage on such a vital British institution, those of us who wish to resist such political savagery may have to start mobilising the upper house.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41645/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Barnett does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On the face of it, John Whittingdale’s appointment as media and culture secretary spells trouble for the BBC.Steven Barnett, Professor of Communications, University of WestminsterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.