Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign team has accused Panorama of broadcasting a “hatchet job” and he pulled out of an appearance on BBC1’s Andrew Marr show after his weekend election as Labour party leader.
But Corbyn has expressed his support for the BBC in previous outings, although he also expressed frustration that it was bad at defending itself and said it paid excessive salaries.
At an event in support of the corporation organised by Broadcast magazine in June, Corbyn warned that a cut to the BBC’s funding would do “absolutely huge” damage to broadcasting and journalism in the UK.
He said:
I get extremely annoyed with it, because sometimes it seems it is very bad at defending itself. It’s almost as if it has a death wish at times.
They have a good story to tell … They do genuinely provide something for the entire community on television. Not everyone wants to watch BBC4; I realise some of us lead sad lives and BBC4 seems very attractive, but others want something much more popular.
On sports rights, Corbyn said:
They need to defend their position in sport, particularly because people judge television by the degree of sport that they’ve got. So getting Gary Lineker back on Match of the Day is actually quite important.
He said the BBC needed the “strongest public campaign” in support of it, “so people understand the importance of the BBC in our society as a whole”.
It’s very easy for some media to run a story saying the licence fee is too expensive, what do you get for your licence fee, and then go into the salary somebody gets at the BBC – I think many people at the BBC are paid far too much – but that isn’t fundamentally what the issue is about
“The issue is about whether we have a public service broadcasting organisation worthy of its name or we don’t. The need for a popular campaign on this is important.
Corbyn said he did not want public service broadcasting to go the way of the US where it was underfunded and under-resourced.
The worst case scenario is if the BBC was told to become commercial or if it was turned into a subscription service. Or systemically, licence fee renewal on licence fee renewal, further top slicing, further reducing, so it becomes completely underfunded.
Then what happens is every year you lose another radio station, another TV channel, more of the website.
“There is a lot you can make people proud of about the BBC, you’ve got to get in there and unite them. Those that love popular sport, popular culture and Radio 3 are on the same page on this one. It’s up to us to get them together and keep them together on this campaign. I will do my best to try and influence things.
In a policy document on the arts published by Corbyn in August, he said he was “fearful about the impact the latest round of cuts at the BBC will have on programming and on our media output in this country”.
I want to see the Labour Party at the heart of campaigns to protect the BBC and its licence fee. When we return to power we must fully fund public service broadcasting in all its forms, recognising the crucial role the BBC has played in establishing and supporting world class domestic arts, drama, and entertainment.
