A star was born as glorious Bake Off ended last night with the victory of Nadiya Hussain. Expect a million Nadiya baking books to sell before Christmas. Yet again, the BBC has surged ahead with an unexpected phenomenon that no commercial TV company would have bothered with in prime time. Until, that is, it became a hit – and that’s when BBC-haters pile in to say they shouldn’t be doing such popular stuff – leave it to the market.
Today is the last day for the public to send in its views on the future of the BBC. The consultation on the government’s charter renewal green paper ends at a quarter to midnight tonight. The BBC today hands in its response, robustly defending its right to make popular programmes, as it must to command enough support for its licence fee.
In launching his green paper the culture secretary, John Whittingdale, sounded the authentic sour note of many in his party when he asked whether the BBC should still be “all things to all people”, as he posted a list of 19 questions querying the BBC’s purpose.
After taking a horrendous £650m hit already, forced to pay for the free licence fee for over-75s, the BBC is fighting back, its reply billed as a “punchy and plain-speaking” riposte. And so it needs to be, against the daily drumbeat of the Mail, Telegraph and Rupert Murdoch in all his organs calling for the BBC to be shrunk to providing only those programmes no commercial broadcaster would touch – and few would watch.
A US PBS-style subscription service is Murdoch’s campaign goal. And indeed, if the BBC stopped doing popular programmes, that’s what it would need to become, no longer justifying a licence fee.
If the BBC is to be truly independent, it should have written into its charter a permanent guarantee that it will always get a licence fee uprating to cover inflation – so as to keep off the interfering hands of governments, and all the threats and snarls that besiege it from Westminster.
In 100 pages, the BBC defends in detail its need to do the things heavily targeted by its enemies as ripe for selling off. But no commercial channel approaches Radio 1’s 65% new and live music, or the breadth of Radio 2’s specialist niche music. Radio 3 has depth and range but only 10% repeats, compared with unadventurous Classic FM’s 40%.
Read this document when it goes online at midday today and be amazed at what our public broadcaster does for so little cost. It’s a fine reminder of what you get for £12.13 a month, compared with Sky’s average bundle at £61 a month.
This new government – off the leash, free to follow its instincts – is a grave risk to the BBC. Don’t underestimate how deep is the loathing of many senior ministers – not just for the BBC as it is, but for the very idea that anything in the public realm can ever be such a resoundingly triumphant success.
The same spleen is vented against the NHS, for both institutions, beloved at home and admired abroad, defy their fundamentalist belief that anything public must fail, and the market will always outperform.
Look around the world and see how both health and broadcasting are prime examples of market failure. Some 100,000 people have flooded the Department for Culture Media and Sport with responses. The BBC will need all the public support it can get against the strong undertow in the Tory party that detests it.
A plea to the over-75s: if you can afford it, keep paying the licence fee or send a donation – not just for the money, but also as a gesture to show how much the BBC is treasured. And there’s still time today to send in your green paper response, however short and succinct.
