Channel 4’s decision to take on the Great British Bake Off from the BBC is a story about Channel 4’s remit, the BBC’s failure to agree a deal with format owners and originators Love productions to the comings and, mostly, goings of the talent, in media terms this remains a huge story. In many respects it’s one both C4 and the BBC would rather sort of went away.
For C4, there remains just too many uncomfortable questions about their £75m raid on a format that is a) already a huge success on another public broadcaster, and b) is about as quintessentially “BBC” as you can get.
Which, if you’re Channel 4, with a remit to be innovative, edgy, different, to serve audiences not well catered for elsewhere – as that remit says – and above all not to be the BBC, is pretty tricky. So tricky that the almost dead issue of C4’s potential privatisation has been given a new lease of life.
For the BBC, under continuing financial pressure and political manouvering aimed at securing ever greater regulatory oversight of the corporation’s activities and notwithstanding its new draft charter, the corporation looked like the victim of an unfair fight with another public broadcaster. Which in political and PR positioning terms is not a bad place to be – especially if you’re an organisation more used to being regarded as too big, powerful and mighty.
So, all the more surprising then that the BBC’s director of strategy and education, James Purnell, and C4’s chief creative officer had such a personal and explosive row about the matter at this week’s Royal Television Society conference. The arguments were reasonably familiar from both sides, with many in the industry remaining sceptical of C4’s case.
Yet the timing was particularly poor for the BBC, as it served to highlight another issue which has nothing to do with television, namely radio. Specifically, who will take control of the BBC’s radio directorate when current director Helen Boaden retires.
BBC director general Tony Hall’s plan is to add responsibility for radio to Purnell, whose lack of significant content experience is seen as a barrier to his chance of succeeding Hall to the top job. But there are two problems with thisplan.
First, as a former Labour government minister – a fact Purnell introduced in his row with Jay Hunt to give weight to his contention that C4’s move made privatisation politically more likely – he would have effective control over and responsibility for a significant element of coverage, likely to be an issue for many Conservative MPs.
Second, with the exception of a brief spell with a small independent production company, Purnell has no editorial experience to speak of and certainly none of actually running a TV or radio network. Which was a point made very strongly by Hunt in support of her argument with Purnell over Bake Off.
It can’t have been welcome for Purnell himself to open these issues up to wide public view, especially just the day after Boaden confirmed her imminent departure from the BBC. Which may explain why Hall so conspicuously failed to back Purnell’s comments about C4’s raid on The Great British Bake Off.
After the row, Hall is left hoping he can get away with appointing a former Labour minister to a top content job in charge of all the BBC’s radio networks. While Channel 4 is left hoping no one cares enough about anything they do to make an issue out of how taking a hit show from BBC1 squares with their remit.
Neither of which would seem especially great outcomes.
