BBC director general Tony Hall has taken aim at the corporation’s commercial rivals in the debate about the future of the BBC and said there were two moments during his negotiations with the government where he said their demands were “unacceptable”.
Hall, unveiling the BBC’s annual report on Tuesday, said it was up to licence fee payers to determine the size and shape of the BBC, “not the commercial interests and people with particular vested interests”.
He said he had twice drawn a line the sand in his negotiations with the government, which were concluded in just four days earlier this month and led last week to the corporation’s second “shotgun” funding deal in five years.
But Hall said he had never threatened to resign over the issue of funding free TV licences for the over-75s, the threat of which had prompted his predecessor Mark Thompson and the entire BBC Trust to threaten to resign in 2010.
Taking aim at the BBC’s critics in the rightwing media, Hall said: “In the debate about the BBC we hear a huge amount about local news. That matters to all of us, let’s talk about how we can work in partnership, but let’s not be dominated by commercial interests and what they say about the BBC.
“Why is it when you leave this country, everyone says to you ... you have got something really precious, don’t wreck it. We have got a broadcast ecology here that works, the licence fee funded BBC, advertiser-funded services, subscription services as well. We want that to thrive.
“The danger is that by narrowly trying to focus the BBC down, you lose something from that broadcast ecology. The people who will lose are not the commercial interests, and people with particular vested interests, it’s the people who pay for us, people who love us, the 97% of people who use us each week, there are 46 million people who use us every day.”
Hall refused to be drawn on what BBC services would be cut as a result of the funding deal which will result in at least a 10% real terms cut in the BBC’s funding.
“On the negotiations, yes there were two moments when I said the deal was unacceptable,” he said.
Asked if he threatened to resign, Hall said: “No, for the simple reason that I believe in fighting for the BBC and I believe in the BBC. I can’t be clearer than that.”
On the issue of which services might be cut, Hall said he would work with the BBC’s finance chief Anne Bulford “over the summer to work out where we think the rest of the savings need to come from. At the moment I can’t tell you. Of course we will go to the trust and say what we are planning.”
