Tech the high road
• He wants it to be a technology giant, an internet-first pioneer, marking a return to an ambitious corporation keen to expand into new services and catch up with rivals offering personalised options.
Warning against the march of “American media giants [who] colonise the world”, Hall echoed Channel 4 chief executive David Abraham who said in Edinburgh last year that TV had become “a combat vehicle for tech and mobile companies”.
“Supporting a thriving British culture will be essential,” said Hall. “A strong BBC helping bind the country together at home and championing it abroad. A British creative beacon to the world.”
The personal touch
• A newly-personal BBC will deliver the news, programmes – in fact, pretty much anything you are interested in – direct to your screen, a personalised service like Netflix or Amazon.
Enjoyed Wolf Hall? Then watch this BBC4 programme about the Tudors, or this Radio 4 series about historical novels.
The revolution starts here
• But the “my BBC revolution” will have a higher calling, said Hall. “I don’t think anyone in the market has cracked recommendations. We’ll always be doing it our way – not telling you what customers like you bought, but what citizens like you would love to watch and need to know.”
He admitted the BBC “lags the industry here” – it has about 4 million registered users, compared with ITV (reported to have 8 million) and Channel 4’s 13 million – but declined to say how much it would spend on playing catch-up.
“We have not set aside a budget for our ultimate ambition,” he said later. “That is something we will discuss with the government, whichever government it is, after the election.”
Hall denied it would be viewed as a land grab by the BBC’s commercial rivals. He said Sky had “one of the best customer relationship management systems in the business and Channel 4 is building a database. The BBC should be there.”
House of funds
• He doesn’t mind how the BBC is funded just so long as it’s a universal fee, preferably the licence fee, and welcomed MPs’ support for extending the charge to people who only watch catchup television.
“I profoundly believe in the licence fee both economically … because we all pay for it, and because it’s democratic,” he said.
Later challenged on Radio 4 that a German-style household levy, as proposed by John Whittingdale’s House of Commons select committee, might be seen as a “form of poll tax”, Hall said it was “really interesting and should be explored.
“97% of the people in this country are using the BBC each week, so actually in terms of fairness it seems to me that would be one possible route”.
Drama screens
• Linear TV is on the way out (eventually). And period drama is in
“BBC services won’t be as prominent in an on-demand world. And younger audiences are using linear channels less than their parents,” he said. “There’s real jeopardy here. If the BBC doesn’t address these challenges, we could become irrelevant.”
Unlike period drama. Given Hall’s high praise for Wolf Hall and its star, Mark Rylance, that’s one thing we can definitely expect from the BBC. More Rylance. And more period drama.
