Is public broadcasting serving its true purpose? Unfortunately, no authority seems to dare answer the intriguing question. I recently made reference to two prominent BBC personalities, in connection with their commitment vis-à-vis the reviewing of the BBC Royal Charter.
I now feel I should take the liberty of dealing, briefly, with the address Michael Grade gave, shortly after being appointed BBC chairman, on the occasion of the launching of the debate over the said Royal Charter’s updating.
The sole purpose of this is to give readers food for thought, as well as to enable them to compare and contrast the seriousness with which the BBC’s direction looks upon public service broadcasting with the local public service broadcasting our national station offers.
Mr Grade’s speech centred on what needs to be done to improve the image of public service broadcasting in the UK. Since the inception of the British Broadcasting Corporation, over 75 years ago, public values were always at the forefront in the mind of those who then were responsible for this service to the community.
To drive the point home, the current BBC chairman quoted the first director-general, John Reith, as having said, “we have tried to found a tradition of public service and to dedicate the service of broadcasting to the services of humanity in its fullest sense”.
This mentality, he said, contrasted greatly with the way the Americans saw public broadcasting. In fact, the Americans preferred to use the mass media largely as an opportunity for advertisers.
Britain took a different path by setting out to build, through public intervention, a broadcasting media which would reach every household in the land. “Not just to give people wonderful entertainment. But also, unashamedly, to build an instrument of public value”, he said.
This was an age of spectrum scarcity, he remarked. Today, this spectrum has changed considerably and there are those who prefer a model, not of public but of private value, with which Mr Grade disagrees.
He believes in a public broadcasting that delivers good programmes, that offers value to everyone and a public broadcasting which builds public values.
The BBC chairman delved into the question of competition among stations and, of course, about ratings.
He said that the bigger and the more intense the competition among broadcasters becomes – the tougher the ratings war, and the tighter the budgets – the more important it becomes to have public broadcasting on a sound footing. Mr Grade strongly believes that public broadcasters should not compete for commercial revenue.
The more commercial competition intensifies, the more the need arises for an independent public broadcasting, with a lot more on its mind, than simply winning every time period and maximising profits. He believes that a public broadcaster has a lot to learn from the private sector, particularly, about efficiency.
With the private sector, there is the need to maximise profits by generating the highest returns at the lowest cost. However, in the process, large areas of viewers’ interests are ignored, with the consequence that certain programmes are shunned. With public service broadcasting, there is another form of efficiency which has to be observed. That is, of putting the viewers’ and listeners’ interest first.
There is a school of thought which believes that if broadcasting is left to itself, it would offer viewers and listeners much more. The BBC chairman does not share this view. To consolidate his thesis he gives public broadcasting in the US as an example. He said the US is the biggest, richest, most developed free media market in the world.
Yet he questioned his listeners by asking them whether there is a more depressing spectacle anywhere in the world than American PBS on radio and television? Incidentally, the choice of name for the local company, PBS Ltd, is no coincidence. American culture was predominant then, probably the result of the local company’s first managing director, who was brought from the US.
The BBC top man believes that more than ever before, the BBC should be the standard bearer of quality and culture in its widest sense. Public service broadcasting is about more than live relays. Recent research shows that licence-payers have a very broad definition of public service broadcasting.
“The marketplace has the bottom line to measure success,” he said. “What’s the BBC bottom line?” he questioned. “Is it ratings?” He believes that ratings are only a part of the game, for rating is a two-edged sword. He says that if ratings go up, one is accused of dumbing down. If you strive for quality, win awards and critical acclaim but ratings slip, then you are pandering to the elite. The real issue is not ratings per se but how they are achieved.
The essence of public service broadcasting is that it never patronises its audience, never offers them cynical, derivative, exploitative programming. Neither is it acceptable to set out to buy ratings with commodity programmes and hefty financial awards quiz shows.
Mr Grade also maintains that it is not the BBC benchmark to rely on ratings based on a particular single day or a single week. He believes in an ongoing quality programming. “It is no longer acceptable for the BBC to define public service broadcasting as whatever the BBC chooses to broadcast,” said Mr Grade. He further announced that the BBC has developed a new tool whereby it assures licence-payers the BBC is single-mindedly focused on serving the public interest.
While the BBC is a great institution, it has the ability to shoot itself in the foot from time to time, the BBC chairman commented. The Board of Governors’ duty is to represent the interest of the general public. In other words, it ensures the public gets the best programmes regardless of who makes them.
Mr Grade is adamant the BBC will no longer give the impression that it is the sole judge and jury of its own performance. He also commented on the question of value for money on every BBC activity. He reassured licence-payers the BBC will be as lean and mean as it can be. The BBC must be financed from licence fees in order to sustain itself since advertising means commercial pressure and the narrow market view of efficiency would impoverish the whole sector, Mr Grade emphasised.
“There are calls,” Mr Grade said, “for the licence fee to be top-sliced. To be shared with those commercial broadcasters who still carry some public service obligations”. Mr Grade’s view on this was very loud and clear – if the government wants to hand a public subsidy to the commercial broadcasters, he would no doubt be delighted that shareholders should have such a pleasant windfall, it must have nothing to do with the licence fee. The licence fee is there for a BBC that operates only in the public interest.
Mr Grade considers top-slicing as a very bad idea, for it would mean that licence-payers would no longer know exactly what they are paying for. It would also go against the BBC’s aim of building a transparent and accountable relationship with the license paying public.