BBC set for “root and branch” review
The BBC is bracing itself for a “root and branch” review of its core operations.
The big question, as ever, is whether the BBC will be allowed to retain the annual license fee for households with a colour TV.
The BBC has been at war with the Government after it stood shoulder-to-shoulder with defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan’s report that Downing Street “sexed up” the September 2002 dossier on Iraq’s capacity to launch weapons of mass destruction.
Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, insisted yesterday that in the charter review there was “no subtext of threat” to the Corp.
The BBC’s Royal charter expires at the end of 2006.
The Government was committed to a “strong,” “independent” BBC, Ms Jowell told the Royal Television Society’s biennial convention in Cambridge yesterday.
The abolition of the 116 pounds fee was “somewhere between improbable and impossible,” she said.
“We need to ask ourselves what we want and expect the BBC to deliver; what range and scale of services it should provide; how it should be positioned in relation to the market; how it should be funded and regulated; and whether it delivers good value for money.”
The charter review would be undertaken in the spirit of a “vigorous and open debate,” she said.
Patricia Hodgson, chief executive of the Independent Television Commission, said the Beeb had to examine the quality of its programming as well as the standard of its journalism.
Ms Hodgson, said the BBC’s standing was “very substantially worse” than the last time the review took place.
She said: “The BBC position is very substantially worse this time round. We have had seven years of a united and competitive attack on the last [licence fee] settlement. That’s combined with the fact the two major parties are probably feeling pretty sore – the BBC is in deep trouble when it comes to the next charter.”
At the convention, 59 per cent of attendees says yes in a vote on whether the BBC was “out of control.”
