BBC assailed from all sides
In a staunch defence of British public service broadcasting, the controller of BBC1 has attacked the “capital imperialist” media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
In an interview with The Independent, Lorraine Heggessey defended the Corp against the Australian-born man she considers dogmatically hostile to “everything the BBC stands for.”
Mr Murdoch’s media empire News Corporation was at odds with everything alien to profit making, she said.
As such, institutions such as the NHS and “free” education were clearly anathema to the owner of The Times and The Sun.
Ms Heggessey’s comments come after Tony Ball, chief executive of British Sky Broadcasting, told the Edinburgh International Television Festival that the BBC ought to sell most of its successful programmes, its “crown jewels” such as EastEnders, Casualty and Have I Got News For You to commercial rivals.
The rationale: money raised from the sales would be reinvested into experimental programming.
With the BBC’s charter under review, it is thought Mr Ball’s remarks will add greater weight to the arguments calling for an end to the licence fee and more robust competition in the terrestrial channel sector.
It would appear the Corp is assailed from all sides.
The Government has attacked the Corp for its reporting on the so-called “dodgy dossier” affair and Murdoch’s newspapers and Sky News have added to the assault following the apparent suicide of Dr David Kelly, the defence scientist “outed” as the source of BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan’s claim that Downing Street “sexed up” the intelligence dossier to bolster the case for war on Iraq.
Separately, the BBC’s director-general Greg Dyke has urged the government to prop up the floundering ITV network to sustain a third “gorilla” in the digital TV world alongside BSKyB and the Beeb.
