Slightly against our better judgement, we're going to give yesterday's editorial in the Daily Murdoch the roasting it deserves, and some publicity that it patently does not.
Jeremy Paxman said recently that it was a mystery why the BBC, with income of more than £3 billion a year, was having a "budget crisis". A mystery it certainly is. For all the wailing and gnashing of extra-whitened teeth that is going on at Television Centre, the truth is that today’s corporation receives considerably more income from the licence fee, about 20 per cent more in real terms, than it did ten years ago.
During the same period, commercial television has increased its raw revenue from £4.733md to £8.32md, a 36% increase after adjusting for RPI. British Sky Broadcasting's revenue has increased from approximately £1.3md £4.55md, an increase of 170% after RPI. (ITC annual report 1997; OFCOM report 2007; BSB financial report) The BBC's income has grown in real terms, but the income of other broadcasters has grown far faster.
As unions threaten strike action over job cuts and presenters sulk about having to reapply for their very highly paid positions, it is important to remember that this is an organisation that is still, as its Director-General Mark Thompson once remarked (when at Channel 4), a "Jacuzzi of cash".
We have not been able to source the claim that presenters have been asked to apply for their positions, still less that any are sulking. The full quote from Mr. Thompson is that the BBC was basking in a Jacuzzi of spare public cash. (The Times, 12 April 2002) The elided words - first omitted by a Sunday Times report in November 2002 - change the meaning of his sentence. Mr. Thompson's criticism was as much against the government, which was raising more tax than it was spending, as against the BBC. Removing the words spare public takes out the criticism of Mr. Brown's financial policies.
So what has gone wrong? The current rows are partly the result of having raised, rather than lowered, staff expectations. It was always risky to assume that the Government would continue to award above-inflationary increases in income. But Mr Thompson and his colleagues gave that impression.
Again, there is no evidence to back up this slur. It would have been wrong for the BBC to build up a war chest against future shortfalls; mouthpieces of unfettered corporate broadcasting would have been the first to criticise, and they would have had the moral high ground. Greg Dyke successfully persuaded the government that it was in its interest to fund additional services, and his plans were put into effect after his removal by agents of Alistair Campbell.
They irritated the Treasury by demanding an outrageous increase in the licence fee, and their plan to hold the Government to ransom over digital switchover and the move of some staff to Salford backfired.
It is hypocracy of the highest order for the Murdoch papers to campaign against the metropolitan bias of the BBC in one breath, then to berate the BBC for spending money to address that perceived unfairness. It is also unreasonable for the government to expect the BBC to pay for the unnecessary conversion from UHF to DTTV without guaranteeing a share of the inevitable profits. Lest we forget, BSB took a strategic decision to move from analogue to digital transmissions, and effectively coerced its customers into making that switch.
A BBC that had planned for inflation-beating rises was unprepared for what turned out to be a net decline. In truth, the cuts should have been deeper and the settlement was exceedingly generous.
But rises in BSB's income are far, far more generous.
The real drop in cash is small – 1.1 per cent a year for five years – on a budget of more than £3 billion. The BBC still benefits, unlike commercial broadcasters, from having its income guaranteed. It has also been able to find £300 million to invest in new "personalised" online news and sports services. So the question is why it should have decided to make so many cuts in news and factual programming, its core skills, when there are many better candidates for the chop.
Over the past 20 years, the BBC has been forced, often by the threat of legislation, to commission 25% of its programmes from the independent sector. This outsourcing, encouraged by Murdoch's papers, led directly to the recent Crowngate storm in a tiara. Its studios, presentation, transmitters, even the Radio Times, all sold. Just about the only thing the BBC still does entirely in house is its news and current affairs. If the cuts appear to be falling disproportionately on that area, it's because so much of what the BBC appears to do is actually being done by contractors.
The new licence fee settlement was an opportunty for the corporation to take a sober view of its operations and to realise that it could not continue to play in every game going.
The BBC can, and should, offer something for everyone. While we are not convinced that the current mixture of services achieves this aim, it is clear that closing channels and reducing output could not help the BBC to give everyone some value for their money.
The bizarre decision two weeks ago by BBC Worldwide to buy the Lonely Planet guides for "100 million suggests that corporation executives think they are running a venture capital company. It is legitimate for Worldwide to repurpose BBC content for other audiences, and to pump revenue back in. It is less clear why it is trying to compete in the crowded travel guide market.
How is this different from a commercial broadcaster taking over a subscription channel, cancelling the subscription charge, but removing much of the quality from its programmes? The BBC will have no editorial input into Lonely Planet, and will almost certainly gain additional net revenue from the deal. British Sky Broadcasting has lost money and reputation from its purchase of Artsworld, a channel it has sold down the river.
There is no need for a public service broadcaster to have hundreds of websites and loads of digital channels. The BBC Three and BBC Four digital channels cost about £200 million a year. On a cost-per-viewer basis, these are the two most expensive channels after BBC Parliament. On a cost-per-hour basis, BBC Three outstrips even BBC One. The argument that these channels are a vital test-bed for new programming is completely undermined by the declared intention to show more repeats. It would be better to scrap these channels and shore up original programming. Mr Thompson, in a megalomaniacal moment, even saw himself creating a new Google.
Again, we find ourselves pointing out that the BBC should offer something to everyone. This does not have to be through traditional television and radio outlets; just as it was amongst the first to invest in television, in colour, so it was amongst the first to invest in the internet, getting online in 1994. It took BSB until 2000 to have any meaningful internet presence.
We fundamentally reject cost-per-viewer and cost-per-hour analyses, for these assume that the metrics are actually worth measuring. The most useful measurement is how many people would otherwise experience nothing at all from the BBC. This figure is not officially released, but we suspect that it shows BBC3 and BBC4 bring in more viewers than Sky Twc and Sky Sports Thrcc.
We approve of a plurality of views, on television as in search engines. Quite why Mr. Murdoch's organ should be so opposed to any challenge to monopolies is beyond us.
Years of empire-building have left a legacy of duplication and inefficiency. But Mr Thompson must be careful where he wields the axe. The distinctiveness and quality of the BBC's factual programming is its reason for being, but the organisation has become such a behemoth that it seeks size for the sake of size. That quest is far from its original remit and certainly not what taxpayers want in contemporary Britain.
How would you know, Mr. Murdoch? You're not exactly resident in contemporary Britain, and your companies pay taxes in the UK at very low rates. In the 1990s, a rate of precisely 6%; in the 2000s, special arrangements mean the rate is still far below those of us who do not own national newspapers. Please do not claim to speak on behalf of those of us who pay taxes when you freeload on society like a parasite.
If it were possible for our opinion of Mr. Murdoch, or his worthless rag, to fall any further, it would be falling further.
