What does the future hold for the BBC?

The appointment of a new Ofcom chair will shed light on the future direction of the BBC. Sean O’Grady considers the runners and riders

The BBC is a rare example of a globally recognised British brand and has huge potential to bolster the cause of ‘global Britain’ (Getty)

Next year the BBC celebrates its centenary, a 100-year journey during the course of which it went from a pioneering private company, broadcasting to a tiny but fast-growing audience of households with wondrous wireless receivers, to today’s global cultural powerhouse, reaching across every traditional and internet channel. It is trusted, respected, loved and admired, and such are its strength and reputation that it has been able to survive world wars, strikes, social upheavals, scandals, and attempts at political interference by virtually every prime minister since Stanley Baldwin’s time. The Reithian mission – to inform, educate and entertain – has endured.

Less happily, 2022 marks the beginning of the mid-term review of the corporation’s Royal Charter, technically due to expire in 2027. The 10-year “lease” on the nation’s airwaves, funded by a licence fee, has usually been the subject of some negotiation at around this point in its lifespan, but the Cameron government made it a formal staging post. The last round of talks saw the BBC pushed into accepting the cost of free TV licences for the over-75s, in return for a modestly increased licence fee for everyone else. The next round will be even more fractious.

The BBC has to satisfy the government that it has a plan that will take it into the 2030s, in three important areas. First, it must demonstrate how it will grow younger audiences and meet the challenges brought to bear by web-based streaming services, such as Netflix and Amazon Prime. Second, it has to show how it will fund its ambitions, through the licence fee, subscriptions, and commercial partnerships with the new giants of global entertainment. Third, it will need to persuade a populist Conservative government that the editorial standard of its journalism is consonant with what the public demands. Much of that will rest on further reforms to programme-making, and all will be subject to review in the wake of the Bashir episode.

In this context, even more pressing is the appointment of a chair of Ofcom, which is responsible for overseeing broadcast content including that of the BBC. The much-punted candidate for the job is Paul Dacre, former editor of the Daily Mail and a figure who can divide opinion. To some, he is the epitome of reactionary and outdated values and attitudes, who has done more than most to debase journalism and stir up hate. For others, he is the most successful newspaper editor of his day, a talented journalist with the drive needed to get things done, and the ideal antidote to an organisation (the BBC) that is too “woke” and out of touch with the lives of people outside the bubble of the metropolitan elite. Take your pick, but either way his appointment would mean eventful times ahead. A more consensual choice would be Sir Tom Winsor, a lawyer with a fine record as a regulator of the railways and the police.

Given the government has already appointed its choice of BBC chair and director-general (Richard Sharp and Tim Davie) who have shown every sign that they realise the job that needs to be done at the BBC – including in respect of its journalism – the prime minister might judge that sending in Dacre, whose scepticism about the BBC is well known, would be something of an overreaction, and might also appear unduly partisan (though Dacre is no fan of the PM, once remarking that he had “the morals of an alley cat”). A new independent standards board of non-BBC journalists, as suggested by ex-chair Michael Grade, might prove a more proportionate response to the Bashir scandal.

Looking forward to the span of the next charter – which will run all the way to 2037 – the biggest, most existential challenges facing the BBC are going to be financial and commercial rather than about governance or journalism. Without a sound financial model, intelligent investment, and partnerships with the emerging global forces of digital entertainment, there is little chance of the BBC continuing to serve its audiences as well as it has in the past. The BBC is a rare example of a globally recognised British brand, and has huge potential to bolster cultural exports and help “global Britain” make its way in the world. It would not be in the interests of the country, or of any sane government, to see it trashed.