BBC: British Broadcasting Crisis?

Prof. Charlie BeckettDirector, Polis

London School of EconomicsIfM, Berlin, April 30th 2013

@charliebeckettc.h.beckett@lse.ac.uk

A history of crisis

• 1926 General Strike• IRA censorship• Death on the Rock• Hutton Report

A question of trust

• Olympic coverage• Savile – the abuse scandal• Savile – the editorial scandal• MacAlpine Newsnight• Entwistle• Pollard Report

Trust in Tony (Hall)

• Political Ding Dong • LSE Korea• Appointments • Pay off cap

Medium Term Problems

• Budget cuts• Integration of World• Inefficiencies• Management responsibilities• Charter negotiations for 2016

Political reasons to be cheerful

• Has good leadership again• Has addressed its own failings openly• Still has incredible resources, reach and public

approval• There is no agenda to dismantle the BBC

Challenges: internally

• Moving from fortress to networked organisation:• Less internal division• Move from producer to service model – i.e. not

there for its own staff• More external collaboration• Commissioning model?• End of the channel model• Definition of the brand – what is public service?

universality?

Public Service Media Challenge

• Creative industry hub• Citizen information and engagement service• Competitive media company• Network innovation pioneer• Ethical, social, added value

Longer-term problems

• End of licence fee (see Finland and Sweden)• Prioritisation v universality• Competition eg Sky, AJE, Netflix, YouTube• Moving from fortress to networked

organisation • End of ‘the channel’

Why PSM should thrive

• Funding • Reputation• Trust• Social function• Confidence and competence in an age of

complexity and uncertainty

BBC: British Broadcasting Crisis?

Prof. Charlie BeckettDirector, Polis

London School of EconomicsIfM, Berlin, April 30th, 2013

@charliebeckettc.h.beckett@lse.ac.uk