BBC Charter Review: Britain's Plans for Public Media in the Digital Age

 

12 September 2006

Now in its eighty-fifth year of operation, the BBC enjoys guaranteed public support amounting to some $83 per capita (or more than 55 times the $1.50 per capita support for public broadcasting in the U.S.). With total revenues of around $6.7 billion, the BBC operates eight television channels, ten radio networks, and a large and popular website. It broadcasts internationally in 43 languages, and offers news online in 33 languages. Given the size and scope of the BBC's operations, it's not surprising that its periodic charter review, in which the government assesses the system's funding, governance, and programming, is taken seriously by all concerned. Conducted every decade since 1927, the charter review involves both Ofcom (the government's Office of Communications) and Parliament. Equally important, the three-phase review process also solicits the input of those who actually underwrite much of the BBC's operations--the millions of owners of TV sets who each pay roughly $230 every year in license fees (amounting to just over $5 billion annually). The public consultations, which began in December 2003, included opinion polls, focus groups, public meetings and a website, Your BBC Your Say, devoted to a participatory review of the BBC's charter.

In the first phase of the proceeding, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) received and published online over 5,000 responses from the public. The second phase included the recommendations of an independent panel and the March 2005 release of the DCMS's "Green Paper" on the future of the BCC, "Review of the BBC's Royal Charter: A Strong BBC, Independent of Government," which generated an additional 4,500 responses from the public (also made available online). Phase three, finally, scheduled for completion in late 2006, was highlighted by the March 2006 publication of the DCMS's White Paper, "A Public Service for All: The BBC in the Digital Age," which generated another round of public comment and Parliamentary discussion, in anticipation of final approval by the Queen at the end of the year.

Whether the BBC manages to fulfill the vision sketched out in the White Paper is an open question, but the document itself (viewed in conjunction with the Green Paper on which it builds) is worthy of consideration for the ambitious agenda it sets for the BBC's next decade. It's the kind of blueprint for public media, in short, that in many respects could serve as a model for similar--if inevitably more modest--efforts in the U.S.

As Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, noted in her introduction to the White Paper, the charter review was designed to meet two central objectives in charting the BBC's future: (1) to "keep pace with technology and harness its potential to serve licence fee payers even better," and (2) "to reconnect the BBC with the citizens it serves, and who pay for it through the licence fee." In the process, the White paper identified six new "public purposes" for the BBC:

• Sustaining citizenship and civil society;
• Promoting education and learning;
• Stimulating creativity and cultural excellence by using the licence fee as venture capital for creativity;
• Representing the UK, its nations and regions;
• Bringing the UK to the world and the world to the UK;
• Building digital Britain.

The White Paper also established new criteria by which the success of the BBC in serving these purposes might be measured, "a set of five characteristics that will distinguish the BBC’s content":

• High quality--the BBC’s programming should be recognised by licence fee payers as standing out from the rest;
• Challenging--it should make audiences think;
• Original--it should strive to offer the right level of new or originated content;
• Innovative--it should present new ideas or invent exciting approaches, rather than copying old ones;
• Engaging--it should draw the audience in with fascinating and entertaining subject matter.

Reflecting the long tradition of serious journalism in Britain, rooted in the quality and quantity of the BBC's news operation, the Green Paper described the BBC's civic function as “informing ourselves and others and increasing our understanding of the world through news, information and analysis of current events and ideas.” Education, as the Green Paper notes, has been central to the BBC's mission for 80 years, a tradition to be continued through "stimulating our interest in and knowledge of a full range of subjects and issues through content that is accessible and can encourage either formal or informal learning, [and] providing specialist educational programmes and material to facilitate learning at all levels and for all ages."

In describing the "mission drift" that often accompanies audience-development efforts, the White Paper explored the tension that exists between programming that entertains and that which strives simply to attract larger audiences. Thus even though "the BBC should not chase ratings through derivative or copy-cat programming," nor should it "… see entertainment as being at odds with the six purposes described in the Green Paper. They are not alternatives; for the BBC, being entertaining should be of fundamental importance, but it should involve competing with other broadcasters on grounds of quality, not by simply copying or adapting successful formats from other broadcasters or making programmes solely to tried and tested formulae." For this reason the White Paper urges the BBC to "use its unique funding position to take more risks than its commercial counterparts"; to "use its unique ability to inspire, support and showcase the work of the best of the UK’s creative talent"; and to "provide audiences with a gateway to cultural experiences and pathways to further exploration."

With regard to the technological changes that are buffeting the media today, the White Paper noted that "the BBC must have the flexibility to adapt to a constantly changing media landscape over the next Charter period. It must be able not only to react to changing audience expectations, but to anticipate and help shape them; this will be all the more important in a world where user-generated content will come to play an increasingly important part." The Green Paper, with its recipe for "Building Digital Britain," offered more details about the BBC's technological aspirations. While Britain lags the U.S. in its digital TV transition schedule (slated for the 2008-2012 period), it has already made strides in other areas, including a trial run of the BBC's integrated media player (iMP), which anticipates the convergence of broadband and broadcast platforms, and a Creative Archive that allows users to download, store, manipulate, and re-use content from a variety of sources.

In addition to examining the financial and programmatic aspects of the BBC, the charter review also overhauled the governance of the system. Specifically, a new 12-member BBC Trust will be created--separate from the BBC management and replacing the existing BBC Governors--to assess the institution's performance in fulfilling its six new public purposes; to approve "Service Licences" that define the scope and objectives of each of the BBC's UK services; and to undertake a "Public Value Test" for any new or significantly changed public service proposed by the BBC. The overarching goal, according to BBC Chairman Michael Grade, is to improve the system's accountability to the millions of license fee payers who collectively provide the bulk of the BBC's funding. To that end, the BBC is also planning regular public meetings around the UK, a dedicated website to solicit public input, periodic surveys of 10,000 license fee payers, and an annual meeting to review the results of the audience survey.

Overall, then, the BBC's charter review, an intensive, two-year process that welcomed the participation of the public, is a useful reminder of the planning and consultation necessary for a genuine reformation of public broadcasting in the U.S.