BBC Strategic Review

Since Mark Thompson announced cuts to 6 Music and other programmes (no doubt partly to pay for his enormous £800,000 salary), there’s been a massive howl of fury from music fans and staff. But the problems with the BBC go much deeper. Here is my response to their consultation for the Strategic Review; please feel to free to borrow from it and to make your own response here

The headings are the BBC’s from its strategy review consultation website:

Are the priorities right?

No. They should be:

1. Re-invest in investigative, questioning  journalism which doesnt rely on agency wires and uses more minorities

2. Replace the dreck on BBC digital outlets with quality archive, new programming and regionally-produced work

3. Invest in regional programming, not shiny offices and managers

4. Stop patronising audiences and consult them in detail on every programme

5. Cut management and salaries drastically, starting at the top, and run the corporation as a peoples’ co-operative

What should the BBC be doing?

Forget Reith. Broadcasting should underpin democracy. That means ending the slavish and lazy reporting of international affairs, to a mainly US/WTO agenda, where established norms (eg growth is good) and insurgents are bad (they are defending their countries) are rarely questioned.

It means cutting the slovenly output of “soaps” and pretending they qualify as drama, when they are dreary, depressing and stifle hope.

It means ending the practice of paying “market rates” to very wealthy people as presenters, editors and managers. The licence is not means tested so why are BBC staff paid so much? If everyone pays the same fee, why cant BBC staff pay be more  levelled out? It’s a privilege to work there and talent and quality will not be impaired by a farer share out of pay and resources. The BBC should not be creating empires for lazy, white, middle class people to fund their children’s public schooling.

Sport, business and crime should be reported briefly and perfunctorily as a matter of record.

The BBC is still recruiting its own type of candidates. It’s about social equality, not just ethnic.

There should be more regional reporting of news and less decentralisation, which is encouraging divisive attitudes in devolved regions.

What else could be better quality?

1. BBC 1 and News 24 news and current affairs. This is tabloid, sensationalist and poorly written. Journalistic standards are frequently low, with hearsay, vagueness and lack of rigour in scripts and live exchanges. Journalists often speculate and too many reports and live facilities waste money on unimportant crime, sport and showbiz.

2. Digital TV stations pump out soap operas claiming they are “drama” when in fact there is very little quality writing to be found in them. They entrench prejudices, encourage defeatism and lack of ambition. They are dull, dreary and boring. They fail to reflect the diversity of British society

3. Documentary strands such as Panorama have been trivialised in an obsession with consumer journalism and lack of proper investigative reporting. This does not mean undercover entrapment exercises which expose the minor players in various scams. It requires substantial investment in long-term investigation into tax evasion, arms deals and environmental fraud which is being practised by British and foreign nationals on a vast scale. The BBC is being left behind by Channel 4 in this area

4. Online: iPlayer is a great innovation, but should be available with adverts abroad. Otherwise the websites are sprawling, confusing and too complex. An exception is the Today Programme website, which was once detailed and useful, and is now sparse and lacking in functionality.

5. Drama: The BBC should invest heavily in writing and instead of writers being asked to submit material to a formula, they should be invited to send in anything they like, without having to use a costly or obstructive agent. New and exciting talent is being kept out by an obsession with systems and structures which stifles and discourages creativity and ideas

How should we be distinctive?

Er, keep 6 Music??! Keep it and develop it. If commercial operators start something as good, axe it, but not until then. Then again, maybe you need to stay in the game to keep competition and creativity alive?

The News is far too influenced by ITN recruits such as Mark Popescu, Richard Tait and Craig Oliver who brought with them sloppy tabloid standards and applied them to an admittedly dull but ethically strong news strand. The result has been a strongly southern-English style of gossipy Daily Mail type of analysis and a failure to uphold basic journalism standards.

These flagship news programmes need to be re-staffed with  better qualified journalists who understand the standards of investigative news coverage. There are plenty such people in the World Service, news media and local press. The price of the Hutton enquiry and the BBC’s response has been a sharp fall in journalism standards and rigour

Audiences are often patronised and not consulted beyond a cursory ‘vox-pop’ – the BBC needs to open a permanent dialogue with them and to include proper audience input at all levels of broadcasting: commissioning; development; piloting; publicity; feedback; re-commissioning etc.

Broadcasting is not necessarily a skilled and professional elite where only incumbents and those ‘in the know’ must be allowed sway; it should be more open; more democratic and less excluding. It’s OURS!

Regional broadcasting is very patchy. Radio Scotland was for a time gaining on Radio 4 in quality in most areas; that has now ceased, with a harsher, male-dominated, reactionary flavour has infected what was jolly and homely but quality output. On TV the poor quality of many frontline journalists in writing skills and packaging is all too evident. The decline in commercial competition may be to blame. There is too little quality documentary and factual programming and one particular report on the new Forth bridge was blatantly biased and unbalanced.

Sport occupies too high a position in BBC Scotland running orders and is much too obsessed with football. Whatever the actual public interest in football, it is the responsibility of the BBC to promote new sports, new audiences and new ways of communicating. It is not doing this nearly enough.

D-G’s priorities

They are simplistic slogans which ill serve their purpose; if the world’s journalism is generally bad, what’s the point of being the least bad?!

The principles should be:

1. Journalism which adheres to the International Federation of Journalists’ ethical code (see ifj.org)

2. celebrating and investing in culture, music and knowledge

3. ambitious and inclusive drama

4. children’s broadcasting which encourages non-broadcast group and individual activity

5. coverage of public events; it is not the role of the BBC to organise festivals and get-togethers!

Cuts:

Mark Thompson has already shown his poor judgement over his highly unpopular refusal to show the appeal for Gaza. Here is another example. He needs to go in favour of someone who does not lose his temper and bully colleagues. His £800,000 salary is obscene.

6 Music

What is the point of committing the BBC to digital radio and then to remove its best contribution? This is genuinely innovative and entertaining. Keep it.

Asian Network

I have little knowledge of this network but I am generally opposed to ghetto-radio. However, the BBC ought to reflect cultural diversity and this may be an appropriate example

Local radio is too amateurish, but it cannot be solved by more money. Sport, business and celebrity coverage should be removed from news and given their own trivia channel. Quality news needs a home regionally as well as networked.

It seems unfair to axe childrens programmes if they are popular. Commercial rivals dont seem keen on investing in this vital area of broadcasting where the children are protected from harmful advertising.

Website: see previous comments.

Top Gear: this embarassing and harmful programme should be axed, or at least a new presenter introduced who can argue about public transport options and cycling with the morons who present it.

Archive:

Yes, get it out there. Not everyone wants a highly paid job at the BBC; volunteers may be found to archive stuff digitally. Some people do just care about public service and helping others you know! But more importantly put more quality archive on when the fresh stuff is not up to scratch (Coming of Age and any number of cookery, gardening and reality shambles)

Value?

Again, a massive cut in salaries to top staff please, soon.

More programming about public transport, work issues, local culture, better news coverage, the context behind foreign stories, less waste, less spending on flowers and entertaining executives (Mark Thompson’s expenses include several claims made before he started at the BBC; he must repay there.)

New boundaries?

Freeze spending on US drama and return to European programming which has been quietly dropped because of subtitling. Only buy quality US films and drama such as HBO and art films. Allow audiences to choose what films to buy using online polls.

Link drama commissioning to live performance in theatres and halls. Get people performing. Use broadcast as therapy, not fodder.

Leave commercial rivals to most sport and concentrate on getting people to take up sport

Other cuts?

As before, limit spending on sport, business and trivia reality shows.

Cut Radio 3′s budget as it is unrepresentative of the interest in classical music nationally.

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