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Thursday, May 26, 2005

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Opinion - News Analysis

BBC — earning more criticism than praise

Hasan Suroor

In Britain, the BBC's image is that of a bloated, bureaucratic organisation with little accountability; a relic of the Raj.

THERE ARE not likely to be many international news organisations which have the same penchant for being in the news themselves so frequently and for the wrong reasons as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Its critics — and every licence-fee payer is a potential critic — believe that there is nothing that the BBC can get right, from its public service broadcasting remit, which is what it is all supposed to be about, to its credibility and the way it uses public money.

The BBC might be held as a model in other countries, especially in the Third World, where credible state-run broadcasters are a rarity, but in Britain its image is that of an organisation which is bloated, bureaucratic, has little accountability and, really, a relic of the raj, often behaving as though it is still broadcasting to the colonies.

Unfair advantage

In a market-driven media environment, where all other broadcasters must earn their keep through advertising and other means, the BBC has a guaranteed annual income of more than £2 billion which gives it an unfair advantage over its competitors. Worse, say its critics, it uses that money not to produce world-class public service broadcasting but to replicate the same kind of programmes that others are making — or to splurge it on gimmicky "innovations" such as redesigning its weather forecast graphic at a cost of £1 million.

Surveys have shown that more than 50 per cent of Britons believe that a compulsory licence-fee — paid by everyone who has a radio or a television set — is not justified in an age of multi-channel television. The Government, however, has decided to retain it for another 10 years while agreeing that a debate on finding alternative means of funding the BBC is needed.

Meanwhile, the corporation's combative new director-general Mark Thompson has caused a revolt by proposing massive job cuts ahead of a government review of its charter which runs out next year. Under the plans proposed by him, nearly 4,000 jobs would be axed over a period of three years saving the BBC £350 million annually. This money, he says, will be ploughed back into programming to make the BBC more competitive and give the public a better value for its money.

The move sparked a major strike on Monday when half the BBC staff struck work in the biggest industrial action in more than a decade. The 24-hour strike, which seriously disrupted the BBC's domestic as well as world services, was backed by even many of those who are not union members and included some of the BBC's most high-profile presenters such as Jeremy Paxman, John Humphrys, Jim Naughtie and Fiona Bruce. Two more strikes are planned next week and if the stalemate continues the unions have threatened a "mother of all strikes" to cause maximum disruption.

Too much flab

Everyone agrees that there is simply too much flab at the BBC, much of it acquired during the reigns of Mr. Thompson's two predecessors, John Birt and Greg Dyke. Nearly, 5,000 more people were appointed during Mr. Dyke's four-year term alone. Apart from pushing up the wage bill and contributing to inefficiency, the overstaffing has caused the BBC to neglect its statutory obligation to outsource 25 per cent of its programming to independent producers. There are no two opinions that a case exists for cutting down the flab and, as The Guardian argued: "No amount of righteousness on the picket-line should distract from the truth that the BBC has a duty to trim the fat."

The issue, therefore, is not downsizing, but how to do it. It is the way Mr. Thompson has gone about it — apparently without consulting the staff — and the scale of job losses that is causing the problem. Unions say that there are other ways of making savings than through such "savage" job cuts. They also point out that many of the jobs that are likely to go will affect news and current affairs — areas that the management claims it wants to strengthen. But the biggest sore point is that the management is seen to be trying to impose a decision without a proper debate.

"We have not had a single piece of meaningful negotiation. The way to stop the two-day strike next week is to agree to it. We want them to commit to negotiate a way of achieving any savings that need to be made without the need for compulsory redundancies," says Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, one of the three unions behind the strike.

From the BBC, there have been confusing signals. Mr. Thompson has virtually ruled out any compromise and said that the proposed job cuts are "a price worth paying to see a strong BBC in the long term." In the same breath that he made clear that there was no going back on the decisions that had already been taken, he also invited unions for talks. His deputy, Mark Byford, repeated the line that: yes, we are willing to talk but please don't ask us to change our mind. The management is hoping that in the end it will win the war of attrition simply because the staff cannot afford to suffer wage losses by repeatedly going on strike. But whether it will lead to a "strong BBC" is debatable.

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