Public Broadcasters Cast Wary Eye On Politicians

Michael Hedges January 21, 2020 Follow on Twitter

Media concerns the world over are learning the tough lessons of consumer economics. A few giants take most of the attention space with a scattering of niche outlets scooping up special interests. Everything else disappears into the din of indifference. This plays to various needs and desires.

UK public broadcaster BBC Director-General Tony Hall announced he will be leaving that post sometime this coming summer, two years earlier than expected. BBC watchers, by and large, were caught by surprise. The BBC is considered the model, on a range of levels, for public broadcasting. The director-general sets its agenda.

Lord Hall - also a member of the UK House of Lords - has been with the BBC for more than three decades, starting as a news intern and working up to Director of News and Public Affairs in 1990. He departed, briefly, to take over as chief executive of the Royal Opera House. In 2013 he was named director-general of the BBC. His appointment ticked all the right boxes; newsroom experience, UK culture attachment and savvy political operator. On departure, he will become board of trustees chair for the National Theater.

UK politicians, encouraged by right-wing media proprietors, have long pushed for changes in BBC governance, either to reduce its audience footprint to appease the later or dilute editorial control to benefit the former. This is common to other countries, particularly in recent years. Right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary have decimated their country’s public broadcasting institutions. The right-wing, populist playbook for public broadcasting is clear: marginalize it.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned recently to an old right-wing saw of reevaluating the BBC’s funding, always top of mind for the favored media proprietors. That followed election coverage rather unflattering for the prime minister. Lord Hall “has consistently defended the licence fee, much to the chagrin of the printed press who would cheerfully see it gone, to avoid the BBC being cast out into the cold of commercial broadcasting,” noted Press Gazette (January 20).

In a broader view, said the Financial Times (January 20), the early resignation is “a move orchestrated to steal a march on Boris Johnson and minimize his influence over who will lead the corporation through a defining series of negotiations on its role and funding.” Indeed, it is BBC board chairman David Clementi who will manage the process of selecting the next director-general. His term expires next February and it is expected the ruling Conservative Party, increasingly populist, will name a fellow traveler as his replacement.

“Has the BBC stitched up Boris Johnson?” quarried the right-wing tabloid Daily Mail (January 20). The timing of Lord Hall’s announcement and planned departure date virtually assures Mr. Clementi, a major banker, will lead the process of choosing his successor. In a speech last November, quoted by City A.M. (November 20, 2019), he defended the household license fee over a proposed subscription financing model saying it would “undermine the whole point of the BBC… that it should be available to everyone.”

There will be many challenges for the next BBC director-general, political intrigue notwithstanding. The BBC is reeling from gender pay disparity settlements. Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify are wrenching away younger viewers and listeners. “He’s getting out for someone to have a fresh and constructive and forward-looking dialogue about the next three years, which are going to be hell,” offered Enders Analysis founder Claire Enders, quoted by the Financial Times.

“As our country enters its next chapter it needs a strong BBC,” Lord Hall wrote the a statement announcing the departure, quoted by Deadline (January 20), “a BBC that can champion the nation’s creativity at home and abroad, and help play its part in bringing the UK together. In an era of fake news, we remain the gold standard of impartiality and truth. What the BBC is, and what it stands for, is precious for this country. We ignore that at our peril.”

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