Change Is In The Air Or Is It In The Water

Michael Hedges May 30, 2022 Follow on Twitter

Upheaval is an established condition for the media sphere. Publishers were in furore for decades after the appearance of radio and television and particularly incensed by public broadcasting thereafter. Everybody has been aghast at the various phases of digital media. The public, however, seems to takes all the changes in stride. There’s a lesson here. They like what they know and know what they like.

Dressed up in appropriately digital wear UK public broadcaster BBC Director General Tim Davie introduced this past week yet another future for the organization. In a speech to staff (May 26) - virtually, of course - he gave an overview of a “digital-first” agenda for the BBC, the effects of funding cuts and a reshuffling of services provided. He gave a similar heads-up to the House of Lords Digital and Communications committee two days beforehand. Much of his plan had been telegraphed earlier. He has spoken often about where cuts would or might be made, less often about anything else. He is not the first BBC Director General to go down this road and likely will not be the last.

Television channels BBC Four, focused on arts and culture, and youth-oriented CBBC will be sent to streaming-land, no longer with scheduled programming, “in the next few years.” In a different round of reshuffling, young adult targeted TV channel BBC Three was relegated to the BBC iPlayer in 2016 after several years of arguing about previous budget cuts. BBC Radio 4 Extra, an expansion of news/talk channel Radio 4, will cease broadcasting on the national DAB platform for distribution through the BBC Sounds audio streaming platform.

“This is our moment to build a digital-first BBC,” said Mr. Davie to the staff. “A fresh new, global digital media organisation which has never been seen before driven by the desire to make life and society better for our licence fee payers and customers in every corner of the UK and beyond. They want us to keep the BBC relevant and fight for something that in 2022 is more important than ever. To do that we need to evolve faster and embrace the huge shifts around us.”

BBC World News, presently the international English-language news channel only available outside the UK, and BBC News, the UK news channel, are to merge. BBC World News is part of the BBC’s commercial arm, funded by subscriptions (think: hotels) and advertising. It is not to be confused with BBC World Service, though certain editorial staff are commingled.

The UK government had already prescribed funding cuts for a pathway to eventually - sooner rather than later - replace the household license fee. Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries and BBC executives agreed to a “license fee settlement” that froze the annual household obligation at GB£159 (€187) for two years, after which it will rise with the inflation rate. Around 1,000 BBC staff are to be jettisoned in “digital-first” reorganisation.

Ms Dorries was appointed by the populist nativist Conservative Party last year and immediately took up pushback on the arts establishment generally and the BBC specifically. “We’re going to be looking at how (media regulator) Ofcom hold the BBC to account and then very shortly after that we will be announcing other measures that we are going to put into place to start looking at how the BBC will be funded in the future so that we are well in time to have that in place for the (2027) Charter renewal,” she said to the right-wing Spectator (April 30). At the end of this past week she announced a mid-term Charter review of the BBC, fairly standard, that will seize on a common Conservative Party complaint that the BBC has been insufficiently supportive of Brexit and other right-wing culture issues, noted City AM (May 26).

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