Vision Speech Met With Deafening Silence From Staff

Michael Hedges September 4, 2020 Follow on Twitter

Leadership changes at major broadcasting organizations are rarely startling, particularly at the very top. The desires of shareholders and stakeholders are for the new person to arrive as gently as the last person exited. Institutional fidelity is absolutely essential.

Tim Davie assumed command of UK public broadcaster BBC as its seventeenth director-general this week (September 1). He is, for practical purposes, a BBC insider. For the last seven years he served as BBC Studios chief executive. As BBC Studios, formerly BBC Worldwide, is the corporation’s commercial arm, his pay package was the highest in the BBC. Prior to BBC Studios he was five years as director of BBC Audio and Music, formerly BBC Radio. He is known as the marketing guy.

Even his appointment at the end of Tony Hall’s term was considered a shot at the ruling right-wing Conservative Party. Lord Hall timed his exit announcement early on the watch of BBC chairman David Clementi, denying politicians the opportunity to choose a more subservient director-general. Mr. Davie, in his opening remarks, reached to assuage right-wing fears.

Required of each new DG is that address to staff to project that vision thing. And he did, appropriately at BBC Scotland in Glasgow. “We have no inalienable right to exist. We are only as good as the value we deliver our audiences, our customers. We must grow that value. That is our simple mission.”

More staff cuts are inevitable, he said. The household license fee will not be replaced by a subscription model. “It would make us just another media company serving a specific group.” A Netflix-like subscription model was touted last February by prime minister Boris Johnson along with chucking BBC radio channels and websites, the later an obvious tip to supportive right-wing publishers. The current BBC Royal Charter runs until December 2027, before which politicians can only moan and grown. There is some discussion, reported The Guardian, about moving to a “special income tax” to replace the license fee.

Another report, from the right-wing Telegraph (August 31), suggests Mr. Davie will move away from “left-wing biased comedies” on BBC television channels. Satire has a long and storied legacy on BBC TV and radio, deftly excoriating the deserving. In his welcome speech, Mr. Davie defended the revered BBC “impartiality,” saying the corporation “must represent every part of the UK.” He did not mention satire.

He did mention, later, social media. “If you want to be an opinionated columnist or a partisan campaigner on social media then that is a valid choice, but you should not be working at the BBC.” It was another shout-out to right-wing politicians and their supporters, always offended by any criticism.

Mr. Davie’s speech was “a pitch to outsiders and it had to be,” observed Guardian columnist Jane Martinson (September 3). It was met with “a deafening silence by BBC staff,” she added. “With a hostile government and a difficult market, the BBC needs all of its licence fee payers if it is to survive.”

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