John Whittingdale says review will examine corporation’s size, funding and oversight, asking whether it should continue to try to be ‘all things to all people’

Culture secretary John Whittingdale has announced a fundamental review of the size of the BBC, what it does and the way it is funded and questioned whether the corporation should continue to strive to be “all things to all people”.

Unveiling the government’s green paper on the future of the BBC on Thursday, Whittingdale said the scale and scope of the BBC had grown exponentially in the last decade and said the time was right to question “whether this particular range of services best serves licence fee payers”.

He said an independent report into decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee – which the BBC has said would cost it £200m – had concluded it would not be appropriate under the current funding model.

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On the BBC’s funding, he said there was “no easy solution” to how the BBC should be funded but described the current licence fee model as “regressive”.

He said subscription may be an option in the longer term, outlining three immediate options: a reformed licence fee, a household levy, or a hybrid funding model. In the longer term he said they should consider a subscription model.

The green paper will look at four key areas: the overall purpose of the BBC; what services and content it should provide; how the BBC should be funded; and how it should be governed and regulated.

“One key task is to assess whether the idea of universality still holds water. With so much more choice, we must at least question whether the BBC should try to be all things to all people,” said Whittingdale.

With the BBC Trust widely expected to be axed, Whittingdale said the BBC’s governance would be reviewed after the BBC had on occasions “fallen well short of the standards expected of it” including the Savile crisis, the £100m Digital Media Initiative fiasco, and the multimillion-pound payouts to former staff.

He said there were concerns about how the BBC’s activities impacted on its commercial rivals, and there were “particular challenges” around how the corporation reached ethnic minorities and younger people.

BBC response



In response, the BBC said the government’s green paper would “appear to herald a much diminished, less popular BBC” which it said would be “bad for Britain” and “not the BBC that the public has known and loved for over 90 years”.

It said director general Tony Hall would set out the BBC’s own proposals in two months’ time.

The corporation said in a statement: “The BBC is a creative and economic powerhouse for Britain. The starting point for any debate should be - how can a strong BBC benefit Britain even more at home and abroad?

“The BBC has embraced change in the past and will continue to do so in the future, and we will set out our own proposals in September.

The BBC says the public should decide whether it makes shows such as Strictly Come Dancing. Photograph: Guy Levy/BBC/PA

“We believe that this green paper would appear to herald a much diminished, less popular, BBC. That would be bad for Britain and would not be the BBC that the public has known and loved for over 90 years.

“It is important that we hear what the public want. It should be for the public to decide whether programmes like Strictly or Bake Off, or stations like Radio 1 or BBC2, should continue.



“As the director general said on Tuesday, the BBC is not owned by its staff or by politicians, it is owned by the public. They are our shareholders. They pay the licence fee. Their voice should be heard the loudest.”

Rona Fairhead, the chair of the BBC Trust, said: “Of course there are also big questions to ask about the future of the BBC, but the debate must not be a narrow one and the clearest voice in it must that of the public.

“We will carry out our own research and consultation to make sure of that, and we welcome the government’s statement that they will work with us and will take full account of our findings.”



Licence fee



Whittingdale said the Perry report into the possible decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee had “raised a number of quite serious problems which would need to be addressed if we went down that road”.

He said the issue, which had received cross-party support before the general election, would now be looked at as part of the charter review process. “I understand there are strong feelings right across the house,” he told MPs. “Having said that the Perry report does raise some very real challenges that would need to be overcome.”

Whittingdale said he would not compromise the corporation’s independence but said it was right that a public body that spent £30bn of licence fee payers’ money in its last charter should be “fully accountable to the public”.

He unveiled the green paper 10 days after the government announced the BBC’s latest funding deal which saw the corporation take on the £750m cost of free TV licences for over-75s.

He repeated that the BBC’s inflation-linked licence fee, also announced last week, was dependent on the BBC making further efficiency savings and would be “subject to whatever conclusions are drawn from charter review about the BBC’s scope and purposes”.

Labour criticism



The shadow culture secretary, Chris Bryant, criticised Whittingdale’s proposal that the BBC’s focus should be narrowed to a “more precisely targeted mission”.

Bryant said the corporation should continue to make a wide range of programmes, including Strictly Come Dancing, Top Gear and The Great British Bake Off, and said there was no public demand for it to close down services such as Radio 1 or Radio 2.



“The government’s attitude to the BBC rather mystifies me,” Bryant told MPs.



“You say we should consider the matter of the universality of the BBC, but surely the golden thread that runs through the concept of the BBC is that we all pay in and we should all get something out – and that includes my constituents as well as his constituents, those who like opera and those who like soap opera.”



Whittingdale replied: “Even if I wanted to close down Strictly Come Dancing, which I don’t, it would be completely wrong for the government to try and decide which programmes the BBC should make and which they shouldn’t.



“What is a perfectly legitimate question is that the BBC programmes should be distinct. That is part of the BBC’s over-riding purpose and that is an aspect we will consider. The charter review is not about specific programmes, however much certain newspaper writers would like to think it is.”



He said the government had no proposals to close Radio 1 or Radio 2. “All of these things are part of the wider debate about the BBC’s place in the broadcasting landscape.”



Whittingdale added: “I do not wish to destroy or undermine [the BBC].”

