The BBC launches public consultation on the future of the BBC

The BBC is facing its biggest shake-up in a decade, with the government announcing a fundamental review of its future. The green paper asks questions about what it does, about how it’s funded as well as its size and scope. In response the Corporations’ Governors have started its largest ever consultation on what viewers and listeners think it should look like beyond 2016.

The Chair of the BBC Trust, #Rona Fairhead was interviewed on @BBCBreakfast to discuss process...:

Q  Some people might be watching this thinking “BBC Trust - what’s that for, what’s your role, what are you going to do?”

A  There are basically 3 roles for the BBC Trust;

1. The first is that we oversee the management, so we make sure there’s good value for money for the licence fee payers, that it’s managed with a strategy that makes sense.
2. The second is that we regulate, so BBC 1 has a service licence in terms of what they have to show, the content they have to do, how much has to come from various regions/parts of the country and the various types of programmes, be it drama, documentaries or news. We also look at complaints.
3. But probably the most important role we have and particularly right now, is one of representing the licence fee payers. Because after all, it’s the licence fee payers, the public of the UK, that pay for the BBC. And we represent them in making sure they get the BBC that they want.

Q  Do you feel under particular pressure at the moment? Looking at questions in the green paper, like “is the BBC failing audiences?”, “Should the BBC make programmes like Strictly Come Dancing?” Is there particular focus and pressure on the BBC to make changes?

A  The BBC operates under a charter, that’s its foundation, it operates for 10 years and every 10 years there’s a review of what should be in the charter and what the BBC should look like for the net 10 years and for the next generation, and that’s where we are right now. And so some open-ended questions have been asked. What I want to make sure is that it’s fact based, based on what the audience say they want and the public who pay for it want. And from what I have seen there is no evidence that the public are wanting anything but a broad BBC. They want a BBC that informs, that educates, that entertains and it really is a service that because everybody pays everybody gets something and in addition the country, everybody, gets broader benefits, like jobs, like boost to the creative economy, like the UKs standing in the world and are able to understand and to see people from different parts of the country and be a part of that cultural cohesion that is the UK.

So, that’s the evidence that I get at the Trust so when we represent, we represent back to the government to make sure the government takes the licence fee payers, who pay for it, absolutely into account when they create the next charter.

Q  So what we have now, there are a series of reviews, in a sense, rival reviews going on. There’s the official one, the government review and on the other hand you’re launching another one, where it’s interested in peoples views. You’re only responsible for the BBC Trust one, do you think that the people who consume the BBC won’t say much, the danger can be that the voices you’ll hear will be the polarized voices and the vast majority of people, maybe who just consume things, just carry on doing what they do. Is that why you want to get more people saying what they think?

A  Exactly, we want to make sure that the people have the largest voice in this. That’s why, we already do a lot of research, we already have audience councils who reach out to get the information from the public. What we want to do now is have the broadest ever consultation hopefully on your screen you have all of the ways that people can contact the Trust and the BBC to give their views. We really want the people of Britain to say “This is what we want from the BBC”, so that their voice is heard the loudest.

We really want the people of Britain to say “This is what we want from the BBC”

Q  But those who are opposed and don’t like what’s on offer, they get their chance to air their views to and they’ll be given an equal air time, as it were?

A  I think it’s entirely appropriate that we get the views of everybody and it has to be all of the public and then what we have to do is look at it on the basis of the evidence, what is it that the public want? And I am confident that we will be working and the work we do, will be complimentary and quite significant and just to give you a sense, we only started this consultation process middle of yesterday, we’ve already had 3,000 responses. So we already see the public is engaged which just shows how important the BBC is to the UK and to the people of the country.

Q  Of course, one of the fundamental questions the government is asking is “How should we pay for the BBC?”, and let’s just look at the over 75s not paying for the licence fee and that costs the BBC enormous amounts of money. Will that make a difference to services?

A  That was a government decision that the licence fee should pick up the cost of the over 75s we agreed, with some mitigations as a package, that we believe the BBC has a framework for a long term, stable future. We did that with the BBC Executive, the Chancellor and the Department. We have said, clearly, that there will be some cut as a result. If you look over the next 5 to 6 years, our assumption is there’ll be about a 10% cut and that will lead to some cuts in services. We will try to get as much as possible from efficiencies but there maybe some cuts in programming spend or even in some services but that is what…Just so the public get an understanding of how the process will work: At the moment the questions are quite open ended, you’ll see there’s a questionnaire, in September the BBC will present its proposals, as to what it can do within that package and also the options that the BBC might be able to provide and then we will have a further round of consultation with the public so that they can ‘speak’ on those very specific proposals because I think that’s the nature of the engagement that we really want to build.

                                                                                                                                Have your say at: www.bbc.co.uk/tomorrowsbbc