The Moral Purpose of the BBC
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 13 February 2020
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Her 98th year has not started well for Auntie BBC. The Government is consulting on decriminalising the licence fee; 450 jobs are being cut from BBC News to help meet a huge savings target; gender pay disputes are never far from the headlines; and audience figures reveal that the Corporation is struggling to connect with many British people – especially the under-35s and those from poorer socio-economic backgrounds. Meanwhile, the Director-General, Tony Hall, will step down in the summer after seven years in the job. If this is a crossroads, what should be the future direction of the BBC? There are loud voices calling for an end to the licence fee, calling it a poll tax, an outdated funding model overtaken by the streaming giants. Is it fair, they ask, to be forced to pay for a service you don’t want? Supporters point out that the BBC reaches 91% of adults every week and is the envy of the world; a unique and valuable service meant for everyone – that’s the point of it – which therefore must continue to be funded by everyone. They believe it is uniquely able to unite a fragmented nation and that the founding Reithian aspirations – to inform, educate and entertain – have never been more relevant in this era of fake news and social media echo chambers. The BBC’s severest critics, however, believe it no longer acts either as ‘cultural glue’ or as a touchstone of impartiality and truth. Instead, of leading us higher, they say, the BBC is sinking ever lower in pursuit of ratings. Bloated and greedy or lean and beleaguered? Perhaps we won’t know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone. What, now, is the moral purpose of the BBC? With Robin Aitken, Philip Booth, Claire Enders, Jonathan Freedland.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. Good evening. The story is apocryphal but telling. Lord |
| 0:06.6 | Reith, the famously moralistic founder of the BBC, was walking the corridors of Broadcasting House late one |
| 0:12.5 | night when he bumped into Jesus. What are you doing here, he said. I've come to do the epilogue, Jesus replied. |
| 0:19.1 | I'm afraid not, said Reith. There was something not quite respectable about your mother. |
| 0:23.8 | For him and for many of the BBC's strongest supporters, |
| 0:26.5 | the corporation has always had a moral purpose. |
| 0:29.0 | To inform, educate and entertain, as Reith himself put it, |
| 0:32.3 | always insisting the last was the least important. |
| 0:35.3 | It's said to be, after Coca-Cola, |
| 0:37.1 | one of the two most recognisable brand names on the planet. It's said to be, after Coca-Cola, one of the two most |
| 0:38.0 | recognisable brand names on the planet. It's been the soundtrack, reflection and notice |
| 0:42.7 | board of our national life and Britain's voice in the world. But for how much longer? |
| 0:47.7 | With two years to go to the centenary of Wreath's creation, the BBC is in trouble. It has |
| 0:53.3 | made political enemies, government ministers, |
| 0:55.7 | see it as left-leaning and anti-Brexit. Labor thinks it talked down Jeremy Corbyn. The license fee |
| 1:01.9 | that pays for it is under serious review. Only today the BBC's chairman warned that if it were to go, |
| 1:07.7 | so would many of the corporation's services, and as he put it, the nation would be weakened. |
| 1:13.0 | But the less well-off don't tune in as they did, and the under-35s are an even bigger problem. |
| 1:19.2 | New competitors, particularly the streaming services like Netflix, have changed the whole ecology of broadcasting, |
| 1:25.1 | and their massive budgets have the BBC outgunned. Hundreds of jobs are going, |
| 1:29.9 | deep cuts are being made. Is the BBC out of date, part of a metropolitan, liberal, politically correct |
| 1:36.3 | elite and adrift of many of those who are forced to pay for it, or still a creative powerhouse, |
... |
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