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BBC needs realistic funding for switchover costs says DG
DATELINE: 11/10/06
"Realistic funding" through a new, long term licence fee settlement is essential if the BBC is to fulfil the Government's ambitious goal for digital switchover laid down in the new 10 year BBC Charter, BBC Director-General Mark Thompson said today.
"Few people outside the industry have registered the scale of task - or the scale of the money required. This is a project of great size and intricacy. The risks are formidable. If it is under resourced it will fail. It's a simple as that - and the failure will impact on many millions of households," Mr Thompson said in a speech at the Smith Institute.
"If all that was wanted in the new Charter was a steady-state BBC with the same line up of services and the same level of quality, we could deliver that well within our current resources.
"If you want a BBC which does no more than it is currently doing, then a budget that reduces in real terms - RPI-minus - is the right settlement."
A tough regime of productivity and cost reduction within the BBC over recent years will release an additional £355m per year for new investment from 2008 - a total of £3bn over the next Charter.
Mr Thompson said recent benchmarking and independent reports show the BBC is close to the "efficiency frontier" and its proposals for continuous efficiency improvements should keep it there.
But to deliver the full mission set out by the Government the BBC could only fund 70% of the costs itself though savings and efficiencies, he said.
It needs additional net investment to fund the rest of the plans that successive reports have shown the public understands and is willing to pay for.
He said that the BBC's current licence fee bid could reduce to around RPI +1.8% (from RPI +2.3%) if, among other factors, the broadcasting regulator Ofcom decided not to levy a spectrum tax on the BBC over the next licence settlement period.
This would mean a licence fee of £149 in 2013/14 in today's prices, well below the £162.66 that the recent Work Foundation report commissioned by the Government says that licence payers would be wiling to pay.
This bid would still include the wider broadcasting industry costs of switchover and building the digital transmission network for both TV and radio as well as investment in planned new digital access services through on demand and mobile.
The bid does not include the costs of targeted help for the most vulnerable which need to be ring-fenced but that the Government have said will be paid through the licence fee.
He added: "Historically the most powerful argument for a relatively long settlement has been a guarantor of the BBC's independence...
"Digital switchover will take place over the next seven years...
"The BBC's mission over the next seven years is crystal clear in the White Paper. There is a powerful case for settling the BBC's funding for the same period."
Mr Thompson stressed that, in the event of a low settlement, the new BBC Trust would have to make some difficult decisions about what not to do, in the interests of public value and the BBC's current £1bn a year investment in the UK's wider creative industries.
He said: "We can't do everything. We can't rob existing core services to pay for switchover."
He said that in the event of a low settlement, he would not be able to recommend to the Trust that the BBC should go ahead with the transformational plan for creativity and jobs in the North based around a new broadcast centre in Salford.
"We would have to find other, more modest ways of increasing our investment in the North."
In terms of public value he said: "Benchmarked against most of the public sector, the BBC has demonstrated one of the strongest and most consistent records of delivery.
"It is wrestling with many of the same issues as the rest of the public sector, how to reform and modernise; how to drive efficiencies and improve quality at the same time.
"But it's still a success story in terms of delivery, public confidence and the ability to change and re-invent itself."
Last modified: Wednesday, October 11, 2006
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More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
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UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
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Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
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Previous stories
Public Service Broadcasting
Scotland and Digital Switchover : Ready for the Revolution?
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Tessa Jowell to testify...
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Register now for Keep Broadcasting Public
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Purnell to address campaign’s ‘Keep Broadcasting Public’ conference
‘Keep Broadcasting Public’ Conference: Minister to present new BBC Charter
BBC White Paper: Why The Delay?
Lords back licence fee
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