• Home
  • About
    • What We Stand For
  • Blog
  • Free Press
  • CPBF Submissions
  • Join
  • Contact
  • CPBF Books
  • Archive

Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom (CPBF)

for diverse, democratic and accountable media

for diverse, democratic and accountable media
  • Campaigns:
  • Media Manifesto
  • Media Ownership
  • Media Regulation
  • BBC
  • Leveson
  • Events
  • Reviews

CPBF says that draft Charter opens the way to privatisation of public service broadcasting by stealth

15 September 2016 By CPBF Leave a Comment

by Tom O’Malley CPBF

The Draft Royal Charter announced today (15 September) in Parliament, will diminish the role of the BBC as a public service broadcaster, undermine its production base and weaken its position as the provider of diverse, challenging, and high quality programming.

The Draft Charter contains three, key proposals: ·

Placing responsibility for regulating the BBC with Ofcom. ·

Establishing  a new unitary board to run the BBC ·

Ensuring the BBC’s impact on the market is ‘positive for the public and commercial organisations’.

The first hands the BBC over to a regulator designed to promote commercial media, and likely to restrain the BBC from sustaining a positive, forward looking approach to developing public service media.

The second sets up a body intended to mimic a private sector company’s Board. This sets the precedent for ultimately turning the BBC into an organisation run, primarily, like a private sector company.

The third reinforces the current policy of limiting BBC initiatives, by cutting back its internet presence, top slicing the Licence Fee to fund private sector news providers, and allowing the BBC to contract out all of its production, saving news, to the private sector. The debacle over ‘The Big Bake Off’ shows what happens when policy insists on the BBC buying in programmes from the ‘independent’ sector, instead of making and controlling its own product.

CPBF National Council member, Tom O’Malley comments: ‘The Government is determined to privatise public service broadcasting by stealth. The proposals on governance and on the BBC’s market impact are designed to do this. A future BBC, run by the market regulator Ofcom, governed by a board made in the image of a private sector company, and stripped of its capacity to produce and control high quality programming in-house, will be a much diminished, marginal force in an increasingly commercially dominated media sector’

Filed Under: BBC, Campaigns, News

If you like this and would like a more diverse, democratic and accountable media join CPBF.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

About

The Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom is an independent voice for media reform. We work to promote a diverse, democratic and accountable media.

Trade Union affiliates

Unions affiliated to CPBF have a total of over 4.4 million members.

BECTU LogoFire Brigades Union LogoNASUWT LogoNIPSA LogoGMB LogoNUJ LogoNUM LogoPCS LogoRMT LogoTSSA LogoUNISON LogoUnite LogoUSDAW LogoWGGB Logo

Follow us on Twitter

Tweets by @cpbfreedom
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

CPBF is a non-profit making organisation financed entirely by membership, grant and voluntary contributions.

If this site has inadvertently breached any third party copyright, please contact us and we shall rectify the mistake.

Copyright © 2025 · Log in

CPBF has closed down and it is therefore no longer possible to purchase anything in our online shop. Dismiss