More commercial BBC-bashing 

1 June 2006 tbs.pm/1145

It seems that hardly a week goes by when there isn’t some new scheme from the commercial sector to emasculate the BBC, either by stopping it from getting the money it plainly needs to continue its world-leading services, or by whingeing about how it’s too successful.

As I’ve noted before, the general thrust seems to be that the BBC is far too good at it – whatever the current ‘it’ is that’s under discussion, and it’s stopping the commercial boys from making money. If only the BBC were cut down to size, or bits sold off, the story goes, how much easier it would be.

Well, it might or might not be easier. Take this plan to privatize – why hasn’t this bit of Thatcherism gone away yet? – and commercialize Radios One and Two. These are two of the most popular radio stations in the country. If they became commercial stations, all of which compete for the same advertising pounds, what would happen? They would wipe the floor with the opposition – even Classic FM, the most popular national commercial station, lags some way behind.

In an age where advertising spend is dropping, commercial Radios One and Two would clearly acquire the vast majority of radio ad budgets, and virtually everyone else would go to the wall – their ad rosters would be left with little more than low-budget local advertising and unless their parent was the owner of one of the newly-privatized stations, the parent companies would be in bad shape too. Is this really what the commercial boys want?

Of course, you could also argue that if One and Two were privatized they simply wouldn’t be done as well as they are now, and their listener figures would drop substantially, thus evening the playing field a little.

But although preventing the BBC’s services from being done as well as they are now or could be in the future is also fashionable at present, it’s surely not the capitalist way. Isn’t competition supposed to result in greater efficiency and increased quality?

The BBC is still the best broadcaster in the world and the one to beat. Yet although it has its share of ratings-grabbers to justify receiving the licence fee, it does far more quality programming as opposed to lowest-common-denominator stuff, and we are promised more (the old dilemma’s horns are still intact, so keep your eyes on this one).

My suggestion to the commercial sector is this. The BBC sets the standards. Beat them at their own game instead of trying to pull them down by underhand means: make better programmes (we know you can: we’ve watched them and listened to them in the past). Then you’ll be in a better position to justify your demands.