Sky Responds to BBC Strategy Review

LONDON: Responding to a public call for comments on the BBC’s Strategy Review, unveiled in March, BSkyB has said that it has "significant reservations about the way in which the BBC Trust has chosen to conduct this process" and has questioned if the proposals "represent a serious and far-reaching review" of how the pubcaster operates. 

Sky maintains that the proposals put forward by BBC management are "tactical and cosmetic. They tinker around the edges of the BBC’s activities, giving the impression of change while avoiding the fundamental questions over the BBC’s future strategic direction." Sky’s response goes on to state that the proposals do not "address in any meaningful way how the BBC should be making hard choices and prioritizing its resources."

As an example, Sky cites the proposed reallocation of £600 million "without needing to make any significant changes to the output on its main networks." Sky says this "demonstrates how much money the BBC has to play with and how inefficient it has become."

Sky also takes issue with the proposal to cut spending on imported U.S. movies "by just 20 percent. Quite apart from the questionable assumption that the BBC should be spending any money on imported content which is well provided for by the market, the Executive’s proposal only reduces the amount to the level the BBC was spending three years ago, which hardly represents a significant change in approach."

Sky’s response goes on to call the proposals "arbitrary in nature, designed to attract attention to small changes while disguising the reality of maintaining the status quo." Sky cites the recommendation to close 6Music. "It is ironic that the BBC is so concerned by the potential future market impact of a niche channel but chooses to pay no attention to the actual market impact caused by its major services, many of which it is proposing to spend more money on."

Sky takes the BBC Trust to task for not being "clear that doing ‘fewer things better’ actually means doing less, allowing the market to do more, minimizing the risk of crowding out commercial operators and benefiting license fee payers by passing any savings back to them. It is particularly insensitive of the BBC not to have given this serious consideration at a time of economic uncertainty where many other organizations…are making hard choices and delivering significant savings."