Thompson Defends BBC in MacTaggart

EDINBURGH: Delivering the flagship MacTaggart lecture at the MediaGuardian Edinbugh International Television Festival (MGEITF), BBC chief Mark Thompson defended the organization against the wave of criticism it has received in recent months.

Thompson kicked off his speech identifying the “ingredients of a classic MacTaggart,” including “anger,” a “villain”—often the BBC, Thompson quipped—“unworkable” proposals and finding a “a way to insult your audience.”

Thompson went on to reference attacks on the U.K. TV industry, noting, “I believe that the real dirty little secret about British television is about how good it is, not how bad. It still has access to extraordinary reservoirs of British talent. It’s still capable of real creative courage. It still produces some of the highest quality television and radio made anywhere.” He added, “The global reputation of British broadcasting is as strong today as it’s ever been— if not stronger.”

The BBC chief discussed the “four pillars" that made for “exceptional results” from British TV: a mixed funding model, a unique public-service broadcasting culture, editorial independence and, lastly, “the abiding support of the British public.”

Addressing the upcoming debate over the future size of the license fee, Thompson said, “For the BBC, I believe this will be a moment for realism and a recognition of the scale of the challenge facing license payers and the country as a whole. But do not believe anyone who claims that cutting the license fee is a way of growing the creative economy or that the loss in program investment which would follow a substantial reduction in the BBC’s funding could be magically made up from somewhere else. It just wouldn’t happen. A pound out of the commissioning budget of the BBC is a pound out of the U.K. creative economy. Once gone, it will be gone forever.”

He added, “The purists have spent a generation making the free market case for abolishing the license fee and the British public agrees with them less now than they did when they started. Nor is there any evidence that the public has the slightest bit of enthusiasm for the privatization of Channel 4, the Arts Council of the Air or any of the other schemes which the hardliners have come up with over the years.”

Thompson went on to note that the “total pot of money available in the U.K. to invest in original TV production is shrinking and may shrink further…. The broadcasters who have traditionally been the biggest investors in original British TV beyond the BBC are fishing in a stagnant or declining pool of advertising. With new creative strategies and business models, or unless other players or other solutions appear, the total amount of money for new talent and new ideas and for the U.K.’s exceptional independent sector, is likely to reduce further.”

He then noted that change across the industry is key, and that the BBC is not exempt: “radical and rapid change inside the BBC is itself an essential part of the solution…. Inside the BBC, it’s been a period of necessary and often gut-wrenching change. Achieving a smaller, more efficient, more distinctive BBC is inevitably a painful and often contentious process…. So over the coming months, far from slackening, you’ll see the rate of change and reform at the BBC go faster and deeper.”

He later went on to discuss the changes needed elsewhere in British broadcasting. “We need a strong ITV and a strong Channel 4—in other words, two more broadcasters with the resources and the institutional culture to invest substantially in great British television…. Longer term, Canvas will be key, because it offers broadcasters like ITV, Channel 4 and Channel Five the chance to replace the current advertising model or augment it with one which matches advertising to consumers much more precisely and which thereby drives much greater value. Crucially, Canvas gives them the chance to develop this new model and maintain control of it themselves.”

Thompson then turned to Sky, “Britain’s biggest broadcaster by far by revenue… All the analysts believe that Sky is going to get a lot bigger still and will end up dwarfing not just the BBC, but all the other commercial broadcasters put together. A year ago, James Murdoch fretted aloud about the lamentable dominance of the BBC. He was able to do that only by leaving Sky out of the equation altogether.

“Sky is already a far more powerful commercial counterweight to the BBC than ITV ever was. It is well on its way to being the most dominant force in broadcast media in this country. Moreover, if News Corp.’s proposal to acquire all of the remaining shares in Sky goes through, Sky will not just be Britain’s biggest broadcaster, but a full part of a company which is also dominant in national newspapers as well as one of the Britain’s biggest publishers.”

Thompson took Sky to task for not investing enough in British television. “It’s great that Sky is going to make the HBO archive of outstanding programs available to British viewers over the next few years. It’s great that they’re announcing a few more drama commissions. But it’s time that Sky pulled its weight by investing much, much more in British talent and British content. Sky talks of a programming budget in the year to June 2010 of around £1.9 billion, of which sports, movies and carriage fees are about £1.7 billion. Sky doesn’t declare its annual investment in original U.K. non-news, non-sport content, but the latest estimate puts it at around £100 million, not much more than Channel Five’s U.K. origination budget, despite the fact that Sky’s total turnover is more than 15 times that of Five’s.”

Referencing the U.S. landscape, Thompson asked, “why not introduce re-transmission fees in this country as well? Not for the BBC, whose services are paid for by a universal license fee and which should be available on all platforms, in my view with no charges being levied by either party. But introducing them for those commercial public service broadcasters who invest significantly in U.K. production."