BBC's role
29/06/04 12:00
Today the BBC will map out its role for the 21st
century and promises much in the way of public
service and a bid for its funding. I have a few
suggestions of my own.
1. Scrap the idea of 'public service broadcasting' because nobody actually knows what it means. Instead, tell us how many entertainment programmes you're planning to make, why they're going to either pay for themselves (in terms of merchandising - the new Doctor Who will be expensive but BBC Worldwide will bring in a lot of money as a result if it succeeds) or why they need to be made from the public purse.
2. Tell us how much news and documentary you're going to make. Then tell us why they're going to be worth watching.
3. Give us more compulsive reasons to switch to digital TV, if that's where you want everyone to go. Yesterday, for example, I didn't feel like watching the tennis match that was on BBC1 so I had a look at the Grosjean match instead. On Saturday evening I watched one of the alternative groups at Glastonbury, and I could do this only with the red button. Tell us more about this stuff, it's good value and not everyone knows about it.
4. Tell us about BBC Worldwide and why a publicly-funded body has to make a profit, or indeed why it can't be hived off like the commercial enterprise it is.
5. Above all, reassure us that you'll continue to play to your strengths. If the country goes to war on a false premise we want to know about it whether or not some silly sod of a judge exonerates everyone but you in a report; we want interesting programmes with no obvious commercial appeal that we'll want to watch anyway, and we want a channel that sticks with a failing programme (like Only Fools and Horses in the early days) and gives it time to find its feet. Actually you've been falling down in that a bit just lately - Andy Hamilton's last sitcom about a sports PR man could have been a classic but it was shunted about then dropped.
Works for me.
1. Scrap the idea of 'public service broadcasting' because nobody actually knows what it means. Instead, tell us how many entertainment programmes you're planning to make, why they're going to either pay for themselves (in terms of merchandising - the new Doctor Who will be expensive but BBC Worldwide will bring in a lot of money as a result if it succeeds) or why they need to be made from the public purse.
2. Tell us how much news and documentary you're going to make. Then tell us why they're going to be worth watching.
3. Give us more compulsive reasons to switch to digital TV, if that's where you want everyone to go. Yesterday, for example, I didn't feel like watching the tennis match that was on BBC1 so I had a look at the Grosjean match instead. On Saturday evening I watched one of the alternative groups at Glastonbury, and I could do this only with the red button. Tell us more about this stuff, it's good value and not everyone knows about it.
4. Tell us about BBC Worldwide and why a publicly-funded body has to make a profit, or indeed why it can't be hived off like the commercial enterprise it is.
5. Above all, reassure us that you'll continue to play to your strengths. If the country goes to war on a false premise we want to know about it whether or not some silly sod of a judge exonerates everyone but you in a report; we want interesting programmes with no obvious commercial appeal that we'll want to watch anyway, and we want a channel that sticks with a failing programme (like Only Fools and Horses in the early days) and gives it time to find its feet. Actually you've been falling down in that a bit just lately - Andy Hamilton's last sitcom about a sports PR man could have been a classic but it was shunted about then dropped.
Works for me.
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