The future of British Broadcasting summary

·         As requested here is a summary of last year's study and proposal from CUT on the future of British Broadcasting. By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

A Clear Vision for the future of British Broadcasting

In the course of the discussions leading up to the issue of the current BBC Charter the former Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said “Nobody's talking about dismantling the BBC”; and he was right, nobody was, but they should have been. The current Charter was the result of a failure to examine the instability of the BBC model of public sector broadcasting, and to look for a sustainable alternative. It, therefore, left the BBC conducting business as usual with little by way of change beyond having a new regulatory regime to bring it into line with other broadcasters. In our new report CUT calls for radical reform to introduce the change we need. .

The BBC achieved incorporation by making essentially fraudulent claims and has retained its status by deceit, scaremongering and self-serving propaganda campaigns. It has fought to retain its own privileges and to destroy any competition whenever it has had an opportunity, making it a barrier to development down the decades. Abolition might seem unthinkable, but the alternative – in this, the age of the internet – is chaotic collapse.

We propose:

·         That the current Charter term is used to prepare for a swift but smooth transition

·         An arts and commerce based World Service administered by the British Council

·         Measures to encourage new entrants into broadcasting for radio

·         Devolution where possible of authority for indigenous minority language broadcasting leading to increased provision and international services

·         Transfer of all BBC property to a new agency

·         Privatisation of BBC News

·         Dissolution of the drama, light entertainment and factual programming sections

·         A new public sector broadcasting service letting people see and hear just where their taxes are spent with extensive coverage of the Arts Council subsidised arts

·         Transfer of support for popular musical genres to a new section of the Arts Council

·         If this option is not taken at this stage, we propose licence fee reform:

·         Redefinition as a fee for BBC services to decriminalise non-payment

·         Relate the fee to the amount of TV content viewed via television sets and phase it out when 80% is viewed via internet-enabled devices

·         Let the BBC charge pro rata or offer variable packages for TV via the internet.

This study and proposal was sterilised by CUT in our blog in January to February 2018 however the proposals are still current and relevant to this day.

Part 1

http://clearvisioncatholics.blogspot.com/2018/01/future-of-british-broadcasting-no-1.html

to

Part 6

http://clearvisioncatholics.blogspot.com/2018/02/future-of-british-broadcasting-part-6.html