Enjoy watching hippos swimming in a circle? Maybe you’ll like the BBC.
While I was at home for the summer, I was reintroduced to the amazing concept of ‘television’. As a student who doesn’t have a living room in his flat and doesn’t have a TV, I often forget how great it is to just kill a few hours watching programmes live, without having to wait for a day before they appear online only to watch the hated word ‘buffering’ going around in circles on my screen.
You may be wondering – why do I always forget about television? After all, I can watch TV on my computer if I want to. I could subscribe to live TV like Sky Go if I wanted to, right?
Well, no.
As I am reminded every time that I go back to my flat in Bristol, in Britain you have to pay a fairly chunky annual license fee of £145 ($245) just to be able to watch any live television at all from any television. In other words, I could spend all of my time watching Ant and Dec on ITV and I would still have to pay the license fee or receive a criminal record. And where does all of that money go? To the BBC.
Why?
Well, whilst the BBC’s programmes have sparked countless Whovian fandoms, made Sir David Attenborough into a living legend, and propelled Benedict Cumberbatch into the world of teenage tumblr accounts and ‘Benedict-looks-like-an-otter’ memes, it has done so as Britain’s one and only state broadcaster. It is funded by the people, often whether they like it or not, and it serves as an organ of the state’s cultural message, one way or another.
Do I really look like an otter to you?
That’s a tad weird, right? After all, Britain is one of the world’s oldest democracies, as it frequently likes to remind the world, but isn’t state-controlled media the speciality of communist regimes and a certain neo-imperialist Russian oligarch by the name of Vlad?
Maybe. But the BBC is not a monopolistic, monolithic arm of state propaganda; at least, not any more. Certainly, in the past it has held a great amount of power, holding a complete monopoly over television and radio broadcasting for 22 years before the introduction of private competition in the form of ITV.
But today it probably plays host to more panel shows, news programs and discussion shows on politics than any other broadcaster. While this stems from the BBC’s historical belief that Britons should be democratically-engaged citizens who listen to the news and take a serious interest in politics (an attitude it has recently stepped back towards by closing down BBC 3), the BBC is at least critical of the government. That’s a healthy attitude for a state-sponsored media outlet.
The BBC just isn’t hardcore enough for Putin’s approval.
However, this doesn’t explain why everyone in Britain should have to pay £145 to a small collection of TV stations every year in order to watch any other live television. You could say that we should keep the BBC because we get what we pay for in great television. Remember all those great HD BBC montages: the ones which feature slow-mo raindrops, Wayne Rooney’s face wobbling as he heads a football, and Andy Murray screaming angrily into the distance? And how could we live without Sherlock and Doctor Who?
But, in reality, it’s not like the BBC’s programs are irreplaceable, or that it makes shows which nobody else could match. After all, ITV’s Broadchurch, as well as all ten years of its Sherlock Holmes series, have been pretty damn good. Plus, the adverts are surely not too much of a price to pay for them? That said, I may very quickly get sick of seeing Simon Cowell in his latest talent show every night. Even Jeremy Clarkson is more tolerable.
For the definitive Sherlock Holmes, look no further than Jeremy Brett in his consistently brilliant ten-year stint as the detective on ITV. Sorry Cumberbatch fans – he’s the best.
There is, though, one good reason why we should keep the BBC and its license fees; one which we should remember before we toss The Thick of It, the 2,000th series of Doctor Who, and Blue Peter into the abyss of private broadcasting and the arms of Rupert Murdoch. That reason is political neutrality.
Now, obviously, as much as we might like to think that BBC news is politically neutral, it is impossible for it to be completely so. The BBC is, by its very nature, a Left-wing organisation, acting as an organ of the state and, rightly or wrongly, some argue that it mocks the political Right more than the Left.
However, unlike any other news station or broadcaster, the BBC is forced to seriously try to represent both sides in debate and discussion, even if it doesn’t want to. That is because it has to act as a representative for a democratic state, rather than a communist or totalitarian one. It, therefore, still has to make efforts to be representative of the variety of views that are held both in Parliament and across its audience.
It’s for this reason that the BBC still shows the Songs of Praise regularly on BBC One, despite its very low ratings, and the former Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent statement labelling Britain as a ‘post-Christian’ state. The BBC still shows it in order to represent the sizeable Christian population of the country.
But although the BBC never really achieves the happy midpoint of neutrality, it is at least seen to be trying to do so very explicitly. Everyone knows the BBC tries to be neutral. It thus puts pressure on other broadcasters to try and act like they are neutral too. It would, after all, be really obvious to everyone if Sky News decided to blatantly promote its right-wing views, because the BBC is there acting as a very moderate, self-consciously neutral yardstick. The BBC instils the idea that good news is news which tries to be somewhat neutral or, at the very least, attempts to provide open discussion.
Indeed, having a state broadcaster which has to strive for neutrality in order to be representative, is quite a valuable and powerful thing to have in Britain. For one thing, it stops private news companies from going all Fox vs CNN on us (sorry America, your news is super polarised).
Perhaps the BBC is one of the reasons Britain doesn’t have people like Bill O’Reilly on the news.
So, despite starting as a monopolistic, high-brow stalwart of elite cultural power, the BBC has, over the last century or so, developed into a valuable representative of the people. You probably can’t get from a private news station which isn’t governed by the same incentives. In this way, the BBC has ironically developed into something rather unique and indispensable.
Do I think the license fee should remain compulsory? Yes, I suppose that it should. Without a compulsory license fee the BBC just would not survive on a subscription basis. It already struggles to complete for sports coverage against Sky, BT, Virgin and Eurosport, relying on heavily on the license funding in order to secure coverage of major events like Wimbledon, The Six Nations, and the FA Cup. Put it on a level platform with those guys and the BBC would very likely be forced to sell its soul to advertisers, losing its political neutrality. In all likelihood, it would cease to exist as we know it.
Don’t get me wrong, it shouldn’t be a criminal offence not to pay the license fee, and I’m happy that the government is in the process of changing this. But Britain should continue to be proud of the BBC and, in spite of all its awkward features, we should continue to maintain it.
Craybox 