What If The BBC Is Privatised?

Time and again we hear from the BBC’s critics that if only the TV licence is ended and the BBC moves to subscription-based viewing and advertising, or some sort of privatisation even, all will be well.  We also see that commercialisation is now UKIP policy.  The argument is shallow, unimaginative and misconceived, and if implemented, would leave us in a worse situation. 

To reiterate, we call for:

1. Complete abolition and closure of the BBC; all transmissions to cease; its Royal Charter revoked; its assets broken-up, and fragmented and sold on the commercial market.

2. A total end to state involvement in information, media and broadcasting.

3. A new era of plurality and choice with the free market assuring independence and standards. 

These changes would be as epochal as the formal abolition of slavery - and we purposefully draw a parallel between the two institutions.  The existence of a state-owned and state-controlled media amounts to the perpetuation of slavery through mass psychology.

That being said, we are not mad marketeers.  If a state-owned media is wrong, then so is a transmogrified statist media owned by private interests.  We do not want that either.  In so far as we believe in the so-called ‘free’ market as a concept, it is in the sense that we regard it as part of the natural order of a healthy society.  We do not want corporate media dominance – but then, that’s one of the very reasons we oppose reforms and ‘improvements’ to the BBC. 

It follows that our understanding of ‘privatisation’ is quite different to that of neo-thatcherites.  To us, privatisation is simply a process in which state assets are returned to the public, the most efficient means of doing this being via the market – either through sale of the entity as one or more operating concerns or closure followed by asset-based sell-off.  In the case of the BBC, we favour the latter.  The BBC has fulfilled its mission and is now functionally redundant.  Its assets must be sold and the proceeds returned to the public, minus any legacy contractual and legal obligations to the BBC’s staff, pensioners and other creditors.  To continue the BBC and allow it to operate in whatever form – public or private – would be to continue a sham and a deceit and allow the enemies of this country to run rampant. 

But some will not be convinced by the case, so here we would like to offer a vision of what broadcasting would look like under a Privatised BBC.  We consider it dystopian.

Watch this:

    

That’s a video from The Guardian about people who voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum.  We see here how unconscious biasing works.  The casual viewer might regard The Guardian’s treatment as ‘fair’.  We disagree.  The Guardian interviews various individuals who are articulate and well-spoken but in some way slightly eccentric.  Much like Nick Clegg’s feature on Wales for the BBC that we eviscerated yesterday, The Guardian misses out the majority category and in doing so (intentionally or otherwise) presents the viewer with a distorted picture of things.  You will notice that The Guardian does not interview the white English working class who would represent normative England.  They are entirely absent from the feature.  This is because The Guardian does not regard such people as articulate or well-spoken or having the ‘right’ sort of views.  Certainly, the people interviewed have voted Brexit and are in opposition to a large part, perhaps all, of The Guardian’s agenda, but they are able to put across why in a way that The Guardian and its audience finds acceptable, or at least relatively inoffensive.  You will note that even in the segment with the man in Lincolnshire in which the problem of immigration is discussed, he negotiates around the central issues carefully in a way that must leave the observant viewer deeply annoyed and frustrated.  The result is an unconscious biasing towards relatively unchallenging opinions and the censoring-out of any genuine dissent against The Guardian’s agenda.  It’s a subtle process and even The Guardian’s own journalists and producers may not be entirely self-conscious or self-aware about what they are doing.

With this instructive example under our belts, we turn to what a Privatised BBC would be like.  We must remember that the BBC is not a pleasant little radio and TV outlet with nice smiley people all working fluffily in the public interest.  It is a state-owned and state-controlled diversified multi-media state conglomerate with interests in:

(i). the broadcasting of TV and radio programmes, now entirely digital;

(ii). the production of radio and TV programmes, for the BBC itself and other outlets (especially S4C in Wales);

(iii). news-gathering and other journalism;

(iv). the arts and creative industries;

(v). vocational and graduate training in management, broadcasting techniques, the arts and journalism and other relevant fields;

(vi). books, magazines and other publications;

(vii). various websites.

In evaluating the option of a future Commercial BBC, or Privatised BBC, one thing we need to do is imagine what the qualitative experience of its output will be like under those proposed situations, taking into account the BBC’s diversification and super-dominance.  It is by doing so that readers, we hope, will begin to understand why we insist on abolition and closure.  Obviously the exercise is little more than educated guesswork, but we can base our guesswork on the preponderance of what the BBC actually does now.

Here's an example which we think typifies the attitude of the BBC to the rest of the country outside London, the hip parts of Manchester, urban Bristol and its other metropolitan strongholds.  In other words, this is what the BBC thinks of the native white British, using its privileged position as a state broadcaster to tell us.  The message seems to be that if you voted for Brexit, you are somewhat of a xenophobe, and a bit of cad:

BBC Newsnight is not ‘news’, it is an ‘agenda’.  For comparison purposes, let's zoom back to The Guardian.  Here we have an exemplar of the genre. A jumpy little lefty with a squeaky voice, who looks like an overgrown first year university undergraduate, runs round the English countryside patronising everybody he meets ad hoc, snarkily inferring they are [stupid/backward] [country bumpkins/narrow-minded provincials] because they don’t agree with his Leftist predicates:

The BBC and The Guardian are the same people.  But maybe you’re not convinced?

Here’s another one from the squeaky little mouse:

The result of privatising the BBC will be that we are left with a multi-media conglomerate that looks like a hybrid of Channel Four, LBC, Virgin Media and The Guardian.  If you need it put to you bluntly: imagine The Guardian as a massive global multi-media empire and you have a sense of what a Privatised BBC could do.  Channel Four already tries its best to be the private sector's Leftist propaganda outlet of choice in Britain.  We don’t need another one.  Imagine furthermore this media empire retaining a Royal Charter (entirely possible, very many private companies are chartered) and having the mission of a public service broadcaster, with all the credibility and implied integrity that goes with it.

In response to these points, the supposition of many anti-TV licence campaigners goes something like this:

-The TV licence system becomes unsustainable and ends.

-It is then replaced by subscription-based viewing and advertising.

-The BBC then crumbles (a bit like ITV Digital did) because of insufficient viewers and subscribers.

This seems cogent enough, but a moment’s thought should tell you that it doesn’t hold.  The thinking is errored as soon as it comes up against what we know about the reality of the BBC’s institutional values and its broadcasting.  You don’t just change those things by changing the structure.  Even a public to private shift won’t change it.  The BBC already in effect operates much like a commercial entity.  Thanks to the John Birt era (an appointee of Thatcher), a large part of the BBC’s revenues and operating circumstances are commercial and resemble how a private company would function. Yet still the BBC is incurably Leftist and metropolitan; in fact, the more ‘commercialised’ the BBC has become, the worse its culture.  But then, why should that be a surprise?  Lots of private enterprises operate in this way and neo-liberal economics often goes hand-in-hand with social liberalism.  There was always a great congruency and alignment between Thatcherism and the social liberal Left.

Furthermore, we must consider the BBC’s accumulated strengths.  Whatever else may be said about the BBC, the following has to be conceded:

• The BBC is a prestigious brand with global market penetration and worldwide recognition.  Literally virtually everybody in the world, across cultures and languages, knows who the BBC are and broadly what they do.

• The BBC has had the benefit of nine decades of public investment, in its brand, its technics, its production values, its buildings, its talent.

• The BBC has a loyal following of many millions, and there is a hardcore (mostly Left, but many from the political Right) who will defend the BBC come hell or high water.

• The BBC has become intrinsic to the managerial-state, and each reciprocates the other with support and patronage (and probably bribes and favours too).  That will remain the case even if it is privatised.  Think we’re wrong?  Take a look at how privatised utilities work: they are in effect state bodies operating under the auspices of private capital, and in the case of some post-privatisation entities, the private sector status is nominal.  Suffice it to say that anybody who thinks commercialising or privatising the BBC in whatever way is a solution or would end its influence on the country is just being naïve.

Like it or not, those are facts or conclusions from facts.

Our view:

The BBC won’t crumble if the TV licence ends.  To the contrary: the BBC can and will thrive without the TV licence, and we think the BBC’s senior management (who aren’t stupid people) know this and privately want the TV licence system torn up for good.  They won’t say so publicly because they know why the TV licence still exists, despite its obvious ridiculousness.  It serves the interests of their political masters.

To be clear, the reason the TV licence remains in place is because it suits the political class.  For them it’s the perfect system:

-It allows the government of the day to exercise strategic and broad tonal control over the BBC, its output, its institutional culture.  As a hypothecated tax, it also avoids the problem of accountability and answerability that there would be if the BBC were funded out of general taxation.  Note, however, the rider below.

The important rider is that a move to a directly-funded BBC would be the easiest evolutionary option and explains why other broadcasting systems that have abandoned their license tradition have immediately took up direct funding models – it’s the path of least resistance, despite its difficulties.  It avoids a big legal or parliamentary showdown.  Abolition, in contrast, requires great political and moral courage and foresight.  Commercialisation and privatisation are legally and administratively quite tricky, politically-controversial and play into the hands of the relevant public broadcaster, which has a brand and whose elite management (and their private capital cronies and associates) want to be enriched thereby without state meddling.

Taking all the above into consideration, we hope you can see why an abolition campaign is needed.  Most of the alternatives don’t bear thinking about, but rest assured, they will be on the agenda should we reach the point where a boycott/non-payment campaign threatens the sustainability of TV licensing.