Pat Holland Bournemouth University The DCMS Public Consultation on the BBC’s upcoming Charter Review is a strange document, based on a set of contradictions so extreme that they are sometimes laughable. It begins with unexpected warmth: ‘The BBC is at the very heart of Britain. It is one of this nation’s most treasured institutions -playing …Continue Reading

Colin Browne Chairman, VLV Board of Trustees The future of the BBC is too important to be left to politicians. We all fund the BBC through the licence fee, so it is vital that citizens and consumers have the opportunity to contribute to the debate about its future. The previous licence fee settlement in 2010, conducted …Continue Reading

Steven Barnett University of Westminster To a large extent the BBC damage is already done. Driven by ideological hostility, under cover of “essential public expenditure cuts”, and with no democratic mandate for inflicting its own political animus on a much admired institution, the newly elected Conservative government – exactly as the Coalition government did 5 …Continue Reading

Jonathan Hardy University of East London The BBC, once again, faces an existential threat. Part of what saved the BBC in the 1980s was opposition to free-marketeers’ plans from within the Conservative Government itself. This time there are Tory supporters, certainly, but most will accept the leaner, more ‘narrowly-focused’ BBC, carefully proposed by Culture Secretary, …Continue Reading

Sylvia Harvey University of Leeds Once every ten years or so the British Broadcasting Corporation faces an existential crisis. Without its Royal Charter it has no right to exist, to broadcast or to receive funds. The Privy Council, a pre-democratic body that advises the Monarch, manages the process of awarding and renewing Charters. In the …Continue Reading

Tom O’Malley Aberystwyth University and National Council CPBF In July the Minister responsible for broadcasting, John Whittingdale, launched a consultation on the future of the BBC that ends on 8th October1. The BBC’s Director General, Tony Hall, spent the spring and summer making speeches laying out his vision for the Corporation. The issues at stake …Continue Reading