Sir,

Firstly I would like to say that I am a fan of significant portions of the BBCs past output, particularly its comedy. The quality of its broadcasting has always been of a high standard, and I remain influenced by the BBC in general, whether it be radio or television.

I am not a fan of how the BBC is funded. There exists a rather strange idea among some people - that of “public service broadcasting”. What is this, exactly? Well the Communications Act suggests that public service television should: “inform, educate and entertain; offer something for everyone; be of a high standard, both in terms of the content of the programmes and the way they are made; include drama, comedy, music, feature films, news and current affairs, sport and leisure, educational programmes, science, religion and other beliefs, social matters, programmes for children and young people; reflect the different communities and cultural interests of the UK; and be made across the UK, not just within London and the M25.” (Ofcom.)

What strikes me as odd is that these people find it necessary to ‘provide’ the above by force! The nature of public service broadcasting is that it is forceably funded by everyone who owns a television (regardless of the purpose they have the television). By this do they mean to advocate that people somehow should be FORCED to pay for comedy, for example? Or sport? What if they don’t like sport?

There is an alternative view of the television-watching UK public that I would like to present to you. It consists of not a single entity called ’society’ which it can be assumed wishes to watch the output of a “public service” broadcaster and somehow automatically wishes to shell out £120 GBP per annum to pay for it; but instead sees the UK population as 60 million totally separate INDIVIDUALS (a term not often used in “public service” circles!); individuals who have a diversity of interests, a variety of cultural attitudes, a multiplicity of styles, tastes and passions. It falls not to a singular organisation to provide for all of these individuals by a forceable decree, but rather to a free market which by its very nature seeks to fill every need, satisfy every taste and arouse every passion.

So let me assess the above Ofcom criteria in the light of a free market. It is in the interests of the free market competitors to “inform, educate and entertain”, because by doing so they will raise revenue. The free market will “offer something for everyone” (generally much better than the efforts of a “public service” broadcaster). It is in the interests of those in competition to “be of a high standard”, because in doing so they will be more popular and raise more revenue. Hallmark produces drama because of the market for it. Paramount screens comedy. MTV showcases music. Sky offers 12 channels dedicated entirely to “feature films”. CNN informs us by way of news. ESPN shows sports. Discovery creates educational and science shows. There are almost 12 religious broadcasters. There are scores of programs weekly dedicated to social issues. Fox, Cartoon Network and others are dedicated to children’s output. The free market also reflects the diverse cultural interests of the UK by default, precisely BECAUSE that diversity exists! Subscriptions to Asia TV and others are immensely popular among ethnic minorities. There is also a rich market for local broadcasting, allaying the fears of Ofcom (above) that such a thing can only exist by a coercive measure of law!

The interests of 60 million individuals are best served by other individuals who are attracted to the idea of providing for those interests. As I see it, the only reason we would need to FORCE anyone to pay for anything is if that person didn’t particularly WANT the thing we are forcing them to pay for. If that is the case, the questions then become very interesting when applied to this discussion. What possible motive could there be behind a drive to force on someone something they do not want? To engrain within them an education perhaps? To keep 25,000 or more people in a job despite the desireability (or lack) of their output? To provide a powerful instrument of social engineering or political ideaology? To satisfy the power lusts of a few? To satisfy some other desire within the minds of those who would seek to prescribe their social ideaology on the rest of us who clearly cannot be trusted to choose what we want to view for ourselves?

No matter what the motive of “public service broadcasting”, one can be relatively sure of one thing: in its absence, it seems the folks who would miss it most would be those employed in its bureaucratic ranks. I say this conclusively, without using any of the other equally valid arguments against it. For instance I could well have drawn on the lack of incentive to value or efficiency that guaranteed, non- business-related funding brings. But no, principally my point is simply this: to be forced to fund a broadcasting corporation under threat of jail, an upshot of some idea which ultimately intends to tell us all what we should be watching on television, whether we want to watch the output produced or not, is nothing short of a blatant breach of human rights.

It is my view, therefore, that the BBC take one of two approaches to funding issues of the future:

1) The BBC offer all current license fee payers the chance to convert their license to a monthly subscription at the same or an amended rate, or

2) The BBC revoke all direct viewer funding in favour of going commerical.

I will be extremely interested to hear the results of this current charter review, and look forward to seeing some change. I wish you well in fulfilling the will of the British public in this area.

Yours sincerely,

————–
John Wright

johnwright@softhome.net

For more on this please see www.bbccharterreview.org.uk