Government White Paper on the BBC

They are appointed by the Government. However neither are supposed to have any editorial input on a day-to-day basis.

The big proposal is/was the creation of a single unitary board (which would be both BBC employees and government appointed directors, with a few non-aligned) which would be a combined operation and WOULD have day-to-day editorial input. That's the real worry. Government appointed officials deciding what programmes the BBC makes, what news it covers, where it schedules content? Well that's verging on Putin's Russia...

The other role of the BBC Trust is regulation of the BBC, and complaint resolution, and that would be farmed out to Ofcom (who already have some control)... The appointment process of Ofcom members would then be a bigger issue too. Particularly if they are tasked with judging BBC impartiality...

Broadcast seems to have the overview ... here

Here's the formal @DCMS briefing on the #BBCwhitepaper. pic.twitter.com/movKdkXzZc

— Jake Kanter (@Jake_Kanter) May 12, 2016

Reasonable. As an overseas fan, it's great that the BBC will be getting a modest increase in funding.

The white paper seems very reasonable, though I do wonder to what extent this is down to all of the government's 'feelers' being viewed with hostility by both press and public.

You can download the document from the DCMS website:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/a-bbc-for-the-future-a-broadcaster-of-distinction

Either that or it was nothing more than self righteous fear mongering.

Perhaps worth noting that the second point mentions a 'health check' after 5 years. It potentially allows the government of the day to make further 'changes' and could be used as a threat against the BBC. It'll be interesting to see what's conveniently tucked away in the small print of the white paper.

Maybe, but why would that be such a bad thing?. Over the past 2 years or so that the BBC has had this "threat" hanging over it they've actually produced some of their strongest drama in years. It's almost as if the pressure of having something to prove worked in their favour.

I have heard suggestion that this White Paper was essentially re-written in the last three weeks, due to pressures from industry sources and some competitors too. The rubric being that they were very concerned that any diminishing, beyond what's already happened, would backfire and that they, the competitors, would be damaged by the substantial public and academic reaction to it. If this is the case they're actively suggesting that they would be blamed and not the Government.

Yesterday's Ministerial Statement was telling in that it became a white flag waving exercise rather than anything else.

I am expecting 'The Story of the White Paper' to hit the weekend press either this or next week.

Yeah. The five year health check is a potential grenade for the BBC.

One year after the General Election cycle, could mean 'swing election coverage our way, or watch out at the half time health review'.

Well, it's much better than feared and at least the BBC now has some certainty and can plan for the next ten years.

That said, we have yet to learn how the BBC is going to absorb the cost of free TV licences for the over 75s. And the whole process has been so shabby. The Sunday Times and Sunday Telegraph would not have run repeated front page stories on possible intervention in scheduling decisions or the forced disposal of the BBC's stake in UKTV without being confident in their sources.

One consequence of such hostile and aggressive briefing is that it has created a siege mentality and put everyone who is vaguely supportive of the BBC on the defensive. There is a lot it could and should do better and that has actually been lost in this volte face.

Here's a good article which summarised that, and why it's not as big a cost to the BBC as made out to be.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/neilmidgley/2016/05/11/800-million-of-bbc-cuts-already-needed-not-even-close-tony-hall/#652f877e3998

The other interesting thing along the ending of broadband is the phasing out of funding for local television.

""Provide greater freedom for the BBC to manage its own budgets by phasing out protected funding for broadband (£150 million a year) and local television (£5 million a year"