Public Service Broadcasting

From Mr Fred J. Perkins.

Sir, Mark Thompson is strong on the need for change ("Broadcasting must restructure to survive", January 12), but curiously appears to exclude the BBC from the television institutions that need reform.

The public service broadcasting model under which the BBC received massive funding, and ITV, Channel 4 and Five received some privileges - which amounted to indirect subsidy - was valid when we had a handful of channels. But the model which is now broken is not that of PSB, but of the big, traditional broadcasters - including the BBC.

Public service broadcasting is alive and well - and indeed, is flourishing, via many of the hundreds of digital channels that operate, with no public subsidy. Yes, it could be better - but not if it is to be delivered via the grossly inflated cost models of all the big guys (including the BBC).

Neither Ofcom nor the BBC is willing to declare just how much public funding is necessary to support the core PSB offerings: perhaps because neither is able to define what nowadays actually constitutes public service broadcasting. Yes, the BBC does some great TV - but it need not cost anything like as much as it currently does. And most of the BBC activity is not public service broadcasting by any definition other than one of public subsidy.

The BBC is variously willing to share aspects of its technology like the iPlayer (which has nothing to do with PSB as such) - but only in an attempt to avoid the merest whisper of top-slicing, which it threatens will mean the end of TV as we know it. But the reality is that a £3.5bn annual public funding grant to the BBC (via the licence fee) is an obscene over-payment if what is required is protection of a few basic pillars of the original public service broadcasting model.

Equally, the propping up of a smallish number of already fat private companies via production quotas and rights "agreements" is a gross waste of creative capital. There are hundreds of producers willing and able to produce great content at reasonable cost, which can easily find broadcast distribution at home and abroad to the benefit of Britain. The reality is that in any industry facing disruptive change, it is the big, traditional companies that struggle to change. It is clear that in the multichannel era, ITV, Channel 4, and Five have commercial business models that are in terminal decline. The licence fee itself is a highly questionable concept.

It would be a tragedy if, in the mistaken guise of addressing a "PSB problem" (which need not exist at all), the government followed the "advice" of the dinosaurs (including the BBC) and simply shuffled the deckchairs for the comfort of those desperate to perpetuate the status quo.

We could easily have a vibrant, creative TV industry for no more than 20 per cent of the licence fee grant. Let us get back - honestly - to defining what we really need in PSB terms, and look among the hundreds of existing broadcasters for the most efficient means of providing it.

Fred J. Perkins,

Chief Executive,
Information TV,
London W1, UK

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009