BBC Domination of British TV Wanes
By MITCH STACY, AP
LONDON (AP), For just $11.25 a head, visitors to an attraction in central
London called The BBC Experience can participate in British Broadcasting Corp.'s
lavish and loving tribute to itself. Having crackled to life on the airwaves more than 75
years ago, the government-supported broadcasting behemoth surely is deserving
of such a touristy fuss.
``Auntie,'' as the BBC is affectionately known, has seen Britain through
the best and worst of the century _ ever traditional, respectable and reliable, if
not a bit stuffy. The clipped tones of its news announcers remained a reassuring
constant as the decades rushed by.
But the people running the BBC these days can't afford to spend much time
celebrating the past. They're too busy trying to stay relevant to a fragmented
audience and deflecting a barrage of criticism.
``Is there anybody who seriously believes the corporation is offering the
quality it once did?'' The Daily Mail lamented in a recent editorial.
Increased competition, sinking ratings and internal strife have thrown the
BBC out of sorts, prompting calls for the government to reconsider the institution's
traditional funding source, the $164 television license that Britons must buy
annually, under penalty of law, for the privilege of switching on their TV sets.
That arrangement raises $3.2 billion a year for the BBC. But it also
forces its leaders to walk a schizophrenic line between traditional public-service
commitments and the mainstream popularity demanded by consumers who want sitcoms,
racy soap operas and game shows along with their sober 6 o'clock news and
award-winning documentaries.
As its long domination of radio and TV wanes, the BBC has become painfully
aware that being all things to all people isn't so easy anymore.
With five national radio networks, 40 local radio services, two
over-the-air TV channels, plus cable and 24-hour news offerings, the BBC still
commands a large chunk of the listening and viewing audience in Britain.
About 94 percent of the population tunes in for at least two hours a week,
and even the BBC's harshest critics agree it does many things well.
Still, the audience share of BBC1, the flagship TV channel, has fallen
below 30 percent for the first time. New sitcoms have been so bad that programming
heads issued an edict to make them funnier.And BBC traditions such as England's cricket
matches and major soccer have been lost to higher-bidding commercial TV and
satellite services.
Morale inside the BBC has sagged from corporate-style cost-cutting
measures, and key people have bailed out. Media pundits proclaim Auntie just ain't what
she used to be, and ask whether the license fee is too high a price just to watch TV
without commercials.
Part of the problem, critics say, is that the BBC under current Director-General
John Birt has turned away from its public-service mission to do battle with commercial
media and expand the network's reach around the world.
In 1997, that included a new menu of four cable and satellite-delivered
commercial TV channels - the first BBC-backed offerings ever to carry advertising.
Months later, a 24-hour news channel was launched to compete with CNN and
British Sky Broadcasting's around-the-clock Sky News. Money was also pumped into
developing a comprehensive Internet site.
Last year came partnerships with U.S. broadcasters, and contracts to sell
favorite shows from the BBC's archives around the world. That included the debut of
the BBC America cable channel in the United States.
``I think it is perhaps trying to do too much,'' said Vicki Wegg-Prosser,
who teaches broadcasting policy at the University of Westminster in London and is
secretary of a 2,000-member national consumer group called Voice of the Listener and
Viewer.
Sneering from the purists turned to outrage when the BBC was outbid last
year for the rights to domestic cricket matches by two other networks, ending a
40-year tradition of the sport on BBC1. The BBC already had lost Formula One car
racing, England rugby games and the annual FA Cup soccer championship.
Public relations suffered another hit in February when the BBC decided to
cancel ``One Man and His Dog,'' a weekly program of sheepdog trials that had run 23
years. Country viewers, already feeling underappreciated, saw it as a further snub.
BBC executives staunchly defend the diversification, saying
the profit-making ventures enable them to offer more to the license-payer. They
note that revenues are up - the worldwide syndication of ``Teletubbies'' alone
brought in $51 million last year - and that the cost of running the BBC has been cut
during Birt's seven years at the helm.
But, apparently, they're heeding the complaints, too. In unveiling its new
program lineup recently, the BBC said it was pulling out of the ratings war with
longtime commercial rival ITV. It will focus more on educational programs and
high-quality drama than the game shows and soap operas that make ITV
the top-rated station in Britain.
``All the BBC's services need to hold their nerve as they face growing
competition, and offer programs of range and distinction, in peaktime and off-peak,
which set them apart from the market,'' Birt said.
In the corporation's annual review in June, the BBC board of governors went
a step further, urging programming chiefs to pursue ``an unashamedly public service
schedule.''
Birt is set to retire as director-general next year, and will be replaced
as head of the 23,000-employee operation by TV production wizard Greg Dyke, whose
previous experience is all in commercial television.
When he was introduced as the new $600,000-a-year chief in June, Dyke said
the BBC must preserve the license fee if it is to do all that's expected of it.
``If, like me, you have spent your adult life in broadcasting, you know
that the BBC sets the standards which the rest of us try to follow,'' he said.
``It is an outstanding journalistic and program-making organization,'' he
said. ``It has a reputation for honesty, fairness and, most of all, independence, and
I am determined to safeguard and protect that.''
