The BBC has become ideologically captured by a single world view - I know, I have worked as screenwriter, often for the BBC, for over 25 years. It needs radical reform and an entirely new structure to truly serve its audience. In the following article, I set out the case for the BBC to become a mutual corporation wholly owned by its voluntary subscribers, who would vote for the BBC management and using digital platforms, would vote for major commissions, handing the choice of content to its viewers rather than a tiny number of self-selecting commissioners.
A mutual corporation issues dividends from profits. BBC viewers under this structure would receive annual dividends if their commissioning choices prove successful âŠ
I have written TV drama for the BBC since the late 1990s, benefitted hugely from it and occasionally been exasperated by it. I also have an insight into how it operated from the 1970s into the 90s when my step-father, GF Newman, (a rather more radical writer than me) and his generation that included the likes of Tony Garnett, Linda LaPlante, Dennis Potter, Troy Kennedy-Martin and Alan Bleasdale were doing their best work.
Until the 1960s, the BBC was a largely patrician organisation. Then, perhaps beginning with the iconic Play for Today in 1970, it allowed writers and producers with politically and socially provocative things to say to make their point on air. For a few heady years it encouraged and even courted, controversy. This was in large part due to the high calibre and self-confidence of senior management at the time and the fact that in drama, at least, around half-a-dozen executive producers each had commissioning power and a certain number of screen-hours to fill each year. This created internal creative competition and brought us Law and Order (subsequently banned for 25 years following a complaint by the Attorney General over its portrayal of corrupt detectives), Edge of Darkness, Boys From the Blackstuff and The Singing Detective, to name a few. On the downside, cliques developed and the same people got repeat commissions from their mates.
The BBC needed reform, but not the kind it received. Under the New Labour government, Lord Birt removed internal competition and implemented new sharp-pointed, pyramidical management structures that gave us a Controller of Drama and Controller of Programming. Every new commission had to meet the approval of one supreme authority and with that, the provocative dramas pretty-much vanished.
I was confronted with the full extent of cultural decline when, fifteen years ago, a business partner and I proposed a series of single dramas under the banner, âCritical Issuesâ, featuring new writers from diverse backgrounds that we had gone to great trouble to find. These included a brave young Pakistani woman whose story featured a fictional mayor of Birmingham attempting to introduce sharia law. The Head of Series (still a friend of mine) replied with, âwe do issues on East Endersâ. It wasnât his fault. By then, the BBC had been corralled such that it couldnât take the kind of risks on drama, either politically or commercially, that it used to. The rules werenât written - it was worse than that â they were implicit and self-imposed.
In a multi-channel age, BBC salaries rose, justified by the argument that to attract the best executive talent it needed to compete with the commercial sector. In common with most other institutions, eccentrics and one-offs were eased out of the door, a mono-culture gradually established itself and we all learned what things could and could not be said. The creative handcuffs have grown tighter ever since, largely due to self-censorship - TV is an incredibly insecure world in which every last one of us, no matter how high or lowly, fears reputational death.
The BBC now finds itself unable to meet the varying needs and demands of its audience. Itâs not just about left vs right politics any more, the national culture itself has fractured into bunkered sub-groups while the BBCâs hopeless task is akin to what the Church of Englandâs once was â to be guardian and articulator of a national consensus and morality. When none exists, the job is impossible and leaves the BBC floundering and under fire from all sides.
The new right threatens to end the licence fee. The metropolitan left clings to the old status quo. I have been tempted by the subscription model but fear it would simply give the BBC over to another untouchable and unaccountable group who would doubtless be handed instant riches.
The BBC remains a valuable national asset and a huge projector of soft power. In drama, the BBC marque is still respected around the world and attracts co-production finance like nothing else. The BBC was, at its best, a reflector and promoter of national achievements, intellect and aspirations (think of Kenneth Clarkeâs Civilisation) and could be again, but not while it is run by a tiny elite with little internal competition.
Former Labour Culture Secretary, the late Tessa Jowell, once proposed a mutual structure for the BBC, but did so in the early years of the digital era before the full scope of its possibilities became apparent. As the future of the licence fee becomes a hot topic, the time may be ripe for a 21st century reincarnation of Auntie along mutual lines.
A mutually-owned BBC would be wholly owned by its voluntary subscribers, who would elect board members and senior executives and approve their salaries. To prevent a mono-culture developing, strict term limits could be imposed.
Subscribers would play a huge role in determining BBC output, voting on which shows to commission and which to discontinue. The success of their decisions, measured in international sales, would be rewarded by annual dividends.
A new charter could require the BBC to spend a certain amount of its income on risky and controversial programming and would leave room for the process of democratisation to be adjusted from time to time as circumstances change.
Instead of programme makers like me pitching to a tiny group of commissioners, we would pitch straight to the potential audience. It would be brutal, no doubt, but that is the reality of the creative world. The more the element of risk is removed, the more art and innovation tends to die.
A mutually-owned BBC run by genuine democracy might just allow its continued existence and remove the current problem of it being run by a small group obliged to conform, not out of choice, but for their own survival, to the right-think of the day. It might even herald a new dawn of British creativity. It would be noisy and messy and the social media spats would be bitter and fierce, but that is precisely the kind of environment from which art grows best.
